Oil Portrait Paintings of XIV century

The term Renaissance was first used by French art historians of the late 18th century in reference to the reappearance of traditional architectural forms on Italian buildings of the early 16th century. The term was later expanded to include the whole of the 15th and 16th centuries and, by addition, to include sculpture, painting, and the decorative arts. There is still considerable disagreement among art historians as to whether the term should be restricted to a phenomenon that had its origins in Italy and then spread through western Europe or whether straight contemporary developments north of the Alps, and specially in the Low Countries, should be included on an equal footing with what was happening in Italy.

During the Renaissance, practitioners of all the arts evolved from anonymous craftsmen to individuals, often extremely respected ones. Painting became more intellectual, sometimes to its own disadvantage, and changed from serving as a vehicle for didacticism or decoration to becoming a self-aware, self-assured form of appearance.

For the sake of convenience, painting of the Renaissance is divided into three periods, even though there is considerable overlap depending upon the painter and the place. The early Renaissance is reckoned to envelop the period from about 1420 to 1495. The High Renaissance, or classic phase, is normally considered to extend from 1495 to 1520, the death of Raphael. The stage of Mannerism and what has more recently been called late Renaissance painting is considered to extend from the 1520s to approximately 1600.