Art is subjective, and various styles have risen and fallen in popularity, but it’s always fascinating to see what’s trending now, as it often provides a glimpse into cultural attitudes, as well as how technological innovations have helped facilitate the medium. As the debate raging over artificial intelligence’s use in art being legitimate rages on, some artists have nevertheless embraced it as a new tool.
Elsewhere, AI art generators have even allowed the layperson to experiment. On X, formerly Twitter, one such popular generator has been Al Gahaku, which turns any photo into a renaissance portrait. Renaissance art came to be after the end of the Middle Ages, and the renewed interest in some form of it makes perfect sense considering its history.
The End of An Era Means New Ways of Thought
The Renaissance period began at the dawn of the 1400s, as the Middle Ages drew to a close, and Europe was at the precipice of both great scientific and cultural curiosity that would lead to breakthroughs. The Middle Ages were a time when science and art appeared to reach a standstill, and it’s something we still joke about today. One of Saturday Night Live’s early hit sketches involved Steve Martin as a middle aged doctor who prescribed leeches for most illness. The fifteenth century saw a rebirth of those very human endeavors. By 1455, the printing press would be invented and thirty years later, Leonardo Da Vinci would draw the first known designs for a parachute.
Renaissance art has its roots in humanism – a philosophy that dates back to the Greeks and Romans and inspired artists of the 1400s to explore human emotions, naturalism and anatomy – such as Da Vinci’s famous Vetruvian Man. Often, the work is finely detailed and meticulously accurate.
Da Vinci has already come up twice – once for an invention and once for a drawing, and there’s a reason he’s known to define the era as a true “Renaissance Man”, but the first known painter of the movement was Masaccio, who was one of the earliest to employ nudes. His Fresco – a water-based painting typically on plaster – “Expulsion from the Garden of Eden” features a nude Adam and Eve (covering her body with her hands) being chased out of the Garden by the Devil, and is said to have had a profound effect on later renaissance master Michelangelo.
It’s quite easy to connote the drastic changes, from a linear to a three-dimensional perspective, between Renaissance and the Italo-Byzantine style that preceded it. Take a look, for instance, at the more cartoonish, stoic, judgmental Jesus in “Christ Pantocrator” to see the marked change. Also note that, in renaissance works, man is often nearer to his creator a la Michaelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”.
Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Florence
Any art movement is going to be aided by its patrons, and the Renaissance was blessed in Italy with one of the wealthiest nations in the world at the time. Successful trade deals with Asian and Eastern European counterparts meant that the merchants of Florence had money to spend. One such family of wealth, the Medicis, commissioned the country’s most talented and renowned artists to work on projects for the city. It couldn’t have hurt that the Vatican was also a major patron. Sculptor Michaelangelo is perhaps best known for the Statue of David, still creating fatuous worldwide controversy to this day. At the time, it was commissioned for a cathedral in Florence.
It’s well-established that Da Vinci was more than just an artist. He was also an inventor, engineer, and architect. It’s difficult to choose anything singular that represents his genius, but perhaps the curiosities and realism of his artistry is best exemplified by “The Mona Lisa”. For not only did it inspire other artists before it was even completed (Raphael caught an early look in Da Vinci’s workshop and elements showed up in his later works), but her maddening smile has never been fully explained. Her real identity, though some clues have been unearthed, remain as much of a mystery as the subtle grin. There’s little more human than looking at an image of another person and trying to interpret their feelings.
Modern Renaissance: A New Age of Thought, Aided by Technology
The works of the Renaissance were still heavily focused on religious deities and objects; however, they still strongly emphasized humanism. Today, the humanism angle in contemporary Renaissance is alive and well, but artists have reinterpreted the religious content. Take, for example, the studio Iconographia’s photographic representation of Andrea Mantegna’s Saint Sebastian, which re-imagines him as a black, queer icon.
Renaissance art has also found its way into album covers and music videos as well, thanks to Beyonce and Ariana Grande.
Kenny Hedges | Contributing Writer
