Northern RenaissanceNorthern Renaissance

Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors, 1533. Oil on wood,6' 9 1/2" x 6' 10 1/2". © The National Gallery, London.

Northern RenaissanceNorthern RenaissanceUnlike the Italian Renaissance,

which took its primary inspiration from classical Greek and Roman culture, the Renaissance in the North was marked by movements for moral and religious change.

Renaissance and ReformationChristian Humanism

Studied the Bible and the writings of the church fathers.

“the Prince of Humanists” Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536)

The first humanist to make use of the printing press.

Produced a critical edition of the New Testament

: Albrecht Dürer (1471?1528), Erasmus of Rotterdam, 1526. Engraving,

Luther and the Protestant Reformation Martin Luther (1483-

1546)1505 he abandoned his

legal studies to become an Augustinian monk.

Spoke out against the church.

His inflammatory sermons and essays offered radical remedies to what he called “the misery and wretchedness of Christendom.”

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther, 1533. Panel, 8" x 5 3/4".

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The Anglican Church•Monarch Henry VIII (1491-1547) •He was determined to have a male heir, but after 18 years of marriage to his wife and produced one daughter he asked the church if he could annul the marriage and take a new wife.• The pope refused, prompting the king to break with Rome. In 1526 declared himself head of the Church of England Hans Holbein the Younger. Henry

Vlll, c. 1540. Oil on panel

Religious Persecution and Witch-HuntsThe witch-hunts that

infested Europe during the 16th century were fueled by the popular belief that the devil was actively involved in human affairs.

The first massive persecutions occurred at the end of the 15th century and reached their peak approximately one hundred years later.

Sixteenth-Century LiteratureErasmus

The Praise of Folly,(1511) a satiric oration about human foibles, including greed, intellectual pomposity, and pride.

Sir Thomas More, (served as chancellor to King Henry VIII) Utopia (1516)Was the first literary description of an ideal

state since Plato’s Republic.

Sixteenth-Century LiteratureMiguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

(Spaniard)Don Quixote recounts the adventures

of a chivalrous knight who confronts reality through the lens of personal fantasy.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) (French)“father of the personal essay,”

William Shakespeare•William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Shakespeare emerged during the Golden Age of England under the rule of Elizabeth I. He produced 37 plays- comedies, tragedies, romances, and histories- 154 sonnets and other poems.

Qeen Elizabeth of England, the Armada Portrait, Woburn Abbey (George Gower, ca 1588).

The Shakespearean Stage •Henry V; Richard III (1593-1600)•Much Ado About Nothing; All’s Well that Ends Well; The Taming of the Shrew(1593-1602)•Hamlet; Macbeth; Othello; King Lear (1600-1606)

Complete works :http: //shakespeare.mit.edu/works.html

Shakespeare’s sonnets (1609) SHALL I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease (1) hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye (2) of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines, (3)

By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; (4)

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st; (6)

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

  So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet XVIII , “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

1) allotted time2) The sun3)Beautiful thing from beauty4)Stripped of beauty5)Your fame will grow as time elapses6) the sonnet itself

Northern ArtJan van Eyck

Pioneer in early Netherlandish art(1380-1441)

Perfected the art of oil paintingThe couple are in the process of

making some type of vow.

Jan van Eyck (c. 1395–1441), Arnolfini Portrait, 1434. Oil on wood, 32 1/4" x 23 1/2".

Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck. Ghent Altarpiece (open), completed 1432. Oil on panel, approx. 11' 6" x 14' 5".

Jan van Eyck

Jan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (closed), completed 1432. Oil on panel, 11' 6" x 7' 7“..

Jan van Eyck, The Virgin in a Church, c. 1410-25. Oil on panel, 12 1/4" x 5 1/2". Gemaldegalerie, Berlin

Jan van Eyck (c. 1395–1441), Man in a Red Turban (Self-portrait?), 1433. Tempera and oil on wood, approx. 13 1/8" x 10 1/8"

The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment, ca. 1430Jan van Eyck and Workshop Assistant (Netherlandish, active by 1422, died 1441)Oil on canvas, transferred from wood

Hieronymus Bosch(1460-1516)

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516). World before the Flood, from Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1510-1515. Oil on wood, center panel 7' 2" x 6' 4".

•Preoccupied with human folly, most of his paintings reflect the long reach of medieval values into modern times.•Detailed the fallibility of humankind, its moral struggle, and its apocalyptic.

Garden of Earthly Delights, detail of right wing

Last Judgement

Last Judgment (fragment of Hell) Last Judgment (fragment of Paradise)

Nativity

Hieronymus BoschAttributed to Hieronymus Bosch. Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things, painted tabletop. Oil on wood, 3' 11 1/4" x 4' 11".

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516), The Cure for Folly, c. 1490s-1516. Oil on panel, 18 9/10 x 13 3/4 in.

Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450–1516), Death and the Miser, ca. 1485-1490. Oil on oak, 3 ft. 5/8 in. x 12 1/8 in.

Grunewald, Matthias Gothardt Neithardt (1460-158)

Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470-1528). Crucifixion with Saint Sebastian (left), Saint Anthony (right), and Lamentation (below), the Isenheim Altarpiece, closed, c. 1510-1515. Oil on panel (with frame), side panels 8' 2 1/2" x 3' 1/2", central panel. Giraudon/Art Resource, NY

•Naturalistic details and brutal distortion combine to produce the most painfully expressive painting style in all of 16th century art.

The protestant reformation and Printmaking

Woodcut. A relief printing process created by lines cut into the plank surface of the wood.

