Use Of Greco-Roman Polytheism To Medieval Monotheism

850 Words2 Pages

It is evident that the Romans emulated much or all of Greek culture into their lives, even down to their philosophies and complete blatancy of using the same gods and goddesses. However, there was an apparent shift of Greco-Roman polytheism to medieval monotheism, which is where persons in this period started to pivot their attention primarily on just God, disregarding old traditions of other gods. They went from issuing deities to make sense of their ancient world, and using rational thought (never was this used before) to probe for questions, to a reliance on just one god for all explanations (the medieval period). However, as time progressed, during the time of the Renaissance, people were using some of the same techniques as Greco-Roman …show more content…

The most different were that persons of the period were putting extreme emphasis on just one religion and, thus, many art forms became seemingly infiltrated with biblical scenes and interactions of higher figures in the church. However, in literature, it is evident that God had created everything we know, we can see this being addressed in “Genesis” of The Holy Bible (kingjamesbibleonline.org). “[a]nd God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” However, with Greek and Roman religions, they had a pantheon in which had various supernatural deities to use and choose from. Although, the similarity that they share is that they both celebrate, pray, and give tribute to the god (s) in the form of ceremony or building of temples (churches in monotheistic …show more content…

Which is why there was a focus on paintings to look more naturalistic, just as Greek and Rome did with statues of human figures (being accurate by giving a variance to posture and giving the proper portion). The Statue of Diadoumenos (Metmuseum.org) is an example of naturalism and if compared with the painting of Adam and Eve from artist Albrecht Dürer (metmusem.org), who found interest in “the idea that the perfect human form corresponded to a system of proportion and measurements.” Renaissance humanism began to break from the mold of being reliant on a religious figure or text; they believed that everything could be solved without religion and through nature. It was reflective of Greek thought in literature from prominent figures such as Socrates and

Open Document