Why Renaissance artists were rebels?

The Renaissance was a monumental shift that involved many professions. But when you think of the Renaissance, which profession comes to mind first? Your answer is probably the artist. The artists did not only change art radically but they also changed how society viewed them. At the very beginning of the period, socially they were considered craftspeople, “lowly workers” who had to get their hands dirty to earn a living. They were in the same category as stone-smiths, blacksmiths, weavers and tanners. Like any craftspeople, the concepts of their handiwork were not their own, but had to align closely with the requests of their clients. By the end of the Renaissance, painters and sculptors rose up in social ranks and were highly respected in all European elite circles. For example, Pope Urban VIII (r. 1623–1644) was a patron and a close friend of the brilliant sculptor Bernini, who had to occasionally intervene to protect him. (In an infamous incident, Bernini lost his temper when he found out his lover cheated on him with his own brother. As punishment, he sent a servant to shred her face to ribbons with a razor. Thanks to the pope, he got away with only a fine!)

Renaissance artists replaced the flat Gothic art of the Middle Ages with realistic three-dimenstionality. A fresh look at the canvas involved techniques that utilized geometric patterns, accurate proportions, linear perspective, a vanishing point, and foreshortening (compressing an object to give the sense of depth). None of these innovations had been available before.

Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli represents two ways Renaissance artists broke from the past. It depicts a mythological theme – anathema to the Middle Ages where only religious icons were venerated. Secular subjects were widely explored in Renaissance art and personal portraits became common among the wealthy. Also, Venus, the pagan goddess, is stark-naked which would have been offensive to medieval eyes unless the icon is showing the horrors of hell or the garden of Eden. Nudity in paintings and sculpture was yet another declaration that the departure from medievalism is irreversible. The male figure was just as glorified as the female one. Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam is one famous example. Homoerotic undertones of Renaissance male nudity still raises eyebrows of modern museum visitors, stunned by the boldness of artists.

From the 1520, some Renaissance artists took a different path from what had been established as traditional for more than a century. They were the Mannerist artists. They chose to elongate the human figures to the point of absurdity and twist them in strange positions. They also abandoned the simpler order and perfectly symmetrical composition preferred by preceding artists and instead they crowded asymmetrical scenes with entangled human flesh. Although, they altered their artworks in defiance to Renaissance norms, they were still part of the same art movement and supporters of the same ideals. Hence, today we call their style the Late Renaissance.