Download Chapter 14 -The Renaissance in the North

The Renaissance in the North
Chapter 14:
The Renaissance in the North
OUTLINE
The Reformation
Causes of the Reformation
Renaissance Humanism
and the Reformation
Cultural Significance of the Reformation
Intellectual Developments
Montaigne's Essays
The Growth of Science
The Visual Arts in Northern Europe
Painting in Germany: Dürer,
Grünewald, Altdorfer
Painting in the Netherlands:
Bosch and Bruegel
Art and Architecture In France
Art in Elizabethan England
Music of the Northern Renaissance
Music in France and Germany
Elizabethan Music
English Literature: Shakespeare
Outline Chapter 14
Timeline Chapter 14
Timeline Chapter 14: The Renaissance in the North
c.1505-1510
1516
1517
1533
1545-1564
1546
1558-1603
1559
1559-1567
1580
1600
1620
Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights
Thomas More, Utopia
Martin Luther, 95 Theses (Reformation begins in Germany)
Holbein, The Ambassadors
Council of Trent (Catholic Reformation)
Square Courtyard of the Louvre
Queen Elizabeth I of England
Index of prohibited books
Bruegel, Children's Games ; Peasant Wedding Dance
Montaigne, Essays
Shakespeare, Globe Theater, London
Bacon, Novum Organum (The New Instrument)
The Cultural Consequences of the Reformation
The political and cultural life of northern Europe was profoundly
changed by the Reformation. After centuries of domination by the
Church of Rome, many northern countries gradually switched to one
of the various forms of Protestantism, whose ideas and teachings
were rapidly spread by the use of the newly invented printing press.
The consequences of this division did much to shape modern Europe,
while the success of the Reformation movement directly stimulated
the Counter-Reformation of the seventeenth century.
Portrait of Henry VIII
1536
Hans Holbein the Younger
Martin Luther at age 46
(Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1529)
Religions of Europe 1600 AD
Printing and Literature
The growth of literacy both north and south of the Alps made
possible by the easy availability of books produced a vast new
reading public. Among the new literary forms to be introduced
was that of the essay, first used by Montaigne. Epic poems
were also popular; the works of Lodovico Ariosto and Torquato
Tasso circulated widely and were imitated by a number of
writers, including Edmund Spenser.
The revival of interest in classical drama produced a new and
enthusiastic audience for plays; those written by Elizabethan
dramatists like Christopher Marlowe combined high poetic and
intellectual quality with popular appeal. The supreme
achievement in English literature of the time-and perhaps of all
time-can be found in the works of William Shakespeare.
Furthermore, in an age when the importance of education was
emphasized, many advances in science were made and
important scientific publications appeared. They included
Vesalius' work on anatomy and Copernicus'
revolutionary astronomical theories.
Gutenberg printing press
Painting in Germany: Durer and Grunewald
In the visual arts the sixteenth century saw the spread of Italian
Renaissance ideas northward. In some cases they were carried by
Italian artists like Benvenuto Cellini, who went to work in France. Some
major northern artists, like Albrecht Durer, actually traveled to Italy.
Durer's art was strongly influenced by Italian theories of perspective,
proportion, and color, although he retained the strong interest in line
typical of northern art. But not all his contemporaries showed the same
interest in Italian styles. Matthias Grunewald's paintings do not show
Renaissance concerns for humanism and ideal beauty; instead, they
draw on traditional medieval German art to project the artist's own
passionate religious beliefs, formed against the background of the
bitter conflict of the Peasants' War.
Albrecht Dürer
Self-Portrait, 1500
The Adoration of the Trinity
1511, Oil on lindenwood
The Nativity
1514, Pen
Rhinoceros
1515
Pen drawing
The Stork
1515, Pen drawing
Matthias Grünewald
Isenheim
Altarpiece
(first view)
c. 1515
Oil on
wood
The Mocking of Christ
1503
Oil on pine panel, Munich
Isenheim
Altarpiece
(second view)
Painting in the Netherlands: Bosch and Bruegel
The two leading Netherlandish artists of the century,
Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder, were also
influenced by contemporary religious ideas. Their work has
other characteristics in common: a pessimistic attitude toward
human nature and the use of satire-yet the final effect is very different.
Bosch's paintings are complex and bizarre;
Bruegel shows a broader range of interest in human activities,
together with a love of nature.
Hieronymus Bosch, The Seven Deadly Sins, c. 1480
Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, c. 1500
left wing
central panel of the triptych
right wing
Pieter Bruegel, the Elder
The Tower of Babel
1563
The Triumph of Death
c. 1562
Elsewhere in northern Europe…
…artistic inspiration was more fitful.
The only English painter of note was the miniaturist
Nicholas Hilliard, while in France the principal achievements
were in the field of architecture. Even in Germany and the Netherlands,
by the end of the century the Reformation movement's unsympathetic
attitude to the visual arts had produced a virtual end to official
patronage for religious art.
Shakespeare
Title Page of
the First Folio,
London, 1623
CLOUET, Jean
Portrait of François I,
1525-30
Musical Developments in Reformation Europe
Music, on the other hand, was central to Reformation practice:
Luther himself was a hymn writer of note. In England, after Henry VIII
broke with Rome to form the Anglican Church, the hymns devised by
the new church generally followed Reformation practice by using
texts in the vernacular rather than in Latin. The music, however,
retained the complexity of the Italian style; as a result the religious
works of musicians like Tallis and Byrd are among the finest of
northern Renaissance compositions.
Secular music also had a wide following throughout northern Europe,
particularly as the printing of music became increasingly common.
The form of the madrigal, originally devised in Italy, spread to France,
Germany, the Netherlands, and England. Many of the works of the
leading composers of the day, including the French Clement Janequin
and the Flemish Heinrich Isaac, were intended for a popular audience
and dealt with romantic or military themes.
(see Musical Selections and Text, pages 362 – 364)
Renaissance artistic ideas, new Reformation religious teachings, and
the developments in the Sciences
Thus the combination of new Renaissance artistic ideas and
new Reformation religious teachings roused northern Europe
from its conservative traditions and stimulated a series of vital
cultural developments.
The 16th century was not merely a turning point in the history of art
and religion. It was also a decisive age in the history of science.
The new Renaissance scientist would test his or her hypotheses
through practical tests to determine their validity.
This procedure layed the foundation for the scientific method.
For example, modern medicine began in 1543 with the publication of the first
complete textbook of human anatomy, De Humanis Corporis Fabrica
by Andreas Vesalius.
Advances in physics, astronomy, and the other sciences set the stage for the
scientific revolution.