I’ve always said that I was born too late. Usually I just mean that I’d be happiest as a 1950’s housewife. A real June Cleaver-type, you know? Vacuuming in heels? Heck, yeah, I’m there! But it’s even more accurate to say what my dad has told me.
“You were born in the wrong century.”
*sighs* Yep, he’s right. The 21st century just isn’t doing it for me. Now, the late 15th, early 16th century? When the art world was flourishing with incredible religious paintings and sculptures? YES. That’s where someone like me belongs.
The Italian Renaissance was a time when everything old was made new again, and creativity was abundant. The Renaissance effectively ended what is known as the Byzantine era. It pushed away the stiff, flat forms that had dominated art during the Middle Ages, replacing them with much more classical, realistic depictions of the human body, harkening back to the art of ancient Greece.
Now, I love Byzantine art. I mean for crying out loud, my Twitter bio says, I’m a “Commission artist specializing in Byzantine styled Bible symbolism.” But there is nothing more beautiful to me than the religious works that emerged from the hundred year period of about 1450 to 1550.
Many great artists came out of the Renaissance period. Michelangelo, Sandro Botticelli, Titian, Fra Filippo Lippi, Carlo Crivelli, Raphael. But the greatest of these was arguably Leonardo Da Vinci.
Francesco Melzi’s Portrait of Leonardo Da Vinci
Born April 15, 1452, 563 years later, Da Vinci is considered one of the greatest artists of all time. He is the quintessential “Renaissance Man”. The artist was known primarily as a painter, but he was so much more than that. Continue reading →