Renaissance figure

Florentine cultural icon

A Renaissance figure is someone with wide-ranging talents or expertise across multiple fields—arts, sciences, athletics, business.

The term evokes the ideal of Renaissance-era polymaths like Leonardo da Vinci, who excelled as painter, inventor, and anatomist.

She's a true Renaissance figure—a novelist, physicist, and accomplished cellist.

Also called a Renaissance man or Renaissance woman.

Related

perspective · linear perspective · humanism · Galileo Galilei · Botticelli · anatomy · patron of the arts · Raphael · chiaroscuro · astronomy · sculpture · Johannes Gutenberg · printing press · creative genius · fresco · scientific inquiry · literature · oil painting

Opposites
intellectual breadth

Renaissance figurespecialist

Expert in one field

one-trick pony · monomaniac · savant · technician · hedgehog

cultural era/sensibility

Renaissance figureorganization man

Loyal corporate conformist

creative/intellectual engagement

Renaissance figurephilistine

Art-dismissing ignoramus

anti-intellectual · boor · barbarian · ignoramus · lowbrow

Family

renaissance, figure, figures, figured, figuring, figurine, figurines, figurative, figuratively

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Top 500,000
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