I don’t know if I’m phrasing this right, but I just noticed that even royal portraits in Europe all looked very flat and un-detailed up until like the 1600s, and there was another massive improvement in the 1700s when paintings started to look infinitely more realistic than they did in the medieval era.
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One of the underlying precursors to the [Renaissance](https://www.history.com/topics/renaissance/renaissance) was the resurgence of humanism, which promoted embracing human achievements in education, classical arts, literature and science.
This philosophy shifted the individual back into focus, both as a subject of self-improvement and in representation in art – as opposed to the ornamental stylings of the prevalent Gothic art style.
This led to the development and use of techniques such as use of realistic proportions, foreshortening (creating the illusion of depth), sfumato (blurring and blending of lines for three-dimensionality), and chiaroscuro (light-dark contrast), which [Masaccio](https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/renaissance-painting/) was credited with popularizing.
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