How Did Classical Religion Influence Italian Renaissance Art?

Religious artwork has been prevalent throughout all of history. Christian artwork has been ever changing and evolving based on what it going on during the time period in which the work was created. In Romanesque artwork, art was imaginative and involved mysticism along with themes that represented their fears of the end of the world. In Gothic artwork, the art turned away from evoking fear and instead had the goal of bringing people into the church. In the fourteenth century, the religious art responded to the crises of the time period. During the Renaissance, artwork shifted to an interest in realism, which can be seen in Raphael’s Madonna and Child with the Young Saint John. The medium for this work of art is oil paint. it was painted in 1500 and is 47 inches in diameter.

The Catholic Church during the early 16th Century was rooted throughout Europe. The Church influenced every country and its respective monarchs through the Church’s wealth and power. The Catholic Church placed a tight hold on the general populace with individuals who went against the Church being branded as heretics and excommunicated. The wealth and power of the Church eventually caused the quality of the clergy to deteriorate. Priests became corrupt and subjected to their physical desires. They frequented taverns, gambled and kept mistresses. The reputation of the clergy were horrid as the general populace was relieved that “their priest [kept] a mistress” because it “[secured] their wives from seduction” The knowledge of the clergy degenerated as well as they were no longer required to learn and teach the Holy Scriptures because the Church dictated their actions. The pinnacle of the Church’s corruption was the sale of indulgences. An indulgence was the “extra-sacramental remission of the temporal punishment” sold by priests as a temporary relief from sins. The indulgences were then sold to the general populace for money as the monetization of a priest’s services. Johannes Tetzel was a prominent preacher of indulgences who relied on the money from the sales to subsidize the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome. The corrupt sales did not go unnoticed as Martin Luther, in an effort to stop the corruption of the Church, posted the 95 Theses on the door of a Castle

The Christian Church was absolutely instrumental in the art of the Renaissance. It was the driving force behind every inspiration; without the Church, there would have been no art. The Church was the only institution powerful enough to be able to support the commissions of all of the artwork, and it was the only institution, in which people had enough faith and devotion to spend so much of their time and money creating pieces that—although beautiful—were not necessities. The role of religion in art actually began during the Byzantine era. During this time, all artwork was religious in nature, and most of it was done in a consistently similar style so that figures from the Bible could be easily recognized by everyone and so that people

As the tenth century rolled about, the power of the Roman Catholic Church grew steadily stronger, the church had an argument with the normal Kingdom over who should rule supreme out of the Pope or the King, the church believed that the Pope who is the voice of God on Earth should be the ruler of the world while the peasants thought that the King should, the power struggle eventually ended with the Church coming out as the dominant force in the West. The Church passed a law that stated that everyone (mostly peasants) is forced to pay 10% of their income to the Church. The church had the ability to stop any laws that they did not like or make some new laws that benefited them, they were a very powerful group that could manipulate the peasants and knights in any way they liked, in Church there were photos of people being tortured in hell, this intensified the peoples longing for heaven and therefore extended the power and influence of the church. All Christians were expected to attend the mass and, by the 13th century, were expected to take the Eucharist at least once a year.

A main focus of this idea is with cultural, The church a powerful influence to the people in the middle age, especially the serf due to their quality of life. The peasants not having much in their current lives or much hope in the future, now have this new hope that is equal for everyone. This idea gave the church a lot power in the Middle Ages,”The most powerful unifying institution”(Doc 3). Therefore, the church had a strong political presents and well as a strong cultural influence as it often does now and again. Now exploring something that isn’t fully known it could be assumed that the church at the time was not a cause for a lot of trading.

