Renaissance

The broad name for European art from about 1400 to 1600, when painters and sculptors revived the forms of classical antiquity and the study of nature. It covers several schools this site also names on their own: the Early and High Renaissance in Italy, the Northern Renaissance in Flanders and Germany, and Mannerism at the end. What they share is a new idea of the picture as a window: a believable space built with perspective, bodies with weight and anatomy, light that falls from one direction, and the artist as an educated individual rather than an anonymous craftsman. Works filed simply as Renaissance are those the catalogues place in the period without a narrower school, often from Spain, France or the provinces of Italy.

How to tell it apart: Gothic before it is flatter, with gold grounds and elongated figures; Baroque after it is darker, more dramatic and full of movement.

2,657 works in the quiz. Play a round on Renaissance.

Artists

Leonardo da Vinci · Michelangelo · Albrecht Dürer · Sandro Botticelli · Hans Holbein the Younger · El Greco · Giorgio Vasari · Lucas Cranach the Elder · Benvenuto Cellini · Andrea del Verrocchio · Giovanni Bellini · Andrea Mantegna · Filippo Lippi · Domenico Ghirlandaio · Matthias Grünewald · Pietro Perugino · Pieter Brueghel the Younger · Il Sodoma · Hans Holbein the Elder · Jean Fouquet · Antonio da Correggio · Byzantine art · Gentile Bellini · Giambologna · Vittore Carpaccio · Pisanello · Luca Signorelli · Pinturicchio · Martin Schongauer · Hans Baldung Grien

Best-known works

“Self-Portrait with Fur-Trimmed Robe” — Albrecht Dürer, 1500
“Virgin of the Rocks” — Leonardo da Vinci
“The fountain of youth” — Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1546
“Young Hare” — Albrecht Dürer, 1502
“Adam and Eve” — Albrecht Dürer, 1507
“Ganymede Abducted by the Eagle” — Antonio da Correggio, 1520–1540
“Perseus with the Head of Medusa” — Benvenuto Cellini, 1545–1554
“Naked Young Woman in Front of the Mirror” — Giovanni Bellini, 1515
“Cupid Complaining to Venus” — Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1526
“Hercules and the Hydra” — Antonio del Pollaiuolo, 1475
“Portrait of a Princess” — Pisanello, 1437
“Leda and the Swan” — Antonio da Correggio, 1532
“The Rhinoceros” — Albrecht Dürer, 1512
“The Baptism of Christ” — Leonardo da Vinci, 1472
“Madonna of the Rose Bower” — Martin Schongauer, 1473
“Allegory of Patience” — Giorgio Vasari
“Self-Portrait” — Albrecht Dürer, 1498
“Feast of the Rosary” — Albrecht Dürer, 1506
“Testament and Death of Moses” — Luca Signorelli, 1482
“Venus and Cupid” — Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1509
“Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle” — Albrecht Dürer, 1493
“Praying Hands” — Albrecht Dürer, 1508
“Knight, Death, and the Devil” — Albrecht Dürer, 1513
“St. Jerome in His Study” — Albrecht Dürer, 1514
“Adoration of the Magi” — Albrecht Dürer, 1504
“The Four Apostles” — Albrecht Dürer, 1526
“Great Piece of Turf” — Albrecht Dürer, 1503
“Triumphal Arch” — Albrecht Dürer, 1512
“Adam and Eve” — Albrecht Dürer, 1504
“Madonna of the Pomegranate” — Sandro Botticelli, 1487