Renaissance Art Likes

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   The most lasting legacy of the Renaissance was probably the outstanding artwork it produced. Especially in Florence and Rome, master artists emerged who produced astonishing works of art in sculpture, painting and architecture. The competitive spirit of the Italian city-states as well as the enormous wealth of families willing to patronize created a perfect environment for the flourishing of art. 
One of the first artists to incorporate new ideas into his artwork was Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337) who brought unprecedented elements of realism in his paintings. Giotto, a typical Renaissance jack-of-all-trades, also designed the innovative campanile (bell tower) for the Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedralor simply "The Duomo" in Florence. Flemish artists introduced oil paints, and the technique of perspective was introduced by artists like Tommaso Masaccio and Filippo Brunelleschi. Brunelleschi also designed the duomo (dome) for the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral, a breakthrough in engineering and architecture that showed Brunelleschi’s deep understanding of mathematics. 
Donatello (1386-1466) was an influential painter and sculpture of the early Renaissance from Florence. He sculpted a bronze “David,” the first free-standing nude statue since the days of the Greeks and Romans, and another famous statue of St.George. Titian (Tiziano Vicelli) (1477-1576) was a painter with an unprecedented use of color and loose brushwork, evident in his stunning masterpiece The Assumption of the Virgin. Raphael (1482-1520) also mastered the use of color and painted beautiful frescoes in churches and for private patrons, the most famous of which may be The School of Athens, an interesting painting depicting Plato and Aristotle surrounded by their pupils. He inspired the two greatest artists of the Renaissance: Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. 
Michelangelo (1475) is best known for his statue of David and for painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, an astounding fresco including over 300 Biblical figures, that took over 4 years to complete. He also sculpted amazing renditions of Moses and “the Pietà,” a poignant sculpture of Jesus in Mary’s arms after the crucifixion. Following Brunelleschi’s model Duomo in Florence, Michelangelo designed the dome for St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Although some say his earlier works (like David) reveal a humanistic outlook, later works (like the Pietà) reveal his deep and devout Christianity.  
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) embodied the “Renaissance man.” He was an architect, anatomist, sculptor, scientist, mathematician, musician, and painter. He created masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper. He kept notebooks full of drawings such as Vitruvian Man, and his observations from dissecting human corpses. It is said that Leonardo could draw with one hand while at the same time painting with the other, and he wrote backwards in his notebooks, so they would have to be held up to a mirror to be read. He was way ahead of his time and created conceptual designs for many devices such as a flying machine and an armored tank. He was the first to come up with the ideas of the calculator and the use of solar power for energy. check it for now more 