Early Renaissance Paintings

Early Renaissance paintings gave figures physical weight within carefully constructed space. In fifteenth-century Florence, Masaccio used light and perspective in sacred narratives; his Holy Trinity makes a painted chapel appear to extend behind a church wall. Northern painters such as Jan van Eyck and Robert Campin developed detailed oil painting. Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait brings figures, furniture, a mirror, and textiles into a closely observed interior, alongside a wider tradition of devotional images.