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Chapter 8 northern renaissance
The document provides an overview of important artists and works from the Northern Renaissance period, including Jan van Eyck, Hieronymus Bosch, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Holbein the Younger, and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. It discusses their contributions to painting, printmaking, and other genres, as well as the religious and political context of the time. Major works mentioned include Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece and Arnolfini Portrait, Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights triptych, Durer's print series and self-portraits, and Bruegel's paintings of peasant life and biblical scenes.
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Chapter 8 northern renaissance
- 1. Northern Renaissance HansHolbein the Younger, The Ambassadors, 1533. Oil on wood,6' 9 1/2" x 6' 10 1/2". © The National Gallery, London .
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- 3. Renaissance andReformation Christian Humanism “ the Prince of Humanists” Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536)
- 4. Luther and theProtestant Reformation Martin Luther (1483-1546) 1505 he abandoned his legal studies to become an Augustinian monk. “ the misery and wretchedness of Christendom.” .
- 5. The Anglican ChurchMonarch Henry VIII (1491-1547) In 1526 declared himself head of the Church of England
- 6. Religious Persecution andWitch-Hunts The first massive persecutions occurred at the end of the 15 th century and reached their peak approximately one hundred years later.
- 7. Sixteenth-Century Literature SirThomas More, (served as chancellor to King Henry VIII) Utopia (1516) Was the first literary description of an ideal state since Plato’s Republic. Woodcut by Ambrosius Holbein for a 1518 edition of Utopia. The lower left-hand corner shows the traveler Raphael Hythlodaeus, describing the island.
- 8. Sixteenth-Century Literature Miguelde Cervantes (1547-1616) (Spaniard) Don Quixote recounts the adventures of a chivalrous knight who confronts reality through the lens of personal fantasy. Don Quixote de la Mancha and Sancho Panza , 1863, by Gustave Doré
- 9. William Shakespeare WilliamShakespeare (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.
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- 11. 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
- 12. Northern Art Janvan Eyck Pioneer in early Netherlandish art(1380-1441) Perfected the art of oil painting The 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".
- 13. Jan van EyckJan van Eyck. Ghent Altarpiece (open), completed 1432. Oil on panel, approx. 11' 6" x 14' 5".
- 14. Jan van EyckJan van Eyck, The Ghent Altarpiece (closed), completed 1432. Oil on panel, 11' 6" x 7' 7“..
- 15. The Virgin Mary.God the Father and Jesus.
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- 18. Sacrifices made byAbel and Cain. Murder of Abel by Cain. Adam. Eve.
- 19. The Crucifixion; TheLast Judgment , ca. 1430 Jan van Eyck and Workshop Assistant (Netherlandish, active by 1422, died 1441) Oil on canvas, transferred from wood
- 20. 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"
- 21. Hieronymus Bosch(1460-1516) HieronymusBosch (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.
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- 23. Garden of EarthlyDelights, detail of right wing
- 24. Last Judgment (fragmentof Hell) Last Judgment (fragment of Paradise)
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- 26. Grunewald, MatthiasGothardt 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 16 th century art.
- 27. 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.
- 28. 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.
- 29. Durer Albrecht Dürer(1471–1528). Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , c. 1497-1498. Woodcut, 15 2/5" x 11". This woodcut brings to life the terrifying prophecies described in Revelation 6:1-8.
- 30. Durer Albrecht Dürer(1471–1528), The Knight, Death and the Devil , 1513. Engraving, 11" x 14". HIP/Art Resource, NY.
- 31. Durer Albrecht Dürer(14711528), Melencolia I , 1514. Engraving, 9 1/2" x 7 5/16“..
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- 33. Durer He alsoproduced panoramic landscapes to be enjoyed in and for themselves. An avid traveler, he introduced landscape painting as a legitimate genre in Western art.
- 34. Lucas Cranach theElder (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.
- 35. Lucas Cranach theElder, Martin Luther, 1533. Panel, 8" x 5 3/4".
