Final

Knight, Death, and the Devil

Dürer's lifelong interest in both idealization and naturalism surfaced again in Knight, Death, and the Devil ( FIG. 23-4A ), in which he carried the art of engraving to the highest degree of excellence. Dürer used his burin to render differences in texture and tonal values that would be difficult to match even in the much more flexible medium of etching, which artists developed later in the century (see " Engraving and Etching "). Knight, Death, and the Devil depicts a mounted, armored knight who rides fearlessly through a foreboding landscape. Accompanied by his faithful retriever, the knight represents a Christian knight—a soldier of God. Armed with his faith, this warrior can repel the threats of Death, who appears as a crowned decaying cadaver wreathed with snakes and shaking an hourglass as a reminder of time and mortality (compare FIGS. I-9 and 23-10 ). The knight is equally impervious to the Devil, a pathetically hideous horned creature who follows him. The knight triumphs because he has "put on the whole armor of God that [he] may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil," as urged in Saint Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians (Eph. 6:11).The heroic knight and his mount display the strength, movement, and proportions of Italian Renaissance equestrian statues. Dürer was familiar with Donatello's Gattamelata ( FIG. 21-15 ) and Verrocchio's Bartolommeo Colleoni ( FIG. 21-16 ) and had copied a number of Leonardo's sketches of horses. Dürer based his engraving on his observation of the real world, however, not other artworks, as seen in his meticulous rendering of myriad details—the knight's armor and weapons, the horse's anatomy, the textures of the loathsome features of Death and the Devil, the rock forms and rugged foliage. Dürer represented this great variety of imagery with fluidly engraved lines and dense hatching, rivaling the tonal range of painting. 1513, engraving, 9.625'' x 7.375'' metropolitan museum of art, new york.

Holbein the Younger, Henry VIII

After his appointment in 1536 as the official court painter of Henry VIII, Hans Holbein the Younger produced an extensive series of portraits of the English king. The finest preserved example is a half-length likeness in Rome, datable to 1540 by its inscription, which gives Henry's age as 49 ( FIG. 23-12A ).Henry VIII was one of the most combative and authoritarian monarchs in European history. A man of imposing size in both height and girth, he took one wife after another in a series of stormy and mostly childless marriages, beheaded Sir Thomas More and suppressed all opposition at home, and broke with the Catholic Church to head the Church of England. (Pope Clement VII [r. 1523-1534] excommunicated Henry in 1533.) Holbein's portrait of the English monarch brilliantly captures his strong-willed personality and powerful physical presence. Henry's massive body fills almost the entire surface of the panel, leaving only a solid dark background above his shoulders where Holbein placed the inscription giving the king's age—but not his name. No identification was necessary. This painting could portray no one else. Indeed, it was one of several replicas of an earlier royal portrait, and the image had already become iconic. The frontal pose, plain dark background, and inscription recall Albrecht Dürer's Self-Portrait ( FIG. 23-3 ), but Holbein's likeness of the English king makes no reference to divinity. This is an aggressively secular portrait of a supremely self-confident ruler dressed in rich robes and jewels. With his customary polish, Holbein meticulously reproduced the details of Henry's fur-trimmed brocade coat with its puffy sleeves and belted waist (compare FIG. 23-12 ). Although the viewer might be tempted to linger over the rich fabric and jewels, Holbein drew attention to the king's face with its small eyes and intense expression by framing Henry's head in a kind of halo formed by the curves of his hat and the chain draped over his chest.end sidebar

Chacteau de Chambord

Chambord, France, 1519

Self-Portrait

Albrecht Durer, 1500, oil on wood, 2'2.25'' x 1'7.75'' Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Hans Holbein

Also in the employ of the rich and powerful for much of his career was Hans Holbein the Younger (ca. 1497-1543), who excelled as a portraitist. Born in Augsburg, Germany, and trained by his father, Holbein produced many of his best portraits in England. The surfaces of Holbein's paintings are as lustrous as enamel, and the details are exact and exquisitely drawn, consistent with the tradition of 15th-century Flemish art. Yet he also incorporated Italian ideas about compositional design and sculpturesque form. Holbein is a leading example of the increasingly international outlook of 16th-century European artists.Holbein began his artistic career in Basel, where he became a master in the painter's guild in 1519 and met Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose portrait he painted several times. Because of the immediate threat of a religious civil war in Basel, Erasmus suggested that Holbein leave for England and gave him a recommendation to Thomas More, chancellor of England under Henry VIII. Holbein arrived in England in 1526 and quickly obtained important commissions—for example, to paint More's portrait. Holbein returned to Basel in 1528, but went back to England in 1532 and remained there until his death in 1543. In 1533, he painted one of his most ambitious works, a double portrait ( FIG. 23-12 ) of the French ambassadors to England, Jean de Dinteville (1504-1557) and Georges de Selve (1509-1542). A few years later (1536), Holbein became the King's Painter and produced numerous portraits of Henry VIII ( FIG. 23-12A ).The French Ambassadors exhibits Holbein's considerable talents—his strong sense of composition, gift for recording likenesses, marvelous sensitivity to color, and faultless technique. The two men, both ardent humanists, stand at opposite ends of a side table covered with an oriental rug and a collection of objects reflective of their worldliness and their interest in learning and the arts. These include mathematical and astronomical models and implements (compare FIG. 26-23 ), a lute with a broken string, compasses, a sun-dial, flutes, globes, and an open hymnbook with Luther's translation of Veni, Creator Spiritus and of the Ten Commandments.Of particular interest is the long gray shape that slashes diagonally across the picture plane and interrupts the stable, balanced, and serene composition. Here Holbein employed anamorphosis image distortion that requires a special device—such as a cylindrical mirror—or looking at the painting at an acute angle to recognize it. In this case, if the viewer stands off to the right, the distorted image becomes a skull. Although scholars disagree on the skull's precise meaning in this context, it certainly refers to death. Artists commonly incorporated skulls into paintings as reminders of mortality. Indeed, Holbein depicted a skull on the metal medallion on Jean de Dinteville's hat. Holbein may have intended the skulls, in conjunction with the crucifix that appears half hidden behind the curtain in the upper left corner, to encourage viewers to ponder death and resurrection. (A faint image of a skull appears on the polygonal block at the left in Dürer's Melencolia I; FIG. 23-5 .)Holbein's portrait of the two ambassadors may also allude to the growing tension between secular and religious authorities. Jean de Dinteville was a titled landowner, Georges de Selve a bishop. The inclusion of Luther's translations next to the lute with the broken string (a symbol of discord) may subtly refer to this religious strife. In any case, The French Ambassadors is a painting of supreme artistic achievement. Holbein rendered the still-life objects with the same meticulous care as he did the men themselves, the woven design of the deep emerald curtain behind them, and the Italian marble-inlay floor, drawn in perfect perspective.

Albrecht Altdorfer

Although Dürer, Cranach, and Baldung sold their artworks primarily to private patrons, other artists in 16th-century Germany, as elsewhere in Europe, earned their income in the employ of rulers, and their work promoted the political agendas of their patrons. In 1529, for example, the duke of Bavaria, Wilhelm IV (r. 1508-1550), commissioned Albrecht Altdorfer (ca. 1480-1538) of Regensburg to paint the Battle of Issus ( FIG. 23-11 ) at the commencement of his military campaign against the invading Ottoman Turks. The panel depicts Alexander the Great's defeat of King Darius III of Persia in 333 bce near a town called Issus on the Pinarus River. Altdorfer announced the subject—which a Greek painter, probably Philoxenos of Eretria, had represented two millennia before ( FIG. 5-70 )—in the Latin inscription suspended in the sky. The parallels between the historical and contemporary conflicts were no doubt significant to the duke. Both involved Western societies engaged in battles against Eastern foes with different values—the Persians in antiquity and the Ottomans in 1528. Altdorfer reinforced this connection by attiring the figures in 16th-century armor (many of the "Persian" soldiers wear Turkish turbans) and depicting them battling in 16th-century military formations.Landscapes gained popularity in the 16th century in the wake of the Protestant Reformation's iconoclastic tendencies. Altdorfer was one of the first to draw and paint landscapes as subjects in their own right, and Battle of Issus reveals his interest in recording natural locales. The battle takes place in an almost cosmological setting. From a bird's-eye view, the clashing armies swarm in the foreground. In the distance, craggy mountain peaks rise next to still bodies of water. Amid swirling clouds, a blazing sun descends. Although the spectacular topography may appear invented, Altdorfer derived his depiction of the landscape from a 1493 map of the Mediterranean world in the Nuremberg Chronicle ( FIG. 20-23 ). Specifically, the viewer sees the terrain and sea from the mountains of Greece to the Nile Valley in Egypt. In addition, Altdorfer may have acquired his information about this battle from the German scholar Johannes Aventi-nus (1477-1534), whose account of Alexander's victory describes the bloody daylong battle. Appropriately, given Alexander's designation as the "sun god," the sun sets over the victorious Greeks on the right, while a small crescent moon (a symbol of ancient Persia) hovers in the upper left corner over the retreating enemy forces.

