Download The Northern Renaissance

The Northern Renaissance
Northern
Humanism
• Also known as Christian
Humanism
• Tied to the Protestant
Reformation
• Shared some of the aesthetic values of the High
Renaissance: idealism, rationalism, love for Classical
literature
• Unlike Italy – preoccupied with condition of church
and wider Christian world
• Approached faith in simple terms
Faith
• Any Christian with a pure
and humble heart can pray
directly to God
• This creed is the same as
Christ’s scriptural message
(as learned through reading vernacular Bible)
• Harbored hostility toward Italian interference in
local religious affairs
• Wished to restore church to its original purpose
by imitating early church (free from corrupt
leaders)
Northern Renaissance
• Marked by
competing styles
• Affected by
religious
upheavals
• Gothic forms and
mysticism
• Italy’s High
renaissance
• Mannerism
William Shakespeare
• Tragedy and comedy became part of popular
culture
• Secular and commercial theater emerged
• Prior – Christian scholars condemned the
stage for wicked displays
and seductive delights
• Morality plays
• Under Queen Elizabeth I
many dramatists appear
More About Shakespeare
• 1564-1616
• Born in Stratford-upon-Avon
• 1590
– plays performed
• 1610
– retired early
– successful
• 37 dramas
Northern Renaissance Painting
• Emerged during an era of cultural crisis
• Late Gothic style of Flemish school losing
its appeal
• Many artists attracted to Italian art
• Influence of Protestant Reformation
• Individual tastes and styles become
important
• Secular subject acceptable
Albrecht Durer
• Engraver and painter
• Paintings brought him
recognition and wealth
in his day
• Self portraits
• Engravings constitute
greatest artistic legacy
House by a Pond
Putti Dancing and Making Music
Self-Portrait
at 26
A
Young
Hare
Adam
and
Eve
Portrait of
Erasmus
at 49
Charcoal on
Paper
Knight,
Death
and the
Devil
Portrait of a Clergyman
The Four
Holy Men
Matthias Grunewald
• His paintings
represent a
continuation of the
Late Gothic style
• Emotionalism
Hieronymus Bosch
• Treated common religious subjects in
bizarre and fantastic ways
• Precise detail
• Works contain ambiguous, cynical, moral
messages
• So original he stands outside any formal
historical period
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
• Characteristic of changes in northern
European art in the mid 1500’s
• Lived after deaths of Durer and Grunewald
• Protestant iconoclasm – less religious art
• His subjects – landscapes, country
scenes, folk narratives, peasant life
• Secular art
CounterReformation
Spanish
Painting
El Greco