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A Comparison of The Middle Ages vs. The Renaissance Essay

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The Middle Ages and Renaissance where worlds apart in every aspect of life. In areas of art, tools such as perspective, realism, and individualism showed the great leap in creativity during the Renaissance. Likewise, the worldly individual, or the “Renaissance Man”, was an improvement over the ignorant, spiritual man of the Middle Ages. Also, the revival of classical learning and education that occurred in the Renaissance was the exact opposite of the suppression of learning during the Middle Ages. The amount of unique advances made in the Renaissance in all areas cannot be paralleled by the progress set forth during the Middle Ages. The word Renaissance itself means rebirth, or the start of something new. Thus, with all these great …show more content…

In architecture, technology such as Brunelleshi’s dome and the use of Greek and Roman pillars and columns revolutionized buildings. Despite all these achievements, many people argue that the humanists were not cared about or considered important and that masterpieces of Renaissance sculpture were not widely seen or known (Document 3). This view is incorrect because the revival of the classics and the wide use of all of the different artistic techniques during the Renaissance such as realism and perspective were only possible because of the ideas and artwork that pervaded Europe. For example, the Northern Renaissance occurred partly because merchants bought art and books from Italian merchants and spread it through northern Europe where countless people viewed it and began creating similar paintings. Some major works such as the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica were in prominent places where many people would go to for religious reasons, and thus, a great amount of people were exposed to the work as well. In contrast to the Renaissance, during the Middle Ages there was no perspective or dimension, the temper paint was dull and unimaginative, and there was no realism or individualism. For example, the human body was distorted and unrealistic because babies looked like little men, and there was no individualism because religious and wealthy figures

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