Summary of the Renaissance - Essay Example

Reason and not a blind following of the imposed doctrines by the church became the yardstick of the beauty, morality, and rightness of a principle or a thing. Rigid rationality and mathematical exactness have also been manifested in artistic pursuits during this period.

The beauty of balance and symmetry became evident in the artistic masterpieces that were produced herein. Having the notion that the ideal works of art should follow the strictly logical and mathematical guidelines, artists in this era produced almost perfectly symmetrical, proportional and balanced works of art. Renaissance architectural masterpieces were towering proofs of this artistic principle. According to Art History 361: Summary of the Renaissance: “A harmony of all parts with symmetry and order of geometric proportions and designs using Classical architectural elements” characterize Renaissance architecture.

The intricacy of the designs during medieval times was toned down to the simplicity cleanness of design. Architectural beauty was a by-product of mathematical exactness. Claude Fayette Bragdon critically discussed the relation of the artist’s personal beliefs and lifestyle to his works, in his book The Beautiful Necessity. For him, “art is an expression of the self in terms of sense.” Art then is a physical manifestation of one’s self—one’s ideology and tenets. Since art is a medium of expression, it subliminally evokes messages that create an effect in a person’s consciousness.

Just as a writer can affect the psychological status and character of his reader, artists, such as architects, also can affect the psyche spectator of his magnum opus. If writers use meticulously chosen words, sentences, and paragraphs to evoke effective messages to influence their readers, we can also say that each component of an architectural feat affects the psychological status of a person that receives what the particular work of art conveys. Thus, the structural organization of the parts of his art form reflects his personal character and by way of visual communication, he can also affect the moods of those seeing his work.

This is what the Renaissance artists believe in in the process of creating their masterpiece. The predominant philosophy in those times is the rebirth of intellectual and rational appetite that was mitigated by the mysticism of the Middle Ages. The orderly, systematic, harmonious, symmetric, and mathematical precision of architectural works during this period subliminally evoke the message that the person seeing the artist’s work should likewise become orderly, systematic and precise—qualities that personify the “ideal” person of the Renaissance period.