Renaissance Art

Renaissance art was paintings, sculptures, architecture, and other arts produced in Europe in the historical period called the Renaissance. The period covers the 200 years between 1400 and 1600. The word renaissance literally means “rebirth”. The two principal mechanisms of Renaissance style are the following: a revival of the classical forms originally developed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and a deepened concern with secular life. The Renaissance period in art history corresponds to the beginning of the great Western age of discovery and exploration, when a general desire developed to examine all aspects of nature and the world.

During the Renaissance, artists were no longer regarded as mere artisans, as they had been in the medieval past, but for the first time were seen as independent personalities, comparable to poets and writers. They sought new solutions to formal and visual problems, and many of them were also devoted to scie

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His first large painting, The Adoration of the Magi, left unfinished, was ordered in 1481 for the Monastery of San Donato a Scopeto, Florence. He was the son of a wealthy Florentine attorney and a peasant woman. About 1466 he was apprenticed as a studio boy to Andrea del Verrocchio, the leading Florentine painter and sculptor of his day. Painters, sculptors, and architects exhibited a similar sense of adventure and the desire for greater knowledge and new solutions.

The Renaissance was also a period of eager exploration; sea captains began to seek new routes to Asia, which resulted in the discovery and eventual colonization of North and South America. In 1472 he was entered in the painter's guild of Florence, and in 1476 he was still considered Verrocchio's assistant. In Verrocchio's workshop Leonardo was introduced to many new art form.

Renaissance architecture was based on a classical style.

During this second Florentine period, Leonardo painted several portraits, but the only one that survives is the famous Mona Lisa. He was a painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist. One of the most celebrated portraits ever painted, it is also known as La Gioconda, after the presumed name of the woman's husband. The Mona Lisa, Leonardo's most famous work, is as well known for its mastery of technical innovations as for the mysteriousness of its legendary smiling subject. They adored their buildings by adding tapestries, paintings, fine furniture, and glass windows. He was handsome, persuasive in conversation, and a fine musician.

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