The Northern Renaissance

Northern Humanism

• Also known as Christian Humanism

• Tied to the Protestant Reformation

• Shared some of the aesthetic values of the HighRenaissance: idealism, rationalism, love for Classicalliterature

• Unlike Italy – preoccupied with condition of churchand wider Christian world

• Approached faith in simple terms

Faith• Any Christian with a pure

and humble heart can pray directly to God

• This creed is the same as Christ’s scriptural message (as learned through reading vernacular Bible)

• Harbored hostility toward Italian interference in local religious affairs

• Wished to restore church to its original purpose by imitating early church (free from corrupt leaders)

Northern Renaissance• Marked by

competing styles• Affected by

religious upheavals

• Gothic forms and mysticism

• Italy’s High renaissance

• Mannerism

William Shakespeare

• Tragedy and comedy became part of popular culture

• Secular and commercial theater emerged• Prior – Christian scholars condemned the

stage for wicked displaysand seductive delights

• Morality plays• Under Queen Elizabeth I

many dramatists appear

More About Shakespeare

• 1564-1616• Born in Stratford-upon-Avon• 1590

– plays performed• 1610

– retired early– successful

• 37 dramas

Northern Renaissance Painting

• Emerged during an era of cultural crisis• Late Gothic style of Flemish school losing

its appeal• Many artists attracted to Italian art• Influence of Protestant Reformation• Individual tastes and styles become

important• Secular subject acceptable

Albrecht Durer

• Engraver and painter• Paintings brought him

recognition and wealth in his day

• Self portraits• Engravings constitute

greatest artistic legacy

House by a Pond

Putti Dancing and Making Music

Self-Portraitat 26

A Young

Hare

Adam

and

Eve

Portrait of Erasmus

at 49

Charcoal on Paper

Knight, Death

and the Devil

Portrait of a Clergyman

The Four Holy Men

Matthias Grunewald

• His paintings represent a continuation of the Late Gothic style

• Emotionalism

Hieronymus Bosch

• Treated common religious subjects in bizarre and fantastic ways

• Precise detail• Works contain ambiguous, cynical, moral

messages• So original he stands outside any formal

historical period

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

• Characteristic of changes in northern European art in the mid 1500’s

• Lived after deaths of Durer and Grunewald• Protestant iconoclasm – less religious art• His subjects – landscapes, country

scenes, folk narratives, peasant life• Secular art

Counter-Reformation

Spanish Painting

El Greco