The High Renaissance is a moderately subjective art term denoting the culmination of the art of the Early Renaissance. The most important High Renaissance artists are Tuscan Michelangelo Buonarroti and Leonardo da Vinci, Umbrian Raphael Sanzio, and Venetian Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese. The High Renaissance was the culmination of the artistic developments of the Early Renaissance, and one of the great explosions of creative genius in history. It is notable for three of the greatest artists in history: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael Sanzio and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Italian Renaissance started the opening phase of the Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement in Europe that spanned the period from the end of the 14th century to about 1600, marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe. The word renaissance (Rinascimento in Italian) literally means "rebirth", and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labelled the Dark Ages. The 'birth' of new interest in Classical Greco-Latin world, that artistic revolution of the Early Renaissance matured to what is now known as the High Renaissance. There has never been growth as lovely as that of painting in Florence and Rome, of the end of 15th and early 16th centuries. High Renaissance in Italy is the climax of Renaissance art, from 1500-1525. In a brief moment of equilibrium, artists achieved the harmonious balance and elevated conception that is the High Renaissance. It is also considered as a sort of natural evolution of Italian Humanism (Umanesimo).

It has been characterized by inspiration of creative genius. Painting especially reached its peak of technical competence, rich artistic imagination and heroic composition. The main characteristics of High Renaissance painting are harmony and balance in construction.

Italian High Renaissance exponents obtained ideal of harmony and balance comparable with the works of ancient Greece or Rome. Renaissance Classicism was a form of art that removed the extraneous detail and showed the world as it was. Forms, colors and proportions, light and shade effects, spatial harmony, composition, perspective, anatomy - all are handled with total control and a level of accomplishment for which there are no real precedents.

We find it in the works of the greatest artists ever known: the mighty Florentines, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo; the Umbrian, Raffaello Sanzio; along with the great Venetian masters Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese.

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