How Did Humanism Influence The Renaissance

Arguably the greatest and longest impacting movement brought about by the forward thinkers of the Renaissance was humanism. Humanism was a cultural and intellectual movement that emphasized the human potential to attain excellence through direct study of the literature, art, and civilization of the classical Greek and Roman societies (Merriam-Webster). The scholars and believers in humanism sought to change the course of society away from the narrow pedantry of medieval scholasticism and utilitarianism. Humanism was a basic desire for every citizen to be able to speak with eloquence and read and write with clarity, so that common citizens were capable of engaging in the civic life of their communities (Gray). The movement also emphasized the value of a human being as well as the importance of rational thought rather than blind faith in spiritualism or superstition. It also pushed people to explore human desires and pleasures while also enriching their minds. The influential nature of humanism was far reaching and most notable for its effects on Renaissance art, literature, and philosophy.

First, humanism is visible in many paintings and sculptures from the Renaissance time period, one example of this is Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is a very simple painting as far as what is shown, it is a woman seated in a chair and her upper torso and up is shown and she is sitting in front of a very scenic background with mountains, trees, water, and the sky. She is also dressed in very plain clothing, a brown dress. The Mona Lisa shows humanism in the fact that the painting has nothing to do or

It focuses on human beings, their values, abilities, and individual worth, and human society as something valuable that could be improved. Renaissance humanism challenged the worldview of the Middle Ages. Humanism led to new attitudes towards art, philosophy, and government. P.336 - P.344 (Document D)

Humanism is derived from the movement that happened from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. The start point of Humanism is in Italy. It is an important development during the Renaissance. Because of the terrible Black Death in 14th century. The population of Europeans decreased extremely. A lot of people died of the Black Death. At the beginning of that time, people thought the Black Death is God’s punishment for living life in sin. People went to Church and hope the forgiveness of God. However, the wide spread of the Black Death didn’t stop. The dead body forced the people started finding the other new way. Instead of believing in God, people started to think about science. The scientists did the research and treated the Black Death by more scientific way. People started thinking about the man himself and explored natural environment by more scientific method. The new ways of thinking influenced the development of Humanism in art during the Renaissance. The Renaissance artworks are about the re-discovery of ancient Greek and Roman artworks and their way of life. Humanists rejected the religion concept and not believe in the supernaturalism. They tried to discover the natural creatures and destiny of man. Artists learned the human beauty from the ancient Greek and Roman artworks and architectures. They began to find out more ideas about the human experience, personal independence and social community. They brought the Humanism ideas into their artworks.

“The church (…) individualism was identical with arrogance, rebellion, and sin”(doc 1). This shows that actions like rebellion and sin relate with individualism, which is just like Humanism. “In true order that mortal man should first care for mortal things”(doc 4). This just shows how important things have meant to people, and to respect person’s property. Humanism brought the idea of civilized people with great ideas into the world. Before the Renaissance, religion was everything, when the Renaissance came, the people were exposed to the arts and

The Renaissance period was impacted by humanism strongly because people were now starting to realize, they weren’t just peasants that worked for a lord but they too were people that could make their own decisions. People valued their self-worth now, and they wanted to learn about reading, writing, and the

One of the main ways that the art of the Renaissance was affected by humanism was that many artists of the Renaissance began to turn away from religious themes, unlike their predecessors from the Middle Ages. Humanism was embraced by artists of the Renaissance without hesitation. When humanism spread throughout Italy and Northern Europe, there was an eager audience for the new findings of classical traditions and art. In the beginning of the Renaissance, artists used themes that were taken from Renaissance humanist beliefs and philosophies. These themes were mostly secular, and sometimes involved a slight religious aspect, but usually depicted a scene of an ordinary place. This is different from the Religious scenes that were widely used during the Middle Ages because almost

Beginning roughly around the year 1400 an era in Europe began; one that would shape the ideas and the lives of men. This era of rebirth or renaissance came within the fifteenth century through the revival of classical texts. One central effect of the Renaissance was the production of a new intellectual idea: humanism. Humanism being defined as a, “[t]erm invented in the 19th century. . . [regarding] developments relating to the revival of Classical literature and learning in European culture from roughly 1300 to 1600” left its mark on all of Europe leaving nothing untouched not even the artist. Both northern and southern art would be affected by humanism but in different ways ranging from changes in the human form, new choices of

Was humanism really a factor in the Renaissance? Humanism is a outlook or a system that understands the importance of humans. Humanism was important during the Renaissance because it was a time when people changed how they thought about humanity, art and architecture. Humanism was expressed in the Renaissance through the works of “The Last Supper”, Romeo and Juliet, and Château de Fontainebleau.

During the 14th century, humanism started to spread from artworks of Petrarch and Boccaccio. Humanism emphasizes the importance the individual and the desire to learn and obtain knowledge rather than focusing on the divine and religious power. The spread of humanism is closely related to naturalism because naturalism also overlooks the idea of the divine being and emphasizes on the nature of things. Naturalism is a style of art that focuses on the nature of the object; to view and depict the object as close to its natural state. During the Italian Renaissance, classical Greco-Roman techniques were revived to incorporate a naturalistic effect.

Humanism in Renaissance There are two responses for Renaissance, the first one is Classical art reborn, and the second one is Humanism in Renaissance. People cannot present themselves in their works; they can only worship God as a standard of legitimacy in Medieval. In Renaissance, people begin to show the love of other things, such as a portrait, a painting of landscape and goods in their daily life. Compared to the period of Medieval and Renaissance, we can see the value of humanity is raising up quickly, and take over the critical social status that Divinity has in Medieval.

The Renaissance change the way people looked at humanism.Humanism is a when you turned away from the medieval things and take interest in the important ones. Although many people wanted to have individualism, most people did. They took a habit of being independent and self reliant. The Renaissance period changed the way people viewed things, like the complexity of men, artistic expression, and individualism.

For centuries, people looked to religion for the answers to their greatest questions. The Church had a firm grip of how people viewed the world. God's will was to be followed without question and any attempt to explain a phenomenon without God's involvement was heresy. When the Renaissance began to spread across Europe, the qualities of humanism became more prominent. Scientific and rational analysis was becoming of great interest compared to supernatural explanations. Renaissance world-view can be characterized by a growing humanistic orientation that can be demonstrated by analyzing cultural artifacts from the era.

Humanism describes the emphasis that was revived in the Renaissance when the Liberal Arts were used to distinguish man from beasts. Through letters--or scholarship--was sought a rebirth of spirit and spiritual freedom and justification of the claim to rational autonomy. In essence, the Renaissance was a revival of the capacities and powers of the ancients.

The gigantic effect that education had on Renaissance society was greatly stimulated by the new development of humanism. Humanism was responsible for the curiosity of many intellects during the Renaissance, which ultimately led to the discoveries and developments that made the Renaissance such a remarkable time. It proposed a different way of thinking, unprecedented by scholars. Without humanism and the educational interest that it brought about, the Renaissance would not be known as the explosion of culture that it is considered today.