Station 6 Activity

Non-Italian Renaissance Artists

Directions:

1. Read the Background on Renaissance Artists Below
2. Choose One (1) Renaissance Artist and One (1) of their Art Pieces
3. You may click a picture for an in depth study
4. Complete an Art Analysis Worksheet in the workpacket.

Background

The early 1500s saw the demise of feudalism and patronage shifted from the super wealthy nobility and church to the merchant class. Bankers, businessmen, tradesmen and prosperous commoners of the merchant class began collecting and commissioning works of art. These new patrons favored portraits and paintings that included allegories, humor, satire, domestic scenes, merchants at work, peasants in the fields and play, fantastical landscapes, dogs, cats, birds, children and household goods.

Through trade and innovation Northern Europe became increasingly prosperous. Professor A. J. Wauters asserts "It was the immediate result of a great development in the prosperity, wealth, and intellect of the country. Christian Art now shone forth, realistic and true to nature in its outer forms, though still mystical and austere in spirit. Faith still existed, and the primitive devotion was as deep as ever, but the general spirit was altered : the picturesque age had succeeded the symbolic. Artists had become interested in nature : they studied anatomy, landscape, perspective, architecture, accessories ; their works glorified the actual life of the present as well as the life to come. Their pictures, which were chiefly intended for altars and oratories, represented none but religious subjects, yet they told of the pomp, the elegance, the unparalleled magnificence of the time of the Dukes of Burgundy. This was the epoch of the great Jean Van Eyck, of his brother Hubert, of Van der Weyden, Van der Goes, Cristus, Bouts, Memling, Gheerardt David, Jerome Bosch, and of Quentin Metsys."

Italian painters of the era were very interested in the techniques of the Northern painters. Oil painting was discovered in the North and spread quickly to Italy, France and Spain. Famous Northern Renaissance painter, Albrecht Dürer stated "I have many good friends among the Italians who warn me not to eat and drink with their painters, for many of them are my enemies and copy my work in the churches and wherever they can find it; afterwards they criticize it and claim that it is not done in the antique style and say it is no good, but Bellini has praised me highly to many gentlemen. He would willingly have something of mine, and came himself to me and asked me to do something for him, and said that he would pay well for it, and everyone tells me what an upright man he is, so that I am really friendly with him. He is very old and yet he is the best painter of all."

One of the major difference between Italian Renaissance and Northern Renaissance is that Northern painters rejected decadent Greek and Roman influences, focusing more on domestic scenes, satire, and philosophical themes. Humanism was emerging, and religious devotion, though still an important part of people's lives, was being restructured to accommodate the belief that man can be master his own fate.

Hans Holbein the Younger

Holbein was born in the bustling burg of Augsburg, Bavaria. He grew up in his famous fathers studio, Hans Holbein the Elder. While still a young child he learned painting and drawing techniques usually reserved for adults. Holbein left Austria for England and became the most well-known of the Tudor court painters, enjoying courtly life and all the sumptuous trappings. He was well-suited for life at the English court with his intellect and knowledge of art, music and literature. According to art historian Clara Erskine Clement "Holbein was one of the foremost of German masters. All his pictures are realistic, and many of them are fantastic; he gave graceful movement and beauty of form to many of his subjects; his drapery was well arranged; his color and manner of painting were good. He painted in fresco and oil colors, executed miniatures and engravings. His portraits were his best works, and in them he equalled the greatest masters. The most reliable portrait of this artist is in the Basle Museum. It is done in red and black chalk, and represents him as a man with regular, well-shaped features, with a cheerful expression which also shows decision of character."

Holbein, like King Henry, was known for his roguish behavior and violent drunken sprees. The two got along well with a periodic falling out. One such disagreement was over Holbein' s portrait of Anne of Cleves. In 1539 the artist was sent to the court of the Duke of Cleves, to paint Anne. The outraged King Henry criticized Holbein for making the portrait of Anne far more flattering then she actually was in person. The chubby monarch was disenchanted when he met Anne in person. Based upon Holbein portrait he was expecting a charming blonde milkmaid and instead found a dowdy, lumpy young princess. According to historian Thomas Grimwell, "Upon meeting his intended Henry vomited into a young pages hat and took to his bed chamber for six days. During the week the king ordered suckling pigs on platters and pastries of all sorts. He devoured copious amounts of victuals and drank many draughts. His face was shiny with grease and his beard full of crumbs. This is how he went to his wedding chamber." Henry never forgave Holbein.

