It means history itself is like a life.

In the middle age, everything went down.

Wars happened and 1/3 of the European population were killed, and it can be consider as
the death of a life.
And in renaissance period, it reborn, grew up and become mature in term of art.
Because in Renaissance period, artists are rich enough to travel and see the works done by
previous artists.
So they can learn from the others and improve their drawing skills quickly.
Fun fact: Masaccio is influenced by Giotto.

In Renaissance period, I chose three artists to represent the three stages of the life cycle
they are Giotto Childhood Masaccio Youth and Michelangelo Maturity
So now, I will talk about how their arts becomes more mature in terms of perspective,
Illusionary space and Chiaroscuro.

For the perspective, I chose to compare these 3 artworks.

The Ognissanti Madonna by Giotto

Holy Trinity by Masaccio
Drunkenness of Noah by Michelangelo
The Ognissanti Madonna

People overlapped
We can know who is in front and who is at back
No linear perspective

Holy Trinity
Linear perspective applied in the whole picture

Drunkenness of Noah
Linear perspective in the background
Perspective applied on the small items (varse)

For the Illusionary space, I chose to compare these 3 artworks.

Nativity. Birth of Jesus

Distribution of Alms and Death of Ananias
Martyrdom of St Peter
Nativity. Birth of Jesus
Background only

Distribution of Alms and Death of Ananias

Background Middleground and foreground
column
Martyrdom of St Peter
Background Middleground and foreground
Blurriness at background, to differentiate background with middle and foreground
For the Use of Chiaroscuro I chose to compare these 3 artworks.

The Birth of St. John the Baptist and his father Zacharias writing
The Tribute Money
The Creation of Adam
The Birth of St. John the Baptist and his father Zacharias writing
No illusionary
Cannot feel the contrast between light and dark
The Tribute Money
We can see illusionary > brighter here darker there
Figure and waxy-like > skin and cloth seems to be the same texture
The Creation of Adam
Illusionary
And Michelangelo can use illusionary to illustrate the texture well.
We can feel the softness of the cloth
In one word, we can see the improvement in terms of drawing skills in the
Renaissance period.

Read the slide

Read the slide
The opinion by an American artist and art businessman, Dan Duhrkoop.
Skill and technique

 Uniqueness
Same as Vasaris view.
And something more:
Beauty in art is it look nice for the audience?
Inherent meaning is there any meaningful message or special emotion that the
artist wants to express?
Fulfilled intent does the artist successfully express what he wants to say?

For example, if we judge these two artworks about the final judgment by Giotto
and Michelangelo, which one is better?
Obviously, in drawing technic, Michelangelos work is better in terms of
perspective, illusionary and so on like what we talked about just now. And it
looks more realistic.
While, for the inherent meaning, both of the artists successfully portrayed the
separation of the blessed and the damned by showing the saved ascending on
the left and the damned descending on the right.
So they expressed the same message and we cannot say which one is better in
terms of inherent meaning.
Whats more, comparing to Michelangelos work, Giottos is more vibrant in colors
and there is a larger impact in colors between the left side and the right side that
is the heaven and the hell. So maybe it is much easier for the audience to read
the message in the artwork and it might fulfill the intent meaning better than
Michelangelos work.