How far do you agree that it is the subject matter of art that changed most during the renaissance?

During the two hundred years between 1400 and 1600, Europe witnessed an astonishing revival of drawing, fine art painting, sculpture and architecture centred in Italy, where artists began to look back to the way in which Greek and Roman artists had worked. Not many classical paintings had survived, but there were descriptions from which artists tried to copy them. Those two centuries which we now refer to as the Renaissance (Rinascimento) was given this name (French for 'rebirth') as a result of La Renaissance - a famous volume of history written by the historian Jules Michelet (1798-1874) in 1855. And it was better understood after the publication in 1860 of the landmark book "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy" (Die Kultarr der Renaissance in Italien), by Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897), Professor of Art History at the University of Basel. One reason for the dramatic change in art, during the Renaissance, to happen was that the idea of humanism was developed; humanists believed that each individual had significance within society and in art put a focus on human interests, needs and abilities. Keeping with the spirit of humanism, artists of the early Renaissance strove to portray lifelike human forms with correct proportions and realistic clothing and expressions. Artists developed new techniques to give paintings a more three-dimensional, life-like quality, and commonly studied human and animal anatomy in efforts to better understand their subject.
In the Renaissance, the subjects of paintings became more varied. Renaissance artists still painted religious pictures, but they also depicted the ancient stories of Roman and Greek gods and heroes, real historical events, portraits, aspects everyday life and scientific diagrams. Even more importantly, they were adopting the attitude of the classical artists. Roman and Greek artists had tried to show what people looked like, how they moved their bodies or their expressions. Renaissance artists did this too. Like the classical artists, Renaissance artists wanted their pictures to look realistic, they were putting their effort into making characters, objects, animals, and even backgrounds look like they did in real life. However during the Middle Ages, the artists had devoted most of their energy into making people, who looked at their paintings, think about God. They used expensive paints made from materials like lapis lazuli, which was used for painting the clothes of important people, to make people think that God was great and powerful. Even the layout of the paintings had a religious purpose. Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other saints were shown bigger than anyone else, other important people were given a halo and were slightly bigger that ordinary people who all looked identical. They were not as important so the artist did not spend time on their features or expressions of feelings. So it is instantly noticeable how unrealistic Medieval art looks next to Renaissance paintings. The changes in the subjects of art are visible in the paintings of “The Ognissanti Madonna” by Giotto di Bondone, painted roughly around 1310, and “Madonna del Prato” by Giovanni Bellini, finished in 1505. In “The Ognissanti Madonna” it is visible how the Medieval and Renaissance art blend. The Medieval part of the painting is that the supernatural angels and halos are still present and baby Jesus is drawn as a small figure of an adult making him look slightly strange in comparison to the baby painted by Giovanni Bellini. All the common people still continue to look identical and expressionless, but however Giotto di Bondone’s figures were weighty and reminiscent of three-dimensional sculptures, such as that in classical Roman sculpture, which put him a step ahead of his colleague artists. In the “Madonna del Prato”, which is also known as “Madonna of the Meadow”, the main subjects of the painting are still Virgin Mary and Jesus but the first thing which catches the eye is that they look more natural. Giovanni Bellini used more realistic skin tones and shading, and also gave his subjects expressions which makes people think, that the frame of the painting is a window, through which they can see. Here the baby looks realistic, it is not sitting upright and looking serious, it is sleeping on its mother’s lap. The baby’s proportions are right too, he looks slightly chubby like all babies do and it clearly visible that he still can’t hold his head upright, it’s being supported by his mother who seems to be praying for him.
