Renaissance Changes

During the Renaissance, significant changes were happening, most notably the ways humans viewed themselves. The Renaissance was considered to be a Golden Age of Europe that began around the 1400s and lasted until the 1700s. “Renaissance”, which means “rebirth” or “revival”, suggests that is was the rebirth and revival of Europe out of the Dark Ages. In this time period, people saw themselves differently as a result of the intellectual movement at the time, humanism. Humanism was the idea that instead of focusing on religion and supernatural ideas, people should study the humanities. This allowed people to emphasize the beauty of human and was the foundation for change in the Renaissance. During the Renaissance period, man’s view of man changed

Art and architecture showed an evident change in the way humans viewed themselves. Paintings went from being religious and angelical themed to earthly and detailed drawings, while architecture began to have nudity and free standing statues. For example, in art, the famous painting Mona Lisa was created by a renaissance man, Leonardo da Vinci. In this portrait, there is a lot of intricate details: the folds on her clothes can be seen, there are distinct facial expressions, and emotion can be seen from looking at the picture. In contrast to the painting Madonna Enthroned Between Two Angels that was painted during the Middle Ages, it depicted similar features for each individual. In addition, the Mona Lisa was painted on earth and had a natural background, including a landscape of mountains and rivers. In the medieval painting, it depicts Mary surrounded by angels in an angelic and heavenly place. As humanism was brought into the art, artists moved away from painting religious themed pictures to secular and natural themed ones. Also, the Mona Lisa uses linear perspective, where there is a three-dimensional look to it. Paintings in the

Plays and books from the Renaissance time period praised the individuality of each human being, unlike those from the Middle Ages that generalized everyone. For example, in literature from the Middle Ages, it calls people “Everyman” (DBQ Packet). However, in Hamlet written by Shakespeare in the Renaissance, it has specific traits for each character, making them individualized, and also praises the uniqueness of humans, not God. He writes “What a piece of work is a man!... in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god” (Hamlet). Shakespeare compares humans to angels and god, saying how there are equal and similar. In addition, he does not include religion in his play. In the Middle Ages literature, the author wrote about a “Heaven-King” and praising him. They wrote about praying to him to free yourself of your sins. However, in literature from the Renaissance, Shakespeare wrote about humans, not about religious figures. The different literary styles from the two time periods demonstrated that people saw themselves in a new light; writers began to write about and praise the beauty of mankind, and they created individualized and very complex characters, unlike the Middle Ages where everyone was