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The Renaissance

Sculpture and Architecture

Innovation in sculpture and architecture illustrates the theme of re-birth nicely. Italian artists in the early 15th century desired to imitate the works of the ancient Romans. They deliberately studied the ruined buildings and remaining statuary to try to learn the secrets of their construction.

For much had indeed been lost. No one knew how to construct a dome such as the one that covered the Roman Pantheon. No one knew how to construct the equestrian statues of the Empire, or even the free-standing human sculptures of the Greeks. Creating such works required a knowledge of materials and design that had simply been lost after the fall of Rome.

The Italians did recover, or at least re-invent, the techniques of the ancients. Donatello built the first free-standing equestrian statue, and Brunelleschi's dome over the cathedral of Florence actually surpassed that of the Pantheon. In both their cases, the artists had consciously sought to imitate the past.

Painting

The innovations in painting materials, on the other hand, were pure inventions. The most significant, the invention of oil paint, was actually the work of Flemish painters, though oil was quickly adopted in Italy as well.

Oil paint allows for richer colors and a more textured painting. It gives the artist a far greater range in which to work, and this alone marks a significant divide between Renaissance and medieval art. Oil on canvas, which is the medium most likely to occur to a modern person when thinking of "painting", was simply impossible before the 15th century.

The 15th century saw, in fact, an age of vigorous experimentation in the media of paint. Leonardo da Vinci is the most noted experimenter, forever trying out different mixtures of paint for his frescoes, but many artists were exploring the chemistry of paint.