Renaissance Art

Renaissance is the name of the period which had begun in Italy and spread to Europe from the fourteenth through sixteenth centuries. Developments in Italy around the turn of thirteenth century, inspired by Roman traditions, led to a major shift in Western European art. But the renaissance itself, actually began at fourteenth century with the revival of interest in ancient Greek and Roman texts and culture. (“A History of Western Art”, p 222) Those ancient Greek and Roman texts and culture brought or led way to some ideologies. An ideology is a set of aims and ideas.(“Wikipedia: Ideology , p 1) It presents some ideas to satisfy the intellectual needs of the society and reflects the reaction of people against the continuing system generally. With the beginning of the renaissance three major ideologies which are humanism, individualism and idealism were assimilated and used frequently by the artists of the era.   The artists of the era had reflected those ideologies on their works.
Some of the artists of the era focused on humanism idea in their works to humanize the holy figures or figurines. Creation of Adam(Painting 1) by Michelangelo Buonarroti is one good example of using humanism in an art piece. It is a detail of a big fresco on the ceiling of Sistine Chapel. It was painted between 1508 and 1512.
According to Michelangelo, mankind discovering own inner powers and talents stands at the center of the creation story in the Bible. The artists had been used in order to impose Christian idea by their art works. The Christian idea was also the most powerful ideology which was argued all through the renaissance period. In the creation scene there are two main figures. The man on the right represents the life giving God and the man on the left and lower position represents first human being Adam and also mankind at inertia. A spark passing through the fingers is the energy that will awaken the mankind. Under the arm of the God there is Eve still in her design process...