The Renaissance occurred from the early 14th century to the late 16th century.
The word ‘renaissance’ is a French word which means ‘rebirth’. The people credited with beginning the Renaissance were trying to recreate the classical models of Ancient Greek and Rome.
The Renaissance spread throughout most western Europe (principally what is now Italy, France, Spain, England, Belgium, Netherlands and western Germany), but did not spread to most of the other parts of Europe or to Russia.
The Renaissance was preceded by the Middle Ages, a time during which there was little economic growth and had no system to stop pillaging which was pervasive. Society was organized into feudal units, a community and/or estate of a king or nobleman who would provide a degree of safety the community's members. The feudal structure continued throughout the Renaissance.
Culturally, the Renaissance is noted as a time of the lifting of the human spirit and of a return to literature, art and learning. Concerning day-to-day life in terms of food, clothing and shelter, for most of those living in the countryside, it was not have been significantly different than during the Middle Ages. However, cultural centers such as Florence and Rome actively celebrated a new-found interest in arts, science and letters.
At the beginning of the Renaissance, Italy was the center of world culture. Each of these city-states were ruled by a rich and powerful family. City-states like Genoa, Milan, Venice, Rome, Verona, Ferrara and Florence were economic, trade and financial leaders for Europe.
The Renaissance started in Florence, Italy, and spread to other city-states in Italy. Part of the reason it began in Italy was because of the history of Rome and the Roman Empire. Another reason it began in Italy was because Italy had become very wealthy and the wealthy were willing to spend their money supporting artists and geniuses.
There were changes in thinking during Renaissance. New ideas in art, science, astronomy, religion, literature, mathematics, philosophy, and politics were developed and advanced. But, many of them were opposed and condemned by a highly political, wealthy, very corrupt and very powerful Catholic Church.
The invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1450 is a milestone which marks the beginning of the Renaissance. Ideas were able to be spread quicker and farther because of the printing press. It allowed communication to occur through all of Europe.
The Renaissance was a time of great beauty and art. Artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo created greats works of art during this time. Writers like William Shakespeare were producing their own masterpieces.
It was also a time of creativity, imagination and curiosity. The Renaissance was the age of exploration. The voyages of many great explorers such as Columbus, Vespucci, Ponce de Leon, Polo, De Soto and Balboa all occurred during the Renaissance.
The influence of the Renaissance impacted and shaped the future. The changes that happened led to a modern era.
One of the institutions that began to decline during the Renaissance was the Catholic Church. However, religion remained very important throughout Europe. But during the Renaissance, new religions and ways of thinking were being discussed. Martin Luther and others broken away from the Catholic Church and spread Protestant religions throughout Europe and eventually in the New World.
A big part of the Renaissance was a cultural movement called humanism. Humanism was a philosophy that all people should strive to be educated and learned in the classical arts, literature, and science. It looked for realism and human emotion in art. It also said that it was okay for people to pursue comfort, riches, and beauty.
During the Renaissance, those with wealth would show it by wearing expensive fabrics like cotton, brocade, silk and velvet. They would often spend vast sums of money on clothes so as to appear rich to the rest of the community because social status was extremely important at that time. The wealthy also knew that if times became difficult, they could pawn their clothing.
It was fashionable for men to keep their body silhouette covered and the fashion of the period was to makes their bodies look puffy and bloated. Everything was box or barrel-shaped. Sleeves and pant legs stood out. Leggings were worn underneath the pants for warmth. They were made out of knitted wool or flax. They were among the first instances of what is now called hosiery. Shoes were often rectangular at the toes. Both men and women wore ruffled collars or "ruffs".
Women also kept covered. They wore long flowing dresses that fit on top of a bodice, underskirt and sometimes an over-bodice. There also might have been a hoop and collar, depending on the time that it was worn. Poorer women could not afford these garments and the social status of women was apparent based on the type of clothes a woman wore. Hair was always pulled back in a braid, or confined underneath a hat or under a pointed top called a cap. A woman's age and the weather determined if she wore a covering over her head in the later years of that period.
In Italy during the Renaissance, masquerade balls were very popular among the rich. People would don colorful masks to hide their identities. It was a way to celebrate and be mysterious. The end result sometimes of using a mask ended with sexual interludes between anonymous strangers. The masks would generally only cover the top portion of the face. And, the mask was often may placed atop a type of hand-held stick so that the wearer held it to his face and removed it when desired. The masks were adorned with decorative designs and jewels.
The Elizabethan Age was the Renaissance period during Queen Elizabeth I's reign over England which lasted from 1558 to 1603. Color had much meaning in the Elizabethan Age. The color you wore determined what type of person you were. Different colors represented royalty, status, wealth and position. People in the Elizabethan age could only wear colors based on their rank, status and position. The Sumptuary Laws determined what colors people were permitted and prohibited from wearing.
White was the color worn by Queen Elizabeth I during the Elizabethan Age to show off her role as "The Virgin Queen." White symbolized purity and virtue. White was also relevant in the church because it was used for baptisms, marriages, ordinations and dedications. The Pope was and still is famous for wearing the white. During the Renaissance, only the wealthy could wear white because it was difficult and expensive to produce as well as keep clean.
During the Renaissance, hunting was a popular form of entertainment for the wealthy. The other popular sport was jousting. It consisted of two knights on horseback trying to knock the other off his horse using heavy and long lances.
White was the color worn by Queen Elizabeth I during the Elizabethan Age to show off her role as "The Virgin Queen." White symbolized purity and virtue. White was also relevant in the church because it was used for baptisms, marriages, ordinations and dedications. The Pope was and still is famous for wearing the white. During the Renaissance, only the wealthy could wear white because it was difficult and expensive to produce as well as keep clean.
