Chazotte 1

Jack Chazotte
Mrs. Lucarelli
Comparative Civilizations
13 January 2016
Renaissance Characteristics in Three Paintings of the Era
The images shown above: Madonna and Child with Saints Elizabeth and John the
Baptist, The Agony in the Garden, and Esther before Ahasuerus each display the differences in
techniques, materials, and philosophies which emerged at the time of their commission.
After the end of Feudalism, the Renaissance re-highlighted the advanced thoughts of the classic
ideals while idolized religious figures were depicted differently. In the time period of the
Renaissance, art depicted biblical scenes in natural landscapes while displaying religious figures
differently than medieval artists: to scale, lifelike, and human. This replaced significant halos,
two dimensional artwork, and the hieratic scale*.
These three paintings each reside in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and display the
changing ideas of the time. The Madonna and Child displays these thoughts with the faint
halos upon the subjects heads instead of the opaque ones used in earlier times. These types of
halos were used due to to the effort to personify religious images and convey the how humans
can achieve greatness like those in the bible. The next painting, The Agony in the Garden,
displays Jesus praying while his disciples sleep around him. Similar to the last image, it is
painted in a setting which looks natural to earth while lacking bold halos, however, the scene is
more vibrant and focuses less on who the people are, but more on what they are doing. These
choices by the painter reflect the ideas of Humanism, which focuses on the potential of the
human race as well as its ideas and actions. This image shows the Son as a human along with his

Chazotte 2
followers taking part in actions which reflect the common ideals and actions of Europe. This
allows people to identify with the highly praised, and understand they are capable of the same
greatness. Finally, Esther before Ahasuerus displays Renaissance thoughts as it displays a strong
woman. In the Renaissance, equality between sexes increased and many women ventured beyond
the home. This painting was created by Artemisia Gentileschi, a famous female painter during
the time period. The painting demonstrates how achievements were recognised by all. The scene
is of Esther, a jewish heroine before the King to voice the words of her people.
These three paintings demonstrate the changing time as they each use oil paints, which
was a new invention, they all encompass minor halos or no halos at all while displaying nonsecular figures, and they use perspective to increase look of real life in their art. These
characteristics display how the time period was changing and advancing away from the narrow
mindedness of Feudalism.