Germany

Although at the opening of the 16th century many Christians in the Holy Roman Empire expressed dissatisfaction with the Church of Rome, Martin Luther had not yet posted his Ninety-five Theses, which launched the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic clergy in Germany still offered artists important commissions.

High Renaissance and Mannerism in Northern Europe and Spain

-Germany- Widespread dissatisfaction with the Church in Rome led to the Protestant Reformation, splitting Christendom in half. Protestants, led by Martin Luther, objected to the sale of indulgences and rejected most of the sacraments of the Catholic Church. They also condemned ostentatious church decoration as a form of idolatry that distracted the faithful from communication with God. As a result, Protestant churches were relatively bare, but art, especially prints, still played a role in Protestantism. Lucas Cranach the Elder, "the painter of the Reformation," was godfather of Luther's children. The greatest German printmaker of the 16th century was Albrecht Dürer, whose works reflect his studies of classical statuary and of the Vitruvian theory of human proportions. Dürer's engravings, such as Fall of Man, rival painting in tonal quality. Other German artists, such as Matthias Grünewald and Hans Baldung Grien, explored disease, death, witchcraft, and eroticism in their art. The portraitist Hans Holbein became court painter in England. The Netherlands The Netherlands was one of the most commercially advanced and prosperous countries in 16th-century Europe. Much of Netherlandish art of this period provides a picture of contemporary life and values. Quentin Massys's Money-Changer and His Wife, for example, is a commentary on a couple's obsession with wealth. Pieter Aertsen's Butcher's Stall seems to be a straightforward genre scene, but includes the holy family offering alms to a beggar in the background, providing a stark contrast between gluttony and religious piety. Landscapes were the specialty of Joachim Patinir. Pieter Bruegel's repertoire also included landscape painting. His Hunters in the Snow is one of a series of paintings depicting seasonal changes and the activities associated with them, as in traditional Books of Hours. Women artists of the period include Caterina van Hemessen, who painted the earliest Northern European self-portrait of a woman, and Levina Teerlinc, who produced portraits for the English court. France King Francis I fought against Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and declared Protestantism illegal in France. An admirer of Italian art, he invited several prominent Mannerists to work at his court and decorate his palace at Fontainebleau. His art collection formed the core of the Musée du Louvre. French architecture of the 16th century mixes Italian and Northern Renaissance elements, as in Pierre Lescot's design of the renovated Louvre palace and Francis's château at Chambord, which combines classical motifs derived from Italian palazzi with a Gothic roof silhouette. Spain At the end of the 16th century, Spain was the dominant power in Europe, with an empire greater in extent than any ever known, including vast territories in the New World. The Spanish Plateresque style of architecture, which spread to New Spain, takes its name from platero ("silversmith") and features delicate ornamentation resembling metalwork. Under Philip II, the Plateresque style gave way to an Italian-derived classicism, seen at its best in El Escorial, a royal mausoleum, monastery, and palace complex near Madrid. The leading painter of 16th-century Spain was the Greek-born El Greco, who combined Byzantine style, Italian Mannerism, and the religious fervor of Catholic Spain.

Witches' Sabbath

1510, Chiaroscuro woodcut, 1'2.875'' x 10.25'' british museum, london. Hans Baldung Grien

Money-Changer and His Wife

1514, oil on wood, 2'3.75'' x 2', Musee du Louvre, Paris

west wing of the cour carrace (square court: looking west)

1546, paris, france, pierre lescot

Château de Chambord

Among Francis's architectural commissions is the grandiose Château de Chambord ( FIG. 23-22 ). As a building type, the château developed from medieval fortified castles, but, reflecting more peaceful times, Renaissance châteaux served as country houses for royalty, who usually built them near forests for use as hunting lodges. Many, including Chambord, still featured defensive surrounding moats, however. Construction of the Château de Chambord began in 1519, but Francis I never saw its completion. Chambord's plan, originally drawn by a pupil of Giuliano da Sangallo ( FIGS. 22-26 and 22-27 ), includes a central square block with four corridors in the shape of a cross and a broad central staircase that gives access to groups of rooms—ancestors of the modern suite of rooms or apartments. At each of the four corners, a round tower punctuates the square plan. From the exterior, Chambord presents a carefully contrived horizontal accent on three levels, with continuous moldings separating its floors. Windows align precisely, one exactly over another. The Italian Renaissance palazzo served as the model for this matching of horizontal and vertical features, but above the third level, the structure's lines break chaotically into a jumble of high dormers (projecting gable-capped windows), chimneys, and turrets that are the heritage of French Gothic residential architecture—for example, the Louvre palace ( FIG. 20-6 ) in Paris.

Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights

Garden of Earthly Delights ( FIG. 23-13 ), Hieronymus Bosch's most famous and most enigmatic painting, is a large triptych. That format would suggest a religious function for the work as an altarpiece, but the painting was on display in the palace of Count Hendrik III of Nassau-Breda (r. 1516-1538) no later than seven years after its completion. This suggests that the triptych was a secular commission, and some scholars have proposed that given the work's central themes of sex and procreation, the painting may commemorate a wedding. Paintings of married couples are common in Netherlandish art. Fifteenth-century examples include Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife ( FIG. 20-11 ) and A Goldsmith in His Shop ( FIG. 20-14 ). Any similarity to those earlier paintings ends there, however. Whereas Jan van Eyck and Petrus Chris-tus grounded their depictions of husbands and wives in contemporary Netherlandish life and custom, Bosch's image portrays a visionary world of fantasy and intrigue—a painted world without close parallel until the advent of Surrealism more than 400 years later ( FIG. 29-39 ).Few scholars today subscribe to the wedding-painting explanation, but that Bosch's triptych was never intended for or displayed in a church seems certain. However, that does not preclude a moralistic interpretation of the complex painting, one in the tradition of medieval representations of sin and of the horrors of Hell (for example, FIGS. 12-1 and 12-38A ).In the left panel, God (in the form of Christ) presents Eve to Adam in a landscape, presumably the Garden of Eden. (When closed, the triptych's wings show the earth on the third day of Creation.) Bosch's wildly imaginative setting includes an odd pink fountainlike structure in a body of water and an array of fanciful and unusual animals, including a giraffe, an elephant, and winged fish.The central panel is a continuation of Paradise, a sunlit landscape filled with nude people, including exotic figures of African descent, who frequently appear in Renaissance paintings (for example, FIG. 21-49 ), both north and south of the Alps. All those in Paradise are in the prime of youth. They blithely cavort amid bizarre creatures and unidentifiable objects. Some of the youths exuberantly stand on their hands or turn somersaults. The numerous fruits and birds in the scene are fertility symbols and suggest procreation. Indeed, many of the figures pair off as couples. These are the descendants of Adam and Eve, who have not learned the lesson of their ancestors' expulsion from Paradise, leading God to unleash a flood to rid the world of all humans save for Noah and his family.In contrast to the orgiastic overtones of the central panel is the terrifying image of Hell in the right wing, where viewers must search through the inky darkness to find all of the fascinating though repulsive details that Bosch recorded. Beastly creatures devour people, while other condemned souls endure tortures tailored to their conduct while alive. A glutton must vomit eternally. A miser squeezes gold coins from his bowels. A spidery monster fondles a promiscuous woman while toads bite her.Another element of Garden of Earthly Delights that bears on its interpretation is that many details throughout the triptych are based on chemical apparatus of the day, which Bosch knew well because his in-laws were pharmacists. The painting may have been intended for a learned audience of aristocrats in Nassau who were fascinated by alchemy —the medieval study of seemingly magical chemical changes. (Witchcraft also involved alchemy; see " Witchcraft ".)end sidebar

Pieter Aertsen

Gossaert's Neptune and Amphitrite is exceptional in treating a Greco-Roman subject. More typical, and another example of the Netherlandish tendency to inject reminders about spiritual well-being into paintings of everyday life, is Butcher's Stall ( FIG. 23-15 ) by Pieter Aertsen (ca. 1507-1575) of Amsterdam, who became a master in Antwerp's Guild of Saint Luke in 1535 and a citizen of his adopted city in 1542. He returned to Amsterdam in 1557 and worked there until his death two decades later.Butcher's Stall is one of the genre scenes (paintings of daily life) for which Aertsen achieved fame. On display is an array of meat products—a side of a hog, chickens, sausages, a stuffed intestine, pig's feet, meat pies, a cow's head, a hog's head, and hanging entrails. Also visible are fish, pretzels, cheese, and butter. But, like Massys ( FIG. 23-1 ), Aertsen strategically embedded religious images in his painting. In the background ( FIG. 23-15 , center left), Joseph leads a donkey carrying Mary and the Christ Child. The holy family stops to offer alms to a beggar and his son, while the people behind the holy family wend their way toward a church. Furthermore, the crossed fishes on the platter and the pretzels and wine in the rafters on the upper left all refer to "spiritual food" (pretzels were often served as bread during Lent). Aertsen accentuated these allusions to salvation through Christ by contrasting them to their opposite— a life of gluttony, lust, and sloth. He represented this degeneracy with the oyster and mussel shells (which Netherlanders believed possessed aphrodisiacal properties) scattered on the ground on the painting's right side, along with the people seen eating and carousing nearby under the roof. Underscoring the general theme is the placard at the right advertising land for sale—Aertsen's moralistic reference to a recent scandal involving the transfer of land from an Antwerp charitable institution to a land speculator.

