To further explain Accidental Renaissance, the people who look after the subreddit provide these descriptions:

• Composition: triangular/pyramidal figures, dynamic, asymmetrical, foreshortening, and, of course, the use of the Fibonacci sequence or Golden Ratio;
• Lighting: Featuring use of sfumato (blurring/softening of outlines) and/or chiaroscuro (strong contrasts between light and dark);
• Subject: Landscapes, people, scenes that feature one or both of the above.

A representative of the mod team, u/Openminded_skeptic, told Bored Panda that "the most popular subjects appear to be scenes with crowds of people doing things like protesting, marching for a cause, or otherwise expressing themselves; highly saturated, photos of people, livestock, or interesting architecture featuring chiaroscuro and many times sun or light rays highlighting a portion of the photo; and photos featuring politicians or world leaders seem to be fairly popular."

As of today, the community has 816K members, or as they call themselves, universalis personae. u/Openminded_skeptic describes them "as passionate and invested in the subreddit and the subject of Renaissance-esque photography, sometimes to the point of getting into spirited debates in the comment section on whether a particular photo is or is not either accidental or Renaissance!"

u/Openminded_skeptic attributes the popularity of the subreddit to the universal appeal of the period. "Renaissance-era art was really about humanity's rebirth, culturally, economically, politically, and artistically," they said. "I think that's something that never goes out of style."

Indeed. Art, architecture, and science were closely linked during the Renaissance, and often these fields even fused together.

For example, artists like da Vinci incorporated scientific principles, such as anatomy into their work, so they could recreate the human body with extraordinary precision. Architects such as Filippo Brunelleschi immersed themselves in mathematics to accurately engineer and design immense buildings with expansive domes. And scientific discoveries by Galileo, Descartes, and other forward-thinking pioneers led to major shifts in thinking.

Renaissance art was characterized by realism and naturalism — artists strived to depict people and objects in a true-to-life way, and these pictures achieve that too.