General Case

The Renaissance era began in Italy from the 14th to mid 16th century. Renaissance means revive or rebirth and to compare the pieces done during this time to that of the Byzantine period, or any other prior period, you can clearly understand that the “rebirth” name is fit to describe the works from this time. The artwork all started to take on more human qualities and more attention to detail was taken on the face, body form, shape and even perspective to show a focal point for certain pieces.

For me, Michelangelo’s David sculpted in 1501, truly exemplifies artwork from this period. The statue itself is simply beautiful. David’s body represents more realistically that of the human male form. His face is carefully sculpted to relay a real life face, the jaw is more squared rather than rounded, his shoulders broad, muscular definition can clearly been seen and the evidence of body movement is shown in this sculpture. His body, although relaxed looks as though it is starting to turn into the direction to where his eyes are focused. This body movement or naturalism makes you view the statue and come to the conclusion that David is actually “thinking” or focused on something. This was not done in artwork prior to this time. Michelangelo himself studied human anatomy to understand how it works to perfect his art.

Michelangelo was in fact a visionary leader for Renaissance artwork because of his unprecedented pieces. He created such a human focus in his sculptures which is a major characteristic of the Renaissance period. Not just David, but another sculpture I found particularly life like and beautiful was the Pieta. This was a sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding her slain son Jesus. There were no longer elongated bodies or body parts. The piece showed a more defined face for both Mary and Jesus and the bodies were sculpted in such a way that would reflect how the form would look to both if in this particular position.

Michelangelo