The Renaissance, or rebirth, in Art History is one of my favorite periods of time, for that was when portraiture began to take off. The painters who are referred to as the 'Great Masters' lived in this era. It was during the Renaissance that Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel with some of the most famous paintings in history, like The Creation of Adam seen below:
or the Mona Lisa
were created.
Another reason why I like the Renaissance period is that artists began experimenting with foreshortening and perspective. An example of foreshortening is blatantly revealed in the painting, Dead Christ by Andrea Mantegna, seen here:
When something is foreshortened, the portion closer to the viewer is large and the object or body, in this case, is shorter that reality and angled, versus strictly horizontal or strictly vertical.
When something is created in perspective, a horizon line is plotted, and the main focal point, a single point in 1-point perspective, is plotted on the line where the viewer's eyes should be. Then all the vertical lines in the image are angled toward that point, as seen in Christ Delivering the Keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter, painted in the Sistine Chapel, seen below:
All the vertical lines converge on the building in the background.
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