- 36. This is anexcellent 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"
- 37. Salome," 1530, LucasCranach Salome 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
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- 39. Lucas Cranach theElder ( 1472-1553), Portrait of a Young Woman Oil on wood, 1530, 49 x 42 cm (
- 40. Lucas Cranach -Adam and Eve
- 41. Hans Holbein theYounger (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.
- 42. Hans Holbein theYounger (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.
- 43. Beat My GuestDeath takes the emperor Beat My Guest
- 44. Death andthe Merchant
- 45. Hans Holbein theYounger, The Ambassadors, 1533. Oil on wood,6' 9 1/2" x 6' 10 1/2". © The National Gallery, London .
- 46. Portrait of HenryVIII - portrait after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543) Edward VI as a Child , probably 1538 oil on panel, 56.8 x 44 cm (22 3/8 x 17 3/8 in.)
- 47. Pieter Brueghel theElder (1525-1569) 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)
- 48. Brueghel His preoccupationwith the activities of rustic life earned him the title “Peasant Brueghel”
- 49. Not all ofBrueghel’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. 1567
- 50. Brueghel Pieter Brueghelthe 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.
- 51. Beyond the West:Japanese Theater Masanobu (?), Kabuki stage, ca. 1740. Colored woodblock print. The oldest form of Japanese theater, No` drama, evolved in the 14 th century from performances in song, dance, and mime.
- 52. Ko-omote No mask,Ashikaga period, fifteenth century. Painted wood, height approx. 10 in. 16 th century emerges a new form of entertainment. Kabuki, literally, “song-dance-art”
- 53. Humanist of Chineseculture 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.
- 54. Elizabethan Music Usuallybased 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)
- 55. Jan van Eyck, The Virgin in a Church , c. 1410-25. Oil on panel, 12 1/4" x 5 1/2". Gemaldegalerie, Berlin
- 56. Northern Renaissance Unlikethe 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.
- 57. 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 time 2) The sun 3)Beautiful thing from beauty 4)Stripped of beauty 5)Your fame will grow as time elapses 6) the sonnet itself
- 58. Hieronymus Bosch Attributedto Hieronymus Bosch. Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things , painted tabletop. Oil on wood, 3' 11 1/4" x 4' 11".
- 59. Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450–1516), The Cure for Folly, c. 1490s-1516. Oil on panel, 18 9/10 x 13 3/4 in.
- 60. 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.
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- 62. Hercules and Antaeus,"1530, Lucas Cranach the Elder
- 63. Jan van Eyck's, The Madonna with Canon van der Paele 1436, 122 x 157 cm
- 64. Triptych of LastJudgement Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Vienna http://www.all-art.org/early_renaissance/bosch5.html
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- 66. Albrecht Dürer TheSeven-Headed Beast and the Beast with Lamb's Horns Woodcut, 39 x 28 cm, from 'The Apocalypse of St. John' 1496 - 98
- 67. Durer Albrecht Durer, Elector Frederick the Wise , 1524. Copper engraving, 7 3/8" x 4 3/4“.
- 68. Brueghel Pieter Bruegelthe Elder. The Tower of Babel , 1563. Tempera on panel, 3' 9" x 5' 1".
- 69. Brueghel Pieter Brueghelthe 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.
Editor's Notes
- #2 Unlike 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.
- #4 The first humanist to make use of the printing press. Produced a critical edition of the New Testament. With the same intellectual fervor that the Italian humanists brought to their examination of Plato and Cicero. His New Testament became the source of most sixteenth-century German and English vernacular translations of the central text of Christian Humanism. Humanism is the term generally applied to the predominant social philosophy and intellectual and literary currents of the period from 1400 to 1650. The return to favor of the pagan classics stimulated the philosophy of secularism, the appreciation of worldly pleasures, and above all intensified the assertion of personal independence and individual expression. Zeal for the classics was a result as well as a cause of the growing secular view of life. Expansion of trade, growth of prosperity and luxury, and widening social contacts generated interest in worldly pleasures, in spite of formal allegiance to ascetic Christian doctrine. Men thus affected -- the humanists -- welcomed classical writers who revealed similar social values and secular attitudes. Studied the Bible and the writings of the church fathers.
