Although the Renaissance was a relatively short time period, it generated change in many ways. The Renaissance began around the year 1400, at the end of the Middle Ages, which lasted from the fall of Rome in 500 to about 1350, and ended around 1700. The Middle Ages gave rise to various agricultural developments and an increase in education, causing people to question what the church taught them. This brought on the humanist movement. The Renaissance completely changed how man viewed himself, which is apparent in the artwork, literature and scientific advances of the time.
A major difference between Renaissance art and artwork from the Middle Ages was that man paid little to no attention to man as an individual, whereas Renaissance artists showed a greater appreciation for beauty and man in general. During the Middle Ages, artists focused solely on God, sin and everything related, and did not worry about making their paintings realistic. This trend did not continue into the Renaissance, which is clear in the obvious inconsistencies between the two paintings shown in Document A. The second painting, The Mona Lisa, shows that the Renaissance changed the mindset of man through the great detail shown, which proves that he paid attention to, and appreciated, man and his beauty more. Artists now painted man for the sake of painting a beautiful individual rather than painting an individual for the purpose of conveying some sort of biblical message.
The emphasis on the individual during the Renaissance is reflected in literature as well. The goal of anyone living in the Middle Ages was salvation, thinking of their lives on earth as nothing more than a pit-stop full of sin on the way to heaven. Everyman's thoughts, in Document B, were consumed by their "Heaven-King" and the "general reckoning" (Document B). As humanism was introduced, people began to stray from their pessimistic understanding of themselves, realizing all the great qualities of man or as Shakespeare described him, "the beauty of the world" (Document B).
