Humanism In Renaissance Art

The change of art’s subject matter from primarily religious to creative, inspired pieces led to artists’ classification as creators. Prior to the Renaissance, artists were viewed simply as craftsmen, akin to blacksmiths and masons. However, during the Renaissance, there was a switch from primarily religious depictions to a focus on the human form, and these anthropomorphic themes continued into the era’s artwork. These new depictions of humans, perfect in beauty, were considered in part divine, and artists were considered creators of the divine (Austin 1). This secular focus was primarily due to humanism, which had become popular in the Renaissance because of the fascination with ancient Greek and Roman literature discussing people and how

There was a reemergence of this ancient way of thinking in the Renaissance. Humanism is evident in the art from the Renaissance; saints became depicted as equal in size to normal humans and their common halos became almost nonexistent (“Humanism in the Renaissance” 1-2). Artists also began using stories from mythology in their works, instead of just tales from the Bible. Humanism not only influenced the subject matter of art, it also shifted the focus of academics away from the church (“Early Renaissance Art” 2-4).

The reclassification of artists to intelligent thinkers was due to the fact that art required the understanding of math and science to create realism. As humanism led to the depiction of religious figures more human-like, artists began to strive for more life-like and realistic faces and bodies that appeared to have dimension. A formula for creating perspective was also developed and used by artists to paint more realistic spaces (“Early Renaissance Art” 2-4). In order for artists to elevate themselves, they had to separate their work from the work of manual laborers. This led to artists using math and science in their works to have greater accuracy with proportion, perspective, color, and