.Holbein was steeped in palace intrigue and was known as a shrewd social climber. According to his biographer, Mary Schell Hoke Bacon "Meantime, Sir Thomas More had fallen into disfavor with the King and was to lose his head, but it is written that the artist's portraits "betray nothing of this tragedy." He was as ready to climb to fame by the favor of his generous patron's enemies as he had been to accept the offices of Sir Thomas More. He painted the portraits of several of the wives of Henry VIII, and it may be said that there was a good deal of that monarch's temperament to be found in Holbein himself. Take him all in all, Hans was as detestable as a man as he was excellent as a painter."

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The Ambassadors (1533)	Henry VIII (1536–1537)

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Jan Van Eyck

Jan Van Eyck was a good-natured artist with a curious nature. In his art every brush stroke is as keen and biting as a sharp knife. He was always creating; rethinking problems, and breaking new ground as an artist. Everyone who came in contact with him admired his intellect and engaging wit. Ghent was In the 15th century was one of the creative epicenters in Northern Europe. The prosperous town was leading the way in learning, architecture, painting, ironworks, literature and commerce. Jan Van Eyck was at the top of the heap. Author Walter M. Gallichan describes the greatest masterpeice in Ghent, "The masterpiece here is “The Adoration of the Lamb,” the marvellous altar-picture painted by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck. The colour is glowing, though the picture was painted in 1432. The Lamb is attended by angels, and worshipped by a company of the devout. There are hundreds of heads in the composition, which has several compartments. The landscape is exquisitely rendered, both in the effect of distance and in the flowers of the foreground. Parts of the altarpiece are elsewhere, in Berlin and Brussels, and the whole was carried away by the French, only a portion being restored. Portraits of the brothers Van Eyck are among the Just Judges in the picture."

Author Walter M. Gallichan describes Ghent in the time of Jan Van Eyck, "Ghent was early a stronghold of powerful trade guilds, and one of the meeting-places of these unions was in the Market Square. These organisations of craftsmen were probably established first by the Flemish weavers to protect the woollen industry. All over Europe the guilds were instituted by artisans working in walled towns during the Middle Ages. Chaucer mentions them in England in his day. The guilds had their masters or wardens, who exercised an almost despotic sway over the members, and watched their interests zealously.

In a time where the average peasant was lucky to receive a bowl of thin gruel and crust of bread for a hard days work, Van Eyck lived high on the hog. He regularly dined on stuffed pigeons (a delicacy way back then), caviar, extravagantly made cakes and imported liquors. The artist was paid enormous sums for his incredible paintings and lived a lavish lifestyle. Jan van Eyck was not concerned with painting suffering or misery; his masterpieces appealed only to the wealthier classes, who required of art a feast for the eye but no spiritual emotion. With him everything is delicate and bright; the flowers are in bloom, jewels sparkle, and a idyllic atmosphere pervades his world.

According to art historian Clara Erskine Clement "Jan van Eyck was something of a diplomat as well as a painter, for when he was in the service of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, he was sent on several secret missions, and in 1428 he accompanied the ambassadors of the duke to Portugal in order to paint the portrait of Isabella of Portugal, who was betrothed to the duke. There is a goodly number of works by Jan van Eyck in various galleries. The portrait of himself and wife in the National Gallery, London, is very interesting; they stand hand in hand, with a terrier dog at their feet; their dress and all the details of their surroundings are painted with great care. It is said that the Princess Mary, sister of Charles V., gave a barber who owned it a position with a handsome salary in exchange for the picture. Jan van Eyck, being twenty years younger than his brother Hubert, naturally learned all that the elder knew, and the story of his life gives him the appearance of being the more important artist, though in point of highest merit he was not the superior." The four main technical differences that set the Northern painters apart is the use of superior paints, painting from direct observation, detailed realism and empirical perspective. The prevailing characteristic of Van Eyck's work being slender, supple grace. In his Arnolfini Portrait panel, The couple are noble and dignified, but temperate and gracious. The palette is lush, characterized by warm hues of brown, powerful reds, moss greens, gauzy yellows and muted grays. Like all great painters of his day an Van Eyck was a master of Biblical symbolism. William H. Hunt asserted "When language was not transcendental enough to complete the meaning of a revelation, symbols were relied upon for heavenly teaching, and familiar images, chosen from the known, were made to mirror the unknown spiritual truth." Van Eyck explored in his own art a new world of mathematically precise perspective but also emotion and passion. He was drawn to both the natural and spiritual realm.

