Renaissance Changed the Individuality of Humans
How
the
Renaissance
Changed
the
Individuality
of
Humans
The Renaissance changed how people viewed themselves from the Middle Ages when
Christianity was so important. Human anatomy, man’s temperament, man’s role in the universe
and people in art all show the decreased importance of Christianity and the increased
importance
of
how
individuals
viewed
themselves.
The perception of human anatomy and its function from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
has changed greatly and diminished the importance of Christianity. The first theory, “Zodiac
Man,” believed that each sign of the zodiac ruled a part of the body. A zodiac is a constellation,
which is part of the universe that God created. With the importance of Christianity, people in
Europe at this time surely did believe that these constellations were controlling the body
(Document H). Belgian physician, Andreas Vesalius, who actually dissected the human body to
better explain what actually happened, made another theory about how the human body
worked. He discovered this hypothesis over 30 years after Johann; this new notion better
explained how the body actually works and was more realistic (Document I). After the
announcing of this new theory, the importance of how individuals viewed themselves were
increased while people were starting to question how important Christianity really was.
Man’s temperament through plays showed how Christianity was all that the people of the
Middle Ages could think about but then there is a gradual change of how Christianity was
viewed in the Renaissance. Plays were conducted for people who were illiterate, this play is
written by an unknown author at the start of the Renaissance but the lines of the play carry a
meaning straight out of the Middle Ages. Many at this time knew that God was perfect and
people felt that they also needed to be flawless in order to go to heaven and live an eternal life.
The author starts the play off by saying that sin in the beginning is “full sweet” but in the end
“causeth thy soul to weep” (Document D). The author is saying that people should not commit
a sin otherwise they will go to hell. He also states that the individuals should listen to what God
has to say in order to live a good life. Otherwise, Shakespeare states, “what a piece of work is
man” (Document E). This line, along with the rest of the excerpt is dictating that men do make
mistakes; they aren’t perfect because no one is. These two passages from the plays show the
different perception of religion, the excerpt from the Middle Ages is stricter on Christianity and
how it is perceived thanthe excerpt from the Renaissance, where how sin is morally accepted
because
of
everyone’s
imperfections.
Man’s role in the universe shrunk the importance of Christianity and amplified man’s sense of
individuality from the different drawings of the universe and how the two developed and
changed people’s understanding it. Ptolemy developed a theory of the universe that he himself
and other scholars believed during the Middle Ages, and that was that earth was the center of
the universe. God, having created the universe and the world in which the nation lived, the
scholars believed that it would be “geocentric” (Document F). A new concept came along by
Copernicus; he believed that the sun was the center of the universe by only relying on
mathematics (Document G). Since the universe had been noted as being “heliocentric,” people
started relying less on Christianity and started trusting themselves as individuals. People in art
developed more knowledge on paintings and developed new artistic styles at the time of the
Renaissance, which caused them to lead off of Christianity in their paintings and focus more on
people and how they are perceived. Faces in the paintings from the Middle Ages through to the
end of the Renaissance changed, scenes became less biblical and more realistic. In the Middle
Ages, the painting was very religious. This biblical scene shows Mary and Jesus surrounded by
angels, her face does not look accurate, especially not as accurate as a face that one would see
in present time. Also, Jesus does not resemble a baby but looks more like a miniature man
(Document A). With a drastic change, the Mona Lisa shocked many people with how realistic
her smile is. Whenever in a room with this painting, the eyes will always follow which is a
relatively new artistic style at this time (Document B). The real difference between these two
paintings is that in the one from the Middle Ages, the artist does not know what Mary nor Jesus
looks like because they lived in the biblical age, dying long before the Middle Ages therefore the
artist trying to perceive the image of them is difficult. Contrarily, the Mona Lisa is a real model
posing for the painting. In da Vinci’s work, there is no sign of a biblical scene in his objective.
Leonardo’s portrait helped people in the Renaissance stray from Christianity and appreciate
themselves as individuals. Literacy at the time of the Renaissance started to spread, more
educated people started questioning the teachings of the Church. Humanism, a movement
where people developed, praised the beauty and intelligence of the individual started to
advance at this time. Humanism worked its way into the arts, literature, the sciences and
medicine. It started to change the individuality of humans through the human anatomy and
how the constellations that were first controlling the body but have now learnt that humans
are the ones to actually control themselves on what they do and say. Man’s temperament and
how plays taught people that sometimes people sin because no one is perfect. Man’s role in the
universe and the two different drawings show that the earth is not the center of the universe
but the sun is. People in art drifted from biblical scenes and started to focus more on people
and the realism in painting real figures. These things all show the decreased importance of
Christianity and the increased importance of how individuals viewed themselves.