During the Renaissance, hunting was a popular form of entertainment for the wealthy. The other popular sport was jousting. It consisted of two knights on horseback trying to knock the other off his horse using heavy and long lances.
Theater was also popular during the Renaissance for aristocrats, the wealthy and for ordinary citizens particularly in England. Women never appeared on stage so females were often played by boys whose voices had not changed.
During the Renaissance, one of the most popular Greek philosophers, Plato, his Plato's writings, were extensively studied at the Academy in Florence.
During the Renaissance, Venice was famous for its glass work, while Milan was famous for its iron smiths. Venetian glass is still regarded as one of the finest in world.
The innovative technology of the Renaissance was sparked by Johann Gutenberg’s reinvention of the printing press in the 1450's. Some of the other significant inventions during the Renaissance period were the cast-iron pipe, portable clock, rifle barrel, shotgun, screwdriver and wrench. Italian physicist, astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei improved the telescope and made important astronomical observations. Nicolaus Copernicus also discovered that the sun seemed to be in the center of the universe. Christopher Columbus became the first explorer to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to North America.
Renaissance Europe was a largely male-dominated society, but it also witnessed the emergence of powerful and influential women such as Catherine de Medici and Isabelle d’Este.
Renaissance Europe was a largely male-dominated society, but it also witnessed the emergence of powerful and influential women such as Catherine de Medici and Isabelle d’Este.
Francis I, King of France, was patron of the arts and helped Renaissance art spread from Italy to France.
In the early Renaissance, particularly in Italy, writers focused mostly on translating and studying classic Latin and Greek works. Many writers attempted to take the styles of ancient writers like Aristotle or Homer and apply them to their own works. Literature of the Renaissance focused largely on religion, classic antiquity, scholarship and politics. Sonnets also became a popular style of poetry. Some of the most famous Renaissance writers were William Shakespeare, Giovanni Boccaccio and Christopher Marlowe.
The Renaissance marked a decisive cultural shift in which Europeans began to view their physical bodies with the same interest they had previously given to matters of the spirit. This was reflected in the rise of books written in common vernacular such as The Canterbury Tales and The Decameron, both of which featured flatulence, sex and seduction. Italian scholar Poggio Bracciolini compiled a famous book of jokes in which one joke told of a priest who said adultery was a sin so vile that he would rather sleep with ten virgins than one married woman.
Although the Renaissance was a time of significant advances in knowledge, the belief in magic, divination and astrology remained common and popular Even the greatest thinkers of the era were prone to superstition. Bracciolini credulously passed on tales of headless horsemen and men emerging from the sea to kidnap women. The people of Florence maintained that momentous events could only happen on Saturday. Spells were used to protect travelers from dogs, professional sorcerers provided secret knowledge said to have been given by devils, and almost every state government in Italy had an official astrologer.
Two of the biggest changes to art from the Middle Ages were the concepts of proportion and perspective.
Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci became rivals when Michelangelo mocked da Vinci for not finishing a statue of a horse.
The term Renaissance Man refers to a person that is an expert and talented in many areas. The true geniuses of the Renaissance were great examples of this.Leonardo da Vinci is the quintessential definitional definition of the Renaissance man. He was a painter, sculptor, scientist, inventor, architect, engineer, skilled fencer, designer and writer. In addition, he created a plan for a two-tiered city, with an upper tier inhabited by humans and a lower tier given over to horses. He also enjoyed playing bizarre pranks on friends.
Renaissance artists painted a wide variety of themes. Religious altarpieces, fresco cycles, and small works for private devotion were very popular. The rebirth of classical antiquity and Renaissance humanism also resulted in many mythological and history paintings.
The effort to make art natural through accuracy led to clandestine dissections of corpses by artists in an attempt to understand the musculature and skeletal structure of the human body. The powerful Roman Catholic Church, along with social convention, considered dissection to be a desecration, so artists acquired corpses and conducted their studies covertly. The study of anatomy was particularly avid among the Florentines. Michelangelo and Leonardo were just two of the artists who wielded a scalpel before a chisel or paintbrush. What this meant to painting was an increased demand from art patrons for mastery of the human body and accurate depiction of the bones and muscles beneath the skin.
The great artists of the Renaissance include the following: Leonardo da Vinci (1452 –1519), Michelangelo (1475 – 1564), Raphael (1483 -1520),Piero della Francesca (c. 1415 – 1492),Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445 – 1510),Titian (c. 1488/1490 – 1576), Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516), Jan van Eyck (1385?–1440?),Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), Hans Holbein the Elder (c. 1460 – 1524), Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1497 – 1543), Jean Fouquet (1420–1481), and Rogier van der Weyden (1399 or 1400 – 1464).
The Mona Lisa ( aka: Monna Lisa or La Gioconda in Italian; La Joconde in French) by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is considered the most famous painting of the Renaissance. It is also the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world. It is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506. It has been on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris since 1797.
The Mona Lisa's smile seems to fascinate people but it is not the only mysterious thing about her. The painting is a classic example of the sfumato technique- oil painting in which colors are softly blended and toned down to erase transitions and subtly draw the eye from dark to light. Sfumato uses several translucent glazes to achieve this effect -- a sort of smoky, hazy treatment without visible edges or lines. The technique creates a veil of see-through shadow that dims the brightest colors and softens the darkest tones. Correggio, Leonardo and Raphael subtly smoothed their paintings with sfumato technique.
Also, did you notice that Mona Lisa as no eyebrows. The lack of eyebrow contributes to her placid face.