northern renaissance artists from the netherlands and germany 1500-1615
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Northern Renaissance
Artists from the Netherlands and Germany1500-1615
The Northern Renaissance was “Renaissance happenings that occurred within Europe, but outside of Italy” the most
innovative art was created in France, Germany and the Netherlands during this time, and because all of these places
are north of Italy, the “Northern” tag has stuck.
Both humanism, a commitment to the search for truth and morality through human means in support of human interests,
and secularism, the social ideology in which religion and supernatural beliefs are not seen as key to understanding the
world, become the dominant forces shaping society.While Italian Renaissance depicted the ideal beauty, artists north
of Italy were depicting intense realism using observation over theory to
create their works of art.
The Printing Press
The influence of the printing press was responsible for great changes in society.Consider this, the press--enhanced scientific research-helped spread the Renaissance from Italy to other parts of Europe-Gutenberg press had the power to mass produce -the press led to the introduction of public propaganda, used to strengthen nation states-broke control of Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Latin speaking priestly class-encouraged authors to write in the local language, further spreading Renaissance ideas
Important Artists of the Era
Albrecht Durer1471-1528
Germany"Albrecht Duerer was without doubt the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. Living in Nuremberg, half-way between the Netherlands and Italy, he found inspiration in the work of painters of both the major European artistic centres of his time. But rather than simply imitating what others were doing, Duerer was very much an innovator. He is, for example, the first artist who is known to have painted a self-portrait and to have done a landscape painting of a specific scene.He was a painter, wood carver and mathematician.
Durer, AlbrechtSelf-portrait at 22 1493Oil on linen, transferred from vellum57 x 45 cm Musee du Louvre, Paris
Durer, AlbrechtSelf-Portrait at 26 1498Oil on panel 52 x 41 cmMuseo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Durer, AlbrechtSt Anne with the Virgin and Child 1519Oil and tempera on canvas, transferred from panel 60 x 50 cmMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Jan van Eyck(Active from 1422, died 1441)
Flanders
"Jan van Eyck was the greatest artist of the early Netherlands school. He held high positions throughout his career, including court painter and diplomat in Bruges. So outstanding was his skill as an oil painter that the invention of the medium was at one time attributed to him, with his brother Hubert, also a painter. Van Eyck exploited the qualities of oil as never before, building up layers of transparent glazes, thus giving him a surface on which to capture objects in minute detail and allowing for the preservation of his colours.
Van Eyck, JanThe Crucifixion and The Last Judgment 1425-30Oil on canvas transferred from woodEach panel 22 1/4 x 7 3/4 in. (56.5 x 19.7 cm)Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Van Eyck, JanThe Ghent altarpiece with doors closed, 1432Oil on panel Each panel 146.2 x 51.4 cmCathedral of St Bavo, Ghent
Van Eyck, JanThe Ghent altarpieceThe Angel of the Annunciation,1432Oil on panel This panel 137.7 x 242.3 cmCathedral of St Bavon, Ghent
Van Eyck, JanThe betrothal of the Arnolfini 1434 Oil on wood 81.8 x 59.7 cm National Gallery, London
Van Eyck, JanThe Betrothal of the ArnolfiniDetail of dog 1434Oil on wood
Van Eyck, JanThe Betrothal of the ArnolfiniDetail of back wall 1434Oil on wood
"Hieronymous Bosch produced some of the most inventive fantasy paintings that have ever existed. His obsessive and nightmarish vision has its antecedents in the Gothic twilight world of the late Middle Ages and, although the allegorical medieval world view is now lost, there have been many recent attempts to 'read' his pictures, not least by those who have attempted to interpret Bosch by dream analysis.
Hieronymous Bosch(c. 1450-1516)
The Extraction of the Stone of Madness1475-80Oil on board18 7/8 x 13 3/4" (48 x 35 cm)Museo del Prado, Madrid
The Garden of Earthly Delights demonstrates Bosch's dazzling ability to build up a hugely detailed landscape through a series of bizarre exaggerations and distortions.
Garden of Earthly Delights (center panel)c. 1504Triptych, plus shuttersOil on panelCentral panel, 220 x 195 cm; Wings, 220 x 97 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid
Garden of Earthly DelightsOuter wings, "Creation of the World"c. 1504Triptych, plus shuttersOil on panelCentral panel, 220 x 195 cm; Wings, 220 x 97 cmMuseo del Prado, Madrid
The complete work consists of four paintings on a series of folding panels; the outer panel reveals the Third Day of Creation when closed.
Inside, The Garden of Earthly Delights is flanked on the left by the Garden of Eden and on the right by Hell.
Garden of Earthly DelightsLeft wing, "Paradise"c. 1504
Right wing, "Hell"c. 1504
A wild sexual orgy features in the central panel, where lust is shown to be the cause of man's downfall. There are over a thousand figures in this work altogether. Standing alone in its lifetime, Bosch's work has a timeless and modern quality that greatly endeared him to Surrealists in the twentieth century."
"The knowledge which Durer strove for so passionately throughout his life came more naturally to Holbein. Coming from a painter's family (his father was a respected master) and being exceedingly alert, he soon absorbed the achievements of both the northern and the Italian artists.
Hans Holbein(1497-1543)
England
Holbein, Hans Erasmus 1523Oil on wood16 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. (42 x 32 cm)Musee du Louvre, Paris
Holbein, HansWilliam Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury 1527Black, white and colored chalks, with traces of metalpoint40.7 x 30.9 cmThe Royal Collection, Windsor Castle
Holbein, HansThe Virgin and Child with the family of Burgomaster Meyer 1528Altar-painting; oil on wood 146.5 x 102 cm Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt
Holbein, HansGeorg Gisze, a German merchant in London 1532Oil on wood96.3 x 85.7 cm (38 x 33 3/4 in.)Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Holbein, HansThe Ambassadors 1533Oil on wood207 x 209.5 cmNational Gallery, London
Holbein, HansEdward, Prince of Wales 1538-957 x 44 cm OakNational Gallery of Art, Washington
"The greatest of the Flemish sixteenth-century masters of genre was Pieter Bruegel the Elder. We know little of his life except that he had been to Italy, like so many northern artists of his time, and that he lived and worked in Antwerp and Brussels, where he painted most of his pictures in the 1560s, the decade in which the stern Duke of Alva arrived in the Netherlands. The dignity of art and of artists was probably as important to him as it was to Dürer or Cellini, for in one of his splendid drawings he is clearly out to point a contrast between the proud painter and the stupid-looking bespectacled man who fumbles in his purse as he peers over the artist's shoulder.
Pieter Bruegel the Elder(1525?-1569)
The painter and the buyerc. 1565
Landscape with the Fall of Icarusc. 1558Oil on canvas, mounted on wood73.5 x 112 cmMusees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels
Bruegel, PieterThe Adoration of the Kings 1564Oil on canvas111 x 83.5 cmThe National Gallery, London
Bruegel, PieterThe Hunters in the Snow 1565 Oil on panel 117 x 162 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
Bruegel, PieterThe Hunters in the SnowDETAIL OF soaring bird 1565 Oil on panel117 x 162 cmKunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
Bruegel, PieterThe Hunters in the SnowDETAIL OF the fire in front of the inn 1565 Oil on panel117 x 162 cmKunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna
Bruegel, PieterPeasant wedding c. 1568 Oil on wood114 x 164 cm (45 x 64 1/2 in.)Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna