Northern Renaissance Artists from the Netherlands and Germany

The Northern Renaissance was “Renaissance happenings that occurred within Europe, but outside of Italy” the most innovative art was created in France, Germany and the Netherlands during this time, and because all of these places are north of Italy, the “Northern” tag has stuck.

Both humanism, a commitment to the search for truth and morality through human means in support of human interests, and secularism, the social ideology in which religion and supernatural beliefs are not seen as key to understanding the world, become the dominant forces shaping society. While Italian Renaissance depicted the ideal beauty, artists north of Italy were depicting intense realism using observation over theory to create their works of art.

The Printing Press The influence of the printing press was responsible for great changes in society. Consider this, the press- -enhanced scientific research -helped spread the Renaissance from Italy to other parts of Europe -Gutenberg press had the power to mass produce -the press led to the introduction of public propaganda, used to strengthen nation states -broke control of Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Latin speaking priestly class -encouraged authors to write in the local language, further spreading Renaissance ideas

Important Artists of the Era

Albrecht Durer Germany "Albrecht Duerer was without doubt the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance. Living in Nuremberg, half-way between the Netherlands and Italy, he found inspiration in the work of painters of both the major European artistic centres of his time. But rather than simply imitating what others were doing, Duerer was very much an innovator. He is, for example, the first artist who is known to have painted a self-portrait and to have done a landscape painting of a specific scene. He was a painter, wood carver and mathematician. Durer, Albrecht Self-portrait at Oil on linen, transferred from vellum 57 x 45 cm Musee du Louvre, Paris

Durer, Albrecht Self-Portrait at Oil on panel 52 x 41 cm Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid

Durer, Albrecht St Anne with the Virgin and Child 1519 Oil and tempera on canvas, transferred from panel 60 x 50 cm Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Durer, AlbrechtDurer, Albrecht Melencolia I 1514 Engraving 24 x 19 cm

Jan van Eyck (Active from 1422, died 1441) Flanders "Jan van Eyck was the greatest artist of the early Netherlands school. He held high positions throughout his career, including court painter and diplomat in Bruges. So outstanding was his skill as an oil painter that the invention of the medium was at one time attributed to him, with his brother Hubert, also a painter. Van Eyck exploited the qualities of oil as never before, building up layers of transparent glazes, thus giving him a surface on which to capture objects in minute detail and allowing for the preservation of his colours. Van Eyck, Jan The Crucifixion and The Last Judgment Oil on canvas transferred from wood Each panel 22 1/4 x 7 3/4 in. (56.5 x 19.7 cm) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Van Eyck, Jan The Ghent altarpiece with doors closed, 1432 Oil on panel Each panel x 51.4 cm Cathedral of St Bavo, Ghent

Van Eyck, Jan The Ghent altarpiece The Angel of the Annunciation,1432 Oil on panel This panel x cm Cathedral of St Bavon, Ghent

Van Eyck, Jan The betrothal of the Arnolfini 1434 Oil on wood 81.8 x 59.7 cm National Gallery, London

Van Eyck, Jan The Betrothal of the Arnolfini Detail of dog 1434 Oil on wood

Van Eyck, Jan The Betrothal of the Arnolfini Detail of back wall 1434 Oil on wood

"Hieronymous Bosch produced some of the most inventive fantasy paintings that have ever existed. His obsessive and nightmarish vision has its antecedents in the Gothic twilight world of the late Middle Ages and, although the allegorical medieval world view is now lost, there have been many recent attempts to 'read' his pictures, not least by those who have attempted to interpret Bosch by dream analysis. Hieronymous Bosch (c ) The Extraction of the Stone of Madness Oil on board 18 7/8 x 13 3/4" (48 x 35 cm) Museo del Prado, Madrid

The Garden of Earthly Delights The Garden of Earthly Delights demonstrates Bosch's dazzling ability to build up a hugely detailed landscape through a series of bizarre exaggerations and distortions. Garden of Earthly Delights (center panel) c Triptych, plus shutters Oil on panel Central panel, 220 x 195 cm; Wings, 220 x 97 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid

Garden of Earthly Delights Outer wings, "Creation of the World" c Triptych, plus shutters Oil on panel Central panel, 220 x 195 cm; Wings, 220 x 97 cm Museo del Prado, Madrid The complete work consists of four paintings on a series of folding panels; the outer panel reveals the Third Day of Creation when closed.Third Day of Creation

Inside, The Garden of Earthly Delights is flanked on the left by the Garden of Eden and on the right by Hell.The Garden of Earthly Delightst by Hell. Garden of Earthly Delights Left wing, "Paradise" c. 1504

Right wing, "Hell" c A wild sexual orgy features in the central panel, where lust is shown to be the cause of man's downfall. There are over a thousand figures in this work altogether. Standing alone in its lifetime, Bosch's work has a timeless and modern quality that greatly endeared him to Surrealists in the twentieth century."Surrealists

"The knowledge which Durer strove for so passionately throughout his life came more naturally to Holbein. Coming from a painter's family (his father was a respected master) and being exceedingly alert, he soon absorbed the achievements of both the northern and the Italian artists. Durer Hans Holbein ( ) England Holbein, Hans Erasmus 1523 Oil on wood 16 1/2 x 12 1/2 in. (42 x 32 cm) Musee du Louvre, Paris

Holbein, Hans William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury 1527 Black, white and colored chalks, with traces of metalpoint 40.7 x 30.9 cm The Royal Collection, Windsor Castle

Holbein, Hans The Virgin and Child with the family of Burgomaster Meyer 1528 Altar-painting; oil on wood x 102 cm Schlossmuseum, Darmstadt

Holbein, Hans Georg Gisze, a German merchant in London 1532 Oil on wood 96.3 x 85.7 cm (38 x 33 3/4 in.) Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin

Holbein, Hans The Ambassadors 1533 Oil on wood 207 x cm National Gallery, London

Holbein, Hans Edward, Prince of Wales x 44 cm Oak National Gallery of Art, Washington

"The greatest of the Flemish sixteenth-century masters of genre was Pieter Bruegel the Elder. We know little of his life except that he had been to Italy, like so many northern artists of his time, and that he lived and worked in Antwerp and Brussels, where he painted most of his pictures in the 1560s, the decade in which the stern Duke of Alva arrived in the Netherlands. The dignity of art and of artists was probably as important to him as it was to Dürer or Cellini, for in one of his splendid drawings he is clearly out to point a contrast between the proud painter and the stupid- looking bespectacled man who fumbles in his purse as he peers over the artist's shoulder. Dürerf his splendid drawings he i Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525?-1569) The painter and the buyer c. 1565

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus c Oil on canvas, mounted on wood 73.5 x 112 cm Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels

Bruegel, Pieter The Adoration of the Kings 1564 Oil on canvas 111 x 83.5 cm The National Gallery, London

Bruegel, Pieter The Hunters in the Snow 1565 Oil on panel 117 x 162 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna

Bruegel, Pieter The Hunters in the Snow DETAIL OF soaring bird 1565 Oil on panel 117 x 162 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna

Bruegel, Pieter The Hunters in the Snow DETAIL OF the fire in front of the inn 1565 Oil on panel 117 x 162 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna

Bruegel, Pieter Peasant wedding c Oil on wood 114 x 164 cm (45 x 64 1/2 in.) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna