Early Renaissance

In art, the Renaissance is divided into two categories: the Early Renaissance and the High Renaissance. The Early Renaissance is often referred to as the Quattrocento, Italian for 1400s, in reference to the cultural shift that occurred in Italy in the fifteenth century. Art from this time is characterised by naturalism, with subject matter extending beyond religious subjects to include history scenes and classical references.

In Florence, Brunelleschi, Donatello and Masaccio profoundly changed the artistic landscape. Architect Brunelleschi is regarded as the inventor of single-point perspective which created the illusion of depth. Other masters of the Early Renaissance include Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Fra Filippo Lippi, Andrea Mantegna, and Sandro Botticelli.

High Renaissance

The High Renaissance, from roughly 1500–1530, is identified with the technical virtuosity of Florentine artists Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael. All three expanded on previous depictions of the human body and further examined the illusion of space.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel (1512) is one of the most ambitious works from this period, while Leonardo's examinations into human anatomy remain unparalleled.

Artists of the High Renaissance continued to create figures that appeared real, but the focus was also on beauty and an almost divine perfection.

Titian, Giorgione, Tintoretto and Veronese are associated with the Venetian High Renaissance, which took root around 1540. Thanks to the city's location on the water, Ventian painting of this time focused on light and colour, as well as depictions of beautiful women.

What is Italian Renaissance art?

A brief introduction to Italian Renaissance art

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Northern Renaissance

Later, the term was also applied to the art of Northern Europe, in particular the Low Countries, Germany and France, during the mid-fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. Northern Renaissance artists such as Jan van Eyck and Pieter Bruegel the elder rejected the classical ideals of their Italian counterparts in favour of extreme realism.

One of the most innovative aspects of Northern Renaissance art is the use of oil paint, which allowed artists to capture intense detail and colour. Van Eyck is credited for using the medium on panel more impressively than anyone before. The skilful handling of oils to capture detail can also be seen in the work of Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Robert Campin.

Printmaking especially flourished in Northern Europe during the Renaissance, thanks to the revolutionary invention of the mechanical moveable type printing press in around 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg.

The mass production of text and images led to a greater demand for woodcuts, a medium many artists began to explore. Albrecht Dürer was a pioneer of printmaking, creating independent prints using woodcuts with an unprecedented level of detail.

Get some perspective

One of the most important features of Renaissance art is the development of linear perspective. This is believed to have been discovered in the early 1400s by Italian architect Filippo Brunelleschi, whose experiments based on careful mathematical calculations led to a revolution in artistic style.

Although Brunelleschi devised his rules for perspective from an architectural viewpoint – using two-dimensional drawings to show how a three-dimensional space would look once built – his findings allowed artists to depict spatial reality in more accurate and naturalistic ways.

A few years after Brunelleschi's experiments, Italian humanist Leon Battista Alberti published his treatise on perspective, Della Pitture (On Painting) in 1435, which meant theoretical ideas around representing depth, space and composition became much more accessible.

Linear perspective: Brunelleschi's experiment

An introduction to Filippo Brunelleschi's experiment regarding linear perspective, c.1420, in front of the Baptistry in Florence

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Patrons and portraits

During the Italian Renaissance, art and architecture often came about via commissions from wealthy patrons, pointing to the power structures at play during this time.

Much of Florence's artistic production during the fifteenth century was sponsored by the powerful Medici family, whose fortune came from banking. Despite the fact the city was a republic, the family ruled as though royalty. The majority of commissions at this time were for religious works which banking families sought out in order to atone for the sin of usary.

The family nevertheless commissioned a host of masterpieces, including works by Michelangelo, Donatello, Bronzino, Pontormo and Botticelli – including his Birth of Venus (c.1484–86). Cosimo de' Medici also built the Uffizi, which now houses one of the greatest art collections.

The fifteenth century marked a turning point in the history of Western portraiture when specific likenesses of people began to emerge. Many patrons became especially concerned with their personal fame and individual presentation – portraits were an opportunity to display a sitter's wealth, power and ego.

More significantly, though, such patronage led to a change in how artists came to be viewed, becoming highly regarded for their skill and craftsmanship.