During the Italian Renaissance, social and humanistic values started to be expressed in many forms: literature and architecture but most importantly sculptors and paintings. The thought that the world was now a desirable place impacted many paintings and sculptors. This was quite different from the paintings (that had survived) and sculptors of the past. .
The socialistic values now forming in paintings was quite dominate. Focusing on the realities, paintings became less symbolic and more a "portrayal of concrete realities as they met the eye." Bellini does a portrait called the Condottiere in which instead of creating a simple overview of the person he creates a real and vivid personality that seems to come out from the canvas. Socially, artists were describing the growing number of individuals in society, rather than sections of a certain class. This example suggests a certain value that was brought up in this Renaissance: dependent social classes. Yet, religion was still major theme but had a much larger humanistic twist.
The humanistic value was expressed much more abundantly and vividly than the social values. Paintings and sculptors were suddenly focusing on humans and their anatomy. Sculptors now presented human beings which enabled people to view from all angles, thus "bringing it securely into the material world." Also a major subject was religious themes. Yet, these themes had religious figures "humanized" or actually painted as a person with a face. Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper is a great example of how Jesus and his disciples are seen "as a group of men each with his own characteristics." Michelangelo and his great Sistine Chapel show humanity "invading heaven itself." These humanist values are focused more on how humans were becoming increasingly concerned with their present world and how they could bring religion into it rather than try to escape their own world using religion.
