2important characteristics. Central to their thinking was a faith in the theoretical foundations of art and the conviction that development and progress were not only as aninspiring model but also as a record of trial and error that could reveal the successes offormer great artists. Intending to retrace the creative process rather than to merely imitatethe final achievements of antiquity, Early Renaissance artists sought to create art formsconsistent with the appearance of the natural world and with their experience of humanpersonality and behavior. The challenge of accurate representation as it concerned masssculptural form, or the pictorial considerations of measurable space and the effects of lightand color, was addressed in the spirit of intense and methodical inquiry.Rational inquiry was believed to be the key to success; therefore, efforts weremade to discover the correct laws of proportion for architecture and for the representationof the human body and to systematize the rendering of pictorial space. Although theseartists were keenly observant of natural phenomena, they also tended to extrapolategeneral rules from specific appearances. Similarly, they made an effort to go beyondstraightforward transcription of nature, to instill the work of art with ideal, intangiblequalities, endowing it with a beauty and significance greater and more permanent than thatactually found in nature. These characteristics-the rendering of ideal forms rather thanliteral appearance and the concept of the physical world as the vehicle or imperfectembodiment of monumental spiritual beauty--were to remain fundamental to the natureand development of Italian Renaissance art. The term Early Renaissance characterizesvirtually all the art of the 15th century. Florence, the cradle of Renaissance artisticthought, remained one of the undisputed centers of innovation. About 1450 a ...
