Throughout the course of history, paintings, especially those during the Middle Ages, were required to be sacred. However, as the Renaissance Era slowly eased into play, great minds such as Michelangelo and da Vinci began to delve into the realms of science, art, and religion as well as synthesizing all these aspects together to become the archetypical Renaissance Man. Although they challenged the popular beliefs of their time, they did so subtly by using their art to appeal to both religious asceticism and secular aestheticism. For example, in Michelangelo’s painting The Last Judgement, Michelangelo depicts the second coming of Christ, a Christian concept widely accepted in the Church. However, his painting represents nudity which caused controversy in the Catholic Church. Although some paintings challenged beliefs and pushed the limits of art, others simply incorporated both aspects of asceticism and aestheticism. In da Vinci’s painting The Last Supper, the essential event before Jesus’ crucifixion is depicted to satisfy the religious aspect. However, the secular aestheticism is also achieved through ingenious portrayals of emotion, lighting, and focus toward the center of the painting: Jesus’ head. The integration of religious and secular views in art encapsulates the most prevalent idea during the Renaissance and the rapidly changing society at the time: the spirit of discovery and insatiable curiosity. Michelangelo and da Vinci proved these were possible not only with their art, but with their exceptional skills in sciences and mathematics as well.
This synthesis answer has a lot of great information on the art of the Renaissance era. You mentioned that the art of this time included but was not taken over by religion. There were many painters dedicated to illustrating the church and its beliefs but the revolutionary painters are the ones who helped art progress. One of these revolutionaries was Leonardo Da Vinci, who you mentioned. You informed us that in his painting The Last Supper he twists the painting slightly so a completely sacred scene is seen in a different light. This painting is a beautiful one and it does changes ones view of this dinner, purely because of the way it was sculpted. There are more examples in your answer that help one see how the view of art changed in time. You use Michelangelo’s The Last Judgement as an example as well. There are only a couple of things that I wished you elaborated on. One of the questionable things was that religion was in artwork before this era. The Greeks and Romans included Gods and religious work in most of their murals. So how was the religion integrated if it already existed? The other point was that you went into specific examples of how the art changed but it would have been beneficial to learn some general techniques that changed in that era. Did most artist change color choices or types of lines used? What changed in the large? Other then those two points the synthesis answer was fascinating and well written.
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