Renaissance Art and Paintings

In art, Renaissance means the revival of the art and ideals of ancient Greece and Rome that began in Italy around 1400. The word is French for rebirth: Tate describes the Renaissance as the great revival of art in Italy from about 1400 under the influence of the rediscovery of classical art and culture, and the National Gallery in London says the term is used both for the period from the 15th to the end of the 16th century and as a stylistic label for its art.

Sources: Tate: Renaissance · National Gallery: Renaissance (glossary)

Renaissance art is known for lifelike, idealized figures in convincing space, models taken from ancient Greek and Roman art, and calm, balanced compositions. The Getty's art vocabulary describes the High Renaissance as a vision of human grandeur, heroic action, compositional order, symmetry, balance and harmony. Painters built space with linear perspective, which Leon Battista Alberti described in 1435, and Leonardo softened outlines with sfumato, gradual passages of tone without harsh lines, the National Gallery in London explains.

Sources: Getty AAT: High Renaissance · Getty AAT: Renaissance · National Gallery: Linear perspective (glossary) · National Gallery: Sfumato (glossary)

The Renaissance in art began in Italy around 1400 and lasted until about 1600. Tate dates the revival from about 1400 and its peak, the High Renaissance, to about 1500–1530, in the work of Michelangelo, Leonardo and Raphael. From about 1520, Tate says, followers of Raphael and Michelangelo turned to Mannerism, and the Renaissance style was later transformed again in the Baroque. The National Gallery in London uses the term for the period from the 15th to the end of the 16th century.

Sources: Tate: Renaissance · Tate: Mannerist · National Gallery: Renaissance (glossary)

Renaissance art started in Italy, in Florence, and spread to Rome, Venice and the rest of Europe. The National Gallery in London links the new, more realistic style to Masaccio and Donatello in Florence, and the Getty's art vocabulary says the High Renaissance developed in Florence and Rome in the 1490s. Venice had its own school, with Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Veronese, and the Getty adds that the Renaissance reached northern Europe in the late 15th century, the subject of our Northern Renaissance page.

Sources: National Gallery: Early Renaissance (glossary) · Getty AAT: High Renaissance · Louvre: From the Mona Lisa to The Wedding Feast at Cana · Getty AAT: Northern Renaissance

Renaissance painting started with Masaccio in Florence in the 1420s, building on Giotto a century earlier. The National Gallery in London calls him the most revolutionary painter of the Early Renaissance and one of the founders of the Florentine school: he modeled monumental figures with light, as Giotto had done a century earlier, and combined this with linear perspective. The Gallery also credits Masaccio and the sculptor Donatello with introducing the more realistic style of the Early Renaissance.

Sources: National Gallery: Masaccio · National Gallery: Early Renaissance (glossary) · National Gallery: Giotto

The great artists of the Renaissance include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, the masters the National Gallery in London names for the High Renaissance. Before them came Masaccio, Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca and Sandro Botticelli in the 15th century, and in Venice Giovanni Bellini and Giorgione. The Gallery calls Raphael the supreme High Renaissance painter and Titian the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice.

Sources: National Gallery: High Renaissance (glossary) · National Gallery: Raphael · National Gallery: Titian · National Gallery: Masaccio · National Gallery: Fra Angelico · National Gallery: Piero della Francesca

Early Renaissance painting is the Italian painting of roughly the 15th century, from Masaccio to Botticelli. The Getty's art vocabulary says it moved away from the fantastic, decorative styles of the Middle Ages toward the idealized, natural world of classical Greece and Rome. The National Gallery in London names Masaccio's realism, Fra Angelico's use of linear perspective and Paolo Uccello's experiments with it; Uccello's Battle of San Romano, Piero della Francesca's Flagellation and Botticelli's Birth of Venus all belong to this phase.

