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Artists Learned About Anatomy, They Studied Plants And Animals, And Dissected ...

Artists learned about anatomy, they studied plants and animals, and dissected the human body.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was a great example of Renaissance man. His scientific and learned approach can be evidenced in all of his works, not least, the famous ‘Mona Lisa' where, ‘what strikes us first is the amazing degree to which Lisa looks alive.' Leonardo's ability to depict such a life-like and realistic figure is a reflection of the humanistic ideals of the time.

Unfortunately, no complete sculptures of Leonardo's have survived, but the drawings and sketches that he made show how preoccupied he was with the way bodies, plants and animals are structured. In technical detail, he explored muscle, movement and facial expressions: ‘Would that it might please our Creator, he wrote, that I were able to reveal the nature of man and his customs even as I describe his figure.'

Another iconic symbol of Renaissance art and culture is Michelangelo's statue, ‘David'. Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) studied Giotto and Donatello, and also the sculptors of ancient Greece and Rome, and, like Leonardo, learned anatomy through the study of dissected bodies. The statue of ‘David' has been described (as have many of Michelangelo's works) as ‘heroic' in style and size.

This quality is an important one in humanistic thinking:

Insofar as it magnifies the individual in his conflict with the blind forces of destiny it is the highest expression of a humanist ideal, and was recognized as such in antiquity. But the heroic stands on the borders of humanism, and looks beyond it. For to struggle with Fate man must become more than man; he must aspire to be a god.
Standing sixteen feet high, ‘David' is a technical achievement as much as it is a work of great art, reflecting the vigour and idealism of the period. Man is shown as an individual in charge of his own destiny, which was the current philosophy: ‘Men are themselves the source of their own fortune and misfortune.' Another great work of Michelangelo is ‘Pieta', the dead Christ lying on the Virgin's lap.

The body of Christ has Greek physical beauty, whereas the Virgin Mary shows a purity and spiritual beauty that expresses the emotion of grief in a way unseen before. Here, Michelangelo expresses the doctrines of Neoplatonism, ‘that physical perfection is the mirror and emblem of a pure and noble spirit.' In Plato's philosophy, the mind and soul of man was able to rise from its physical nature up to the world of ideas and ultimately to God.

The soul, therefore, was thought to have a natural love of beauty and truth, and these ideas can be clearly seen in Renaissance art.
Combined with the Renaissance Art's focus on beauty and realism, Italian artists of this period found themselves favoured by patrons and elevated to a high status in society: ‘Never before, and rarely since, had the creative role of the artist been valued so highly.


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