Skip to main content

Generally speaking, compared to the Middle Ages, there were higher standards of living, greater economic opportunities, and a higher life...

Firstly, if there is a specific context to which you are referring (e.g., a book that you are reading), please be sure to include that so that we may help you with referencing. Otherwise, if you are speaking merely in terms of historical contexts, I would have to disagree with you slightly.


The Middle Ages, sometimes still referred to as The Dark Ages, generally get a bad rap. It is true that those who lived during The Middle Ages were more concerned with religion, but this was due to the desire to firmly establish Christianity in the West, which remained under perceived threat from pagan Vikings in the North -- who frequently sacked the continent -- and Muslims from the East. 


It is also true that literacy did not begin to expand until the Late Middle Ages (c. 1300), as romances began to include the middle-class. Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales was written for and about such an audience. However, even before this time, there was an appreciation for illuminated manuscripts, romances, and visual art. It is just that these pleasures were only accessible to clergymen and members of royal courts. 


Economic opportunities existed during the Late Middle Ages through guilds. However, you are right to say that such opportunities increased during the Renaissance -- particularly since the Renaissance coincided with The Age of Exploration, which expanded trade opportunities for some nations. 


To answer your question, I would say that Humanism was the reason "for the rebirth of the cult of beauty." I left out the first part of your assessment because "the heroic ideal" was actually more preponderant in The Middle Ages. Look at the romances written from 1150-1500 in Middle English: King Horn, Guy of Warwick, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. All are romantic heroes. One could even look to Beowulf, written during the Early Middle Ages, for the construction of the heroic ideal. 


Humanism was centered on the belief that rational approaches were key to solving most of the problems of civilization. It also subordinated the Church's absolute authority, arguing that people were not innately sinful, but innately good. Therefore, human ideas should take precedence over those centered on the divine or the supernatural. The best examples the humanists had for this elevation of human ideas and creativity were those from the Classical world. It is no coincidence that Italy was the center of the Renaissance: the remnants of Ancient Rome's greatness were all around.


"The cult of beauty," as you call it, elevated Classical ideas about form and, most importantly, shamelessly depicted the nude human body. The body was not a source of sin, but a source of beauty for Renaissance painters.


In paintings from the Middle Ages, only religious figures were depicted and they were always clothed. Renaissance painters also depicted religious figures, but individualized them and allowed them to emote. However, Renaissance painters also depicted the pagan gods of the ancient world. In some paintings, religious figures were represented in forms that resembled ancient sculptures of pagan gods, allowing for an intermingling of religious and mythical contexts. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more