Sources: Getty AAT: Early Renaissance · National Gallery: Early Renaissance (glossary) · National Gallery: Fra Angelico · National Gallery: Paolo Uccello

High Renaissance art is the work of the Renaissance's short peak, from about 1500 to 1530, in the work of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. The Getty's art vocabulary says it developed in Florence and Rome in the 1490s, ended with the rise of Mannerism in the 1520s, and is marked by human grandeur, heroic action, order, symmetry, balance and harmony. Tate sees Raphael's work as the purest form of the Renaissance style; the National Gallery in London adds Titian to the High Renaissance masters.

Sources: Getty AAT: High Renaissance · Tate: Renaissance · National Gallery: High Renaissance (glossary)

Renaissance painters used linear perspective, oil paint and fresco in new ways. Linear perspective makes parallel lines meet at a single point on the horizon, a system Alberti described in 1435. Egg tempera, the medium of most early Italian paintings, was often combined with oil in the late 15th century and became less common after 1500, the National Gallery in London says. Frescoes were painted on wet plaster; Leonardo broke that rule in the Last Supper, painting on dry plaster so that he could work slowly.

Sources: National Gallery: Linear perspective (glossary) · National Gallery: Tempera (glossary) · National Gallery: Fresco (glossary) · Last Supper Museum (Cenacolo Vinciano): The Last Supper

Much Renaissance art was religious because it was made for churches, chapels and monasteries and paid for by popes, religious orders and devout patrons. Popes Sixtus IV and Julius II commissioned the Sistine Chapel frescoes; Leonardo painted the Last Supper for the dining hall of Dominican friars, and Veronese painted The Wedding at Cana for a Benedictine monastery. Altarpieces, the National Gallery in London explains, were the focus of worship in a church. Of the 2,088 Renaissance works in our catalogue, 1,152 are religious.

Sources: Vatican Museums: Sistine Chapel · Last Supper Museum (Cenacolo Vinciano): History · Louvre Museum · National Gallery: Altarpiece (glossary)

Renaissance art replaced the flat, decorative style of medieval art with lifelike figures, real space and models from ancient Greece and Rome. The National Gallery in London describes Gothic figures as elongated, with flowing, linear drapery, and calls Giotto the chief liberator of Italian painting from the Byzantine style. The Getty's art vocabulary says the Early Renaissance moved away from the fantastic, decorative styles of the Middle Ages toward the idealized, natural world of classical art.

Sources: National Gallery: Gothic (glossary) · National Gallery: Giotto · Getty AAT: Early Renaissance

Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling for Pope Julius II between 1508 and 1512. The Vatican Museums say he signed the contract on 8 May 1508 and finished in October 1512, and that the Pope inaugurated the chapel with a Mass on 1 November. He set nine stories from Genesis, from the separation of light and darkness to the drunkenness of Noah, in painted architecture, with prophets and sibyls on thrones below. He returned in 1536–1541 to paint the Last Judgment on the altar wall.

Sources: Vatican Museums: Sistine Chapel ceiling · Vatican Museums: Sistine Chapel ceiling, central stories · Vatican Museums: Sistine Chapel

The Uffizi in Florence holds Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Primavera, Titian's Venus of Urbino, Michelangelo's Doni Tondo, Raphael's Madonna of the Goldfinch and The Baptism of Christ. The Louvre in Paris shows the Mona Lisa in its largest room, the Salle des États, opposite Veronese's Wedding at Cana. The Sistine Chapel ceiling is in the Vatican, the Last Supper in Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, and Giorgione's Tempest in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice.

Sources: Uffizi Galleries · Louvre: From the Mona Lisa to The Wedding Feast at Cana · Vatican Museums: Sistine Chapel · Last Supper Museum (Cenacolo Vinciano): History · Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice (Italian)

Yes. Every painter on this page died by 1660, so their paintings are in the public domain in the United States and in countries where copyright ends 70 years after the artist's death. You can download them free and use them for anything, including commercial projects. A few countries have their own rules on photographs of artworks, so check them if you publish outside the U.S.

Sources: Cornell University Library: Copyright Term and the Public Domain