The art of the Renaissance reached its greatest excellence during the
last three decades of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth
century. This was a glorious period in the History of Art. The barbarism
of the Middle Ages was essentially a thing of the past, but much barbaric
splendor in the celebration of ceremonies and festivals still remained to
satisfy the artistic sense, while every-day costumes and customs lent a
picturesqueness to ordinary life. So much of the pagan spirit as endured
was modified by the spirit of the Renaissance. The result was a new order
of things especially favorable to painting.

An artist now felt himself as free to illustrate the pagan myths as to
represent the events in the lives of the Saviour, the Virgin and the
saints, and the actors in the sacred subjects were represented with the
same beauty and grace of form as were given the heroes and heroines of
Hellenic legend. St. Sebastian was as beautiful as Apollo, and the
imagination and senses were moved alike by pictures of Danae and the
Magdalene--the two subjects being often the work of the same artist.

The human form was now esteemed as something more than the mere
habitation of a soul; it was beautiful in itself and capable of awakening
unnumbered emotions in the human heart. Nature, too, presented herself in
a new aspect and inspired the artist with an ardor in her representation
such as few of the older painters had experienced in their devotion to
religious subjects.

This expansion of thought and purpose was inaugurating an art attractive
to women, to which the increasing liberty of artistic theory and
practice must logically make them welcome; a result which is a
distinguishing feature of sixteenth-century painting.