Pisanelo c. 1430 Princess 43x30 - P della Francesca 1452-66 Monteffeltre

In the history of Western civilization, the Italian Renaissance is the most striking and abundant movement. It was the golden age of Western humanism and plastic arts, creating a complete rebirth of human culture. It shook European culture for two centuries, during which people rediscovered the beauty and dignity of ancient culture. Humanity became the center of the universe. Art underwent significant changes; it no longer explored extraordinary idealistic beauty, but rather simulated reality through scientific knowledge. Painting utilized mathematical perspective to demonstrate physical three-dimensional space, human anatomy, and optics, achieving perfection within rigorous structures. It also introduced new themes from humanist thought, gradually breaking free from religious constraints.

The Italian Renaissance benefited from the commercial development in central and northern Italy, driven by wealthy merchants and royalty. Starting in Florence, then Rome, and finally Venice, these cities became cradles of the Renaissance until the late fifteenth century, when it expanded throughout Europe.

What is the so-called "Renaissance"? The term means regeneration, revival, or resurrection. It signifies the collapse of the gloomy, dull, and ignorant feudal thoughts of the Middle Ages, unfolding an open and vigorous force born of new humanism, forming another peak in European civilization history after Ancient Greece and Rome. However, the Renaissance was neither "restoring the past" nor a "reprint" of ancient civilizations. It was a new civilization based on humanism, converted from absorbing the cultural essence of Ancient Greece and Rome. Notably, since the fourteenth century, a key difference from the Middle Ages was that the entire movement centered on the wealthy merchants, kings, and commoners of the middle class. The Renaissance was also the rise of popular art because it was a cultural movement initiated by merchants and commoners. (Architecture is the most prominent symbol and obvious new culture of the Renaissance.)

The Impact of the Renaissance on Contemporary Western Civilization

In the Italian Renaissance movement where "man is the measure of all things," it opened up modern Western humanist thought, prepared the ideological groundwork for the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and laid the foundation for modern European civilization. To this day, its two most important concepts remain: using scientific research to improve the material living environment of humanity, and implementing democratic politics to ensure individual value. Both concepts are fundamentally humanistic. (Humanism: overcoming one's own greed, loving others, recognizing truth—distinct from non-critical recognition of social matters—and respecting life.)

Painting Characteristics and Appearance of the Florentine Renaissance

Five elements of Renaissance painting: 1. Color 2. Form 3. Space 4. Light 5. Movement.

Intellectual study of objects in the Renaissance: 1. Anatomy 2. Perspective 3. Structural studies 4. Optics 5. Color theory.

Three types of perspective in the Renaissance: 1. Symbolic perspective 2. Natural perspective 3. Architectural (scientific or mathematical) perspective.

Artistic themes of the Renaissance: From solemn and sacred to secularization. Especially under humanism with humanity as the main carrier, the human figure became the core of art.

Materials for painting during the Renaissance: (Early period) Tempera paint on walls or panels. (Late fifteenth century) Oil paint on canvas.

(Fresco literally means fresh, referring to paintings done on a thin layer of newly applied wet plaster. It uses surface tension to apply pigment to the plaster; once dry, the color becomes fixed due to the chemical reaction between the pigment and the lime in the plaster. This was the fresco technique used in early Renaissance wall paintings.)

Renaissance painting understands light like an organizing element, and colors and volumes as creators.

Artistic structure of the Renaissance: Golden ratio, triangles, circles, squares, etc. Triangles: full of power. Circles: full of energy. Squares: full of stability.