Yes, I see what you mean Gaz, perhaps I was being more than a little rash.  Of course the prime examples would be the Athens school and the Italian Renaissance.  I must modify my idea a little - Caravaggio, Velasquez, Vermeer are my favourite painters but Raphael?  He was the Renaissance; there was no need for an 'overcoming' of it.  That is why the Renaissance was the highest achievement of man - it revealed art and concealed the artist.  