The early Renaissance artists began their careers as apprentices to masters in craft.
Apprentices with unusual talent might eventually become masters and run their.
own workshops. Talented individuals, such as Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo,.
were no longer seen as artisans but as artistic geniuses with creative energies akin to the.
divine. Artists were considered heroes, individuals who were praised more for their.
creativity than for their competence as craftspeople. As society excused their.
eccentricities and valued their creative genius, the artists of the High Renaissance.
became the first to embody the modern concept of the artist.
Leonardo da Vinci, was considered one of the great Italian Renaissance artists. .
Renaissance artists considered the imitation of nature their primary goal. Their search.
for naturalism became an end in itself, to persuade onlookers of the reality of the object.
or event they were portraying. The new artistic standards reflected a new attitude of.
mind as well as where human beings became the focus of attention, the "center and.
measure of all things." Leonardo and other Italians maintained that it was Giotto in the.
fourteenth century who began the imitation of nature. What Giotto had begun wasn't.
seen again till Masaccio (1401-1428) from Florence work came out. Masaccio's cycle of.
frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel was long regarded as the first masterpiece of Early.
Renaissance art. His use of monumental figures demonstrated more realistic relationship.
between figures and landscape and a visual representation of the laws of perspective, a.
new style of realistic style of painting was born. Masaccio's massive three dimensional.
human figures provided a model for later generations of Florentine artists.
The new Renaissance style was absorbed and modified by other Florentine.
painters in the fifteenth century. What was extremely important was the development of.
an experimental trend that took two directions.