Three Ages of Woman and Death

Hans Baldung Grien, 1510, oil on wood, 1'3.75'' x 1'.75'' Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Art and the Reformation

In addition to doctrinal differences, Catholics and Protestants took divergent stances on the role of visual imagery in religion. Catholics embraced church decoration as an aid to communicating with God (see " The Council of Trent "). By contrast, Protestants believed that images of Christ, the Virgin, and saints could lead to idolatry. Furthermore, images distracted viewers from focusing on the real reason for their presence in church—to communicate directly with God. Because of this belief, Protestant churches were relatively bare, and the extensive church pictorial programs found especially in Italy but also in Northern Europe (for example, Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece; FIGS. 12-9 and 12-10 ) were absent from Protestant churches. After Grünewald completed his Isenheim Altarpiece ( FIG. 23-2 ), church commissions largely disappeared. Some artists emigrated to Catholic lands in search of work. Others depended on secular commissions from private patrons.The Protestant concern over the role of religious imagery escalated at times to outright iconoclasm —the destruction of religious artworks, a revival of an attitude that, centuries before, led to a total ban on religious art in the Byzantine Empire (see " Icons and Iconoclasm "). In encouraging a more personal relationship with God, Protestant leaders spoke out against much of the religious art being produced. In his 1525 tract Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and Sacraments, Martin Luther explained his attitude toward religious imagery:I approached the task of destroying images by first tearing them out of the heart through God's Word and making them worthless and despised. . . . For when they are no longer in the heart, they can do no harm when seen with the eyes. . . . I have allowed and not forbidden the outward removal of images. . . . And I say at the outset that according to the law of Moses no other images are forbidden than an image of God which one worships. A crucifix, on the other hand, or any other holy image is not forbidden. *In fact, Luther approved the inclusion of illustrations in his translations of the Bible as well as painted altarpieces in churches, which he believed served a didactic purpose. However, two influential Protestant theologians based in Switzerland—Huldrych (Ulrich) Zwingli (1484-1531) and French-born John Calvin (Jean Cauvin, 1509-1564)—were more vociferous in cautioning their followers about the potentially dangerous nature of all religious imagery. Zwingli and Calvin's condemnation of religious imagery often led to eruptions of iconoclasm. Particularly violent waves of iconoclastic fervor swept Basel, Zurich, Strasbourg, and Wittenberg in the 1520s. In an episode known as the Great Iconoclasm, bands of Calvinists visited Catholic churches in the Netherlands in 1566, shattering stained-glass windows, smashing statues, and destroying paintings and other artworks that they perceived as idolatrous. These strong reactions to art, which reflected the religious fervor of the time, also serve as dramatic demonstrations of the power of art—and of how much art matters in society.

Witchcraft and the Macabre

In an age when the normal life span was only about 40 years and disease, plague, and superstitious fear were commonplace, it is natural that these macabre themes would figure prominently in some artworks, such as Matthias Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece ( FIG. 23-2 ), painted for the Hospital of Saint Anthony in Isenheim. Death figures prominently too in the work of Grünewald's contemporary, Hans Baldung Grien, who also explored exotic and erotic subjects, including witchcraft.Witchcraft was a counter-religion in the 15th and 16th centuries involving magical rituals, secret potions, and Devil worship. Witches prepared brews that they inhaled or rubbed into their skin, sending them into hallucinogenic trances in which they allegedly flew through the night sky on broomsticks or goats. The popes condemned all witches, and Church inquisitors vigorously pursued these demonic heretics and subjected them to torture to wrest confessions from them. People also feared witches because they thought they could create storms and hailstorms that ruined crops and caused famines. Witchcraft fascinated Baldung, and he turned to the subject repeatedly. For him and his contemporaries, witches were evil forces in the world, threats to man—as was Eve herself, whom Baldung also frequently depicted as a temptress responsible for Original Sin.In Witches' Sabbath ( FIG. 23-9 ), Baldung depicted a night scene in a forest featuring a coven of nude witches, although 16th-century witches performed their rites clothed. Female nudity and macabre scenes were popular with men, who avidly purchased the relatively inexpensive prints that Baldung created in large numbers. The coven in the Witches' Sabbath woodcut includes both young seductresses and old hags. They gather around a covered jar from which a fuming concoction escapes into the air. One young witch rides through the night sky on a goat. She sits backward—Baldung's way of suggesting that witchcraft is the inversion of the true religion, Christianity.end sidebar

Neptune and Amphitrite

Jan Gossaert, 1516, oil on wood, 6'2'' x 4'.75'' Germaldegalerie, staatliche museen ze berlin, berlin

Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin Mary

Jan Gossaert, 1520, oil on wood, 3'7.25'' x 2'8.25'' Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francis I

Jean Clouet, 1525-1530, tempera and oil on wood, 3'2'' x 2'5'', musee du louvre, paris

Nymphs

Jean Goujon, detail of the east side of the fountain of the innocents, paris, france, 1547-1549, marble, 6'4.75'' x 2'4.75'', plaster cast in situ. musee du louvre, paris

Goujon, Fountain of the Innocents

Jean Goujon, an engraver as well as a sculptor, moved from Rouen to Paris in 1543, where he collaborated with the architect Pierre Lescot, most notably by providing the decorative relief sculptures for the west wing of the Cour Carrée ( FIG. 23-23 ) of the Louvre. He also fashioned the classical caryatids for the Louvre's Salle des Caryatides. Earlier, shortly after being named the official sculptor of the newly crowned Henry II (r. 1547-1559), Goujon carved eight reliefs depicting nymphs as well as a series of smaller panels for Lescot's Fountain of the Innocents in Paris ( FIG. 23-23A ). The fountain, commissioned by Henry II shortly after his accession and later dismantled and reconstructed at a nearby site, stood near the Cemetery of the Innocents (a burial ground for children, hence its name), but it was not a funerary memorial. Originally a rectangular structure, in its present form dating to 1787, the fountain resembles a Roman quadrifrons (an arch with four equal facades and four arcuated bays) capped by a dome. It was, in fact, more a victory monument than a fountain and marked an important point on the route of Henry's triumphal march through Paris in 1549.It is uncertain whether Goujon ever traveled in Italy, but he certainly was familiar with contemporaneous developments in Italian sculpture, especially Mannerism. His nymphs, which appropriately carry or stand next to vases of flowing water, derive ultimately from the sculptures of goddesses and Victories with clinging draperies ( FIGS. 5-49 , 5-49C , and 5-56 ) of fifth-century bce Athens, emulated in countless Roman sculptures. But the proportions of the rhythmically twisting figures are those favored by Benvenuto Cellini ( FIGS. 22-45 and 22-45A ) and other Italian Mannerist sculptors (and painters)—slender, sinuous figures with small heads and long limbs. (Cellini was in the employ of Henry's predecessor; see " Francis I ".) Goujon's technical virtuosity and the lightness, grace, and charm of his figures set the standard for other French Renaissance sculptors.end sidebar

