What do you mean by “exceptions”? Who are we, in our own infinitesimal slice of human history, to judge historic taste in art? And is naturalism the be-all, end-all of good taste? If so, we need to throw out the majority of art in the 20th century.
This is a question for an art historian, not some anon on a tech forum. (For what it’s worth, I find Medieval and Renaissance art to be about equally tepid despite the difference in execution. And plenty of people non-ironically enjoy Medieval art despite its supposed deficiencies.)
Like I said, I find the majority of European art before 1800 or so to be fairly dull, so I can't really answer this question. The prevailing technique improved remarkably post-Renaissance, and that's enjoyable to an extent, but the same themes get repeated over and over and over again.
If you're looking for art with an impact, the iconography of Andrei Rublev (and other icon painters during this period) is still massively influential in the Russian Orthodox Church today. 600+ years of direct use and inspiration! The lack of naturalism is not a deficiency.
The problem is not a lack of naturalism, it's obvious mistakes in the way the naturalistic poses are attempted. Many of Rublev's icons have obvious mistakes in the way joints are painted, for example - but not all of them or the exact same thing; it's not a style, it's simply a limitation of his skills. Many later painters who were inspired by him have corrected this mistake, not sought to reproduce it.
Not to mention, Rublev lived at the end of the Medieval period, and well into the Renaissance - the period where painterly skill in Europe was revitalized.
Again, I’m not sure why it matters. Henri Rousseau couldn’t draw for shit and yet people adore his art. The represented idea and its aesthetic execution are what people mostly respond to, not how realistic a figure’s joints happen to be. (And FWIW, a large number of Renaissance painters clearly have no idea what a female body looks like.)
Yeah he's good, that's obvious. Klimt cribbed from Rublev I bet. Naturalism was never the topic. But note that Rublev didn't do much work between AD500 and AD1300. Because not born yet. This is precisely why I wrote down dates, and why I am insisting on counterexamples instead of vague generalities.
