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From Medieval To Renaissance: Paradigm Shifts And Artistic Problems In English Renaissance Drama, John Boni

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In describing the change from Medieval to Renaissance, Theodore Spencer writes;

There finally came a time when realism, at first connected inextricably with religion, was used for its own sake. What we call the Renaissance began at that moment.

For Spencer, "realism" denotes an increased concern with depicting the actual world itself. As an illustration, one may cite the exclamation attributed to Paolo Uccello, "What a wonderful thing is this perspective!", an exclamation over a technique which aided him in more accurate representation of the world as he had begun to perceive it.