Renaissance Art and Ideas: Development and Influence

1. Chapter 2, Section 2. How did art and other ideas develop during the Renaissance?

2. The Renaissance in Western Europe was a period marked by great intellectual and artistic creativity.

3. Renaissance Humanists wanted to use classical values to revitalize their culture. They saw the ancient Greek and Roman writers as their intellectual equals, and thought those civilizations worthy of study.

4. Francesco Petrarch: Called the father of Italian Renaissance humanism. He looked for forgotten Latin manuscripts and set in motion a search for similar manuscripts in monastic libraries throughout Europe.

5. Renaissance Humanist philosophers believed that people should study worldly subjects as well as sacred matters.

6. Only scholars would understand classical Latin. So some writers (like Dante Aligheri, who wrote the Divine Comedy) wrote in the vernacular (the local spoken language).

7. The purpose of a liberal education was to produce individuals who follow a path of virtue and wisdom, and possess rhetorical skills so they could persuade others to take this same path. Humanists believed that liberal studies enabled individuals to reach their full potential.

8. In the mid-fifteenth century, the use of movable type was pioneered by the German printer Johannes Gutenberg, and it would play a key role in the spread of Protestantism. The printing of books encouraged scholarly research and stimulated an ever-expanding reading public's desire to gain knowledge.

9. Leonardo da Vinci: The model "Renaissance man", an artist, scientist, inventor, and visionary. He mastered the art of realistic painting, but wanted to create idealized forms that captured the perfection of nature in the individual.

10. Northern European artists painted illustrations for books and wooden panels for altarpieces. Great care was needed to depict each object on a small scale. The large wall spaces of Italian churches had encouraged the art of fresco painting.

11. He fit minute details more harmoniously into his works in accordance with Italian artistic theories. Albrecht Dürer: absorbed most of what the Italians could teach on the laws of perspective.