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The Renaissance
in the North
Chapter 13
McKay 438-441
Northern Renaissance
• Renaissance ideals spread
outside Italy after 1450
• Much more religious
• Led by Christian Humanists
• Fused Classical and Christian
cultures in order to develop an
ethical way of life
– Stoicism and broadmindedness
fused with love, faith, and hope
• Also stressed reason over
dogma
• Believed humans were
fundamentally good
• Could be improved through
education
Artist: Jan van Eyck
Completion Date: 1436
Style: Northern Renaissance
Series: The Madonna of Canon van der Paele
Thomas More (1478-1535)
• Deeply religious lawyer and adviser to Henry VIII
• Very influenced by Plato’s ideas on perfection
and materialism
• Utopia (1516)
• Described Ideal socialist society
– No private property
– Absolute social equality
– continuous education in Greco-Roman
classics to build rational citizens
– Citizens divide time between manual labor,
business, and learning
– Used gold for chamber pots (placed no value
on material wealth)
– Contradicted pessimistic medieval view of
humans
• Asserted that private property is the source of
conflict and evil
• Major idea: If you improve society’s institutions,
you will improve people
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)
• Major ideas
– Education is means to moral and
intellectual improvement
– Philosophy of Christ
• Stressed philosophy of the
Beatitudes over ceremony
• Used his humanistic learning to better
understand the Bible
• The Education of a Christian Prince
(1504)
– Calls for use of Classics (Cicero, Plato)
to form ethical rulers
• The Praise of Folly
– Satirical criticism of corrupt Church
Amongst the learned the
lawyers claim first place, the
most self-satisfied class of
people, as they roll their rock of
Sisyphus and string together six
hundred laws in the same
breath, no matter whether
relevant or not, piling up
opinion on opinion and gloss on
gloss to make their profession
seem the most difficult of all.
Anything which causes trouble
has special merit in their eyes.
Francois Rabelais
• French humanist and writer
• Gargantua and Pantagruel
• Literature that spoofs
contemporary society and a
call for educational reform
• Gargantua’s travels are
interrupted by conversations
with absurd characters
– Indirectly pokes fun at
clergy, professors,
lawyers
• Believes institutions mold
individuals
POV?
Tone
Supper being ended, they consulted of the
business in hand, and concluded that
about midnight they should fall unawares
upon the enemy, to know what manner of
watch and ward they kept, and that in the
meanwhile they should take a little rest the
better to refresh themselves. But
Gargantua could not sleep by any means,
on which side soever he turned himself.
Whereupon the monk said to him, I never
sleep soundly but when I am at sermon or
prayers. Let us therefore begin, you and I,
the seven penitential psalms, to try
whether you shall not quickly fall asleep.
Renaissance Art in Northern Europe
• Should not be considered an appendage to
Italian art
• But, Italian influence was strong
– Painting in OIL, developed in Flanders
– The differences between the two
cultures:
– Italy  change was inspired by
humanism with its emphasis on the
revival of the values of classical antiquity
– Northern Europe  change was driven
by religious reform, the return to Christian
values, and the revolt against the
authority of the Church
• More princes & kings were patrons of artists
Characteristics of Northern Renaissance Art
• Continuation of late medieval
attention to details
• Tendency toward realism &
naturalism (not the classical ideal)
• Fascination with mysterious
supernatural
– less emphasis on the “classical
ideal”
• Interest in landscapes
• More emphasis on middle-class
and peasant life
• Details of domestic interiors
• Great skill in portraiture
Jan van Eyck (1395 – 1441)
• More courtly and
aristocratic work
– Court painter to the
Duke of Burgundy,
Philip the Good
• Invented oil-based
paint
• The Virgin and
Chancellor Rolin,
1435
Giovanni
Arnolfini and
His Wife
(Wedding
Portrait)
Jan Van
Eyck
1434
Jan van Eyck - Giovanni Arnolfini &
His Wife
(details)
Quentin Massys (1465-1530)
• humanist from Antwerp
• Paintings often contain
comentary
• Influenced by
da Vinci
• Thomas More called him
“the renovator of the old
art”
• The Ugly Dutchess,
1525-1530 
Massys’ The Moneylender & His Wife,
1514
POV?
