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.

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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

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Etymology

Origin of High Renaissance

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

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

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 7, 2026

The pair’s combined patronage extended the length of the High Renaissance, from Donatello and Brunelleschi to Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci.

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

By 1520, not only was the 45-year-old a revered master but his High Renaissance rivals Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael were dead.

From The Guardian • Jun. 29, 2013

One can merely notice, whether as a cause or an accompanying phenomenon, that, with individual exceptions,—no man could be nobler than Michelangelo,—Italy of the High Renaissance was a great moral failure.

From A Short History of Italy (476-1900) by Sedgwick, Henry Dwight