The Characteristics of the Renaissance

Renaissance means "rebirth". This is a cultural movement that took place from the 14th to the 17th century. It began in Italy and it later on spread to the rest of Europe. Some characterisctics of this movement is that painters stated using perspective on ther work. Also, there was an educational reform. People were more humanisctic and the idea of the "Renaissance Man" was developed. A "Renaissance Man" was someone who was good at everything he did. In the religious point of view since people started being more humanistic there was a backdrop in christianity, there were less believers. People were aware of the change, everybody knew that eveything was different. Leonardo DaVinci and Michaelangelo are the two most famous painters of the Renaissance. The made magnificent paintings with perspective. Michaelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sixtine Chapel and Leonardo DaVinci is best known for The Mona Lisa. It has been known that The Mona Lisa was originally a self-portrait of Leonardo but then he decided to make her a woman. There are many curious things about Leonardo's paintings: in most of them, there is always somebody pointing up.

As said before, the Renaissance started in Italy and it spread slowly through Europe. The invention of the printing press allowed this to happen much faster. After Italy, it spread to Italy's neighbor country, Portugal. It arrived because of Italian merchants. After Portugal, it got to Spain, it first started in the city of Valencia and then to the rest of Spain. Then, the renaissance got to Northern Europe, and change here was so significant that it was called the Northern Renaissance. In Englad the greatest change it had was in the English literature. As an example of this there is William Shakespeare, one of the greatests poets in history. Later it spread to Germany and Hungary at lastly it got to Russia. The Renaissance affected Russia in many ways, but mainly in architecture. Prince Ivan the II introduced this type of architecture to the Russians. And a Russian monk was the first to make Russian Vodka.