Overview
The artists of the north during the Renaissance, like others, were trying to depict reality, but did so in a different way. Instead of stressing the mathematical side of things they simply saw nature and imitated it. They focused much more on detail than everything else, but because of this their perspective suffered. Jan van Eyck was one of the first artists to use oil and as a result he enable artists in the north to paint with much more precision than they had previously been able to use. Michelangelo bluntly put it that the artists of the north painted to depict the outward appearance of an object. One of the only men in the north fortunate enough to travel to the south so that they could study and learn the artistic ways of other artists was named Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). After his trip to Italy he still used the extreme detail common of northern painter, but also attempted to create perfect beauty like Michelangelo and Raphael.