Renaissance... Taschen small edition

The rebirth of culture

Art as we know it today could not exist had not the revolutionary work of the Renaissance artists paved the way. Widely considered the most important and influential movement in the history of fine arts, literature, architecture, and science, the Renaissance marked the emergence of Western civilization from the Middle Ages into the modern era. Beginning in the 14th century in Italy, the movement spread throughout Europe by the late 15th century, the main centers of fine art activity being in Florence, the Low Countries, and Germany. For the first time, art became intellectual; influenced by humanism, artists experimented with secular subjects and revived classical antiquity. Advances in anatomy and geometry produced more realistic depictions in terms of space and perspective for the Italians, while new oil painting techniques made their mark in Flemish painting and woodcuts and engravings were the specialties of the Germans.

Artists featured: Albrecht Altdorfer, Fra Angelico, Giovanni Bellini, Hieronymus Bosch, Sandro Botticelli, Pieter Breughel, Agnolo Bronzino, Vittore Carpaccio, François Clouet, Correggio, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Dürer, El Greco, School of Fontainebleau, Piero della Francesca, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Giorgione, Matthias Grünewald, Maerten van Heemskerck, Hans Holbein the Younger, Fra Filippo Lippi, Lorenzo Lotto, Andrea Mantegna, Masaccio, Antonello da Messina, Michelangelo, Parmigianino, Pontormo, Raphael, Luca Signorelli, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Uccello, Veronese, Leonardo da Vinci

My Opinion: I have recently decided to push my art culture to new areas such classical paintings and thus... Renaissance was the first name to pop to my mind as it probably the most important shift in Art History. Thus, I've been to the Ludwig Museum book shop to buy... TASCHEN book... you know... the can of book you feel like buying all of them and spending days and nights to read them... it's just perfect when you are a total novice like me.

Anyway, I bought this introduction book about Renaissance and I must say - aside from the very simple, clear and pedagogical structure of the book - I have been completely subjugated by the following 4 paintings from masters Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and my favorite... Andrea Mantegnas' Christ.
Perspective, composition and colors are absolutely phenomenal in these masters work and more especially - in my little nerdy novice opinion lol - in Raphael's "Transfiguration"; to me, it is very impressive work on composition (2 parts division, up and down to the Christ) as well as strong colors and humanity reality (I mean the little boy on the right down part having a kind of trans state or something... i know I am not clear... I don't even understand what I want to say... but its to say that, as far as I have understood, Renaissance is about catching human reality and beauty lol).
To finish, my favorite is Mantegna's Christ laying. To me, the actual point of view on the Christ body highlight his actual Human being or Human reality... not as the soon of God, but as a Human like everyone else. In this case, we are not into the traditional sublimation of the Christ figure but in more common presentation of God's son that makes it closer to audience and... finally even more beautiful in some point.
There you get my novice point of view :)