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Arnolfini Portrait (1450)	Ghent Altarpiece (1430-1432)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Pieter Brueghel the Elder came from a long line of fine craftsmen and artists. The artist was acclaimed for his genre paintings, peasant scenes and landscapes. He was a very important Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker that influenced painters for generations to come. He married his teachers beautiful daughter, Mayken van Aelst when he was 21. The combined talent of their genes continued the artistic dynasty for hundreds of years. There is a deliberate serenity to his paintings, by presenting the viewer with cool colors, his work captivates. In composition he is at his best with landscapes. In groups the separate figures are always in harmonious unity. Brueghel was one of most creative individuals to have dominated the world of art. His unrivaled talent and brilliancy, is as fresh today as it was 500 years ago.

Brueghel spent his formative years travelling and later in Antwerp. Author James Edward Parrott descibes the city, "Antwerp, with its deep and convenient river, stretched its arm to the ocean, and caught the golden prize as it fell from its sister cities' grasp. No city except Paris surpassed it in population; none approached it in commercial splendour."

James Edward Parrott further states "The city began to decline during the reign of Philip II., who was King of Spain and master of the Netherlands. In 1576 Spanish soldiers whose pay was in arrears broke into mutiny, and stormed and sacked several of the richest towns of Flanders, including Antwerp. Early in November of that year they entered the city, burnt more than a thousand houses, slew more than eight thousand citizens, plundered right and left, and behaved with the utmost cruelty. Such was the "Spanish Fury," which still forms a landmark in Flemish history. With the help of William of Orange, the Spaniards were driven out of Antwerp."

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Return of the Hunters/Hunters in the Snow (1565)	The Peasant Wedding (1567)

Albrecht Dürer

Upon his arrival in at Venice in 1494, he discovered Mantegna's prints, opening up a new world. To this great master he did homage in his first alter-pieces: almost as an imitator in the small Dresden altarpiece and more independent in his Bewailing of the Body of Christ, which even in subject is connected with the Paduan school. In the Nuremberg as well as the Munich work, there is no loose juxtaposition as in Wohlgemuth's painting, but a rigid composition. In the latter's work the tough metallic tone, the stony rigid grief stricken appearance of Mary, and the pathos of the old toothless woman raising her arms with a wild cry of grief show how much Mantegna's style and figures dominated Durer's thoughts.

When Durer resided in Venice around 1494, the main paintings which he saw in churches were the products of Murano, and of Giovanni Bellini, both inspired by Mantegna. But when he returned to Venice in 1506, Bellini had adopted his soft and harmonious style. The people thronged before his alter-pieces, and Durer also experienced the same change in taste. "The thing which so well pleased me eleven years ago does not at all please me now": in this passage of his letters he announces that for him the Muranese were a thing of the past, and that he no longer considered Alvise Vivarini but Bellini as the greatest artist of Venice.

Verrocchio also influenced him. For many of his line engravings, like Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513–14, the Little Horse, and St. George, were evidently conceived under the influence of the Colleono monument which had recently been erected in Venice. In another direction he was inspired by Leonardo, whom he met in Bologna. The content of Durer's Christ Disputing with the Doctors is derived from the painting ascribed to Leonardo; it belongs, with Titian's Tribute to Money, to that series of works which were created under the inspiration of Leonardo and treat the problem of characteristic heads, using hands as a psychological commentary. The further maturity of Durer after his return home in 1507 is vacillating. Although his angular Late Gothic taste sometimes appears, he endeavored, whenever theme permitted, to attain rhythmic, graceful movement and unity of composition; and while he never thought of casting aside his own sentiment in favor of a strange one, he is nevertheless conscious that realism is not necessarily identical with monstrosity and abnormal ugliness.

It is quite characteristic that immediately after his return from Italy he painted the life size figures of Adam and Eve. Although both are thoroughly German in conception, he would not have painted them had he never been to Italy; for his delight in the nude and the rhythm which he endeavors to attain both figures are thoroughly Italian.

Not until the close of his life was he able to unite in a single great work the result of all his efforts. His journey to the Netherlands in 1520-21 furnished a new incentive to the imposing simplification of his art. He saw the paintings of Quentin Massys with their powerful life-sized figures, and the alter-piece of Ghent. "That is a delightful, comprehensible painting, and especially Mary and God the Father are excellent": this passage in his diary shows the path he afterwards followed. In the midst of his time Durer stands like a giant, his feet rooted in the earth but his head reaching to the stars. References -From Richard Muther, The History of Modern Painting, Henry and Co., London, 1896

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The Four Horsemen (1498)	Adam and Eve (1504)