Renaissance (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what the Renaissance was, its historical context, characteristics and periods. Also, the main works of each art.

What is the Renaissance?

The Renaissance It was a broad and important cultural movement produced in Europe in the 15th and 17th centuries. It served as a transition between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, bringing with it a profound renewal of thought, arts and sciences.

The Renaissance It was characterized by the return to the classical Greco-Latin roots of the West which meant a revaluation of his myths, his speeches and his philosophy, after centuries of dogmatic religious thought.

Its name was given to it in the 19th century, by the French historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874) in 1855, rescuing the term used for the first time by the Italian writer and architect Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574).

The Renaissance was not a homogeneous or unitary movement, from a chronological or geographical point of view. In fact, it emerged in a haphazard way in Europe and was then transmitted to the recent European colonies in America.

On the other hand, The political and social changes that this era brought were important throughout the West: the end of medieval religious thought and the aristocratic feudal system, the emergence of bourgeois cultures and the beginning, somewhat later, of capitalism.

Many of the great Western artists and thinkers we worship today were once part of the Renaissance, and some of their works today constitute icons of modern Western culture. In some way, the world we know today began to be built with the Renaissance.

Characteristics of the Renaissance

renaissance painting the school of athens raphael — Patronage allowed artists to venture into non-religious themes.

Broadly speaking, the Renaissance was characterized by:

The “return to Antiquity”, that is, the recovery of the philosophical, artistic and political tradition of classical Greece and Rome which for centuries Christianity had considered pagan.
He rejection of Christian dogmatism and the beginning of a new relationship with nature, mediated by science. This eventually led to the birth of humanism, which replaced faith with reason as the supreme value, and instead of God placed the human being as the center of the universe.
The arts were patronized by the upper social classes (not only by the Church) through patronage. This financed a significant number of artists of the time, and allowed them to venture into works of art with non-religious or non-Christian themes.
They were promoted and carried out new scientific discoveries new measurement projects and new deductions, among which the replacement of the geocentric model of the universe (Aristotelian) with the heliocentric (Copernican) stands out.

Historical context of the Renaissance

renaissance context colon geographical discoveries — Geographic discoveries like Columbus's opened new markets.

The Renaissance took place at the end of the Middle Ages, starting in the 15th century. However, numerous historians date its early antecedents to the 13th or 14th centuries.

Its starting point was a time marked by the weakening of ecclesiastical power because of the Protestant Reformation and the fall of the Holy Roman Empire. Furthermore, a pronounced economic crisis developed that marked the end of the feudal mode of production, which brought with it a decline in the arts and sciences.

In the midst of medieval decline, many European power centers sought refuge in a new model of State, commanded by monarchical authoritarianism just as the arts sought refuge in classical antiquity.

Furthermore, in the 16th century, in addition the great European geographical discoveries took place at the hands of Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and Vasco da Gama. Thus, new markets and new trade routes were opened, granting more and more power to a new rising social class: the bourgeoisie, in charge of laying the foundations of the coming capitalism.

The Renaissance began in Italy, specifically in the city-republics of Florence and Venice, but also in monarchical cities such as Milan and Naples, and in Rome, subject to papal rule.

Renaissance art

Renaissance sculpture — During the Cinquecento, great artists such as Michelangelo emerged.

Renaissance art can be organized into different historical and aesthetic periods:

He Quattrocento o Early Renaissance Also known as the “First Renaissance” or “Low Renaissance”, it lasted almost the entire 15th century and marked the disappearance of medieval darkness at the hands of the Renaissance light. In this period the city of Florence occupied the central place in the artistic avant-garde, while the rest of Europe continued to cultivate medieval Gothic art.
He Cinquecento or Full Renaissance Also known as the High Renaissance, it was the truly classicist period of Renaissance art, in which its great artists emerged: Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and the painting and sculpture of the time was at its peak.
mannerism or under Renaissance It was an anti-classical reaction developed within Renaissance art towards the middle and end of the 16th century, characterized by the exaggeration of the typical gestures of classicism, a prefiguration of the excesses that later became characteristic of the Baroque. It is considered an extravagant, imitative and decadent style.
He Sixteen or Italian baroque Whose works actively sought excess, confusion, contrast, the mixture of pictorial or plastic materials, through which it was hoped to counteract the iconoclastic influences of the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution. Devotional works and multifaceted artists predominated.

