Mimesis in Greek means imitation. In Renaissance art it was the act of reproducing reality in sculpture, paintings, and theater arts. In her talk, Professor Plesch used a couple of key ideas and pieces of art to showcase how Renaissance period truly was a rebirth and a movement towards depicting reality and the true human form in art work. She used the example of Cimabue and Giotto’s depictions of the Madonna to showcase the differences in emerging style from Cimabue in 1280 to Giotto in 1310. In Giotto’s depiction there is more striking color and new techniques used to give dimension and depth to the figures. In Cimabue’s painting the figures look flat and two dimensional but in Giotto’s they look three dimensional and more resemble reality, which is the intention of mimesis. This one simple example showcased how mimesis took control of the art scene in the late 1200’s. I was amazed at how simple understanding of depth and geometry advanced the realistic look of art. This was truly shown in her final example which was a beautiful 3 paneled oil painting that showed incredible detail when you zoomed in. Oil was the main medium used to show detail and capture nature most realistically. I enjoyed this lecture immensely because it made me think critically about art as imitation and the fact that maybe all art is imitation as it is us trying to present our thoughts on a medium and we are a part of nature.