It was felt to have a monopoly on the church and it basically meant that they could control of who went to heaven or hell. This made a huge impact on people’s lives and made more people go to the church. The catholic church played a lot of huge roles back in the day and still does to this

During the Italian Renaissance, people were influenced by positive values that helped change human expectations. The values that people based their lives on we're humanism, secularism, individualism, skepticism, generalism, and classicism. Humanism was the idea that people have the ability to do what they want in life. Those who believed in secularism tended to focus more on what they want to do in life rather than focus on religion. Artists show individualism through their artwork by creating more unique pieces. The people were always willing to ask questions due to their skepticism as well. Many talented individuals had skills with several activities expanding generalism is him in the Italian Renaissance. There was also an interest in classicism as people wanted to learn about ancient Greece and Rome.

Within the Middle Ages, the church became the most influential and important force for the European society. As the central governments of Europe grew weak, the church rose in strength. In result came an ever lasting battle between the two. Popes were in control of spiritual matters, and the emperor or king were in charge of political affairs. During the Middle Ages, the line in between spiritual and political was clearly not bold enough.

The Church during Medieval Europe was the most predominant institution of the time. The Church's power and influence penetrated deep into people's lives and served an important purpose in nearly all facets of Medieval people's day-to-day lives and practices too. For Example, the Church's sacramental and religious rituals distinguished certain significant events and rites of passages in people's lives. These significant events include: baptism, penance, confirmation, holy orders, marriage, the last rights and so forth. Furthermore, the Church's teachings were for the most part responsible for the predominant ideas and beliefs of ethics, morals and daily life of Medieval Europe.

Wider societal religiousness was expressed in many ways but one of the lasting legacies of religiosity is art, nearly all the art of the period was religious in nature and the most prominent characters in early renaissance artworks were Jesus, the Madonna and Francis of Assisi. Even in the early Italian renaissance, a time of supposed secular and rational awakening the artwork of Botticelli and Michelangelo depicted scenes from religion and was largely sponsored by the Church, this points to a general artistic and wider fascination with religion. The prominence of religious woodcuts in late 15th century peasant homes shows that religiosity was common among other levels of society, not just rich patrons. Whilst art is capable of having a value other than the religious, the expense and prevalence of religious art shows a widespread reverence and belief in Christianity. This reverence and belief gives the claim of religious motivated persecution significant credibility. The way the Church wielded religious power points to it being highly likely that heretics were persecuted because religious orthodoxy was deeply respected. The religious power is made most clear by the use of excommunication. In 1363 the Lord of Milan was excommunicated for capturing castles against the Church’s wishes, he gave back the territories and the excommunication was lifted. The ability of a threat using no physical force to make powerful lords and kings cease their militaristic and political activities indicates the level of power of religious threat. Peasant and gentry fears over the power of excommunication were due to a fear of death without entry to heaven, this same fear was exploited over the issue of persecution, a person would be incredibly likely to persecute heresy if

Second, the church was a major political force. Therefore kings and queens wanted/needed papal approval like when they were somewhat weak, as in times of conflict. This allowed the Church to exercise political power as it could help to determine which claimants to a throne would be deemed acceptable.

In Europe, the history of the Middle Ages or Medieval time lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. During the Medieval period the Church dominated everybody’s life. During this time everyone believed that God, Heaven, and Hell all existed and the only way into Heaven was by approval by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church exploited it’s peasants by making them work for free and making the peasant’s bring in money or food for the Church. The way into Heaven cost a price.

During the Middle Ages, symbolism was a big part of the current day art because of the major focus on the church and theology. Jesus and Mary were big symbols during that time, which is evident in the numerous paintings of them from the Middle Ages (Class Notes). During the Middle Ages, Jesus, Mary, Angels, the devil and the cross were huge symbols. In the painting Duccio, Jesus

Many of us today have things in our culture that we appreciate without thinking about where they have come from. The things we enjoy so much could be from another culture, and even another place in time. This document will explore the influence of Italian Renaissance art on today's civilization, which has greatly changed the art of today.

The Renaissance time period was home to many new ideas in art. This includes new artists bringing forth ideas that had yet to be discovered and made popular. New themes and types of art were also being brought forward during this period.