Humanism

• Renaissance artists became fascinated by the human body. The term humanism has additional meanings, but for Renaissance art, it refers to this fascination. Artists made subjects muscular, terse and attractive. Nudes appeared in paintings. Statues lacked clothes. Consider Michelangelo's famous statues of David: a 17-foot statue that shows a man with curly hair, muscles and a penis --- all revolutionary elements in artwork at the time.
  
  

Return to Ancient Greece and Rome

• After the fall of Rome, Western Europe lost much of its knowledge of Rome and Greece. It entered the Dark Ages, a period during which culture, technology and society lapsed back to a very basic state of existence. But in the 1400s, knowledge of Rome and Greece resurfaced in Western Europe, thanks to Muslim traders, Byzantine monks and Italians excavating ancient statues in their local towns. Scholars and artists became obsessed with the ancient styles of art and with figures from antiquity. For example, Rafael, a famous Renaissance artist, painted "The School of Athens," a portrait showing Athens' famous school that attracted philosophers such as Plato.
  
  

Christianity

• While Renaissance artists did re-discover ancient Rome and ancient Greece, artists still used Christianity and Christian ideas, too. The Virgin Mary became a young, beautiful woman. The baby Jesus was shown as a romping nude. Perhaps the most famous Renaissance art is The Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo's depiction of the Old and New Testament across an entire ceiling inside St. Peter's Basilica.
  
  

Three-Dimensionality

• Medieval art, the style leading up to the Renaissance, was very two-dimensional, and figures appeared flat on art. But the Renaissance artists took notice of perspective and angle and constructed figures in their art that looked much more life-like.