The common practice was to paint normal, 1-dimensional portraits of saints and other biblical figures. However, this changed when Leonardo da Vinci popularized a way to make 2-dimensional art that focused more on common people rather than heavenly beings. He painted his legendary Mona Lisa with this format. The Mona Lisa proved not only to be realistic and better formatted than all other portraits of the time but also was the depiction of an ordinary, mortal woman, with no divine ties whatsoever. This knowledge and point of view quickly caught on among the artists of the Renaissance age. Before long every artist was painting 2 dimensional pictures with fewer and fewer sacred figures among them. (Document
The common practice was to paint normal, 1-dimensional portraits of saints and other biblical figures. However, this changed when Leonardo da Vinci popularized a way to make 2-dimensional art that focused more on common people rather than heavenly beings. He painted his legendary Mona Lisa with this format. The Mona Lisa proved not only to be realistic and better formatted than all other portraits of the time but also was the depiction of an ordinary, mortal woman, with no divine ties whatsoever. This knowledge and point of view quickly caught on among the artists of the Renaissance age. Before long every artist was painting 2 dimensional pictures with fewer and fewer sacred figures among them. (Document