The origins of Renaissance art can be traced to Italy in the late 13th and early 14th centuries. During this so-called “proto-Renaissance” period (1280-1400), Italian scholars and artists saw themselves as reawakening to the ideals and achievements of classical Roman culture.
The Florentine painter Giotto (1267-1337), the most famous artist of the proto-Renaissance, made enormous advances in the technique of representing the human body realistically. His frescoes were said to have decorated cathedrals at Assisi, Rome, Padua, Florence and Naples, though there has been difficulty attributing such works with certainty.
In the later 14th century, the proto-Renaissance was stifled by plague and war, and its influences did not emerge again until the first years of the next century.
Art emerged soon after 1600, could be called Late Reneissance Art.