A examination of time-tested methods used by artists since the Renaissance to make realistic pictures of imagined things.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-s

The creative impulse is an ancient and enduring feature of human expression. Art serves many purposes: to beautify, record, reflect, enlighten, and celebrate ou

"Many famous artworks of the Italian Renaissance were made to celebrate love, marriage, and family. They were the pinnacles of a tradition, dating from early in

Botticelli, Holbein, Leonardo, Dürer, Michelangelo: the names are familiar, as are the works, such as the Last Supper fresco, or the monumental marble statue o