The Artists of the High Renaissance

The Artists of the High Renaissance

High Renaissance, that period of art at the beginning of the sixteenth

century, has been referred to as one of the great explosions of

artistic and creative genius in history. Most notable it seems, for

producing three of the greatest artists in history: Da Vinci,

Michaelangelo, and Raphael, the High Renaissance was referred to as

such not only because it was a period of great and high art, but

equally so, because it was essentially the culmination of the cycle of

art which preceded it, known as the Early Renaissance.

“Renaissance” stems from the French verb “naitre,” meaning “to be

born”. Thus, the Renaissance would forever be known as the “rebirth”

of critical artistic thoughts and ideals. Emerging from the much more

gothic and religious period that came before, the Renaissance would

most certainly prove to be one of the most enlightened periods in art

and thought that history would ever see. Italian High Renaissance

artists achieved ideal of harmony and balance comparable with the

works of ancient Greece or Rome. Renaissance Classicism was a form of

art that removed the extraneous detail and showed the world as it was.

Forms, colors and proportions, light and shade effects, spatial

harmony, composition, perspective, anatomy - all are handled with

total control and a level of accomplishment for which there are no

real precedents.

The High Renaissance included such great artists as Bacchiacca, the

painter of Ev...