Renaissance: Art, Literature, and the Resurgence of Classical Ideals
General Characteristics of the Renaissance
The Exaltation of the Classical World
The Renaissance is characterized by the recovery of Greco-Roman culture, sublimated by the importance of humanism. To rediscover the classical world, humanists set an ideal of beauty and perfection. Art and literature of the Renaissance formally imitate classical models and are filled with cultural references to the Greco-Roman world, especially its mythology, which offers a variety of pagan gods and heroes to inspire sculptural, architectural, or literary works. The artistic and literary style of the Renaissance adheres to the classic canon of beauty, based on harmony, proportion, balance, and naturalness. Reality is valued as it is naturally provided.
Individualism
The significance of man leads to the gradual shift from medieval theocentrism to modern anthropocentrism. A new sensitivity and vital optimism emerge, dominated by a sense of security and self-assertion. Conscious of their inventiveness, individuals proclaim their superiority in nature and believe that effort can lead to improvement, fame, and fortune. This fosters pride and sensitivity to the pleasures of earthly life. God remains the source of existence, but man is regarded as the greatest achievement of creation.
Nature
Man’s gaze toward nature and its laws becomes critical and rational. There are attempts to conceptualize the world so that it can be understood by intelligence. Reason is valued as an instrument of knowledge. The Renaissance was a dynamic period with great intellectual curiosity that paved the way for the 17th century, when Galileo and Descartes strengthened the foundations of modern science.
Religion
The religious field is where the difference between the medieval and Renaissance periods is most noticeable. New approaches renew religious spirit and behaviors. The medieval prohibition against freely translating scriptures is challenged. Renaissance individualism, even within the Catholic Church, encouraged a critical attitude that defended the free interpretation of the Bible and questioned the authority of the Pope.
Neoplatonism
Renaissance aesthetics is based on a revival of Plato’s philosophy, which centers on the opposition between the material world and the world of ideas. The soul, the spiritual part of man, originates from the world of ideas and yearns to return. In this ideal or metaphysical stage, love, a cosmic force, urges the union of beings so they can achieve greater perfection and divinity. Man’s mission is to discover the hidden beauty in nature, embodied in the landscape, the human body, or the work of art. Sight is the primary sense for admiring beauty. Its contemplation produces aesthetic enjoyment that elevates the spirit and brings one closer to God. If God created man, the full experience of humanity is divine. Love is a sublime feeling arising from the soul’s inclination towards beauty, reflected in art forms.
The Renaissance Lyric
The Renaissance lyric follows the models of Petrarch’s songbook and classical poets like Virgil, Horace, and Ovid. Renaissance aesthetics led to the meticulous study and imitation of Latin poetic rules. The great Renaissance poets skillfully adapted classical learning to the rhythm and nuances of their vernacular languages. The primary subject of the Renaissance lyric is love, although patriotic and religious themes also appear. The poet examines their inner world to discover the pleasures and anxieties of love. Love leads to the search for beauty, which the lyric identifies with women and landscapes as archetypes of perfection. Petrarchism, Neoplatonism, and the courtesan tradition introduce the notion of an ideal world where love is a higher power dominating individual will. In conflict with reality, the poet experiences love as contradictory, dramatic, and ultimately impossible. Following Petrarch, the Renaissance poet reflects on the past with melancholy, remembering their mistress, reliving happy moments, and mourning their loss. Away from others, they reflect on the frustrations of love in the idyllic setting of a perfect nature, employing the literary trope of locus amoenus (pleasant place) from the Latin tradition.