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The greatest Netherlandish painter of the mid-16th century was Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1528-1569). Trained in Antwerp and influenced by Patinir, although he was an apprentice in a different studio, Bruegel was also a landscape painter. In Bruegel's paintings, however, no matter how huge a slice of the world the artist depicted, human activities remain the dominant theme. Like many of his contemporaries, Bruegel traveled to Italy, where between 1551 and 1554 he went as far south as Sicily, and was in Rome in 1553. Unlike other artists, however, Bruegel chose not to incorporate classical elements into his paintings. He settled in Brussels in 1563.Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs ( FIG. 23-19 ), painted in Antwerp several years after the artist returned from Italy, depicts a Netherlandish village populated by a wide range of people, encompassing nobility, peasants, and clerics. Seen from the kind of bird's-eye view that Patinir favored is a mesmerizing array of activities reminiscent of the topsy-turvy scenes of Bosch ( FIG. 23-13 ). In fact, contemporaries referred to Bruegel as "a second Bosch." Nonetheless, Netherlandish Proverbs is unlike anything Bosch ever painted, and the purpose and meaning of Bruegel's anecdotal details are clear, whereas Bosch's are difficult to interpret, at least for modern viewers. By illustrating more than a hundred proverbs in this one painting, the artist indulged his Netherlandish audience's obsession with proverbs, passion for detailed and clever imagery, and interest in human folly—the subject of Erasmus's most famous work, In Praise of Folly.As the viewer scrutinizes the myriad vignettes within the painting, Bruegel's close observation and deep understanding of human nature become apparent. The proverbs depicted include, on the far left, a man in blue gnawing on a pillar. "He who bites a church pillar" is a religious zealot engaged in folly. To his right, a man "beats his head against a wall" (a frustrated idiot who has attempted something impossible). On the roof, a man "shoots one arrow after the other, but hits nothing" (a fool who throws good money after bad). In the far distance, near the burst of sunlight, the "blind lead the blind"—a subject to which Bruegel returned several years later in one of his most famous paintings (not illustrated).In contrast to Patinir's Saint Jerome, lost in the landscape, the vast cast of often comical characters in Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs fills the panel, so much so that the artist almost shut out the sky. Hunters in the Snow ( FIG. 23-20 ) and Fall of Icarus ( FIG. 23-19A ) are very different in character and illustrate the dynamic variety of Bruegel's work. Hunters in the Snow ( FIG. 23-20 ) is one of a series of six paintings he produced in Brussels illustrating seasonal changes, with each painting representing not a season but a pair of months. The paintings were a private commission and hung in the home of Nicolaes Jongelinck, a wealthy Antwerp merchant. The series, which Bruegel completed in a single year, grew out of the tradition of depicting months and peasants in Books of Hours ( FIGS. 20-5 and 20-6 ). The painting, which must represent December/January, shows human figures and landscape locked in winter cold, reflecting the particularly severe winter of 1565. The weary hunters return with their hounds, women build fires, skaters skim the frozen pond, and the town and its church huddle in their mantle of snow. Bruegel rendered the landscape in an optically accurate manner. It develops smoothly from foreground to background and draws the viewer diagonally into its depths, starting with the row of bare trees in the left foreground. The painter's supreme skill in using line and shape and his subtlety in tonal harmony make this one of the great landscape paintings in Western art.

Northern Humanism

The tumultuous religious conflict engulfing 16th-century Europe did not, however, prevent—and may even have accelerated—the exchange of intellectual and artistic ideas, because artists frequently moved from one area to another in search of religious freedom and lucrative commissions. Catholic Italy and the (mostly) Protestant Holy Roman Empire shared in a lively commerce—economic and cultural—and 16th-century art throughout Europe was a major beneficiary of that exchange. Humanism filtered up from Italy and spread throughout Northern Europe. Humanists north of the Alps, like their southern counterparts, cultivated knowledge of classical cultures and literature, but they focused more on reconciling humanism with Christianity.Among the most influential of these "Christian humanists" were the Dutchman Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) of Rotterdam and the Englishman Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). Erasmus demonstrated his interest in both Italian humanism and religion with his "philosophy of Christ," emphasizing education and scriptural knowledge. Both an ordained priest and an avid scholar, in 1509 Erasmus wrote (in Latin) his most famous essay, In Praise of Folly, which he published two years later. In this widely read work, Erasmus satirized not just the Church of Rome but various social classes as well. His ideas were to play an important role in the development of the Reformation, but he consistently declined to join any of the Reformation sects. Equally well educated was Thomas More, who served King Henry VIII (r. 1509-1547; FIG. 23-12A ). Henry eventually ordered More's execution because of More's opposition to England's break with the Catholic Church. In France, François Rabelais (ca. 1494-1553), a former monk who advocated rejecting stagnant religious dogmatism, disseminated the humanist spirit.The turmoil emerging during the 16th century lasted well into the 17th century and permanently affected the face of Europe. The concerted challenges to established authority and the persistent philosophical inquiry eventually led to the rise of new political systems (for example, the nation-state) and new economic systems (such as capitalism).

Portal, Colegio de San Gregorio

Valladolid, Spain, 1498 (coat of arms of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella)

Francis I, Royal Art Patron and Collector

With the coming of age of Francis I, the Catholic Church, the primary patron of art and architecture in medieval France, yielded that position to the French monarchy. The patronage of Francis I, extensively chronicled in a rich trove of contemporary documents, is an illuminating case study of what can result from the confluence of vast wealth, absolute power, and sophisticated taste.Francis expended especially large sums on building projects, including a royal hunting lodge at Chambord ( FIG. 23-22 ). After his decision in 1528 to relocate to Paris from the Loire valley, he undertook the remodeling of the Louvre, then a medieval fortress ( FIG. 20-6 ), and constructed new palaces in the Bois du Boulogne forest outside Paris, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and most significantly at Fontainebleau ( FIG. 23-21A ).Francis favored art that was at once elegant, erotic, and unorthodox. Appropriately, Mannerism held great appeal for him, and he hired three prominent Italian Mannerists to create artworks for his pleasure and to decorate the new palace at Fontainebleau: Benvenuto Cellini ( FIGS. 22-45 and 22-45A ), Rosso Fiorentino (1494-1540), and Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570). Francis had earlier enticed Leonardo da Vinci to come to France after the king won control of Milan in 1516. Leonardo was given a generous pension and an elegant home at Cloux, where he died three years later (without having produced any important works for the king).Anecdotes abound attesting to Francis's deep personal interest in the artists in his employ. The king was capable of both extravagant praise and harsh criticism. On one occasion, he rebuked Cellini for not living up to his promises and warned the artist about the consequences if he did not change his ways:I gave you express orders to make me twelve silver statues. . . . You have chosen to execute a saltcellar [ FIG. 22-45 ], and vases and busts and doors, and a heap of other things. . . . You have neglected my wishes and worked for the fulfillment of your own. . . . I tell you, therefore, plainly: do your utmost to obey my commands; for if you stick to your own fancies you will run your head against a wall. *Francis probably made his greatest mark, however, as a collector. Through diplomatic gifts he received and the artworks his agents commissioned or acquired on his behalf in Italy, Francis formed a magnificent collection. With some horror, Giorgio Vasari, the great chronicler of Renaissance artists' lives (see " Giorgio Vasari's Lives "), took note in his biography of Andrea del Sarto ( FIG. 22-8A ) of the king's ravenous appetite for Italian art and of how the artistic patrimony of Vasari's beloved Florence was being exported to France:In Florence . . . Giovanbattista della Palla . . . was not only having executed all the sculptures and pictures he could, to send to France for King Francis I, but was also buying antiques of all sorts and pictures of every kind, provided only that they were by the hands of good masters; and every day he was packing them up and sending them off. *Francis's art treasures became the core of one of the world's greatest museums, the Musée du Louvre. A brief list just of the works in Art through the Ages that Francis once owned will suffice to indicate the quality of his collection: Leonardo da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks ( FIG. 22-2 ) and Mona Lisa ( FIG. 22-5 ); Bronzino's Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time ( FIG. 22-42 ); Michelangelo's Bound Slave ( FIG. 22-15 ); and Cellini's saltcellar ( FIG. 22-45 ) and Genius of Fontainebleau ( FIG. 22-45A ). In addition, Francis's collection boasted works by Perugino, Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Titian, Giulio Romano, and Rosso Fiorentino, as well as tapestries and ancient statues.end sidebar

Juan de Herrera and Juan Bautista de Toledo

el escorial, near Madrid, Spain, 1563-1584

Gilles le Breton

gallery of Francis I, Chateua of Fontainebleau, France, paintings and stuccoes by Rosso Fiorentino and Francesco Primaticcio (1528), 1533-1539

Judgement of Paris

lucas cranach the elder, 1530, oil on wood, 1'1.5'' x 9.5'', staatliche Kunstahalle, Karlsruhe

Portal, Casa de Montejo, Merida, Mexico

1549

Battle of Issues

Albrecht Altdorfer, 1529, oil on wood, 5'2.25'' x 3'11.25'', alte pinakothek, munich

The French Ambassadors

Hans Holbein the Younger, 1533, oil and tempura on wood, 6'8'' and 6'9.5'' national gallery, london

Landscape with Saint Jerome

Joachim Patinir, 1520-1524, oil on wood, 2'5.125'' x 2' 11.875'' Museo del Prado, Madrid

Elizabeth I

Levina Teerlinc, 1559, oil on wood, 3'6.75'' x 2'8.25'' royal collection, windsor castle, windsor

