The Role Of The Human Body In Renaissance Art

The idea of the human body and how to represent it in art changed drastically throughout the Renaissance. Not only did the new materials and techniques that were created help further images into looking natural and realistic, but the social changes that were coming about affected how the nude was represented as well. During this period, the people looked back towards antiquity to understand their current world. In a sense, the ancient world of Greeks and Romans seemed more tangible as a past history to the people in this era than history from medieval times. Over time, attitudes towards the body and the nude followed this evolution into becoming more accepted, but through the scope of Christianity and ancient literature or philosophy. Along with this

is the idea that such contemplation of the world though antiquity also allows there to be a new understanding of beauty and enriching the mind towards the Divine. Generally, it seems as though Renaissance citizens used antiquity as a way to process topics such as the nude, sensuality, vices versus virtues, and social customs.
There is a gargantuan amount of artwork form the Renaissance depicting gods from the ancient Romans and Greeks, especially for the domestic sphere.

While the artists of antiquity embraced the nude body, during the Renaissance the nude was something that was hard to tackle. One of the major reasons that the naked body was looked down upon within this society is because of its connection to that of original sin. Original sin, which led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, was an idea that was contrived by St. Augustine but impacted Renaissance society deeply. Various paintings conveyed the clashing perspectives and themes, but it began to embrace the representation of the body in a specific kind of interpretation as well. The artwork Birth of Venus by Botticelli is one of the paintings that mixed the world of the Renaissance with that of the antiquity. A mythological scene such as the one portrayed by Botticelli was popular among Florentines and the Medici. Works of mythology like this one are a part of the Neo-Platonist idea of the world of senses, which includes that real knowledge is the idea that through contemplation we can understand the mind and elevate the self to understanding the

divine.
However, within the fifty years between Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Titian’s Venus of Urbino, the way women were depicted completely changed. While depictions of Venus historically depicted her seeming to cover up to give the sense of modesty, Titian’s Venus changes the visual stance of Venus from standing to reclining. This visually changes the relationship she has with the audience. Instead of being a piece to look at, Titian paints his Venus looking at the audience and exposed as an ideal nude. She is directly engaging with the audience, which makes sense when considering the reason why it was commissioned. This work would have been a wedding present for a couple and have a certain “magic” that would in turn help them produce a child. In a way, Titian visually invites the audience to have a sense of touch. He compares her skin and hair, visually, to the world around her so the senses become more excited towards the image. This attitude towards sensuality is new for the society and thus faced backlash, but it brings into question various aspects of the era and the dissonance between the acceptation of the nude in terms of antiquity but the exception when it comes to the contemporary world based on Christian belief and virtue. Thus is one of the reasons that the Church would censor nude bodies in the public setting; to ensure Christian attitudes towards the stigma that the naked body is directly connected to both sex and sin.
Comparatively, the male nude went under the same understanding, which was through the scope of antiquity. While women were painted in relation to the goddess Venus, Men were sculpted in the reflection of Gods also. Take into account one of the most famous pieces of the Renaissance: Michelangelo’s David. Based off of the Roman God Apollo, David is the ideal male body. Michelangelo shows David just before the fight between him and Goliath. Interpreting this evokes emotions of intensity and waiting for the climax or fight. However, Donatello’s version of David shows David in a distinctly different way. Although he is nude as well, Donatello did not idolize David’s body to be the overly muscular and definite masculine depiction that Michelangelo created. Instead, his body is slender and more feminine. This David is not depicted in the intense way that Michelangelo’s is, but rather, he is shown as victorious.
It is quite possible that in order to understand their own society, citizens during the Renaissance needed to use ancient perspectives. Sculptures and fresco harked back towards antiquity. The artwork that is created in this time period is a collaboration of their time with the ancients.