Renaissance in N. Europe and Spain

Continued…..

Northern Renaissance

• term: “Northern Renaissance”– more of a grafting or fusion of Italian

innovations with local traditions• difference from Italy:

– neither heritage of Antiquity’s ideals nor beauty of human anatomy consistently manifested

– focus • extreme states of emotion• visible surface appearance

Northern Renaissance

• context: Protestant Reformation– Martin Luther (1483-1546)

• pivotal figure

• publication of Ninety-five Theses (1517)

– justification by faith alone instead of by good works

– attacked indulgences of Catholic Church

– led to breaking away of most north German states from Church of Rome

Northern Renaissance

• Iconoclasms in N. Europe

• Some art destroyed, other artists stove to represent figures w/o creating “pagan idols”

• Durer represents the combination of N. Renaissance realism with the Italian concern for size and monumnetality

Bosch’s Earthly Delights

• Bosch’s Earthly Delights– “Third Day of Creation”

• patron: aristocratic

• theme: Humanist

• outer panel when closed

• complete work consists of four paintings on a series of folding panels

• scale: large

– center panel > 7’ x 6’

Hieronymous Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, oil on wood, 7’2” x 3’2”, 1505-1515, now in Prado, Madrid. Allegory of evil, symbolism, and some say surrealism.

Garden of Earthly Delights Video

Center panel - flashcard

• Hieronymus Bosch– Garden of Earthly Delights

(c. 1510-15)• subject: Sin• narrative: allegorical

– humans’ inability to save themselves

– alchemy (?)• mood: fantastic &

nightmarish vision– antecedents in recent

Gothic past– over 1K figures

Hell panel from Bosch

• Bosch’s Earthly Delights– “Hell”

• setting: dark world of fire &

ice• theme: sensual pleasures

turned into elements of torture

• figures: hybrid forms, unnatural

unions• color: vibrant• light/shadow:

chiaroscuro• aerial perspective: night

Annunciation and Virgin of the Rosary, painted & gilt limewood, 12’2” x 10’6”, 1517, Nuremberg.

Velt Stoss

Northern Europe artists made intricately carved altarpieces and sculptures from wood

Hagenaur’s St. Anthony Enthroned, Shrine of the Isenheim Altarpiece (open)

Isenheim Altarpiece, oil on wood, Matthias Grunewald… 9’9” x 10’9”, 1515.. Isenheim, France-3 views, made for hospital of people suffering St. Anthony’s disease, ergotism, agony of ergotism shown in Christ (amputation in next view)

Grunewald, Isenheim Altarpiece, first opening…

Albrecht Dürer, Self-Portrait, oil on wood, 26’ x 19”, 1500

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Christ-like pose, not blasphemous, human creativity as a reflection of God’s divinity

Frontality, symmetry, triangular composition

Combined Italian monumentality w/N. European precision (van Eyck?)

Durer studied in Italy, was also printmaker/engraver

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, woodcut, Durer, 1498.

Book of Revelations (Bible), Gothic forms inspired by Mantegna

No background, no division between earth and heaven

Famine (scales), war (sword), death (pitchfork), and pestilence (bow)

Crowded composition, horsemen ride over dead bodies

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Artist: Albrecht Dürer

Title: Adam and Eve

Medium: Engraving

Size: 9⅞ X 7⅝" (25.1 X 19.4 cm)

Date: 1504

Contrapossto figures with classical sculpture influence

Four humors - rabbit (energy), elk (sad), ox (lethargic), cat (angry). Mouse = Satan, parrot = clever, Adam tries to dissuade Eve

Detailed in northern tradition

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Four Apostles, Durer

Oil on wood, 7” x 30” each panel, 1526

Four humors AGAIN… John sanguine, Paul melancholic, Mark choleric, Peter phlegmatic

Italian size, N. European attention to detail

Peter = Pope in rome, shown in shadow

Mark and Paul on right

Danube Landscape, Albrecht Alttdorfer

Oil on vellum on wood panel, 12” x 8”

1525

Landscapes became very popular in Northern Europe…

Altdorfer and Bruegel were 2 famous landscape artists from this era…..

Bruegel although he studied in Italy, did not show much Italian influence…

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the Fall of Icarus, oil on panel, 29” x 44”, 1555

Return of the Hunters, Pieter Bruegel, oil on wood, 1565, part of series of seasonal paintings. Hunters are peasant types; strong diagonals in picture. Typical scene rather than a specific narrative. Winter landscape in Belgium. FLASHCARD

In SPAIN, El Greco studied Mannerism in Italy.. . Then returned to create dramatic, interesting compositions

Burial of Count Orgaz, oil on canvas, 1585…

Tomb located directly below the painting. Painting commissioned 300 yrs after his death! Great philanthropist,.

Combo of Venetian color, Spanish mysticism, Mannerism figures

View of Toledo, oil on canvas; 47” x 42”, 1610

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

El Greco

Also painted landscapes, with drama of mannerism and expressive brushstrokes and color

Henry VIII, Hans Holbein, oil on wood, 32” 29”,

Holbein was court painter in England

Showed monumentality of King Henry VIII< who was a very large man

Mannerist influence

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Some women artist, such as Caterina van Hemessen in her Self-portrait, worked in the Northern Renaissanc es well…

Princess Elizabeth, Levina Bening Teerlinc, 42” x 32”, 1559

Levina was court painter in England, skilled portraitist.

This portrait is in Windsor Castle today!