- #5 Spoke out against the church. His inflammatory sermons and essays offered radical remedies to what he called “the misery and wretchedness of Christendom.” Son of a rural coal miner. He had an unwillingness to accept the pope as the ultimate source of religious authority. He did not wish to destroy the Catholic church but to reform it. In 1520, Pope Leo X issued an edict excommunicating the out spoken reformer. Charged with heresy, he stubbornly refused to recant, concluding, “I can not and will not recant anything, for to act against our conscience is neither safe for us, or open to us. On this I take my stand, I can do no other, God help me. Amen.” New Protestant sects, John Calvin (1509-1564) a French theologian. He placed great emphasis on God’s omnipotence. He believed in predestination.
- #6 By the mid-sixteenth century the consequences of Luther’s protests were evident: The religious unity of Western Christendom was shattered forever. Social and political upheaval had become the order of the day. 200 years of fighting between Catholics and Protestants. Also, Protestants against protestants. 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.
- #7 The witch-hunts that infested Europe during the 16 th century were fueled by the popular belief that the devil was actively involved in human affairs. Two theologians published the Malleus Maleficarum (Witches hammer) an encyclopedia that described the nature of witches, their collusion with the devil, and the ways by which they ere to be recognized and punished The witchcraft craze of this period dramatizes the prevailing a gap between Christian humanism and rationalism on the one hand and barbarism and superstition on the other. Since women were traditionally regarded as inherently susceptible to the devil’s temptations, they became the primary victims of this mass hysteria. Women – especially single, old , and eccentric women – constituted four-fith’s of the witches executed between the 15 th and early 17 th centuries.
- #8 More-Unwilling to compromise his position as a Roman Catholic, he opposed the actions of the king and was executed for treason in 1535. Don Quixote-(It was translated from Spanish into more languages than any work other than the Hebrew bible.) By means of satiric irony, Northern Renaissance writers held up prevailing abuses to ridicule, thus implying the need for reform. Erasmus – The Praise of Folly , a satire attacking a wide variety of human foibles, including greed, intellectual pomposity, and pride
- #9 Don Quixote-(It was translated from Spanish into more languages than any work other than the Hebrew bible.) Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) (French) “ father of the personal essay,”
- #12 These works, generally considered to be the greatest examples of English literature, have exercised an enormous influence on the evolution of the English language and the development of the western literary tradition.
- #13 In 1434 Jan painted a landmark full-length double portrait, the first in western art to portray a secular couple in a domestic interior. Witness the joined hands and the raised right hand of the richly dressed man. Above the convex mirror on the wall behind the couple is the inscription “Jan van Eyck was here”, see the reflection in the mirror of the artist and a second observer. Many other objects in this domestic setting suggest a sacred union: The burning candle (traditionally carried to the marriage ceremony by the bride) symbolizes the divine presence of Christ, the dog represents fidelity, the ripening fruit that lies near and on the window sill alludes to the union of the first Couple in the garden of Eden, and the carved image of Saint Margaret (on the chair back near the bed) patron of women in child birth , signifies aspirations for a fruitful alliance.
- #14 The Ghent Altarpiece or Adoration of the Mystic Lamb ( Dutch : Het Lam Gods or The Lamb of God ; completed 1432) is a very large and complex Early Netherlandish polyptych panel painting which is considered to be one of Belgium 's masterpieces and one of the world's treasures. [1] [2] It was once in the Joost Vijdt chapel at Saint Bavo Cathedral , Ghent , Belgium, but was later moved for security reasons to the chapel of the cathedral. Commissioned by the wealthy merchant and financier Joost Vijdt for his and his wife's private chapel, [1] it was begun by Hubert van Eyck , who died in 1426 while work was underway, and completed by his younger brother Jan van Eyck . The altarpiece represented a "new conception of art", in which the idealization of the medieval tradition gave way to an exacting observation of nature. [3] The altarpiece consists of a total of 24 compartmented scenes, which make up two views, open and closed, which are changed by moving the hinged outer wings. The upper register (row) of the opened view shows Christ the King (but see below) between the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist . The insides of the wings represent angels singing and making music, and on the outside Adam and Eve . The lower register of the central panel shows the adoration of the Lamb of God , with several groups in attendance and streaming in to worship, overseen by the dove representing the Holy Spirit . On weekdays the wings were closed, showing the Annunciation of Mary and donor portraits of Joost Vijdt and his wife Lysbette Borluut. There used to be an inscription on the frame stating that Hubert van Eyck maior quo nemo repertus (greater than anyone) started the altarpiece , but that Jan van Eyck - calling himself arte secundus (second best in the art) - finished it in 1432. The original, very ornate carved outer frame and surround, presumably harmonizing with the painted tracery , was destroyed during the Reformation ; there has been speculation that it may have included clockwork mechanisms for moving the shutters and even playing music. [4] The original lower left panel known as The Just Judges was stolen in 1934. The original panel has never been found and has been replaced by a copy made in 1945 by Jef Vanderveken . The stolen panel figures prominently in Albert Camus ' novel La chute . When opened, the altarpiece measures 11 by 15 feet (3.5 by 4.6 metres).
