And the Transition to the Renaissance
Art in the earlier Middle Ages was a craftsmanship product. Master artisans might be well-paid and respected in their communities, but they did not sign their work or project their own personalities into their whole body of work any more than any other master craftsman did. They worked in different traditional styles in different parts of Europe -- predominantly a Byzantine tradition in Italy, and so-called Gothic tradition in the north. In both traditions, realistic representation was less important that stylized elements of composition.
In thirteenth-century Italy, this traditional craftsmanship approach to art began to change. An Italian master-craftsman named Cimabue worked in traditional Byzantine styles, but made his work so distinctive that he gained a reputation throughout Italy, and was mentioned by the poet Dante (Canaday 4). In the next century, this new development was taken a giant step further.
A painter named Giotto de Bandone -- born just a few years after Cimabue died -- not only gained a reputation for his personal style, but introduced dramatic new elements into his work. Giotto shadowed his human figures to give the illusion of three-dimensionality and arranged them in a way that was somewhat naturalistic, rather than purely stylized, and brought out their humanity (Canaday 6-7). In Italy, in the course of the century that followed, artists became more and more aware of themselves as artists. As they did, they became ever more experimental in their work. Over time, the naturalistic style we know as Renaissance would thus take hold.
Meanwhile, medieval Northern art was developing along its own lines. There as in Italy, some master craftsmen gained such wide fame that they became true professional artists. Often they continued to work in traditional media, such as the illuminated manuscript. An example is the Tres Riches Houres, a devotional man
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