Netherlandish Mores and the Pursuit of Wealth

With the demise of the duchy of Burgundy in 1477 and the division of that territory between France and the Holy Roman Empire ( MAP 23-1 ), the Netherlands at the beginning of the 16th century was among the most commercially advanced and prosperous countries in Europe. Its extensive network of rivers and easy access to the Atlantic Ocean encouraged overseas trade, and shipbuilding was one of the Netherlands' most profitable enterprises. As many as 500 ships a day passed through the harbor of Antwerp, which became the main Netherlands port after 1510.The prosperity that Antwerp's growing merchant class enjoyed enabled businessmen to accumulate worldly goods, including artworks, which in turn attracted many artists to the city. Among them was Quinten Massys (ca. 1466-1530), who became Antwerp's leading early-16th-century master. The son of a Louvain blacksmith, Massys explored the styles and modes of a variety of models, from earlier masters, such as Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, to his contemporaries Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymous Bosch, and Leonardo da Vinci. Yet his eclecticism was subtle and discriminating, enriched by an inventiveness that gave a personal stamp to his paintings.In Money-Changer and His Wife ( FIG. 23-1 ), Massys presented a professional man transacting business. He holds scales, checking the weight of coins on the table. The artist's detailed rendering of the figures, setting, and objects suggests a fidelity to observable fact, and provides insight into developing commercial practices.But Money-Changer and His Wife is also a commentary on Netherlandish values and mores. The painting highlights the financial transactions that were an increasingly prominent part of secular life in the Netherlands and that distracted Christians from their religious duties. The banker's wife, for example, shows more interest in watching her husband weigh money than in reading her prayer book. Massys incorporated into his painting numerous references to the importance of a moral, righteous, and spiritual life, including a candlestick and a carafe with water, traditional religious symbols. The couple ignores them, focusing solely on money. On the right, seen through a window, an old man talks with another man, a reference to idleness and gossip. The reflected image in the convex mirror on the counter offsets the sloth and foolish chatter. There, a man reads what is most likely a Bible or prayer book. Behind him is a church steeple.An inscription on the original frame (now lost) read, "Let the balance be just and the weights equal" (Lev. 19:36), an admonition that applies both to the money-changer's professional conduct and eventually to Judgment Day. Nonetheless, the couple in this painting has tipped the balance in favor of the pursuit of wealth.

Self-Portrait (1548)

1548, Caterina van Hemessen, oil on wood, 1'75'' x 9.875'' Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel

Netherlandish Proverbs

1559, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, oil on wood, 3'10'' x 5'4.125'' Gemaldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin

Catholic versus Protestant Views of Salvation

A central concern of the Protestant reformers was the question of how Christians achieve salvation. Rather than perceive salvation as something for which weak and sinful humans must constantly strive through good deeds performed under the watchful eye of a punitive God, Martin Luther argued that faithful individuals attained redemption solely by God's bestowal of his grace. Therefore, people cannot earn salvation. Further, no ecclesiastical machinery with all its miraculous rites and Church-sanctioned indulgences could save sinners face-to-face with God. Only absolute faith in Christ could redeem sinners and ensure salvation. Redemption by faith alone, with the guidance of holy scripture, was the fundamental doctrine of Protestantism.In Law and Gospel ( FIG. 23-7 ), a woodcut dated about a dozen years after Luther set the Reformation in motion with his Ninety-five Theses, Lucas Cranach the Elder gave visual expression to the doctrinal differences between Protestantism and Catholicism. Cranach contrasted Catholicism (based on Old Testament law, according to Luther) and Protestantism (based on the Gospel belief in God's grace) in two images separated by a centrally placed tree that has leafy branches only on the Protestant side. On the left half, Judgment Day has arrived, as represented by Christ's appearance at the top of the scene, hovering amid a cloud halo and accompanied by angels and saints. Christ raises his left hand in the traditional gesture of damnation, and, below, a skeleton drives off a terrified person to burn for eternity in Hell. This person tried to live a good and honorable life, but despite his efforts, he fell short. Moses stands to the side, holding the tablets of the law—the Ten Commandments, which Catholics follow in their attempt to attain salvation.In contrast to this Catholic reliance on good works and clean living, Protestant doctrine emphasized God's grace as the source of redemption. Accordingly, God showers the sinner in the right half of the print with grace, as streams of blood flow from the crucified Christ. At the far left are Adam and Eve, whose Original Sin necessitated Christ's sacrifice. In the lower right corner of the woodcut, Christ emerges from the tomb and promises salvation to all who believe in him.end sidebar

Casa de Montejo, Mérida

A mid-16th-century gem of Plateresque architecture in New Spain is the portal of the Casa de Montejo in Mérida, Mexico ( FIG. 23-24A ). The house, built in 1549, was the palatial residence of Francisco de Montejo the Younger (1508-1565), the Spanish conqueror of the Yucatán who founded Mérida in 1542. The lower story features engaged classical columns on projecting pedestals, and sculpted portrait busts of Montejo and his wife in roundels. The upper story is much more fanciful and fully Plateresque in style, with a central coat of arms, as in the portal ( FIG. 23-24 ) of the Colegio de San Gregorio at Valladolid.The four statues of the second level are of special interest. The larger pair depicts bearded and armored Spanish soldiers standing on the severed heads of the Maya natives they conquered. Smaller in scale are two sheepskin-clad wild men holding clubs (also seen at Valladolid), probably personifications of the defeated indigenous population. The triumphal imagery is, ironically, the work of Maya sculptors from nearby Maní. In fact, the very stones used to build the Montejo house came from dismantled Maya temples in the area.end sidebar

Albrecht Dürer

A slightly older contemporary of Grünewald's was Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) of Nuremberg, the first artist outside Italy to become an international celebrity. Dürer was a highly skilled painter, but his reputation today as in his own time rests primarily on his graphic art, which he promoted with an astute businessman's skill. With the aid of his wife, his mother, and an agent, Dürer aggressively marketed his engravings and woodcuts and became a wealthy man. Moreover, in 1506, to protect his financial interests, Dürer filed the first lawsuit in history over intellectual property copyright, accusing an Italian artist of copying his prints.Unlike the younger Grünewald, Dürer traveled extensively, visiting and studying in Colmar, Basel, Strasbourg, Venice, Antwerp, and Brussels, among other locales. As a result, Dürer met many of the leading humanists and artists of his time, including Erasmus of Rotterdam and the Venetian master Giovanni Bellini ( FIGS. 21-40 , 22-29 , and 22-30 ). Fascinated with the classical ideas of the Italian Renaissance, Dürer was among the first Northern European artists to travel to Italy expressly to study Italian Renaissance art. After his first journey in 1494-1495 (the second was in 1505-1506), he incorporated many Italian developments into his prints and paintings. Like Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer wrote theoretical treatises on a variety of subjects, including perspective, fortification, and the ideal in human proportions. Unlike Leonardo, he both finished and published his writings. Dürer also was the first Northern European artist to leave a record of his life and career through his correspondence, a detailed diary, and a series of self-portraits.

Levina Teerlinc

Another Netherlandish woman painter was Levina Teerlinc (ca. 1515-1576) of Bruges. She established such a high reputation that Henry VIII ( FIG. 23-12A ) invited her to England and appointed her royal paintrix in 1546, three years after the death of Hans Holbein the Younger. Teerlinc became a formidable rival of her male contemporaries at the court and received greater compensation for her work than they did for theirs—in striking contrast to what Artemisia Gentileschi, the leading female painter in 17th-century Italy, experienced in her homeland (see " The Letters of Artemisia Gentileschi "). Teerlinc's considerable skill is evident in a life-size portrait ( FIG. 23-17 ) attributed to her, which depicts Elizabeth I as a composed, youthful princess. Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth was probably in her late 20s when she posed for this portrait. Appropriate to her station in life, Elizabeth wears an elegant brocaded gown, extravagant jewelry, and a headdress based on a style popularized by her mother.Teerlinc's success testifies to her determination and skill, given the difficulties that women faced in a profession dominated by men. Women also played an important role as patrons in 16th- century Northern Europe. Politically powerful women such as Mary of Hungary, van Hemessen's patron, and Margaret of Austria (1480-1530), regent of the Netherlands during the early 16th century, were active collectors and patrons, and contributed significantly to the thriving state of the arts. As did other art patrons, these women collected and commissioned art not only for the aesthetic pleasure it provided but also for the status it bestowed on them and the cultural sophistication it represented.

France

As Holbein's French Ambassadors ( FIG. 23-12 ) illustrates, France in the early 16th century continued its efforts to secure widespread recognition as a political power and cultural force. Under Francis I (r. 1515-1547; FIG. 23-21 ), the French established a firm foothold in Milan and its environs, and waged a campaign (known as the Habsburg-Valois Wars) against Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. These wars, which occupied Francis for most of his reign, involved disputed territories—southern France, the Netherlands, the Rhineland, northern Spain, and Italy—and reflect France's central role in the shifting geopolitical landscape ( MAP 23-1 ).The French king also took a strong position in the religious controversies of his day. By the mid-16th century, the split between Catholics and Protestants had become so pronounced that subjects often felt compelled either to accept the religion of their sovereign or emigrate to a territory where the sovereign's religion corresponded with their own. France was predominantly Catholic, and in 1534, Francis declared Protestantism illegal. The state persecuted its Protestants— the Huguenots, a Calvinist sect—and drove them underground. Calvin himself fled from France to Switzerland two years later. The Huguenots' commitment to Protestant Calvinism eventually led to one of the bloodiest religious massacres in European history when the Huguenots and Catholics clashed in Paris in August 1572. The violence quickly spread throughout France with the support of many nobles, which presented a serious threat to the king's authority.

