Lorenzo Ghiberti and the Gates of Paradise

Above we have an image of the Old Testament scene of David and Goliath, from Lorenzo's Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise" which his workshop produces for the Cathedral of Florence's Baptistry in the periods of 1425-52. (From a catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition in 2008).

The question could be asked is how is this such a good example of the innovation in art that happened during the Italian Renaissance. Well first and foremost it is all about about (quite literally) perspective.

If one was to look at this bronze relief, the first thing we notice is that there is a great sense of depth. This is done by giving the objects in the foreground more detail and relief. David and some of the other soldiers are quite literally "jumping" off.  The armour on Goliath, David (who is decapitating the giant), and the other soldiers in front of the scene is given much more detail. We can see the individual pieces of the armour, medals, and layers of clothing underneath.

If we look at the town in the back, it  literally seems to be fading into the distance. This is done by making those objects flatter and less detailed. They are almost blurry, like how we see objects in the distance with our own eyes. This was a huge innovation in art. During medieval times almost all, carvings, reliefs, paintings and drawings had little or no perspective to them. Importance was placed more on the importance of the subject matter itself, than to where it was located. Had this door been cast 100 years earlier, David being the "hero" of the scene would have been given more prominence, and there would have been no real attention played to the perspective of "depth"as such.

Also important to note is the armour of the soldiers has a "classical" style to it. In fact it is very Classical Roman in style. The Renaissance saw quite literally a "rebirth" of interest in all things pertaining to the "classical" era of Rome and Greece. For Ghiberti to have chosen this type of armour, when the story of David and Goliath would have been far removed from that actual time period, starts to give us an idea of how influential the style of Rome and Greece of antiquity would have over the art of the Renaissance.
Fifty years later (in the period of 1501-1504), Michelangelo would create one of his most famous sculptures on the same subject of "David", in the style of a Greek or Roman nude, as a prime example of "antiquity's" influence on art of this time.