Comparing Medieval and Renaissance Painting

Imagine that you were born in the Middle Ages when you had no room for your free thought. You had to be busy from dawn till dusk working on a farm. If you wanted to enjoy art at that time, there were only paintings based on religion. But if you were born during the Renaissance, it was a time that placed great value on your free thought and artistic abilities because it was a time when humanity and human nature were valued more than religious teachings. The Renaissance was also a time of many new ideas and innovations in painting. We can see them by comparing a Medieval painting and a Renaissance painting of the same subject matter, the Last Supper.

This first picture is a Medieval painting by an unknown artist. In the foreground, we can see there is a group of men having their supper. They’re sitting around a table. All of them are wearing traditional robes. There are several buildings in the background. The sky is bright. The artist has used very basic colors, such as red, blue, and white. Simple line drawings of faces give the effect of emotionlessness or the same emotion on their faces. We can see the picture looks so spiritual, as the artist has drawn a halo around the head of the person in the corner. For me, as a viewer, there is no artistry in this painting, perhaps because of the colors used by the artist. Observing this painting gives the viewer some insight into the paintings of the Middle Ages. It has a very religious nature and does not present the feelings of people.

The second picture is a famous painting called “The Last Supper” by Leonardo Da Vinci. This was painted in the time of the Renaissance. In this picture, we can see a group of men sitting behind a big rectangular table and having their supper. They are wearing ancient Greek clothes. We also can see a beautiful range of mountains in the distance from the window. This dining room’s walls are painted white on the right and black on the left. This picture is full of emotions and actions. It seems like these people are spreading rumors and scolding the person in the middle of the table. The artist has used a mixed combination of colors such as dark black and others, bright red, green, and blue. This picture is full of human activities, feelings, and behavior. All of that is depicted by the artist in a variety of colors, in three-dimensional form, and very vividly.
Both artists depict the same incident, but as a viewer, the impressions are so different when comparing the two paintings. The first picture seems to be painted to tell stories about religious history. The second picture makes the spectator feel like they are there at the time of the incident. The people in the first picture seem to all be in the same pose, but in the second one, the picture is full of emotions and actions. Those are the characteristics that make the second picture more realistic. The artist has used the physical proportions of real human movements. The people seem to have more energetic movements, which makes the picture more dramatic.
Several innovations make Renaissance painting more visually interesting. Chiaroscuro is one of the main innovations that developed with Renaissance painting. Chiaroscuro, in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, which gives the image a three-dimensional effect(Amazing Leonardo Da Vinci Inventions: You Can Build Yourself Book by Maxine Anderson; page 13). This effect gives the objects in the picture a more dramatic presentation.
Using physical proportions of people is also one of the major innovations in renaissance painting. As we observed in the first picture, the artist didn’t paint that many actions, and the actions in the painting are so artificial. In the second picture, the Renaissance artist was more concerned about the actual physical proportions of people rather than the medieval artist. It makes the painting more realistic.
Such innovations and discoveries show how the narrow artistic ideas of the medieval artist changed in the face of the Renaissance. You can see this by looking at paintings like these by medieval and Renaissance artists. The medieval artist does not seem to devoted their time to the study of art because at that time people did not value art in the same way. In contrast, Leonardo’s painting shows how Renaissance people were much more interested in human actions, thoughts, and emotions.