Artistic rebirth refers to the renewal of classical art. Whereas the Renaissance period unmistakably owed its awakening to the rediscovery of antiquity, the Renaissance artists merely never duplicated the art of Greece but sought different inspiration to guide their artistry. Whereas antique artists strived to picture the highest attainable strengths and beauty of ancient Romans artists, Titian, Raphael, Michelangelo, Vasari, Nicolas Poussin, Rubenst and Leonardo da Vinci became the renaissance’s favorite artist not by imitating the hopeless works of the antiques, but by using them as imagination guides.
When artists such as Masaccio and Giotto started artistically examine the nature, they also made attempts to present the figures and objects in their environment naturally. Classical artists followed this approach. Using the fragments of ancient sculpture, early renaissance artists observed that classical artists were also concerned with studying nature. For example, Giotto, who was taught by nature in the draft of the Giotto, emphasizes the return to the study of the natural world. A rebirth of art then occurs when the Renaissance artists returned to the observation of nature which paralleled the classical artists. In their art forms, Renaissance artists reflected that they had first imitated nature, then created improvements in nature and finally surpassed the nature’s beauty on their work.
Raphael, one of the most graceful painters, carefully studied the achievements of ancient art masters, selectively picking out the best artistic works. By doing so, he enhanced his art as to equal the faultless perfectionist figures Zeus and Apelles. He even might be said to have surpassed them if his works are compared to ancient art. Similarly, among the most scrutinized artistic of the Italian Renaissance is Michelangelo. Michelangelo is termed as one of the greatest Old Masters of Renaissance Art. Nicknamed the divine one – il Divino – Michelangelo aptly illustrated his exceptional gifts not only as an artistic painter but also as an architect, sculptor, and engineer. Eight years older than his rival Raphael (1483-1520) and twenty years younger than Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo’s extraordinarily diversified talent made him one of the greatest forces who never duplicated works of antiquity, ending up to become one of the most considerable inspiring the High Renaissance.
Michelangelo reinvigorated the antique ideas of human nudity which sufficed the vehicle role helping in the expression of all the emotions a painter can depict, a notion that later substantially influence the not only development of Academic Art but holistically art. He above all prompted the notion that sculpture and painting merited the same status as antique, and therefore modern (at the time) architecture, and that both sculptors and painters were real artists, never merely stone masons or decorators. His Holy Family (Tondo Doni) (1504-6) tempera on wood, Uffizi, Florence, the Genesis fresco (1508-12) – which also included the Creation of Adam – and Last Judgment fresco (1535-41) comprising his celebrated cycles in the Sistine Chapel frescoes are some of his Greatest renaissance paintings. These great accomplishments assuredly rank him high among art’s best.
His work surpasses not only the art of other notably superior artists of his time but also this superiority is greater than the superiority of antiquity artists. He has triumphed over ancient world artists, over artists of the later world, and over the non-producing nature itself however extraordinary or challenging, which inspired his ingenuity, through how he significantly applied artistic design, grace, and judgment which are not so easily surpassed. Without the fear of contradiction, we can confidently say that he so enhanced the very aspect of sculpture art by superior statues as compared to the ancient world’s. For that, if Michelangelo’s works were to be put side by side with the antique works, hand for hand, foot for foot, head for head and arm for an arm, his is seemingly fashioned on the founding of sounder principles, executed with perfection and grace. How effortless his graceful intensity was ultimately defying comparison to other styles.
And the same holds true for Leonardo da Vinci’s works. If da Vinci’s work were put side by side with the works of the celebrated Romans, they would not come short of garnering high regard and value, conferring much more superiority than antique artistry. Da Vinci passionately demonstrates his genius not only in his colorings and paintings but also in full relief sculptural works he created. Furthermore, his inspiring fruitful laboring has widely spread its branches, filling the world with delectable fruit abundances, with his fine artistry being brought into states of complete perfection.
One cannot question Titian’s universality ingenuity, for he surpassingly was inordinate in every describable aspect of his painting art. Through his art, Titian penetrated and scoured through the character of human beings, brilliantly recording it in pictorially genius canvases. Inspired by religion, his compositions covered the very elements of the emotional charms of Madonna’s youthfulness to how tragic Crucification and Entombment were in their depths. Titian masterfully used mythological pictorials in abandoning the antiques of the pagan world and capture the gaiety. Furthermore, the Danae (Danae with Nursemaid) and the Venus nudity (Venus and Adonis) set such insurmountable standards of a woman’s physique beauty marked with often eroticism that cannot be equaled. The Mannerist artists Nicolas Poussin and Rubenst – only paid him the complements of imitation.
The maniera period was characterized by artists who used various abrasive and beautiful styles which were so absolute that they did not need qualification. Exemplifying this, Giorgio’s use of maniera occurred in three different contexts. In describing an artist’s method or manner of working, or a group or personal style, the term maniera greca was extensively used in reference of the exquisite Byzantine style, the maniera, of Michelangelo, affirming a positive judgment of artistic quality. The mannerists artists, such as Vasari, inspired by Michelangelo and Raphael’s works, not only sought to copy the virtuous works of the predecessors, rather than directly confronting nature but use is it as an inspiration to create incomparably; the notion of Bella maniera.
Indeed, the result of this seeking after individuality is that Renaissance art is far more varied than that of antiquity. Far and different in Renaissance, art was a reflection of the inward glance of artists to the middle age Christianity, probing the soul’s most profound mysteries. Instead of the mere facial depiction of a joyous world, countenance in the Renaissance was driven by the bright freshness of the glorious worldly youth, depicting all humanity’s secretive instincts, passions, and vague aspirations. Renaissance artists’ efforts explored in the paper were to represent the person as a soul, never eliminating from the artistries all that was personal to the model, as ancient art did, only to leave an ideal abstraction of beauty. The renaissance artists characteristically followed all day long people whose countenance struck him in the streets, seeking to penetrate their personality secrets and make fixes upon his sketch-books the charms of expression or feature which impressed him as efforts to try and seize the very elements of being anxiously excluded Ancient Romans.