- #20 His artistic prestige rests partly on his unrivaled skill in pictorial illusionism. The landscape of his Crucifixion ( 33.92ab ), with its rocky, cracked earth, fleeting cloud formations, and endless diminution of detail toward the blue horizon, reveals his systematic and discriminating study of the natural world. Van Eyck's ability to manipulate the properties of the oil medium played a crucial role in the realization of such effects. From the fifteenth century onward, commentators have expressed their awe and astonishment at his ability to mimic reality and, in particular, to re-create the effects of light on different surfaces, from dull reflections on opaque surfaces to luminous, shifting highlights on metal or glass. Such effects abound in the Virgin of Canon van der Paele (1434–36), as shown by the glinting gold thread of the brocaded cope of Saint Donatian, the glow of rounded pearls and dazzle of faceted jewels in the costumes of the holy figures, or the small, distorted reflections of the figures of the Virgin and Child repeated in each curve of the polished helmet of Saint George. The almost clinical detail in the face of the kneeling patron vividly illustrates van Eyck's acute objectivity as a portraitist. Through his understanding of the effects of light and rigorous scrutiny of detail, van Eyck is able to construct a convincingly unified and logical pictorial world, suffusing the absolute stillness of the scene with scintillating energy. Despite this legendary objectivity, van Eyck's paintings are perhaps most remarkable for their pure fictions. He frequently aimed to deceive the eye and amaze the viewer with his sheer artistry: inscriptions in his work simulate carved or applied lettering; grisaille statuettes imitate real sculpture; painted mirrors reflect unseen, imaginary events occurring outside the picture space. In The Arnolfini Portrait , the convex mirror on the rear wall reflects two tiny figures entering the room, one of them probably van Eyck himself, as suggested by his prominent signature above, which reads "Jan van Eyck has been here. 1434." By indicating that these figures occupy the viewer's space, the optical device of the mirror creates an ingenious fiction that implies continuity between the pictorial and the real worlds, involves the viewer directly in the picture's construction and meaning, and, significantly, places the artist himself in a central, if relatively discrete, role. Another reflected self-portrait, this time in the shield of Saint George in the Virgin of Canon van der Paele , functions as part of van Eyck's textural realism but likewise challenges our credulity by reminding us, through this minor intrusion of the artist's image, that his ostensible realism is an artifice. Source: Jan van Eyck (ca. 1380/90–1441) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- #22 Although Bosch painted traditional Christian subjects, he brought to them a variety of images that have puzzled and astonished viewers for centuries .
- #23 The central panel depicts a cosmic landscape on which youthful nudes cavort in a variety of erotic playful pastimes. The terrain, filled with oversized flora, real and imagined animals and birds, and strangely shaped vessels, is similar to that of the panel one the left, where God is shown creating Adam and Eve. In the right wing of the triptych , Hell is pictured as a dark and sulphurous inferno where the damned are tormented by an assortment of terrifying creatures who inflict on sinners punishments appropriate to their sins – the greedy hoarder of gold (on the lower right) excretes coins into a pothole, while the nude nearby, fondled by demons, is punished for the sin of lust.
