European History Essay, Research Paper

The saying A picture is worth athousand words, sounds unrealistic, but in fact it makes a lot of sense. When researching a certain time period artis a great way to understand what was going on at the time the piece wasproduced.

Artistsof the medieval era expressed what were going on in their lives more thenanything. There paintings were verymuch alike. Madonna and throne was themost popular thing to paint. They werevery dark and uneventful, because during that time there were some verydepressing things going on. The BlackDeath was killing many innocent people during this time period. Also due to the Black Death many peoplebegan loosing their faith in God, so people became very dark on the inside, andit cam out in their paintings. The church was very strict on how you couldportray any of the religious figures. So in every Madonna and throne you would see a very dark and plainbackground. Then Madonna and baby Jesuswere always in the exact same position, and it just looked very unhappy.

Then the Renaissance came and it was muchdifferent. Now Madonna and baby Jesushad actual interaction between each other. They would be in a group of people around watching, much like you see ineveryday life when everyone is crowded around the newborn baby because he is socute. There was more color and othernew techniques to make people look more realistic. The paintings took place in people s houses, in the street, andin fields. All around people lookedmuch happier then when the same people were painted during the medieval era.

Art is created by the artist s feelings and surroundings;it is a reflection on culture and lifestyles. That is why historians rely on not only records of the towns, cities,countries, etc they rely on paintings to tell about how the people werefeeling.