Jean Clouet

As the rulers of antiquity and other Renaissance monarchs had done, Francis commissioned portraits of himself to assert his authority. The finest is the portrait that Jean Clouet (ca. 1485-1541) painted about a decade after Francis became king. Clouet probably moved from the Netherlands to France during the reign of Louis XII (r. 1498-1515). He soon established a studio specializing in portraiture and received royal commissions. In Francis I ( FIG. 23-21 ), Clouet presented the French monarch as a worldly ruler magnificently bedecked in silks and brocades, wearing a gold chain with a medallion of the Order of Saint Michael, a French order founded by Louis XI in 1469. Francis appears suave and confident, with his hand resting on the pommel of a dagger. Despite the careful detail, the portrait also exhibits an elegantly formalized quality, the result of Clouet's suppression of modeling, which flattens features, seen particularly in Francis's neck. The disproportion between the king's small head and his broad body, swathed in heavy layers of fabric, adds to the formalized nature.Portraiture was, however, a relatively minor interest of Francis's. He was a great patron of sculpture and the decorative arts; a passionate collector of paintings, especially those of Italian masters; and a builder on a grand scale (see " Francis I, Royal Art Patron and Collector ").

Three Ages of Woman and Death

Baldung's Witches' Sabbath does not address death and illness directly, but the inevitability of old age and death (with a strong dose of eroticism) are the central elements in his Three Ages of Woman and Death ( FIG. 23-10 ), a subject that Baldung returned to repeatedly during his career. Albrecht Dürer—in whose workshop Baldung trained—had portrayed Death and Famine ( FIG. I-9 ) in his woodcuts, and the emaciated figure of Death in Baldung's painting owes a debt to his master's work, as does the beautiful nude young woman Death approaches from behind. She is a variation on Dürer's Eve in Fall of Man ( FIG. 23-4 ), an engraving Dürer produced while Baldung was his apprentice. Baldung's oil painting is a commentary on vanitas (Latin, "vanity," especially with regard to the transience of life), another popular subject.The voluptuous, fair-skinned young woman gazes at her reflection in a mirror as she combs her long hair, oblivious that Death pursues her. The maiden appears two more times in the same painting at two different ages—as an infant who plays with one end of the young woman's transparent mantle and as a wrinkled, dark-skinned old woman who rushes in from the left to try to push Death away. Baldung tells the viewer that the old woman will not succeed in warding off Death. Indeed, the sand in the hourglass Death holds mockingly over the maiden's head will run out too soon. (An hour-glass also looms over Dürer's personified Melancholy in Melenco-lia I, FIG. 23-5 .) The visual tensions between youth and age, fleshy maiden and skeletal death, are characteristic elements of Baldung's prints and paintings alike.

Jan Gossaert

Bosch and Quinten Massys ( FIG. 23-1 ) spent their entire careers in the Netherlands, but many of their contemporaries succumbed to the lure of Italy. Jan Gossaert (ca. 1478-1535), known to his contemporaries as "the Apelles of our age," was one of those who traveled to Italy (in 1508-1509) and became fascinated with classical antiquity and mythology ( FIG. 23-14 ), although he also painted traditional Christian themes ( FIG. 23-14A ). Giorgio Vasari (see " Vasari's Lives "), writing about 15 years after Gossaert's death, claimed that "Giovanni di Mabuse [Jan Gossaert] was almost the first to bring from Italy into Flanders the true method of making scenes full of nude figures." *In fact, Gossaert derived much of his classicism from Albrecht Dürer, whose Fall of Man ( FIG. 23-4 ) inspired the composition and poses in Gossaert's Neptune and Amphitrite ( FIG. 23-14 ). However, in contrast to Dürer's exquisitely small engraving, Gossaert's painting is more than 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. The artist executed the painting with characteristic Netherlandish polish, skillfully drawing and carefully modeling the life-size figures. Gossaert depicted the sea god with his traditional attribute, the trident (see " The Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus "; compare FIG. 7-23 ), and wearing a laurel wreath and an ornate conch shell in place of Dürer's fig leaf. Amphitrite is fleshy and, like Neptune, assumes a classical statuary stance with outthrust hips (compare FIG. 5-62 ). The architectural frame, which resembles the cella of a classical temple ( FIG. 5-46 ), is an unusual mix of Doric and Ionic elements and bucrania (ox-skull decorations), a common motif in ancient architectural ornamentation. Gossaert likely based the classical setting on sketches he had made of ancient buildings while in Rome. (Several of his drawings of ancient statues and of the Colosseum are preserved.)Gossaert had traveled to Italy as part of an official delegation to Pope Julius II led by Philip, Admiral of Burgundy (1498-1517) and Bishop of Utrecht (1517-1524), who commissioned Gossaert to paint Neptune and Amphitrite. The subject must have held special appeal for the admiral, but Philip did not display the work publicly. He kept the representation of the nude god and goddess in the innermost room of his castle.

Louvre, Paris

Chambord, despite its Italian elements, is essentially a French building. During the reign of Francis's successor, Henry II (r. 1547-1559), however, translations of Italian architectural treatises appeared, and Italian architects themselves came to work in France. Moreover, the French turned to Italy for study and travel. These exchanges caused a more extensive revolution in style than had transpired earlier, although certain French elements derived from the Gothic tradition persisted. This incorporation of Italian architectural ideas characterizes the redesigned Louvre in Paris, originally a medieval palace and fortress ( FIG. 20-6 ). Since Charles V's renovation of the Louvre in the mid-14th century, the castle had fallen into a state of disrepair. Francis I initiated the project to renovate the royal palace (see " Francis I ") when he decided in 1528 to move his court to Paris from the Loire valley. It was not until 1546, however, that Francis commissioned Pierre Lescot (1510-1578) to build a new palace. Francis died the following year, but work continued under Henry II, who greatly enlarged the project, enabling Lescot to design a palace that has become synonymous with the classical style of 16th-century French architecture.Lescot and his associates were familiar with the architectural style of Bramante and his school. In the west wing of the Cour Car-rée (Square Court; FIG. 23-23 ) of the Louvre, each of the stories forms a complete order, and the cornices project enough to furnish a strong horizontal accent. The arcading on the ground story reflects the ancient Roman use of arches and produces more shadow than in the upper stories due to its recessed placement, thereby strengthening the design's visual base. On the second story, the pilasters rising from bases and the alternating curved and angular pediments have direct antecedents in several High Renaissance palaces—for example, the Palazzo Farnese ( FIG. 22-26 ) in Rome. Yet the decreasing height of the stories, the scale of the windows (proportionately much larger than in Italian Renaissance buildings), and the steep roof are Northern European elements. Especially French are the tall central sections projecting from the wall on each side of the courtyard that feature double columns framing a niche. The richly articulated wall surfaces also include relief sculptures by Jean Goujon (ca. 1510-1565), who had previously collaborated with Lescot on the Fountain of the Innocents ( FIG. 23-23A ) in Paris.Other Northern European countries imitated this French classical manner—its double-columned pavilions, tall and wide windows, profuse statuary, and steep roofs—although with local variations. The modified classicism that the French embraced became the model for building projects north of the Alps through most of the 16th century.