- #27 Grunewald rejects harmonious proportions and figural idealization in favor of dramatic exaggeration and brutally precise detail: The body of Jesus is lengthened to emphasize it’s weight as it hangs from the bowed arms of the cross, the gray-green flesh putrefies with clotted blood and angry thorns, the fingers convulse and curl in agony, while the feet – broken and bruised – contort in a spasm of pain.
- #29 Albrecht Dürer (German pronunciation: [ˈalbʁɛçt ˈdyːʁɐ] ; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528) [1] was a German painter , printmaker , mathematician , engraver , and theorist from Nuremberg . His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known works include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists , while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists , have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance . This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics , perspective and ideal proportions . Albrecht was an art theorist, genius and innovator; he was an inventor, designer of clothes, armor, goblets, fountains, etc... Following his second visit to Italy between 1505 through 1507, Durer went to Venice by way of Bologna to learn the “secret art of perspective” and other secrets. He is said to have went to Venice to see Luca Pacioli who developed ideas on the law of “central perspective,” but the famous mathematician had moved to Florence. Durer traveled onward throughout until he reached Bologna, we do not know whether or not he met Pacioli while traveling because a detailed diary has been lost during that time.
- #30 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. Amidst billowing clouds, Death (in the foreground), Famine (carrying a pair of scales), War (brandishing a sword), and Pestilence (drawing his bow) sweep down upon humankind; their victims fall beneath the horses’ hooves, or, as with the bishop in the lower left, are devoured by infernal monsters. Durer’s image seems a grim prophecy of the coming age, in which five million people would die in religious wars. Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse , ca. 1497–98 Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528) Woodcut 15 3/8 x 11 in. (39.2 x 27.9 cm) Gift of Junius S. Morgan, 1919 (19.73.209) Not on view Last Updated June 17, 2011 The third and most famous woodcut from Dürer's series of illustrations for The Apocalypse , the Four Horsemen presents a dramatically distilled version of the passage from the Book of Revelation (6:1–8): "And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and its rider had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come!' And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another; and he was given a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come!' And I saw, and behold, a black horse, and its rider had a balance in his hand; … When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, 'Come!' And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him; and they were given great power over a fourth of the earth; to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth." Transforming what was a relatively staid and unthreatening image in earlier illustrated Bibles, Dürer injects motion and danger into this climactic moment through his subtle manipulation of the woodcut. The parallel lines across the image establish a basic middle tone against which the artist silhouettes and overlaps the powerful forms of the four horses and riders—from left to right, Death, Famine, War, and Plague (or Pestilence). Their volume and strong diagonal motion enhance the impact of the image, offering an eloquent demonstration of the masterful visual effects Dürer was able to create in this medium. Source: Albrecht Dürer: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (19.73.209) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- #31 Knight, Death, and the Devil , 1513–14 Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471–1528) Engraving 9 5/8 x 7 1/2 in. (24.4 x 19.1 cm) Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1943 (43.106.2) Not on view Last Updated June 17, 2011 Dürer's Knight, Death, and the Devil is one of three large prints of 1513–14 known as his Meisterstiche (master engravings). The other two are Melancholia I and Saint Jerome in His Study . Though not a trilogy in the strict sense, the prints are closely interrelated and complementary, corresponding to the three kinds of virtue in medieval scholasticism—theological, intellectual, and moral. Called simply the Reuter (Rider) by Dürer, Knight, Death, and the Devil embodies the state of moral virtue. The artist may have based his depiction of the "Christian Knight" on an address from Erasmus's Instructions for the Christian Soldier ( Enchiridion militis Christiani ), published in 1504: "In order that you may not be deterred from the path of virtue because it seems rough and dreary … and because you must constantly fight three unfair enemies—the flesh, the devil, and the world—this third rule shall be proposed to you: all of those spooks and phantoms which come upon you as if you were in the very gorges of Hades must be deemed for naught after the example of Virgil's Aeneas … Look not behind