In the same way the background was not important to the Medieval artists. It would only distract the viewer’s attention from the characters in the picture, so it was either plain gold or was kept very simple. In the Renaissance paintings, saints occupied the same landscape as ordinary people and the landscape was earth instead of heaven. In the Middle Ages it was common for artists to represent figures of heaven against a gold background, a symbol for the beauty and value of the atmosphere of heaven. As Renaissance artists experimented with new Humanist ideas, the natural landscape began to appear as a background in paintings. Saints left their golden atmosphere to occupy the same gardens, forests and buildings that everyday people lived in. For example in the painting of “The Annunciation” from a Swabian Gospel anybody can instantly see the plain golden background. But if it were compared to “The Annunciation” painted by Hans Memling, on which he worked from 1480 to 1489, it looks very simple. Hans Memling cloaked religious imagery in the pictorial language of everyday life, paying close attention to naturalistic detail. This Annunciation takes place in a comfortably appointed bedchamber, though many of the domestic furnishings have symbolic connotations. The carafe of water, through which light passes uncorrupted, and the vase of lilies are symbols of the Virgin's purity, while the empty candleholder signifies her imminent role as bearer of Christ, light of the world. Gabriel's priestly garb alludes to the ritual of the Mass and, therefore, the incarnation of Christ. A soft glowing light falls on the Virgin and suffuses the room, elevating the scene from the realm of the ordinary and signalling the sacred nature of the scene.
Artists introduces many new techniques during the Renaissance. These techniques helped to enhance the quality and realism of the art. Balance and proportion were a technique used to draw subjects so that they are the correct size when compared to each other. Many artists starting using light and shadows in their works to add drama, perspective, and timing to their art. Sfumato was a technique used by Leonardo da Vinci to add additional perspective and dimension to paintings. It was a way of blurring the lines between subjects. This technique was used in Leonardo's “Mona Lisa”. Foreshortening is another technique that added perspective and depth to paintings, foreshortening is a way of shortening lines to give the illusion of depth. Perspective is drawing or painting a picture such that it looks like there are three dimensions. It gives the illusion that some objects in the painting are further away than others. Perspective gave Renaissance artists the means to produce a compelling illusion of depth and in addition to that it rationalises the representation of space and provides the means for drawing the spectator’s eye to the key figure or action in the painting. Take for instance, Masaccio’s “The Tribute Money”, painted in 1425. The slanted features of the building that recede into the distance, called orthogonals because they represent lines in the scene that are perpendicular to the picture plane, the flat surface of the painting, converge at a point known as the vanishing point of this perspective construction. The vanishing point falls just barely to the right of Christ’s head, thus drawing attention to the central actor in the drama that Masaccio has represented.
The first important painter of the Renaissance was Giotto di Bondone. Giotto painted during the fourteenth century, breaking away from the Gothic and Byzantine artistic traditions. He deeply studied nature in an effort to fill his paintings with reality, an effort most notable in his especially realistic facial expressions. It is well known that the Renaissance was characterized by humanist thoughts. These can be broken into three main concepts. Humanity is the pinnacle of creation, and the human body is the most beautiful form in all existence. Humanity does not need God’s help to understand the universe, human logic and reasoning can explain all mysteries. Philosophy should not focus on abstract concepts like good and evil, but human issues such as finance and politics. Based on these three principles, it's easy to see why the Renaissance artists based their paintings on realism. It was the point at which people began turning away from religion and toward science. Before the Renaissance, art focused on highly imaginative subjects, Romanticism, and featured images like satyrs, Greek Gods, devils and angels. The Renaissance era artists worked against their predecessors, and focused on qualities that could be seen and touched. So even the works of religious painters like Caravaggio were realist. If God existed, God must be identifiable in a very real and physical sense. That's why the Saints and apostles were no longer portrayed with halos while they are battling demons, but as regular people. Another example is the roof of the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo "humanized" the form of God; he painted God as a man. Due to humanist thought, even abstract concepts came to be depicted in ways that appeared "real".
The Renaissance is seen as a period of huge change in all aspects of art. The purpose of paintings became not only religious but also for the sake of being admired for the painting’s beauty. The subjects had developed from characters form the Bible to portraits of people and aspects of normal life. The background instead of being plain gold turned into gardens, field and houses. There appeared a sense of perspective in the paintings, making them look 3D and allowing artists to layer the scenes one on top the other. But the most important aspect of art to me that changed was the realism. The paintings started to look like photographs or windows through which you look at a frozen scene. It changed from having flat and unreal looking pictures to something that resembled a beautifully and naturally detailed miniature copy of our world. These significant achievements and advancements not only in art, but also in literature and sculpture facilitated the transition into an age of Enlightenment and Science.