Renaissance literature

Renaissance literature revolved around humanism and, as in the other arts, around the recovery of myths, motifs and the Greco-Latin classical tradition.

Initially, many of Platonic and Aristotelian ideas were recovered and put at the service of Christianity which allowed the recovery of the classic mandatory. New genres were developed, such as the essay, and new metric models for poetry (such as the sonnet and hendecasyllable verse), as well as the modern novel.

Renaissance literature It was spread with enormous force thanks to the invention of the printing press and was born under the influence of three great predecessors: Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), a prominent cultist of dolce stil new; Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), author of a formidable songbook written in Italian; and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), famous author of the Decameron.

The birth of the essay was of particular importance since it allowed the dissemination of the ideas of humanism in didactic, explanatory writings. Important cultivators of the genre during the Renaissance were: Martin Luther (1483-1546), Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) and Nicolás Machiavelli (1469-1527).

At the same time, Commedia dell'Arte and Elizabethan dramaturgy set an important tone especially under the pens of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) and Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), as much as the novel did under that of Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) and François Rebelais (c. 1494-1553) , among many others.

Renaissance architecture

The Renaissance constitutes a break in the history of architecture especially with respect to the Gothic style that predominated in the Christian Middle Ages. Like other forms of art, it sought inspiration in classical forms, but introduced into them numerous innovations in construction techniques and materials already architectural language.

Furthermore, architects went from artisanal anonymity to a public figure typical of the professionalization of architecture. Thus, their works were duly documented and their names preserved, unlike previous Romanesque and Gothic architects.

Renaissance architecture focuses on the human being just as nascent humanism proposed. It was nourished by different arts and techniques, thanks to which perspective was discovered, which is perhaps the most notable feature of the entire period.

Since Renaissance architects aspired to the classical, but not the neoclassical, they allowed themselves experimentation and innovation regarding the ancient and medieval legacy, from which they took and reinterpreted as they pleased.

The main Renaissance architects were Jacopo Vignola (1507-1573), Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472), Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446) and Michelangelo Buonarotti himself.

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Renaissance Works

renaissance piety michael angel sculpture — Michelangelo's “The Pietà” is one of the most important sculptures in history.

Some of the best-known artistic works of the Renaissance are the following:

Paint:

The Sistine Chapel (1482) by Michelangelo.
The school of Athens (1512) by Raphael.
The Mona Lisa (1519) by Leonardo da Vinci.
The birth of Venus (1485) by Sandro Botticelli.
The gentleman with his hand on his chest (c. 1580) by El Greco.

Architecture:

Medici Riccardi Palace (1444) by Michelozzo, in Florence.
Villa Capra (1566) by Andrea Palladio, in Vicenza.
Basilica of San Lorenzo (1418-1470) by Filippo Brunelleschi, Michelozzo and Antonio Manetti, in Florence.
Dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (1471) by Filippo Brunelleschi, in Florence.
Jerónimos Monastery of Belém (1514-1544) by Diogo Boitaca, Juan de Castillo and Diego de Torralva, in Lisbon.

Sculpture:

David (1504) by Michelangelo.
The mercy (1499) by Michelangelo.
The four seasons (c. 1547) by Jean Goujon.

Literature:

Praise of madness (1511) by Erasmus of Rotterdam.
Essays (1580) by Michel de Montaigne.
The prince (1531) by Niccolò Machiavelli.
Hamlet (1605) and Othello (1604) by William Shakespeare.
Don Quijote of La Mancha (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes.
Gargantua and Pantagruel (1534) by François Rebelais.

Renaissance and humanism

Humanism constituted the spirit of the Renaissance. It was an intellectual, philosophical and cultural movement that took up classical Greco-Latin humanism, in order to reinvent European culture in opposition to medieval obscurantism.

He supplanted faith in God with human reason. Hand in hand with the nascent sciences, humanism proposed a new educational model, a new conception of the world and the place that the human being occupied in it, and finally laid the foundations for the Enlightenment and the French Revolution of 1789.

Humanism opposed the aristocratic and unequal world of the Middle Ages. He reinterpreted some classical values to move towards a world of equals, in which human beings were the architects of their own salvation, and not divine authority.

So, It was proposed to limit the power of the Church, build new discourses and values. He began the arduous work of building a completely new morality and ethics of his own, a task that modern philosophy was responsible for from now on.

With the emergence of humanism, the medieval world came to an end and the Modern Age began in the West.