The Renaissance Era and it's Artists.
The time known as the Renaissance brought about many changes in the art world. Enlightened ideas and artists paved the way for some of the most famous artists of all time. For centuries, most scholars have agreed that the modern era of human history began with the Renaissance. .
First, let's define the word Renaissance. According to the Macmillian School Dictionary, Renaissance means "a renewal of activity, interest, or enthusiasms about something, rebirth, revival." This word came from a Latin word rinascere meaning "reborn". The Renaissance was a great cultural movement or "rebirth" that began in Italy during the 14th century. It spread from Italy, it's "root", to France, Germany, England and Spain. One may ask what were they being reborn from. A reason most of the European countries were "dead" was because of the "Black Death", a disease that spread throughout the land, which left many without hope or ambition (Renaissance 232). Another reason for the rise of painting and the arts was because they wanted to recapture that spirit of the Greek and Roman cultures in the own artistic, literary, and philosophic works or art. One god used most often was Venus, the goddess of love and fertility. Venus is the mother of Cupid, the little god of love (Becket 95). .
The Renaissance era brought many new techniques to the art world. One of the most important was Perspective. The art of perspective is the representation of solid objects and three-dimensional space according to your optical perception. The laws of perspective are based upon converging lines meeting at a single fixed vanishing point. It also states that objects appear smaller as they recede into the distance. Figure one shows how converging lines create a three-dimensional object (Becket 88-89).
The second most noted discovery during this period was the human figure. Medieval artists painted figures that looked stiff and unrealistic.