by OneVike
Art, Inventions & Explorations
ART It has been said that if a work of art dwells upon beauty, it will inspire the viewer to make that beauty a part of his life and his outlook on the world. In this sense the art of the Renaissance Age gave men a reason to reflect upon their place in the world more than their relationship with God. This new style allowed some men, known as the secular humanists, to see themselves as being separate and autonomous from God. Francis Schaeffer, in his book ”Escape from Reason”, describes this as man dwelling more and more on the nature of his reality and less on the spirituality of his soul. Then you had the religious humanist who would be influenced by seeing the true beauty of what God created. Michelangelo, said “I am only the tool God uses to release the beauty he has encased in the marble.” These religious humanists felt like they were part of God’s world not just spectators that were in the way of the Churches ambitions.
Contributions to the arts were closely related to the broad transformations that were taking place in society. With funding supplied by wealthy men such as the Medici family, artists were able to experiment with innovative new ideas. These artists learned how to use linear perspectives in their paintings, while representing objects in relative sizes so that smaller objects appeared to be farther away than larger objects. Art began resembling the philosophy that the created was more important then the creator. They used the light and shadows that God created to make objects on the canvass look full and real. Schaffer described this as nature eating up grace, that’s why human figures were depicted so realistically.
Nicholas V (reigned 1447-55) was the first pope to be influenced by the style of the Renaissance. Nicholas would begin the transformation of Rome from a city of ruins and desertion to a capital adorned with works of art and architectural construction. All this transformation would cost money but the sudden wealth of the bankers, merchants, and other members of the new influential middle class made for a prime source. While the Renaissance man appreciated the finer aspects of the arts, he would eventually get fed up with the papal’s constant demand for the indulgences needed to finance these enterprises. Painting a picture of doom and gloom, John Tetzel traveled around Germany fleecing the citizens out of more money to pay for this expensive taste. In a scene reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s fable of “The Emperors New Clothes“, a monk would open the people’s eyes to the churches nakedness, and the truth would set them free.
Inventions and Explorations They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and I believe that the Plague is indirectly responsible for the sudden boom of inventions and technological advancements. With the shortfall of workers and the resulting financial loss of many aristocrats, men were finding new ways to accomplish tasks, while pulling themselves up by the bootstraps at the same time. As a result, the Renaissance Age saw a radical change in the rate of inventions throughout Western Europe. This led to innovative ways of managing production that helped spur new economic growth. In less than a century there were more inventions developed and applied usefully than in the previous thousand years of human history. Along with major technological advances, there were many new inventions including the printing press, the quadrant, spectacles, and improved clocks. One of those innovations came in the way ships were designed and built, paving the way for the Age of Exploration.
While most geographical discoveries were made after the Reformation was well underway, it is worth pointing out the two events that would change Europe’s outlook on trade and exploration and both of these events were indirectly influenced by wars. One was during the second (1294-99) of the four Genoese-Venetian Wars, and the other was the Crusades.
In the 1298 battle between the city-states , Venice and Genoa, a man named Marco Polo was captured by the Genoese and imprisoned. While in prison, Polo dictated the story of his travels along the Silk Road to Mongolia and China to a writer who was also a prisoner of the war. After his release from prison, the book, “The Travels of Marco Polo” would excite the imaginations of many about trade with China and the Far East. The other was probably the only positive thing that came out of the Crusades, trade with the Middle Eastern Cultures. This trade would make some Italian cities very wealthy while sparking a desire by wealthy Kings and even the Pope himself to share in this new found wealth.
Trade with the Middle East, along with Polo’s accounts of China and the Far East, led to the search for new routes of exploration to the east. While men like Columbus, Vasco da Gama and others would eventually defy the odds and set out in search for a quicker rout to China and India, they would not accomplish their task until knowledge for ocean sailing came into existence at the height of the Renaissance. That knowledge would be discovered by the third child of King John I of Portugal, Dom Henrique, also known as Henry the Navigator.
Prince Henry never sailed on an ocean voyage but he helped make it possible to circumnavigate the continent of Africa so a new water route to India could be found. Henry was a visionary who owned a globe when many still believed the Greek philosophy that the world was flat. Henry would establish a school for navigators at his court in Sagres, a town in South Western Portugal. Portuguese pilots were instructed by skilled sailors and trained to navigate by mapmakers, while ships were constructed using new technologies preparing them for long ocean trips. It was these Portuguese trained navigators who laid the course that Vasco da Gama would use to circumnavigate Africa in 1497-98 on his way to India. Eventually, Portuguese ships would sail all the way to Japan setting up Jesuit missions in almost every trading post along the way to proselytize the inhabitants with Catholicism.
By 1431 Portuguese sailors would lay claim to the Azores for Portugal. It would be just west of the Azores that in 1493-1494, Pope Alexander VI would draw the ”Line of Demarcation” from the North Pole to the South Pole and give everything west of the line to Spain and everything east to Portugal. With the Americas being discovered in 1492 by Spain, the two most ardent Roman Catholic kingdoms would be sharing the doctrine of the Roman Church throughout the New World. The Reformation was in full revolution form in Europe but due to the advancements in exploration by Spain and Portugal, Roman Catholicism enjoyed its most rapid expansion ever.