Commentary?
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)
• Greatest of German artists
• Also a scientist
– Wrote books on
geometry, fortifications,
and human proportions
• Self-conscious individualism
of the Renaissance is seen
in his portraits
– Used woodcuts to mass
produce his works
– Began cult of personality
– Signed every work with
monogram AD
•  Self-Portrait at 26, 1498.
Dürer – Self-Portrait in Fur-Collared
Robe, 1500
Dürer
The Last
Supper
woodcut,
1510
Durer – The
Triumphal
Arch, 15151517
The Triumphal Arch, details
The Triumphal Arch, details
Dürer
Four
Horsemen
of the
Apocalypse
woodcut,
1498
Hans Holbein, the Younger (1497-1543)
• One of the great German
artists who did most of his
work in England
• While in Basel, he
befriended Erasmus
– Erasmus Writing, 1523 
• Henry VIII was his patron
from 1536
• Great portraitist noted for:
– Objectivity & detachment
– Doesn’t conceal the
weaknesses of his
subjects
– Rejected the classic ideal
of Italian Renaissance
Artist to the Tudors
Henry VIII (left), 1540
and the future Edward VI
(above), 1543.
Holbein’s,
The
Ambassadors,
1533
The Ambassador (details)
Castiglionesque
Hieronymus Bosch (1450-1516)
• A pessimistic view of human nature
• Had a wild and lurid
imagination.
– Fanciful monsters &
apparitions
• Untouched by the
values of the Italian
Quattrocento, like
mathematical
perspective
– His figures are flat.
– Perspective is ignored
• More a landscape painter than a portraitist
• Philip II of Spain was an admirer of his work
• Anticipates surrealism of the late 19th & early 20th
Centuries
Hieronymus
Bosch
The Garden
of Earthy
Delights
(details)
1500
Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569)
• One of the greatest artistic geniuses of his
age
• Flemish style (Flanders)
• Painted common man, his activities,
– referred to as "Peasant Bruegel“
– rituals of village life—including agriculture, hunts,
meals, festivals, dances, and games
– Unsentimental, not romanticized
• Paintings often contain a commentary of
contemporary life
• Biblical themes
• master of landscapes; not a portraitist
– People in his works often have round,
blank, heavy faces
– Not concerned with proportion,
perspective
The Wedding Dance (1556)
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
The Fight between Carnival and Lent
The Inn
-symbol of enjoyment
The Church
-symbol of religion
Note the
behavior of
those near
the Inn
Note the behavior
of those near the
church
The Beggars, 1568
The Corn Harvest (1565)
Children’s Games
• Painted from God’s
perspective
• 80 different games
– roll hoops, walk on
stilts, mock
tournaments &
weddings …
• children focused on
their games with the
seriousness displayed
by adults in their daily
activities
• mankind is compared
to children who are
entirely absorbed in
their foolish games
and concerns
The Peasant Wedding (1568)
El Greco
• Domenikos Theotokopoulos1(541 – 1614)
• Most important Spanish artist of this period
was Greek
• deliberately distorts & elongates his
figures, and seats them in a lurid, unearthly
atmosphere
• Often exude a foreboding mood
• uses an agitated, flickering light
• ignores the rules of perspective, and
heightens the effect by areas of brilliant
color
• Greatest Spanish Counter-Reformation
painter
• Considered a Mannerist style or Baroque
– Reactionary Movement
El Greco
Christ in
Agony on
the Cross
1600s
The Last Supper, 1570
El Greco
Portrait of a
Cardinal
1600
El
Greco’s,
The Burial
of Count
Orgaz,
15861588
El Greco’s, The Burial of Count
Orgaz, 1586-1588 (details)
El Greco’s, The
Burial of Count
Orgaz, 15781580
El Greco
The View
of Toledo
15971599
Conclusions
• The artistic production of Northern
Europe in the 16c was vast, rich, and
complex
• The Northern Renaissance ended
with a Mannerist phase, which lasted
a generation longer in the North than
it did in Italy, where it was outmoded
by 1600