How Did The Renaissance Change Man's View Of The World

As the Medieval Ages drew to a close, the Renaissance proved to be a time of great change in European history. During the Renaissance the old superstitions and ignorance, which defined the Middle Ages, were gradually shaken off and replaced with a newfound yearning for knowledge and wisdom. It was the beginning of the age of the printing press, which made book learning more commonplace and affordable for everyone. The middle class became richer, larger and greater amounts of people were allowed to pursue an education instead of remaining ignorant to the world around them. As a result of these developments the greatest change of all came about, the change in man’s overall view of the world. The Renaissance altered man’s perspective from a spiritual based view to a factual based view in several areas of life by increasing the general knowledge of the society. An obvious area upon which people’s view was changed was man’s place in the world. Before the Renaissance many believed Ptolemy’s teachings, which taught that God had created man as the center of the universe and everything revolved around him. Only after thorough research and study …show more content…
The common practice was to paint normal, 1-dimensional portraits of saints and other biblical figures. However, this changed when Leonardo da Vinci popularized a way to make 2-dimensional art that focused more on common people rather than heavenly beings. He painted his legendary Mona Lisa with this format. The Mona Lisa proved not only to be realistic and better formatted than all other portraits of the time but also was the depiction of an ordinary, mortal woman, with no divine ties whatsoever. This knowledge and point of view quickly caught on among the artists of the Renaissance age. Before long every artist was painting 2 dimensional pictures with fewer and fewer sacred figures among them. (Document