The Relationship between the Renaissance and the Greco-Roman World - Essay Example

The period of classical antiquity was characterized by the emergence of democracy and the establishment of city states which controlled large territories around the Mediterranean area. The medieval period in Europe was characterized by feudal systems and the dominance of the Christian Church. These more modern systems suppressed innovation and promoted a hierarchical and rigid view of the world. By the time of the Reformation a combination of natural disasters and religious warfare had begun to shake the foundations of these monolithic forces, and the best minds of the age started to look around for alternatives to the failing systems that they could see all around.

In Greece and Italy the ruins of the Roman civilization, in the form of physical buildings like the Parthenon and the Coliseum, and vast quantities of literature, art and sculpture paid testament to a world that had largely been swept aside. One of the greatest of the Renaissance scholars was Dante, and he is rightly remembered as one of the first authors to remodel old stories into a modern, superficially Christian guise. It has been noted that Dante “takes the Christian faith with awesome seriousness” (Johnson, 2000, p. 28) but at the same time is “critical of the Church” (Johnson, 2000, p. . In the fields of art and architecture the Italians were again the first movers towards a rediscovery of ancient geometry and other arts.

The use of perspective is widely cited as the most critical innovation in painting, but this was just one of many Renaissance experiments that took hold across Europe. Donatello, for example, tried out many different techniques and used a wide range of materials, sometimes following classical examples, but more often than not working out for himself how to use different tools and approaches. This daring departure from the familiar and the conventional is what is so special about the Renaissance, and it shows that what was taken from the classical world was not so much the detail of different artists’ techniques, but their open and curious attitude to the physical world: “It was Donatello who, as it were, once and for all, put human beings on their own feet, as they had stood in ancient times, as separate statues.

” (Johnson, 2000, p. 71) Just as Donatello’s art portrayed men standing free of supports, so the Renaissance approach to life was one of searching for freedom of thinking. The area of education also distinguishes the Renaissance from preceding centuries. Increasing numbers of people were living in towns, and there were extensive trade routes which allowed for the exchange of goods, and along with them, books and ideas. Study of the ancient textbooks on rhetoric and philosophy, along with some of the classics of ancient literature were now being studied in universities, including “Aristotle, the greatest encyclopedist and systematic philosopher of antiquity.

” (Johnson,