Swanson School of Engineering

It is really eye opening how much work went into making a painting during the start of the renaissance. Even before the painting process starts, all of the pigment for the artwork has to be mixed by the artist themself. Since being an artist was a full time job, creating a single painting would take months. Many of the materials are difficult to make but easy to source, such as the egg yolk used to make the paint. We had to be careful with the gold leaf because in practice it would be made of actual gold, and more valuable. My key takeaway was that art during the renaissance was more involved, and treated differently as a career than it is today.