Great Piece of Turf

Durer, 1503, watercolor, 1'3.74'' x 1'.75'' vienna, Albrecht Dürer was the first Northern European artist to ally himself fully with the scientific interests of Italian Renaissance artists, most notably Leonardo da Vinci ( FIG. 22-6 ). In 1503, Dürer painted the extremely precise watercolor study of a piece of turf reproduced here ( FIG. 23-3A ). For both Leonardo and Dürer, observation yielded truth. Sight, sanctified by mystics such as Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) and artists such as Jan van Eyck, became the secularized instrument of modern knowledge. Dürer agreed with Aristotle (and Leonardo) that "sight is the noblest sense of man." * Nature holds the beautiful, Dürer said, for the artist who has the insight to extract it. Thus beauty lies even in humble, perhaps ugly, things, and the ideal, which bypasses or improves on nature, may not be truly beautiful in the end. Uncomposed and ordinary nature might be a reasonable object of an artist's interest, quite as much as its composed and measured aspect.The remarkable Great Piece of Turf is as scientifically accurate as it is poetic. Botanists can distinguish each plant and grass variety—dandelions, great plantain, yarrow, meadow grass, and heath rush. "[D]epart not from nature according to your fancy," Dürer said, "imagining to find aught better by yourself; . . . For verily 'art' is embedded in nature; he who can extract it, has it." *end sidebar

Isenheim Altarpiece

Matthias Grunewald, from the chapel of the hospital of saint anthony, Insenheim, France, 1512-1515, oil on wood, painted and gilt limewood

Colegio de San Gregorio

During the 15th century and well into the 16th, a Late Gothic style of architecture, the Plateresque, prevailed in Spain. Plateresque derives from the Spanish word platero ("silversmith"), and delicately executed ornamentation resembling metalwork is the defining characteristic of the Plateresque style. The Colegio de San Gregorio (Seminary of Saint Gregory; FIG. 23-24 ) in the Castilian city of Valladolid handsomely exemplifies the Plateresque manner, which Spanish expansion into the Western Hemisphere also brought to New Spain ( FIG. 23-24A ). Great carved retables ( FIGS. 20-3 , 20-21 , 20-22 , and 23-2 , bottom) appealed to church patrons and architects in Spain, and the portals of Plateresque facades often resemble elegantly carved retables set into an otherwise blank wall.The Plateresque entrance of San Gregorio is a lofty sculptured stone screen bearing no functional relation to the architecture behind it. On the entrance level, lacelike tracery reminiscent of Moorish design hems the flamboyant ogival arches. (Spanish hatred of the Moors did not discourage Spanish architects from adapting Moorish motifs—a habit that dates to the Visigothic age; see FIGS. 11-10 and 11-11 .) A great screen, paneled into sculptured compartments, rises above the tracery. In the center, the branches of a huge pomegranate tree (symbolizing Granada, the Moorish capital of Spain, which the Habsburgs captured in 1492) wreathe the coat of arms of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. Cupids play among the tree branches, and, flanking the central panel, niches frame armed pages of the court, heraldic wild men symbolizing aggression, and armored soldiers, attesting to Spain's proud new militancy. In typical Plateresque and Late Gothic fashion, the activity of a thousand intertwined motifs unifies the whole design, which, in sum, creates an exquisitely carved panel greatly expanded in scale from the retables that inspired it.

The Netherlands

During the second half of the 16th century, Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598) controlled the Netherlands, which consisted of 17 provinces corresponding to present-day Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Philip had inherited the region from his father, Charles V (r. 1516-1556), the Holy Roman Emperor and champion of Catholicism. Philip sought to force the entire population to become Catholic. His heavy-handed tactics and repressive measures led in 1579 to revolt and the formation of two federations: the Union of Arras, a Catholic union of southern Netherlandish provinces, which remained under Spanish dominion, and the Union of Utrecht, a Protestant union of northern provinces, which became the Dutch Republic ( MAP 25-1 ).As in Germany ( FIG. 23-2 ), early-16th-century Netherlandish artists continued to receive commissions from Catholic churches for large-scale altarpieces and other religious works. Because of Protestantism, the Netherlands witnessed the beginning of a robust private art market focused on secular subjects. Consequently, Netherlandish art of this period provides a wonderful glimpse into the lives of various levels of society, from nobility to peasantry, capturing their activities, environment, and values (see " Netherlandish Mores and the Pursuit of Wealth ").

Self-Portraits

Dürer's earliest preserved self-portrait—a silverpoint drawing now in the Albertina in Vienna—dates to 1484, when he was only 13, two years before he began his formal education as an apprentice in the workshop of Michael Wolgemut ( FIG. 20-23 ). In 1498, a few years after his first visit to Italy, he painted a likeness of himself in the Italian mode—a seated half-length portrait in three-quarter view in front of a window through which the viewer sees a landscape. The Self-Portrait reproduced here ( FIG. 23-3 ), painted just two years later, is markedly different in character both from his earlier self-portraits and Italian Renaissance portraiture. Inscribed with his monogram and the date (left) and four lines (right) stating that the painting depicts him at age 28, the panel portrays the artist in a fur-trimmed coat in a rigid frontal posture against a dark background. Dürer has a short beard and shoulder-length hair, and the portrait intentionally evokes medieval devotional images of Christ. The position of Dürer's right hand resembles but does not duplicate (which would have been blasphemous) Christ's standard gesture of blessing in Byzantine icons ( FIG. 9-33 ; compare also Dieric Bouts's depiction of Christ in his Last Supper; FIG. 20-15 ). The focus on the hand is doubtless a reference to the artist's hand as a creative instrument (compare FIG. 22-40 ). Deeply affected by the new humanistic view that had emerged in Renaissance Italy of the artist as a divinely inspired genius, Dürer responded by painting himself as a Christ-like figure. He also embraced Italian artists' interest in science, as is evident in his botanically accurate 1503 watercolor study Great Piece of Turf ( FIG. 23-3A ).

Four Apostles

Dürer's major work in the oil medium is Four Apostles ( FIG. 23-6 ), a two-panel painting he produced without commission and presented to the city fathers of Nuremberg in 1526 to be hung in the city hall. Saints John and Peter appear on the left panel, Mark and Paul on the right (see " Early Christian Saints "). In addition to showcasing Dürer's mastery of the oil technique, his brilliant use of color and of light and shade, and his ability to imbue the four saints with individual personalities and portraitlike features, Four Apostles documents Dürer's support for the German theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546), who sparked the Protestant Reformation (see " Catholic versus Protestant Views of Salvation "). Dürer conveyed his Lutheran sympathies by his positioning of the figures. He relegated Saint Peter (as representative of the pope in Rome) to a secondary role by placing him behind John the Evangelist (compare Konrad Witz's Peter in Miraculous Draft of Fish [ FIG. 20-20 ], widely interpreted as a commentary on the limited powers of the pope). John assumed particular prominence for Luther because of the evangelist's focus on Jesus as a person in his Gospel. In addition, Peter and John both read from the Bible, the single authoritative source of religious truth, according to Luther. Dürer emphasized the Bible's centrality by depicting it open to the passage "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). At the bottom of the panels, Dürer included quotations from the four apostles' books, using Luther's German translation of the New Testament. The excerpts warn against the coming of perilous times and the preaching of false prophets who will distort God's word. from the city hall, nuremberg, germany, 1526, oil on wood, 7'1'' x 2'6'', munich

Matthias Grünewald

Matthias Neithardt, known conventionally as Matthias Grünewald (ca. 1480-1528), worked for the archbishops of Mainz in several capacities, from court painter and decorator to architect, hydraulic engineer, and superintendent of works. Grünewald eventually moved to northern Germany, where he settled at Halle in Saxony. Around 1512, he began work on the Isenheim Altarpiece ( FIG. 23-2 ), a complex and fascinating polyptych reflecting Catholic beliefs and incorporating several references to Catholic doctrines, such as the lamb (symbol of the son of God), whose wound spurts blood into a chalice in Grünewald's depiction of Christ's crucifixion ( FIG. 23-2, top) on the exterior of the altarpiece.Created for the monastic hospital order of Saint Anthony of Isenheim, the Isenheim Altarpiece takes the form of a carved wood shrine by Nikolaus Hagenauer (active 1493-1538) featuring large painted and gilded statues of Saints Anthony Abbot, Augustine, and Jerome in the main zone, and smaller statues of Christ blessing the host and the 12 apostles in the predella ( FIG. 23-2, bottom). To Hagenauer's centerpiece, carved around 1505, Grünewald added between 1512 and 1515 two pairs of painted moveable wings that open at the center. Hinged at the sides, one pair stands directly behind the other. The exterior panels of the first pair (visible when the altarpiece is closed, FIG. 23-2, top) are Crucifixion in the center, Saint Sebastian on the left, Saint Anthony Abbot on the right, and Lamentation in the predella. When these exterior wings are open, four additional scenes (not illustrated)— Annunciation, Angelic Concert, Madonna and Child, and Resurrection—appear. Opening this second pair of wings exposes Hagenauer's interior shrine, flanked by Grünewald's Meeting of Saints Anthony and Paul and Temptation of Saint Anthony panels ( FIG. 23-2, bottom).The placement of this altarpiece in the choir of a church adjacent to the monastery's hospital dictated much of the imagery. Saints associated with the plague and other diseases and with miraculous cures, such as Saints Anthony and Sebastian, appear prominently in the Isenheim Altarpiece. Grünewald's panels specifically address the themes of dire illness and miraculous healing and accordingly emphasize the suffering of the order's patron saint, Anthony Abbot (see " Early Christian Saints "). The painted images served as warnings, encouraging increased devotion from monks and hospital patients. They also functioned therapeutically by offering some hope to the afflicted. Indeed, Saint Anthony's legend emphasized his dual role as vengeful dispenser of justice (by inflicting disease) and benevolent healer.One of the most memorable scenes is Temptation of Saint Anthony ( FIG. 23-2, bottom right). It is a terrifying image of the five temptations (lack of faith, despair, impatience, spiritual pride, and avarice), depicted as an assortment of ghoulish and bestial creatures in a dark landscape, attacking the saint. In the foreground, Grünewald painted a grotesque image of a man, whose oozing boils, withered arm, and distended stomach all suggest a horrible disease. Medical experts have connected these symptoms with ergotism (a disease caused by ergot, a fungus that grows especially on rye). Doctors did not discover the cause of this disease until about 1600. People lived in fear of its recognizable symptoms (convulsions and gangrene) and called the illness "Saint Anthony's Fire."Ergotism was one of the major diseases treated at the Isenheim hospital. Indeed, Grünewald depicted Christ's skin covered with sores. Furthermore, ergotism often compelled amputation, and viewers of the Isenheim Altarpiece have noted that the two moveable halves of the altarpiece's predella ( FIG. 23-2, top), if slid apart, make it appear as if Christ's legs have been amputated. The same observation applies to the two main exterior panels. Due to the off-center placement of the cross, opening the left panel "severs" one arm from the crucified figure.Thus Grünewald carefully selected and presented his altarpiece's iconography to be particularly meaningful for patients at this hospital. In the interior shrine, the artist balanced the horrors of the disease and the punishments awaiting those who did not repent with scenes such as Meeting of Saints Anthony and Paul, depicting the two saints, healthy and aged, conversing peacefully. Even the exterior panels (the closed altarpiece; FIG. 23-2, top) convey these same concerns. Crucifixion emphasizes Christ's pain and suffering, but the knowledge that this act redeemed humanity tempers the misery. In addition, Saint Anthony appears in the right wing as a devout follower of Christ who, like Christ, endured intense suffering for his faith. Saint Anthony's appearance on the exterior thus reinforces the themes Grünewald intertwined throughout this entire work—themes of pain, illness, and death, as well as those of hope, comfort, and salvation. Grünewald also brilliantly used color to enhance the impact of the imagery. He intensified the contrast of horror and hope by playing subtle tones and soft harmonies against shocking dissonances of color.

