Renaissance (French for “rebirth”) art refers to the revival of art and architecture in Europe between 1400 and 1600, centered in Italy. Renaissance artists and thinkers were inspired by the art and ideas of ancient Greece and Rome, and the central tenant of the Renaissance was the new idea of Humanism, associated with ancient Greece. Renaissance Humanism attached great importance to the dignity and worth of the individual, while downplaying religious dogma. The presence of many classical ruins and artifacts in Italy, such as Roman architecture and sculpture, including copies of Greek sculpture, is thought to be one of the reasons the Renaissance began there.
Early Italian Renaissance art emerged in Florence in the first decade of the 15th century. Humanistic philosophy led to a close study of the human body and a return to the nude in the visual arts. The architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1337-1446) did pioneering and influential work on linear perspective, a technique that contributed to the realism of Renaissance paintings by creating the illusion of depth. Figures and faces were also more realistic, expressing greater emotion. Subjects from classical mythology were introduced, associated with humanistic enlightenment rather than with paganism as in the Middle Ages.
The Italian High Renaissance (c. 1490-1530) saw the creation of Michelangelo's David (1501-4), Leonardo's Mona Lisa (1503-5) and Raphael's Sistine Madonna (1513). During this period, Rome replaced Florence as the center of events, with the patronage of Pope Julius II securing the services of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. Although the High Renaissance is considered the pinnacle of the return to classical humanist values, since the Church remained the biggest patron of Renaissance art, Christian narrative and history painting remained the major genres.
The Northern Renaissance (c. 1420-1580) refers to a concurrent flourishing of the arts in Germany and the Low Countries of Flanders and Holland. Its great artists include Jan van Eyck, Roger van der Wyden, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hieronymus Bosch and Hans Holbein the Younger. Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece (c. 1432) is considered to mark the beginning of the Northern Renaissance, and the German Albrecht Durer is considered its finest painter and printmaker.
Northern Renaissance art can be thought of as practical and earthy in contrast to the idealism of Italian Renaissance art, suggests the Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art. Northern painters were less concerned with recapturing the classical spirit than with developing oil painting and linear perspective. Printmaking was more prevalent in the north, connected with the invention of Gutenberg's press, and sculpture less popular, except for wood sculpture. In addition, the influence of the Protestant Reformation contributed to the much longer retention of the Gothic style by its painters.
Northern art could sometimes be more “humanist” than Italian art. Durer visited Italy and contributed to theoretical discussions of Renaissance art. His 1525 introduction to geometric theory was the first scientific discussion of perspective by a Northern European artist. Durer's fascination with self-portraits made him “more of a Renaissance personality than any Italian artist,” suggests Horst Woldemar Janson and Anthony F. Janson in “History of Art: The Western Tradition.”