How Did Renaissance Art Reflect Individualism

Europe during the fourteenth to sixteenth century was a time period of great cultural and intellectual achievements. This time period was called the Renaissance. Remarkable changes occurred in society during the Renaissance, such as greater awareness of the individual and more appreciation for the arts. Renaissance art reflected new conceptions of the individual that emerged during this time. One new conception was individualism, and the arts reflected it by portraying a person as a unique individual and capable of developing their full potentials. Two other conceptions that the arts portrayed were humanism and secularism.

Renaissance art reflected individualism, which was the stressing of personality, uniqueness, and development of capabilities.

Primavera, also known as the Allegory of the Spring, by Sandro Botticelli, reflected a deep interest in classics and mythology because it portrayed Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, with several other goddesses and pagans. Another art, Leonardo Bruni’s On Learning and Literature, reflected humanism, because it emphasized education and learning. It stated a couple times the importance of learning and understanding our country’s history, origin, and development, because we could learn from it and make changes on our current policies. One last art, Castiglione’s The Courtier, reflected humanism because it emphasized education as one of the most important qualities of an ideal gentlemen. The Courtier stated that an ideal gentlemen should have knowledge in the academics, and have spiritual, physical, and intellectual abilities. This suggested that during the Renaissance a person’s education was important and can determine other people’s opinion of you. This idea differed from the Middle Ages because medieval people do not care that much about learning and education. They had other things to worry about like feeding their families or the widespread epidemic. In fact, it had been inferred that the majority of the medieval people were illiterate. Humanism was definitely a great intellectual change in European society. This was how Renaissance art portrayed humanism and how humanist ideas differed from those of the Middle