High Renaissance

American  

noun

1. a style of art developed in Italy in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, chiefly characterized by an emphasis on draftsmanship, schematized, often centralized compositions, and the illusion of sculptural volume in painting.

---

High Renaissance British  

noun

1. 1. the period from about the 1490s to the 1520s in painting, sculpture, and architecture in Europe, esp in Italy, when the Renaissance ideals were considered to have been attained through the mastery of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael

   2. ( as modifier )

      High Renaissance art

---

Etymology

Origin of High Renaissance

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

High Renaissance

Even for the greatest High Renaissance sculptor, not every effort became a David.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 7, 2026

It’s hard to imagine Florence, cradle of the High Renaissance of early modern Europe, without its avaricious, venal, culture-conscious first family, the Medici.

From New York Times ● Jun. 24, 2021

This was not a place suited to the lofty perfection of the High Renaissance, nor even to the moralizing of contemporary Dutch genre painting.

From New York Times ● Oct. 6, 2016

Photograph: The National Gallery, London So equally matched were the four greatest painters of the High Renaissance that neither their contemporaries nor posterity have been able to separate them for long.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 6, 2012

The work of any artist of the High Renaissance, whose aim is purely artistic, is not difficult to understand.

From Barbara's Heritage Young Americans Among the Old Italian Masters by Colby, Homer W.