thee." Riding steadfastly through a dark Nordic gorge, Dürer's knight rides past Death on a Pale Horse, who holds out an hourglass as a reminder of life's brevity, and is followed closely behind by a pig-snouted Devil. As the embodiment of moral virtue, the rider—modeled on the tradition of heroic equestrian portraits with which Dürer was familiar from Italy—is undistracted and true to his mission. A haunting expression of the vita activa , or active life, the print is a testament to the way in which Dürer's thought and technique coalesced brilliantly in the "master engravings." Source: Albrecht Dürer: Knight, Death, and the Devil (43.106.2) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- #32 Dürer's Melencolia I is one of three large prints of 1513–14 known as his Meisterstiche (master engravings). The other two are Knight, Death, and the Devil and Saint Jerome in His Study . Though they do not form a series in the strict sense, the prints do correspond to the three kinds of virtue in medieval scholasticism—moral, theological, and intellectual—and they embody the complexity of Dürer's conception. Melencolia I is a depiction of the intellectual situation of the artist and is thus, by extension, a spiritual self-portrait of Dürer. In medieval philosophy, each individual was thought to be dominated by one of the four humors; melancholy, associated with black gall, was the least desirable of the four, and melancholics were considered most likely to succumb to insanity. Renaissance thought, however, also linked melancholy with creative genius; thus, at the same time that this idea changed the status of this humor, it made the self-conscious artist aware of the terrible risks that came with his gift. The winged personification of Melancholy, seated dejectedly with her head resting on her hand, holds a caliper and is surrounded by other tools associated with geometry, the one of the seven liberal arts that underlies artistic creation—and the one through which Dürer hoped to approach perfection in his own work. An influential treatise, De occulta philosophia of Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim, almost certainly known to Dürer, probably holds the explanation for the number I in the title: creativity in the arts was the realm of the imagination, considered the first and lowest in the hierarchy of the three categories of genius. The next was the realm of reason, and the highest the realm of the spirit. It is ironic that this image of the artist, paralyzed and powerless, should exemplify Dürer's own artistic power at its superlative height. Related Source: Albrecht Dürer: Melencolia I (43.106.1) | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- #33 Albrecht Dürer's Rhinoceros , a drawing and woodcut Germany, AD 1515 To view this video online please enable javascript. To view this video online please install the Flash player Download mp4 Close BSL video This celebrated woodcut records the arrival in Lisbon of an Indian rhinoceros on 20 May 1515. The ruler of Gujarat, Sultan Muzafar II (1511-26) had presented it to Alfonso d'Albuquerque, the governor of Portuguese India. Albuquerque passed the gift on to Dom Manuel I, the king of Portugal. The rhinoceros travelled in a ship full of spices. On arrival in Lisbon, Dom Manuel arranged for the rhinoceros to fight one of his elephants (according to Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis ('Natural History') (AD 77), the elephant and rhinoceros are bitter enemies). The elephant apparently turned and fled. A description of the rhinoceros soon reached Nuremberg, presumably with sketches, from which Dürer prepared this drawing and woodcut. No rhinoceros had been seen in Europe for over 1000 years, so Dürer had to work solely from these reports. He has covered the creature's legs with scales and the body with hard, patterned plates. Perhaps these features interpret lost sketches, or even the text, which states, '[The rhinoceros] has the colour of a speckled tortoise and it is covered with thick scales'. So convincing was Dürer's fanciful creation that for the next 300 years European illustrators borrowed from his woodcut, even after they had seen living rhinoceroses without plates and scales. Dom Manuel sent the rhinoceros to Pope Leo X in Rome, who had much admired 'Hanno', the elephant the king had sent him the year before. Sadly, the ship carrying the new gift sank before it reached Rome.
- #35 Lucas Cranach the Elder ( Lucas Cranach der Ältere , 4 October 1472 – 16 October 1553), was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving . He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German princes and those of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation , whose cause he embraced with enthusiasm, becoming a close friend of Martin Luther . He also painted religious subjects, first in the Catholic tradition, and later trying to find new ways of conveying Lutheran religious concerns in art. He continued throughout his career to paint nude subjects drawn from mythology and religion. He had a large workshop and many works exist in different versions; his son Lucas Cranach the Younger , and others, continued to create versions of his father's works for decades after his death.
