Looking at Early Renaissance Painting

The Renaissance was a period of great intellectual and creative activity, a ‘re-birth’ of the science and arts. It was a time during which artists broke away from the restrictions of Byzantine Art and moved towards a modern age.

The Early Renaissance emerged in Italy and was founded on the work of the ‘Father of the Renaissance’, Giotto di Bondone. Influenced by Giotto, artists working in early 15th Century Italy moved towards a more naturalistic style – figures became weightier, three-dimensional and occupied a convincing space.

The engineering of Brunelleschi’s dome, the brilliant perspective in Masaccio’s Holy Trinity,
and the humanism of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus each help define the Early Renaissance in Italy. We will look at these, as well as works by Fra Angelico, Piero Della Francesca and Donatello.