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Article: Painting
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PAINTING
PAINTING.
Renaissance artists broke decisively from their medieval predecessors by looking to nature as their guide in the art of painting. Through observation and imitation, artists strove to construct a lucid depiction of their world. Mathematical principles were
applied to establish a canon of proportions, aided immeasurably by the study of antique, classical sculpture. Painters experimented with perspective
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the technique of depicting forms and their spatial relationships on a flat surface to create the illusion that the viewer is looking through a window
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and brought it to ever greater levels of perfection.
In terms of technique, these illusionistic ...