In the following essay I shall compare and contrast paintings from the medieval and renaissance period.

Medieval paintings were very realistic and precise. The king in the painting is in the middle, and anything painted in the middle is the center of attraction or the important object in the painting. To prove this theory, I looked at the painting and the first thing that caught my eye is the king. The human body is not too detailed but the actions they are doing or intend to do are very clear. The painter created visual space in this painting in a very witty way; he painted pillars and ceiling ornaments, which is an indication of height and space. I think it is a very successful method because the person who is looking at the painting has space to look around. The painting in my opinion is more realistic than naturalistic because I think he attended the ceremony and then painted what he remembered.

In the following paragraph I shall briefly describe the renaissance painting. This painting is based on the story of a poor man who couldn't pay his taxes. Then Jesus told him to go to a certain place where he should cut open a fish and there he shall find a silver coin to pay his taxes with. He did so and paid his taxes. On the left of the painting you can see the barrel of fish, one of the fish is where he got the silver coin. In the middle Jesus is explaining the situation to the people. Masaccio always painted the most important things in the middle. On the right the man is paying his taxes.

There are many things that the two paintings had in common some of the reasons are: It is similar in the layout, A good example would be the objects in the middle. Jesus and the king are in the middle and obviously they are the main characters in the painting. There is also lots of visual space on both paintings e.g.: mountains, pillars. This is the case because the renaissance is the rebirth of the classics and the classics were basically the medieval paintings. So the renaissance paintings were in a way based on the medieval ones.

Renaissance paintings also differed from medieval ones. The Renaissance painting is laid out in a way which tells a story, however the medieval one is showing an event which is virtually a fact or a point. The Renaissance painting shows more detail than the medieval one and better use of color. The people in the Renaissance painting are more detailed and are more colorful. The purpose of both paintings differed greatly. The Renaissance painting focuses on telling a tale, everyday basic life nature, religion and wonders but the medieval painting consists of royalty, high class and leadership because of its tone and theme.

In conclusion I would like to state that both paintings obviously had different philosophies and that Renaissance paintings were definitely based on medieval ones.