RENAISSANCE ART IN SIXTEENTH CENTURY EUROPE
CHAPTER 18
Pages 714-720, 746-747 will not be covered until Survey II.
16th Century Northern Europe:
Although the Renaissance ideals of harmony, individuality, and Humanism found their place in the Italian states, other dramatic cultural differences prevented the northern European centers from embracing them totally. Instead, the Renaissance "ideals" were tempered by a long northern tradition of piety, restraint, and suspicion--developed during the Middle Ages, as exemplified in Gothic art. The countries closest to Italy (Southern Germany) embraced the sciences and were more closely aligned with Italy. This is evident in the paintings and engravings by Durer. He traveled to Italy and was very familiar with the Italian High Renaissance artists. He understood anatomy, scientific observations, linear perspective, and is the first the use the new printing press (invented in the middle 15th century) as an artistic medium. By printing his subjects, he made them readily and inexpensively to the middle class. His other subjects were portraits (see his Self-Portrait on our test review), religious (he was a Protestant), and landscape. Other areas, like northern Germany, Flanders, and the Netherlands, will be closer to the conservative, religious fervor that will spread across that area in the name of the Protestant Reformation (be sure and know what this is). The Protestants led by Martin Luther and later John Calvin were iconoclasts. They literally "whitewashed" the churches of all sculpture and painted images. The church, therefore, was not an important patron like it was in the Catholic countries. Wealthy merchants, nobles, barons, and royalty became patrons of the arts. They will commission portraits, landscapes (first landscape for its own sake in Germany during the 16th century by the artist Altdorfer), religious art for their homes, and mythological subjects. Another German artist is Grunewald. His depiction of the Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece (p. 730-31) is one of the most realistic images ever portrayed. The wounds are graphically painted and the emotional responses of the others in the picture are not soon forgotten! Grunewald's objective was "to strike the heart rather than the mind and to evoke sympathy rather than to create an intellectual ideal (Stokstad, p. 732)." Hans Holbein the Younger was also a German artist and known especially for his portraits. He became very close friends of the humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdame and painted a portrait of him. He was a Protestant and painted many of his portraits in England, including the one of King Henry VIII (p. 741) and his young son while he was his court painter. He does not idealize his subjects (see the painting of his wife and children on p.738). He died of the plague in London in 1543. Lucas Cranach the Elder (p. 736) was Martin Luther's favorite painter. He painted religious subjects, also, but this soon dwindled with his later work being portraits, hunting scenes and mythological subjects. Albrecht Altdorfer introduces us to the landscape (Blue Danube Landscape) as a subject. This is an important new catefory of imagery after the Reformation. He also painted combined religious and historical subjects in magnificent landscapes (Battle of Alexander and Darius).
Words to know: Humanism, triptych, polyptych, tempera paint, fresco, buon fresco, sinopia, cartoons, oil paint, atmospheric perspective, intuitive perspective (sight perspective), linear perspective, vanishing point, foreshortening, tondo, tapestry, trompe l'oeil, sacred art, secular art, neoplatonism, stigmata, woodcut, engraving, block books, movable-type printing, cross-hatching, watercolor
Important people to know: Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Pope Clement VII, Pope Leo X, Pope Julius II, Pope Paul III, The Inquisition, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, Martin Luther, King Henry VIII.
Artists to be covered in class: Bramante, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Giorgionne, Titian, Bosch, Grunewald, Durer, Altdorfer, Cranach, Holbein.
Updated 11-22-99