A thread posted earlier about Roman body hair had a series of photographs of Roman artwork posted in the top reply, and all of it (or, at least, a majority of it) was very detailed and had a level of depth not seen until the Renaissance. What caused this? I know that the collapse of the Roan Empire destroyed access to a lot of knowledge and to a reasonable (for the period) level of cleanliness and healthcare, but when, or rather, why, did art take such a dramatic fall? Was it gradual or very sudden (over the course of fifty to one hundred years?