Renaissance Art and Culture Overview

Renaissance Art and Culture

• Renaissance art celebrated the human form.
• Renaissance means rebirth, a time of renewal in Europe after the Dark Ages and the plague.
• People during the Renaissance began to focus more on human beings instead of the church.
• Key Italian city-states included Milan, Venice, Genoa, and Florence.
• These city-states controlled trade and were centers for the distribution of goods to Northern Europe.
• Wealthy patrons sponsored Renaissance art works that glorified city-states in Northern Italy.
• Education moved away from religious focus, becoming more secular.
• Renaissance art, literature focused on individuals, worldly matters, alongside Christianity.

Renaissance Artists

• Renaissance artists embraced ideals from ancient Greece and Rome, emphasizing realism and human emotion in their subjects.
• New artistic techniques emerged, including frescoes. Frescoes, paintings on wet plaster, became popular for their depth.
• Sculpture emphasized realism. Architecture achieved new heights of design.

Humanism

• Humanism celebrated the individual.
• Study of Greek and Roman literature and culture was stimulated.
• Humanism was supported by wealthy patrons.

Renaissance Literature

• Literature flourished in the Renaissance.
• Johannes Gutenberg's movable type printing press in 1455 led to the production and sale of books.
• The Bible was one of the first books printed using this new method..

Northern Renaissance

• Growing wealth in Northern Europe supported Renaissance ideas.
• Northern Renaissance thinkers merged humanist ideas with Christianity.
• The movable type printing press helped spread Renaissance ideas.
• Key Northern Renaissance writers were Erasmus and Sir Thomas More.
• Northern Renaissance artists portrayed religious and secular subjects.

Machiavelli's Political Ideas

• Niccolò Machiavelli, a political philosopher, analyzed city-state rulers of his time.
• He believed human nature was characterized by ingratitude, fickleness, deceit, and greed.
• He believed a ruler should do anything for the sake maintain control without worrying about conscience.
• He felt rulers should be feared rather than loved.
• Decision making should be decisive and quick.
• Power should be maintained by any means necessary.