Engraving. An intaglio method of printing

•Protestant reformers encouraged the proliferation of private devotional imagery-biblical subjects in particular, In the production of such imagery printmaking technology established a landmark.

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Self-Portrait, 1500. Oil on wood, 26 5/16" x 19 5/16". Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

•One of the finest printmakers of all times!•Trained as an engraver, he earned international fame for his woodcuts and metal engravings.

Durer

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528). Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, c. 1497-1498. Woodcut, 15 2/5" x 11".

•He brought to the art of his day a profoundly religious view of the world and a desire to embody spiritual message of scripture in art.•This woodcut brings to life the terrifying prophecies described in Revelation 6:1-8.

Albrecht DürerThe Seven-Headed Beast and the Beast with Lamb's HornsWoodcut, 39 x 28 cm, from 'The Apocalypse of St. John'1496 - 98

Durer

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), The Knight, Death and the Devil, 1513. Engraving, 11" x 14". HIP/Art Resource, NY.

Durer

Albrecht Dürer (14711528), � Melencolia I, 1514. Engraving, 9 1/2" x 7 5/16“..

Durer

Albrecht Durer, Elector Frederick the Wise, 1524. Copper engraving, 7 3/8" x 4 3/4“.

Durer

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), Wire Drawing Mill, undated. Watercolor, 11 1/4 x 16 3/4 in. State Museums, Berlin. Photo: B. P. K

Durer •He also produced panoramic landscapes to be enjoyed in and for themselves.•An avid traveler, he introduced landscape painting as a legitimate genre in Western art.

Lucas Cranach the Elder(1472-1553)

Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Judgment of Paris, 1530. Panel, 13 1/2 x 8 3/4".

•Practiced a style that tended to flatten form by means of decorative linearity. •He was a highly acclaimed court painter at Wittenberg.•And like Durer, a devout follower of Protestant reform.

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Martin Luther, 1533. Panel, 8" x 5 3/4".

Salome," 1530, Lucas CranachSalome with the head of John the Baptist has always been a favorite subject for artists. The German Lucas Cranach the Elder painted the Biblical tease several times, always in contemporary 16th century dress

This is an excellent example of Cranach's mature but stereotyped style. The tragic figure of Lucrezia, who has suffered outrage at the hands of Tarquin, is about to take her own life. Every element in the composition is carefully exaggerated.

Lucas Cranach's "Suicide of Lucrezia"

Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), Portrait of a Young WomanOil on wood, 1530, 49 x 42 cm(

Lucas Cranach - Adam and Eve

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543)

Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1498–1543), Dance of Death, ca. 1490. Woodcut.

•His woodcut series brought him renown as a draftsman and printmaker.

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543) is remembered as a brilliant portrait painter, especially in the court of Henry VIII, and as the designer of a series of remarkable woodcuts, The Dance of Death. The Death and the Knight is one of forty-one woodcuts in 1538. The other images show Death escorting people from all walks of life to their final destiny.

Portrait of Henry VIII - portrait after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543)

Edward VI as a Child, probably 1538oil on panel, 56.8 x 44 cm (22 3/8 x 17 3/8 in.)

Hans Holbein the Younger, The Ambassadors, 1533. Oil on wood,6' 9 1/2" x 6' 10 1/2". © The National Gallery, London.

Brueghel, Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1525-1569)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), The Blind Leading the Blind, 1568. Tempera on canvas, 5 ft. x 2 ft. 10 in. National Museum, Naples.

•Recreates in the everyday setting of the Flemish landscape Christ’s warning to the Pharisees, “If a blind man leads a bind man, both will fall into a ditch” (Matthew 15:14)

Brueghel

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), Hunters Returning in a Winter Landscape. Oil on canvas, 3 ft. 10 1/8 in. x 5 ft. 3 3/4 in. Bridgeman

•His preoccupation with the activities of rustic life earned him the title “Peasant Brueghel”

Brueghel

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), Triumph of Death, ca. 1562-1564. Oil on panel, 3 ft. 10 in. x 5 ft. 3 3/4 in. © Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Brueghel

Pieter Brueghel the Elder (c. 1525-1569), The Wedding Dance, 1566. Oil on panel, 3 ft. 11 in. x 5 ft. 2 in. Photo: © 2009 The Detroit Institute of Arts. City of Detroit Purchase. 30.374.

Brueghel

Peter Bruegel the Elder. The Tower of Babel, 1563. Tempera on panel, 3' 9" x 5' 1".

Not all of Brueghel’s paintings depicted the harsh realities of peasant living. The Land of Cockaigne features the peasants in a different light, this time wallowing in the mythical, land of excess.

Elizabethan MusicUsually based on Italian models, the

English madrigal was generally lighter in mood than its Italian counterpart. It was also often technically simple enough to be performed by amateurs.

Thomas Morley (1557-1602)Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)

Beyond the West: Japanese Theater

Masanobu (?), Kabuki stage, ca. 1740. Colored woodblock print.

•The oldest form of Japanese theater, No` drama, evolved in the 14th century from performances in song, dance, and mime.

Ko-omote No mask, Ashikaga period, fifteenth century. Painted wood, height approx. 10 in.

•16th century, as Japan emerged from a feudal age, the new merchant class that occupied Japan’s growing commercial cities demanded new forms of entertainment. •Kabuki, literally, “song-dance-art”

Humanist of Chinese culture

Xie Huan, Literary Gathering in the Apricot Garden, detail. 1437. Handscroll, ink and colors on silk, 14 3/4 x 94 3/4 in. Ming Dynasty 1368-1644.

•During the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) These scholar-gentleman played a major role in the administration of governmental affairs.