middle ages vs. the Renaissance
...” followed, and based they’re ideas on the Aristotelian teachings that every other philosopher of the time used. As put by Bernard of Chartres, they were “pygmies standing on the shoulders of giants.” Art of the Middle Ages was as monotonous as everything else. The figures depicted in paintings looked, for the most part, the same. They lacked expression; the faces on a painting didn’t hold the smiles and frowns every individual has in reality. Physical differences were just as indistinct as expressions. When it came to each particular human form, they were flat and indistinguishable from one another. In the end, the art was purely symbolic and had no concern for the reality of the individual. With the Renaissance, on the other hand, came a great transformation in the way the individual was viewed. A key contributor to this change was Humanism. The Humanists were to the antiquities, as Scholastics were to Aristotle. However, rather than just adopt the ideas of antiquity, the way Scholastics had done with Aristotle, humanists took the words to heart and developed their own dispassionate opinions. Take for example Lorenzo Valla’s exposé on the Donation of Constantine. Although Valla was a good Catholic, individual, unbiased opinions, typical of humanists, lead him to write an exposé that later became an important text for the Protestants. As such, philosophers were becoming far more self-reliant, depending on their own personal ideas. Along with Renaissance art came realism, an attention to what was there and not just the shallow symbolism of the Middle Ages. In Michelangelo’s painting, Last Judgmen...