culture, beliefs, and traditions
People use different means to express themselves, their culture, beliefs, and traditions. One of the best means that people have used to express themselves is art. From cave paintings that were drawn by man before he evolved fully to modern-day computer-assisted drawing, the idea of expressing one’s feelings, experiences, and beliefs is seen. With time, there have been many advances in artworks. The advances are all characteristic of certain eras. The characteristics make the works of art unique. One of the characteristics of art is naturalism. It is the act of expressing objects as they are in their natural setting. It entails considering all the details that make the picture seem as real as possible. This paper discusses the trait using some of the artworks that are seen to show the trait.
The trait was developed in the renaissance period, which ran from the 14th to the 17th century. The works that showed the trait started in the proto-renaissance period. One such work was painted by Giotto in 1303- 1305. He showed people who significantly real body sizes postures and gestures that rhyme to those of human beings in his artwork. The organization of the space was also an essential aspect of the art. In his piece, he showed figures who overlapped, which showed depth in the art. The art also avoids any unrealistic approaches to an idea.
Looking at an example of the artwork by Antonello da Messina which was drawn in the 15th century- Christ Blessing, the artist, seemed to depict a real version of Christ based on another painting by Byzantine Mosaic Christ Pantocrator. The latter was made in the 4th century and depicted an image of a man with two fingers stretched out. He has a halo that is adorned with jewels and a cross-like figure on it. The image that seems to portray naturalism has a different representation of the same idea. Though the man is holding out his two fingers, there is no halo on his head. He also seems to have placed his other hand on a table with an object on it. Christ Blessing was created in the renaissance period and aided in helping people identify with their faith. By depicting Jesus as realistically as possible, more people were drawn to the catholic faith.
Naturalism is seen in the picture in several ways. One of them is that the picture considers the depth. It also reduces the ideas of fantasy, such as a halo. Even though Christ was the son of God, he did not appear to have a halo on his head during his time on earth. The aim of removing such aspects is to achieve an authentic impression of the idea. The main reason why the people sought after naturalism was to achieve the classical beauty of an artwork. Artists tried to take to the trends of the classical era, which ranked art depending on how real it was. The result of such actions was the extreme cases where artists such as Leonardo dissected bodies to have a look at the intricate patterns of the human body. The people who drew the best art pieces were ranked higher during the classical period, which made more artists seek naturalism.