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Mastery In Renaissance Art

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The artist from the renaissance period are thought to be the high Kings, and even associated to Gods, for the modern art era. The mixture of human compassion and deep religious piety created many greats works by artists like Michelangelo and Leonardo Di Vinci. However, with great skills, the artists taught themselves to be the best of the best, and compared themselves with the greats from Ancient Greece. Artists like Michelangelo and Rubens critiqued the artists in their age in order to see who among them can create perfection, or reach true mastery in art. While there were artists like who criticized for their work due to their gender, like Rosalba Carriera (female artist).
The artists in High Renaissance are known to be the kings of Modern …show more content…

Michelangelo criticized other artists from different regions, and placed to be beneath the artists from Italy. In the article Michelangelo on Flemish Art, it explains how Michelangelo thought the artists from different regions cannot be compared with the artists from Italy. He gave an example of comparing an Italian apprentice with Master from different region, i.e. a random Flemish Master in painting. Michelangelo then went on and said that the work created by apprentice will “have more substance in it than the drawing of the master, ad that what he attempted to do is of more worth than all that the …show more content…

He was critic of perfection, often criticized his own work for not reaching a point of perfection. In ‘De Imitatione Statuorum”, Rubens explains and criticizes the artists of his generation, and arrogance in their works. In the article, Rubens criticizes artists who have imitated works from the past in order to gain skill and mastery in art by recreating what have been created by the greats from the past. However, Rubens both is for and against the argument of imitation and copying of antique statues and works because artists who have mastered the skill can truly understand and learn from the work before them. Unskilled artists will create work that is both pernicious and disrespectful to the art. Rubens explain his reasoning from the passage in the article “difference of shades; where the flesh, skin, and cartilages, by their diaphanous nature, soften, as it were, the harshness of a great many out-lines…” (145). Rubens is stating even when an artist understands the element of shades, and giving the statue the flesh look, they still may not create the perfection as Ancient Greece once did in their statue. He then further states “lights of the statues are extremely different from the natural; for the gloss of the stone, and sharpness of the light...raise the surface above its proper pitch, or, at least, fascinate the eye.” Rubens is stating that when an artist is able to understand

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