The Rennaissance:
Hello again. This post is a bit late, so sorry about that but let’s get on with it. For this Unit we worked and learned about the Renaissance.
We pretty much studied three things that made the Renaissance really important in human history.
Changing ideas:
The first main part of the unit was focused on how the Renaissance changed ideas, ideals, and principles.
We studied how thinkers were starting to view how far humanity could go if it put its brainpower to it. They were becoming humanists. Humanists were spokesmen for humanism. Humanism is giving humanity top priority before gods or supernatural powers. It centred life around humanity. Ancient Greek philosophers had many of the same ideals. The Renaissane philosophers started studying and praising the Ancient Greek and taking many of their ideas. Many humanists or rebel priests started preaching that the Catholic church was wronging everybody. Back in the day pretty much the whole of Western Europe was Catholic. This where Protestant churches started emerging. The people were getting tired of the Catholic Church especially with more people preaching against them.
The artists were changing. The most famous paintings and statues came from the Renaissance. During this time it became a proffesion with a demand coming from rich families like the Medici or royal families. The elite were taking interest in art, it made them look more educated and rich. Some like the Medici started art schools. Many artist, like Leonardo da Vinci, were to only artist, they were also engineers architects, painters, sculptors, scientists and mathematicians. Some mixed all their talents into on job. Some Kings even would have the artist as their protégé. King Henry of France invited da Vinci to live with him for the rest of his life. Art was also changing. Art from the medieval times was pretty much mostly about religion. It was really two dimensional and didn’t ave much detail. The Renaissance changed that. Art was now about anything and not only the Church and the King. The details of paintings and sculptures was also changing. Paintings were more 3D and the detail was much improved.
Scientists and mathematicians the way we look at life, even if it went against the Church’s teachings. Galileo invented the telescope so we were suddenly able to look at lot further into the sky and we realized many things like some scientists/mathematicians/astronomers were starting to realize that the Sun was actually the centre of the Solar system and not the Earth. The Earth revolved around the sun not the other way around. Many astronomers like Copernicus who mentioned this turning point in astronomy were deeply criticized but the Church who had the people manipulated. Some astronomers were being apprehended and executed. These realization had people starting to doubt the Church.
Spreading ideas:
The printing press is definitely a candidate to most important inventions of humanity along with wheels, spears, cars, boats, and planes. It started spreading across Europe just like the knowledge it brought with it. Before the press people had to hand write books and the only people who were literate were super rich or they were monks. The printing press allowed books to be mass produced. With one press several books could be made every day but it took weeks or even months to hand write books. The value of books went down and now nearly everyone could buy books and not only the rich or just the Church. People everywhere were becoming literate. Knowledge was spreading and schools were becoming more available.
With people who could now read the Church was having a harder time convincing them of thing that weren’t true. With thinkers proving that many of the Church’s teachings were all made up. People could start counting their money and learn more about financial status. The Church that had been taking advantage of people’s illiteracy and some times pretty much stealing their money and possessions couldn’t do that easily any more.
Impact of ideas:
Many ideals and principles have been passed down from the Renaissance into our daily lives of the Western world. We focus more nowadays on ourselves and the people around us than a God or higher power. We believe that we can do many things and we have gone, quite far as to inventing car, planes, being able to explore space, building super tall skyscrapers and making computers. With new jobs emerging in the Renaissance, there are no thousands of jobs you can do. While before the Renaissance there was just a few options. Priest, servant or farmer, and if you got lucky you’d be born into a wealthy family.
Triptych:
Our main project for this unit was an individual one. We had to make a tritych.
Below is my first draft of my tritptych. The feedback that was given to me for this draft was that I had good ideas but it would be better if they could be more connected and intertwined.
Below is my final draft of my triptych.
The panel on the left (Changing ideas) represents doctors sytarted to dig into bodies and discovering things about bodies. I used a dead deer because a dead person didn’t seem right to put into my triptych, it could’ve been quite disturbing for some people. The middle panel (Impact of ideas) represents the initial Roman Catholic Church dividing into many different churches including all the Protestant churches that arose in the Renaissance. The right panel (Spreading ideas) is a woman reading a book with a stack of more books around her. The printing press behind her allowed to make books a lot cheaper and lot faster than handwriting all of them. The number of existing books skyrocketed in the Renaissance when the press was invented. The spread of knowledge led to a more educated public.
There were several interesting things this unit but it wasn’t my favourite for sure. While studying the impact of ideas part of the unit I really saw the connections between this time period and today’s Western culture. This period really has given many principles to today’s society.
Well that just about wraps it up folks. Until next one.