Onward with the past: "Renaissance", a period of emulated antiquities // Ricalcando il passato: “Rinascimento”, un periodo di antichità emulata
Beauty and equilibrium. These are the key words to describe the notorious period known as "Renaissance": in truth, as the denomination clearly suggests, art in this century is but a mere copycat of what had already bloomed during the golden age of antiquity. Renaissance artists envied those endearing elements of Greek perfection, that ancient equilibrium between composition and silhouette, graceful yet sturdy form apprehended in all those marble and bronze sculptures, all achieved through creativity and a few methodical hits from a chisel. But why? Wouldn't a period like this, splitting the second millennium down the middle, be more apt to turning a corner? Why such a need for digging up bones as far as ancient Greece and Rome? The answer is quite simple: to continue walking forward, first we must take a step back. Considering the period Europe had just emerged from, the Middle Ages, which are conventionally crowned as "the Dark Ages", we find that it was a f...