- #38 Fictional character Salomé lived in Judea between AD 14 and 71. Her Hebrew name is שלומית ( Shlomit) means “peace” and was used as the typical “hello” greeting of the time. According to tradition, Salome was the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas (ruler of Judea), and danced before him on his birthday. This so delighted Herod that he promised her mother a favour, which was the beheading of John the Baptist. Christian traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, for instance depicting as erotic her dance mentioned in the New Testament, or concentrate on her lighthearted and cold foolishness that, according to the gospels, led to John the Baptist’s death.
- #46 The Ambassadors (1533) is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger in the National Gallery, London . As well as being a double portrait , the painting contains a still life of several meticulously rendered objects, the meaning of which is the cause of much debate. It is also a much-cited example of anamorphosis in painting.
- #50 The Land of Cockaigne is the subject of an oil painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder . In medieval times, Cockaigne was a mythical land of plenty. Bruegel's depiction of Cockaigne and its residents is not meant to be a flattering one; he chooses rather a comic illustration of the spiritual emptiness believed to derive from gluttony and sloth , two of the seven deadly sins . [1] In the painting, a clerk, a peasant farmer, and a soldier lie dozing on the ground underneath a table bound to a tree. The clerk's book, papers, ink and pen lie idle, as do the peasant's flail and the soldier's lance and gauntlet . A half-eaten egg in its shell runs between the peasant and the clerk. The table attached to the tree is laden with partly consumed food and drink. Behind the tree, a roasted fowl lays itself upon a silver platter, implying that it is ready to be eaten, and a roasted pig runs about with a carving knife already slipped under its skin. On the left, a knight emerges from a lean-to whose roof is covered in dishes of pie and pastry. On the right and behind the main action, a man clutching a spoon forces his way out of a large cloud of pudding, having eaten his way through it; he reaches for the bent branch of a tree in order to lower himself into Cockaigne. The fence enclosing the main scene behind the dozing trio is made of interwoven sausages . A partly eaten wheel of cheese and a bush or tower of loaves of bread sit on the left and right of the scene. The arrangement of the clerk, peasant, and soldier underneath the tree suggests the men as the spokes of a wheel, where the tree is the hub. The roasted fowl lies in the place where a fourth spoke could be. Ross Frank has argued that the painting is a political satire directed at the participants in the first stages of the Dutch Revolt , where the roasted fowl represents the humiliation and failure of the nobleman (who would otherwise form the fourth spoke of the wheel) in his leadership of the Netherlands , and the overall scene depicts the complacency of the Netherlandish people, too content with their abundance to take the risks that would bring about significant religious and political change. [2] In Dutch , the name of the painting is " Het Luilekkerland ", meaning "the lazy-luscious-land." [3]
- #53 16 th century, as Japan emerged from a feudal age, the new merchant class that occupied Japan’s growing commercial cities demanded new forms of entertainment.
- #54 A pair of richly attired dignitaries are engaged in intellectual activities. Calligraphic writing materials, musical instruments, painted scrolls, and a chesslike board game-enduring symbols of accomplishment among Chinese humanists.
- #58 Sonnets were more popular then plays
- #62 Albrecht Dürer (German pronunciation: [ˈalbʁɛçt ˈdyːʁɐ] ; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528) [1] was a German painter , printmaker , mathematician , engraver , and theorist from Nuremberg . His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since. His vast body of work includes altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings. His woodcuts, such as the Apocalypse series (1498), retain a more Gothic flavour than the rest of his work. His well-known works include the Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists , while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. Dürer's introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists , have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance . This is reinforced by his theoretical treatises, which involve principles of mathematics , perspective and ideal proportions .
- #65 This, the largest of Bosch's paintings (163.7 x 127 cm/ 66 x 50 in), is also one of the most revealing and accomplished. The familiar story is clear. Every one of his contemporaries, poor, trusting, illiterate peasants as well as educated burghers, would have grasped the significance of almost all the details and believed the basic message implicitly. But some of the images must have been frighteningly new and distressing, if not actually inducing despair. Other painters had treated the same subject powerfully, but no one, before or since, has had the creative intensity and ability to actualize the dreaded unknown in such fantastic images. This is particularly true in the devils, demons, evil spirits and unnerving monsters that Bosch created to inhabit the nether world. His contemporaries, if they thought he saw (and they would have believed it possible) and accurately represented the monsters and denizens, and the hellish regions they inhabited, must have been convinced that hell was a place to avoid at all costs. The deadly sins are all depicted a number of times and erotic symbolism abounds.
