Humanism and the Baroque Periods of Art

Humanism, specifically during the Renaissance, was a huge movement towards the human mind as a whole and how individuality in expression of thoughts and ideas was celebrated. Tradition was not something to be blindly followed anymore. One might argue that humanism played the biggest role in creating the Renaissance. This was because of the huge focus on studying Roman and Greek texts, which gave a new outlook on their modern world focused on the human ability. Painting was influenced by humanism by becoming more realistic while also keeping forms classic. It also heavily focused on the human experience. The two paintings I found to show this well were “The School of Athens” by Raphael and “The Tribute Money” by Masaccio. In “The School of Athens” it is clear education is the main theme, which makes sense because humanism during that period had a lot to do with educating and thinking for yourself. “The Tribute Money” portrays a biblical scene in which Jesus performs a miracle to satisfy the tax payment. It has multiple things going on from the story at the same time and the people are all doing different things. They are both great examples of focusing the attention towards everyday life. You can also see that, in every person depicted, they have a mind of their own. They look in different directions and are carrying out different actions, there is no one true center focus. Secularism and naturalism can be seen throughout Renaissance art as well. There is less focus on church scenes and more focus towards the outdoors and creating an environment of the world. They aimed for accuracy in the paintings as well, which can be seen especially well in “The Tribute Money”. If you look towards the feet there are cast shadows and the lighting is used to create a much more realistic scene had there not been shadows. What can also be seen is the movement of the people depicted, except for Jesus, which sets the scene as more of a photo in time instead of a perfectly posed scene that was recreated.