Renaissance: Naturalism And Humanism In The Italian Renaissance

Topic sentence. Humanism is defined as, “A Renaissance intellectual movement in which thinkers studied classical texts and focused on human potential and achievements” (“World History: Patterns of Interaction”). Humanism prompted the people of the Renaissance to rediscover the teachings of Ancient Greece and Rome, evolving the previous beliefs of the Middle Ages into a culture that focused on the beauty of the individual, and the desire to learn. The movement, which had an immense impact on the people of the Renaissance, began in Italy and continued to extend across Europe. As humanism spread, it caused Italian artists to implement realism, create more visual art, and depict the intellectual flourishing characteristic of the Renaissance. Humanism inspired artists of the Italian Renaissance to present realistic portrayals of humans and nature through their art. Michelangelo Buonarroti featured the human form and heroic figures as subjects in his work, similarly to the artists of classical antiquity. As humanism influenced the people of Italy to focus on the individual instead of the divine or supernatural, artists illustrated the beauty of the human body in more detail than was used during the Medieval period. In the painting The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo realism and naturalism, both of which are predominant features of humanism during the Renaissance. The Creation of Adam

Due to the spread of humanism throughout Italy, artists were shaped by the revival of Greco-Roman teachings. The beauty and mystery of the natural world and the importance of education were once again esteemed as they were in Ancient Greece and Rome. To conclude, the spread of humanism and the reemergence of individualism had a major impact on the formation of Italian Renaissance