- #67 Between the years 1512 and 1516 Durer had experimented with etching. Years after his return from Italy, he designed three “Master Engraved Plates.” The first is titled; “Knight, Death and the Devil,” the second; “Saint Jerome in his Study ,” and the last “Melencolia I.” The plates were completed during the year of 1513 for the Knight, Death and Devil and 1514 for Saint Jerome in his Study , and Melencolia I . Throughout this period, Durer worked for the “Emperor Maximilian,” performing many Royal Commissions undertaken on his behalf, until his death in 1519. His first patron was “Frederick the Wise,” who commissioned a portrait from a youthful Durer in the year 1496. Durer finished an engraved portrait of “Frederick the Wise” in 1924, establishing a retained friendship and association with Frederick throughout his lifetime. Revelation (Apocalypse) CHAPTER 13 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. 2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. 3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. Commentator Albert Barnes saw the beast from the sea as the Roman Empire: "The reference here is to Rome, or the one Roman power, contemplated as made up of ten subordinate kingdoms, and therefore subsequently to the invasion of the Northern hordes, and to the time when the Papacy was about to rise. ...Thus in Daniel (vii. 2-7) the lion is introduced as the symbol of the Babylonian power; the bear, as the symbol of the Medo-Persian; the leopard, as the symbol of the Macedonian; and a nondescript animal, fierce, cruel, and mighty, with two horns, as the symbol of the Roman. See Notes on that passage. In John there is one animal representing the Roman power, as if it were made up of all these: a leopard with the feet of a bear , and the mouth of a lion , ...and with the general description of a fierce monster. ...the beast here represents the Roman power, as now broken up into the ten dominations which sprung up (see notes on Daniel as above) from the one original Roman power, and that became henceforward the supporters of the Papacy, and, therefore, properly represented here as having ten diadems. And upon his heads the name of blasphemy. That is, the whole power was blasphemous in its claims and pretensions." - Notes on the New Testament by Albert Barnes, 1884-1885
- #69 The Tower of Babel is the subject of two oil paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder . They depict the construction of the Tower of Babel , which, according to the Book of Genesis in the Bible , was a tower built by a unified, monolingual humanity as a mark of their achievement and to prevent them from scattering: "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:4). Bruegel's depiction of the architecture of the tower, with its numerous arches and other examples of Roman engineering , is deliberately reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum , [1] which Christians of the time saw as both a symbol of hubris and of persecution. Bruegel's paintings seem to attribute the ultimate failure of the Tower to engineering difficulties rather than to sudden, divinely-caused linguistic differences . [ citation needed ] Although at first glance the tower appears to be a stable series of concentric pillars, upon closer examination it is apparent that none of the layers lie at a true horizontal; rather, the tower is built as an ascending spiral. However, the workers in the painting have built the arches perpendicular to the slanted ground, thereby making them unstable, and a few arches can already be seen crumbling. More troubling, perhaps, is the fact that the foundation and bottom layers of the tower had not been completed before the higher layers were constructed. The influence of Northern artists can be seen in the careful attention Bruegel paid to the painting of the landscape. The Tower of Babel is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum , Vienna . Another painting of the same subject, The "Little" Tower of Babel , c. 1563, is in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam .
- #70 In Bruegel's later years he painted in a simpler style than the Italianate art that prevailed in his time. The most obvious influence on his art is the older Dutch master Hieronymus Bosch , particularly in Bruegel's early " demonological " paintings such as The Triumph of Death and Dulle Griet (Mad Meg) . It was in nature, however, that he found his greatest inspiration as he is identified as being a master of landscapes. It was in these landscapes that Bruegel created a story, seeming to combine several scenes in one painting. Such works can be seen in The Fall of the Rebel Angels and the previously mentioned The Triumph of Death .