The Renaissance brought new and amazing innovations in the way that artists painted. However these innovations took place in two different geographic regions and in two very different ways. In the North artists used oil and strived for a intense realism. In Italy, a new style emerged called Mannerism. Italian artist experimented with spatial sense and proportions in order to express the actions in the painting more beautifully. .
One artist in Italy, Titian, was a master at using color. He first began a painting by applying a layer of red paint to the surface before anything else and he would also use a glaze. These effects used gave his paintings a warm, expressive quality. .
The use of distortion to express a point are most easily seen in Parmigianino's "Madonna with a Long Neck". The baby Christ is quite humongous in the Madonna's arms. The unfinished column behind the Madonna emphasizes her height. The work with proportion and space are evident in the painting "Last Supper" by Tintoretto. Christ is not at the center or the focal point of the painting. In Fact, if it was not for the halo around his head we would not be able to tell Christ from his disciples. The table is not facing us but instead on a diagonal splitting the painting in two. The lantern smoke creates angel at the ceiling.
These innovations were ignored by painters in the North such as Jan Van Eyck who paid no attention to using any innovative perspective; instead he concentrated on an extreme usage of detail. In his masterpiece "Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami", not only does Van Eyck use amazing detail right down to the smallest objects but also he inserted symbols to represent fidelity, fertility and religion.
The first true Humanist painter in the North was Albrecht Durer. He was one of the only artists to use concur with and use the techniques of perspective and proportion used in Italy. His most famous works are his engravings and his self-portraits.