Q. Discuss the features of Renaissance. [MPPSC-2019]

Q. Discuss the features of Renaissance. [MPPSC-2019]
Ans:

• The word “Renaissance” is the French word for “rebirth.” The Renaissance refers to the rebirth of humanism during the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe.
• Renaissance is the cultural movement that started in Italy (with Florence identified as the initial home of the Renaissance) in 15th Century.
  • It then spread to other parts of Europe like United Kingdom, France, Germany etc.
  • It is one of the most important events in history because it affected every aspect of human life.
• The Renaissance period was a time of rebirth of humanism and new discoveries in fine arts, music, literature, philosophy, science and technology, architecture, religion and spirituality. ©crackingcivilservices.com

Salient features of Renaissance:

• It coincided with a boom in exploration, trade, marriage and diplomatic excursions… and even war. As with the Ancient Greeks and Romans (from whom the Renaissance took so much inspiration), a conquering army could bring not only a regime change but also a cultural overhaul.
• The renaissance came after the dark ages, which was a depressed time in history.
  • It began in Northern Italy about 1350 right after the Black Death had ravaged the country, killing from a third to half population.
• The renaissance brought about changes in everything in Society including schooling, the arts.
• It was a time when people do no regress as they were not overtaken by barbarians or any other culture. Because classical culture was found again, that meant that the sciences, types of government, art, and vast portions of literature were found, creating more intelligent individuals who were more apt to question and discover.
• Some of the most notable philosophers and scientists were also born during this period whom helped shape the modern world.
• The Renaissance was a rebirth of classical learning and a rediscovery of ancient Rome and Greece.
  • The Renaissance was a rebirth of the human spirit, a rebirth of creativity.
    • Renaissance artists and scholars looked back to this Classical past.
    • While taking the classical past as its model, the Renaissance was one of the most creative periods in human history.
  • They deliberately rejected the scholarship and religious thought of the Middle Ages. For them, the Middle Ages were a Dark Age.
  • Nothing original and creative had happened since the fall of Rome.
  • They sought to imitate the art of Classical Greece with its realistic depiction of the human form.
  • They thought that the classical Latin written by Vergil, Cicero, or Julius Caesar was much superior to the Church Latin spoken during their own time. ©crackingcivilservices.com
  • They wanted to purify Latin of its medieval corruptions.
  • In the process of doing so, ironically, they helped to destroy the living Latin of the Middle Ages and turned it into the dead language which it is today.
• Art:
  • It was a rebirth of classical culture and ideas, a relaxed life where people could think and create marvelous art.
  • Italy was flooded with “lost” classics from the ancient world, and artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello took their tales, heroes and gods as a starting point to creating extraordinary art.
  • Sculptors such as Donatello and later Michelangelo went back to classical techniques like contrapposto, and classical subjects like the unsupported nude.
  • Painting:
    • Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo Buonarroti were some of the most prominent Renaissance painters.
    • Due to newly improved knowledge of anatomy, Renaissance painters studied to create perfect proportions, details and emotions.
    • Nudes grew in popularity, and to advance their realist perspective, painters experimented heavily with texture and depth.
    • Painters began to utilize methods of realism and naturalism by improving skills in three-dimensional perspective.
    • Renaissance also saw the emergence of a new naturalism in painting. With Fiippo Brunelleschi’s invention of linear perspective, painted works now look spatial dimensions unseen in earlier art.
    • Subject matter changed as well.
      • Painters began to veer away from religious themes and focused more on people and landscapes.
      • A spirit of worldliness now allowed for secular themes, found in works like Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and El Gredo’s “View of Toledo“.
    • Raphael’s greatest work, The School of Athens (1508–11), was painted in the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel.
  • Sculpture:
    • Human Form in Sculpture
    • Two representations of the biblical David demonstrated the breadth and variety of Renaissance sculpture.
      • Donatello crafted his David from bronze, placing him in a relaxed pose, with his foot atop Goliath’s head.
      • Michelangelo took a different approach. His David was a towering marble creation emphasizing strength and nobility.
      • In both instances, the sculptors emphasized the physical beauty of the human form.
    • Other Renaissance works followed this new principle as well. Tullio Lombardo’s “Adam” was an exemplary work, as were the “Gates of Paradise” sculptures that Lorenzo Ghiberti created for the entrance to the Florence Baptistery.
• Humanism:
  • It was the Renaissance when humanism started.
  • During the Middle Ages, individuals were expected to devote their lives to the church above all else. In stark contrast, Renaissance humanists broke free from medieval tradition to put focus on personal interest instead of religious demands. ©crackingcivilservices.com
  • Humanism, the concept people are worth studying, they are worth something to society, and each one is unique and different, means that the value of humans went up.
    • When people began to study others, it resulted in more stable societies with better governments, and far better conditions.
  • Humanists emphasized the importance of worldly pleasures and studied classic texts from philosophers like Pluto and Aristotle for inspiration.
  • With humanism came an increased interest in travel and the pursuit of knowledge.
  • Renaissance writers, artists, scientists and other thinkers were greatly influenced by humanist beliefs- Francesco Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Sir THomas More and Francis Bacon are few of the humanist pioneers who influenced Renaissance art and literature.
