Western Civilization - History Of European Society

The Renaissance: Political Renewal and Intellectual Change 251

message was often unlike that of their pagan originals.
To the humanists, with their archaeological view of his-
tory, this was absurd. Classical forms were appropriate
to classical subjects as well as to those derived from the
Bible. The imitation of classical models and the use of
classical settings therefore became almost universal.
Ancient ideas of beauty and proportion were adopted,
especially for the portrayal of the human body.
But Renaissance art was not an exercise in antiquar-
ianism. The technique of painting with oils, developed
in the Low Countries during the fifteenth century, was
soon in general use. The effort to portray the world in
three dimensions, begun with the use of chiaroscuroor
shading by Giotto (c. 1266– c. 1337), was brought to a
triumphal conclusion with Brunelleschi’s discovery of
the mathematical laws of perspective. Their application
in the paintings of Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431–1506)
inspired other artists, and the viewing public soon came
to accept foreshortening and perspective as the norm
(see illustration 13.5).
These techniques were new. Furthermore, Renais-
sance artists differed from the ancients in other ways.
They were not pagans, and though they admired antiq-
uity, they retained many of the ideas and symbols of
the medieval past. Their art combined classical and
Christian sensibilities in a new synthesis that shaped
European aesthetic values until their vision was chal-
lenged by the rise of photography and nonrepresenta-

tional art in the nineteenth century. Eventually, artists

such as Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) would

transcend the rules of classical composition, distorting

the proportions of the human body to express dramatic

spiritual and emotional truths (see illustration 13.6).

But even he and his Baroque followers in the seven-

teenth century remained well within the bounds of

classical inspiration.

A century ago, most historians believed that the

Renaissance marked the beginning of the modern

world. As the full implications of the industrial revolu-

tion became clear, that conviction has dimmed and the

distance between twentieth-century Westerners and the

preoccupations of the humanists has widened. Few to-

day believe that the Renaissance was a true rebirth of

classical antiquity or as revolutionary as its more enthu-

siastic supporters claimed. There had been a Carolin-

gian Renaissance and a Renaissance of the Twelfth

Illustration 13.4

The Anunciation, by Nicola Pisano.This panel from the
Baptistry at Pisa was completed in 1260. It demonstrates that
classical models had come to influence Italian art long before the
Renaissance took root as a literary movement.

Illustration 13.5

St. James Led to Execution, by Andrea Mantegna.Man-

tegna was one of the first Renaissance painters to use the laws of

perspective discovered by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi. In

this fresco from the Ovetari Chapel, Church of the Erimitani,

Padua, painted c. 1454–57, the vanishing point is below the

bottom of the picture. Note also the classicism of the triumphal

arch.