Download Northern Renaissance Centers Questions

Northern Renaissance Centers Activity
Center 1: “Utopia” by Thomas More
1. Utopia describes an imaginary world More created. Use a cell phone or other device to look up the
meaning of this word. What does it mean?
Is this achievable in real life?
2. What similarities or common factors do you see between the first two quotes?
3. What is the family/social structure like?
4. Which pleasures do the Utopians find most valuable, the body or the mind? Explain their viewpoints
on each.
5. Read the last quote. Explain More’s idea of public vs. private worship. Evaluate whether this is a good
idea or not. Why would More have thought so?
6. Overall, why do you think More wrote this book?
Center 2: “Praise of Folly” by Erasmus
1. What group of people is Erasmus discussing in this reading?
2. What is his opinion of them?
3. What does he say about this group of people and literature? Does this surprise you? Why or why not?
Northern Renaissance Centers Activity
4. “Among them are some who make a great thing out of their squalor and beggary…” Read this
sentence and describe what you think this means.
5. Give two examples from the last paragraph that shows a contrast from how “strictly religious” these
people are expected to be, and what they really are like.
Center 3: German (Durer and Grunewald)
1. Describe each of the three art pieces.
a)
b)
c)
2. Take a look at “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and “Isenheim Altarpiece.” What do they have in
common?
What is different between them?
3. When we studied the Italian Renaissance, you saw many paintings of Jesus. How is this Northern
Renaissance piece different from those?
4. If you had to generalize about Northern Renaissance art based on these three art pieces, what would
you say it was like?
Northern Renaissance Centers Activity
Center 4: Van Eyck
1. Study the painting “Giovanni Arnofini and His Wife.” What class do you think the people in the
painting are from?
2. This painting was actually a legal document. What legal process do you think it was documenting?
3. Take a close look at the mirror in the back between the couple. What do you notice there?
4. What interesting things do you notice about the painting?
5. How is this Northern Renaissance piece different or similar to Italian Renaissance paintings you have
seen?
Center 5: Holbein and Massys
1. Identify and describe each of the two paintings.
a)
b)
2. What kinds of details do you notice in each painting?
3. What class of people did Holbein seem to paint? What class of people did Massys paint?
4. Look closely at the book the lady is thumbing through in the Massys painting. What is the illustration
in it portraying? What does this tell you about Northern Renaissance painting?
Northern Renaissance Centers Activity
Center 6: Bruegel and Massys
1. What is a parable? Look it up!
2. What does the Bruegel painting mean?
3. In the Massys painting, what is the man doing to the woman? LOOK CLOSELY.
4. In the Massys painting, what is the woman doing to the strange-looking man behind her?
5. What kind of parable is this painting trying to tell? What is the moral of the story?
6. What goal do both the paintings have in common?
Center 7: “The City of Ladies” by Christine de Pizan
1. What dilemma of beliefs does the author face in the first paragraph?
2. Explain what the author says about two biblical women: Eve and Mary.
3. Why have “many foolish men” claimed that women should not be educated?
4. Read the last, small paragraph of the document. Why does de Pizan believe that some men
“denigrate” (degrade) women?
5. According to the second paragraph of the document, which is the higher creature, the man or
woman?