  • Radical thinkers such as the Protestant Luther and the humanist Erasmus expounded a new way of looking at the world that owed less to blind subservience to the Catholic Church and more to the possibilities inherent in the human mind.
• Humanist Literature:
  • Over the course of the Renaissance, a multitude of lasting literary works appeared.
  • The new emphasis on humanism encouraged writers to focus on individual experience and to create works in their native languages, as opposed to the traditional Latin.
  • The trend began in Italy, with Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Boccaccio’s “The Decameron” and Petrarch’s 14-line poems called sonnets.
  • In Spain, Miguel Cervantes published “Don Quixote,” while France was the place where Montaigne invented the essay.
  • Across the English Channel, William Shakespeare breathed new life into drama and poetry, taking Petrarch’s sonnets to an even higher level of achievement.
• Religion:
  • During the Renaissance, Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Luther was distraught over the selling of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church, and he set up the Ninety-Five Theses on the door of Castle Church Wittenberg in 1517.
  • It was also during the Renaissance that Pope Paul III created the Council of Trent.
  • New denominations such as the Church of England and the Jesuit Order of Roman Catholic Priests originated during the Renaissance.
• Science and Age of Discovery:
  • Even as the artists were creating a bold new realism, scientists were engaged in a revolution of their own.
  • With the Renaissance came and increasing divide between science and religion as a new era of discovery swept through Europe.
  • Scientists began to focus on practical observation instead of religious teachings and viewed their work with renewed skepticism Sir Francis Bacon and his contemporaries championed the scientific method, urging the examination theories using hard evidence.
  • Dissections became popular during this time, and scientists began to better understand the basics of human anatomy. ©crackingcivilservices.com
  • Copernicus and Galileo had developed an unprecedented understanding of our planet’s place in the cosmos, proving that the Earth revolved around the Sun.
    • Italian physicist, astronomer and philosopher Galileo Galilei improved the telescope and made important astronomical observations.
    • Nicolaus Copernicus also discovered that the sun seemed to be in the center of the universe.
    • Based on his observations with the telescope, Galileo spoke out against the Catholic Church’s belief in an earth centered universe.
  • Advances in chemistry led to the rise of gunpowder, while a new model of mathematics stimulated new financial trading systems and made it easier than ever to navigate across the world.
  • Some of the other significant inventions during the Renaissance period were the cast-iron pipe, portable clock, rifle barrel, shotgun, screwdriver and wrench.
  • Expeditions:
    • Columbus discovered America, Ferdinand Magellan led an expedition to circumnavigate the globe.
    • India, far east, sea routes etc. were explored.
    • Even as our world shrank in size and significance when placed in the context of our new understanding of the universe, so it grew in physical terms, as new continents were found, new lands colonised, new cultures discovered whose own beliefs and understandings were added to the great intellectual firestorm raging across Europe.
• Printing press and literacy:
  • The very same scientific advances that the Renaissance was developing also contributed to one of its great legacies: the printing press.
  • In 1440, Gutenberg introduced the printing press to the world – meaning that for the first time, books could be mass-produced.
  • A single press could churn out 3,600 pages a day, resulting in an explosion of literature and ideas unprecedented in history.
  • By 1500, printing presses in Western Europe had produced more than 20 million volumes. And by 1600, that had risen to 200 million.
  • Luther and Erasmus became bestsellers – and later so did poets, dramatists and novelists.
  • The printing press revolutionised communication: suddenly, the middle classes were able to educate themselves, scientists were able to easily share work leading to faster and more accurate discoveries.
  • Due to printing press, new ideas spread quickly throughout Europe and allowed for widespread educational reform.
  • The new ideas of free-thinkers, mathematicians and scientists all became accessible to the masses, and art and science became, for the first time in human history, truly democratic. ©crackingcivilservices.com
• Engineering Feats:
  • The Renaissance produced significant achievements in engineering, especially with regards to architecture.
  • One celebrated figure was Leon Battista Alberti, whose writings stressed visual harmony in architecture and city planning.
  • Another accomplished engineer was Leonardo Da Vinci, who drew up early blueprints for the bicycle, the parachute and even various flying machines.
  • One of the most prominent engineering feat was the eight-sided dome atop Florence’s Santa Maria Cathedral.
    • Designed by Fillipo Brunelleschi, the inventor of linear perspective, this soaring conical dome represented a definitive break with the Gothic architecture of the past.
    • Today, it stands as a permanent reminder of the Renaissance era’s many achievements.
• Leisure:
  • For sport, jousting was popular during the Renaissance era. Jousting was a sport that consisted of two knights on horseback trying to knock the other off his horse.
  • Theater was also popular during the Renaissance.
    • Whereas earlier theater had often focused on morality plays, comedy became a popular genre during this time.
    • One of the most well-known Renaissance-era poets and playwrights, William Shakespeare wrote several dozen plays and over 150 sonnets before his death in 1616.
• Never before (or since) had there been such a coming together of art, science and philosophy. And never before had there been such an opportunity for it to be so widely disseminated.
• The seeds of the modern world were sown and grown in the Renaissance. From circumnavigating the world to the discovery of the solar system, from the beauty of Michelangelo’s David to the perfection of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, from the genius of Shakespeare to the daring of Luther and Erasmus, and via breathtaking advances in science and mathematics, man achieved new heights in this tumultuous period and it proved to be turning point in the development of human civilization. ©crackingcivilservices.com