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The 'birth' of new interest in Classical Greco-Latin world, that artistic revolution of the Early Renaissance matured to what is now known as the High Renaissance. There has never been growth as lovely as that of painting in Florence and Rome, of the end of 15th and early 16th centuries. High Renaissance in Italy is the climax of Renaissance art, from 1500-1525. It is also considered as a sort ofnatural evolution of Italian Humanism (Umanesimo.

   It has been characterized by explosion of creative genius. Painting especially reached its peak of technical competence, rich artistic imagination and heroic composition. The main characteristics of High Renaissance painting are harmony and balance in construction.

   Italian High Renaissance artists achieved ideal of harmony and balancecomparable with the works of ancient Greece or Rome. Renaissance Classicism was a form of art that removed the extraneous detail and showed the world as it was. Forms, colors and proportions, light and shade effects, spatial harmony, composition, perspective, anatomy - all are handled with total control and a level of accomplishment for which there are no real precedents.

   We find it in theworks of the greatest artists ever known: the mighty Florentines, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; the Umbrian, Raffaello Sanzio; along with the great Venetian masters Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.
After hearing so much about Florence, in the article entitled "The Early Renaissance," it would be natural to assume that the next - and most glorious - phase in Art History would occur in thesame location. Well, no, this didn't happen.
Wonderful Florence met the end of its Renaissance heyday in the 1490s for several reasons. First, Lorenzo de Medici - arguably the greatest of the Medici - died in 1492. This brought a close to what is often referred to as the "Laurentian Age" in Florence.
Of equal importance, a rabidly religious monk named Savonarola was busy in Florence decrying thedecadence of its art which, in his opinion, had caused moral decay and would, quite possibly, bring the Apocalypse upon the Florentines. As is always the sad case in instances such as these, many were willing to listen to Savonarola. The powerful Medici were expelled, fleeing to Rome. Savonarola inspired, for a time, great religious fervor in the townspeople, to the point of organizing the first"bonfire of the vanities", wherein "sacrilegious" items were burned in public. Loyalty being fickle, Savonarola himself suffered a similar fate in 1498. The damage to Florence's profile in the arts, however, had already been irreparably done.
Finally, the Florentine scene had made it incredibly chic for Those in Power (elsewhere) to acquire their own, personal artistic geniuses. Have you ever heardthe phrase "keeping up with the Jones-es"? On a grand scale, at this time, many were keen to "keep up with" the Medici. The ranks of the Florentine artists were plundered, lured to other locations by promises of wealth and fame.
The good news is that, even though Florence was left with not much talent, it had already trained the talent that went elsewhere. In one of those ironic twists of fate,nearly all of the "greats" (excepting the Venetians, which is another topic entirely) of the High Renaissance were either trained in or influenced by the Florentine School.
Bidding Florence both huge thanks and a fond farewell, then, let's get right down to defining the who-s, what-s and when-s of the "High" Renaissance.
Why is it called the "High" Renaissance?
Simply put, this periodrepresented a culmination. The tentative artistic explorations of the Proto-Renaissance, which caught hold and flowered during the Early Renaissance, burst into full bloom during the High Renaissance. Artists no longer pondered the art of antiquity. They now had the tools, technology, training and confidence to go their own way, secure in the knowledge that what they were doing was as good - or better -...