View of Toledo

El Greco's singular vision is evident in View of Toledo ( FIG. 23-26 ), the only pure landscape he ever painted. As does so much of El Greco's work, this painting breaks sharply with tradition. The Greek-born artist depicted the Spanish city from a nearby hilltop and drew attention to the great spire of Toledo's cathedral by leading the viewer's eye along the diagonal line of the bridge crossing the Tajo River and continuing with the city's walls. El Greco knew Toledo intimately, and every building is recognizable, although he rearranged some of their positions. For example, he moved the Alcazar palace to the right of the cathedral. Yet El Greco rendered no structure in meticulous detail, as most Renaissance painters would have done, and the color palette is not true to nature but limited to greens and grays. The atmosphere is eerie. Dramatic bursts of light in the stormy sky cast a ghostly pall over the city. The artist applied oil pigment to canvas in broad brushstrokes typical of his late, increasingly abstract painting style, with the result that the buildings and trees do not have sharp contours and almost seem to shake.Art historians have compared View of Toledo to Giorgione da Castelfranco's Tempest ( FIG. 22-31 ) and the dramatic lighting to works by Tintoretto ( FIG. 22-50 ), and indeed, El Greco's Venetian training is evident. Still, the closest parallels lie not in the past but in the future—in paintings such as Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night ( FIG. 28-20 ) and in 20th-century Surrealism ( FIG. 29-39 ).

Burial of Count Orgaz

El Greco, 1586, oil on canvas, 16' x 12', Santo Tome, Toledo

View of Toledo

El Greco, 1610, oil on canvas, 3' 11.75'' x 3' 6.75'', metropolitan museum of art, new york

Henry VIII

Hans Holbein the Younger, 1540, oil on wood, 2'8.5'' x 2'5.5'' galleria Nazionale d'arte antica, palazzo barberini, rome.

Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch, 1505-1510, oil on wood, center panel, 7'2.625'' x 3'2.25'' museo del prado, madrid

Gallery of Francis I, Fontainebleau

In 1528, King Francis I began transforming a 12th-century royal hunting lodge at Fontainebleau, about 35 miles southeast of Paris, into a palatial residence (further expanded by his successors). The architect Francis chose was Gilles le Breton (ca. 1500-1533). The grandest element of the 16th-century Northern Renaissance palace is the Gallery of Francis I ( FIG. 23-21A ), the decoration of which the French king entrusted to two Italian artists, whom he successfully lured to France in the aftermath of the sack of Rome in 1527 (see " Francis I, Royal Art Patron and Collector "). The first to arrive, in 1530, was Giovanni Battista Rosso of Florence, known as Rosso Fiorentino. He was joined two years later by Francesco Primaticcio of Bologna, who had assisted Giulio Romano with the interior decoration of the Palazzo del Tè in Mantua ( FIGS. 22-47 , 22-48 , and 22-49 ). Together, they produced the paintings and stucco high-reliefs of the gallery and, along with Benvenuto Cellini ( FIGS. 22-45 and 22-45A ), brought the Mannerist style from Italy to France.

Joachim Patinir

In addition to portrait and genre painting, landscape painting flourished in the 16th-century Netherlands. Joachim Patinir (ca. 1480-1524), who became a master in Antwerp's painters' guild in 1515, was particularly well known for his landscapes. In fact, the word Landschaft (landscape) first emerged in German literature as a characterization of an artistic category when Dürer described Patinir as a "good landscape painter." In Landscape with Saint Jerome ( FIG. 23-18 ), Patinir subordinated the saint, who removes a thorn from a lion's paw in the foreground, to the exotic and detailed landscape populated by other figures and animals. As is typical of his work, in this painting Patinir depicted the countryside from a high vantage point in order to achieve a broad and distant panorama. Craggy rock formations, verdant rolling fields, villages with church steeples, expansive bodies of water, and a dramatic sky fill most of the panel. Although nature figures more prominently in his religious paintings than do the biblical protagonists, Patinir had little interest in exploring Italian linear perspective. In fact, his bird's-eye views are inconsistent: the terrain is represented from above, but individual features, such as trees and rocky outcroppings, are seen head-on. He did, however, use different blues, making them paler with increasing distance to suggest recession.

Bruegel the Elder, Fall of Icarus

In the eighth book of Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid (43 bce-17 ce) told the story of Daedalus, the legendary Greek artist who invented a way for men to fly by fashioning wings of wax and feathers that could be attached to human arms. He made two sets of wings and taught his son Icarus how to use them, but warned him that if he flew too close to the sun, the wax would melt and he would plunge to his death. Icarus did not listen, his wings melted, and he drowned in the Aegean Sea off Crete.The painting illustrated here ( FIG. 23-19A ), long thought to be by Bruegel's hand, is now widely recognized as a later copy that is, nonetheless, faithful to the original. It can therefore serve as an example of Bruegel's choice of subject and his approach to narrative. It is unlikely that any other Renaissance artist would have painted the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus the way Bruegel did. The artist, who spent at least two years in Italy but never sketched a Roman ruin or drew an ancient statue, set the tale of Icarus's fall on a hill in the Netherlands overlooking a harbor. Only a patient and attentive viewer—the type who enjoys studying every detail and hunting for every proverb in Bruegel's Netherlandish Proverbs ( FIG. 23-19 )—will find Icarus at the lower right of the painting, half submerged headfirst in the water, legs flailing helplessly in the air. Daedalus is nowhere to be found, although he figures prominently in Ovid's account, in which shepherds, plowmen, and fishermen gaze up in wonder at the sky, thinking they are witnessing the flight of gods. In Bruegel's Fall of Icarus, the landscape fills nearly the entire panel, and humans are almost incidental. The most prominent figures are a plowman in the foreground and, to his right, closer to the sea, a shepherd and his flock. There is also a fisherman in the lower right corner, consistent with Ovid's tale. But the three men are absorbed in their own work and pay no heed to the ill-fated Icarus. If Bruegel's painting did not have a title, no one would connect the tableau with the Greek myth. It seems to be a genre scene of common country folk engaged in earning their livelihoods, dwarfed by nature, like the hunters in Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow ( FIG. 23-20 ). In fact, Fall of Icarus is an illustration of yet another Netherlandish proverb. Hidden in the trees at the left edge of the painting is a corpse—proving the proverb "No plow stops for the death of any man," which also applies to the death of Icarus as conceived by Bruegel.

Gossaert, Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin

Jan Gossaert was one of the leading Northern Renaissance artists who traveled in Italy and studied the remains of ancient buildings and sculptures as well as contemporary Italian paintings. He painted both classical mythological ( FIG. 23-14 ) and Christian subjects, and won the praise of Giorgio Vasari for his compositions and technique—a supreme compliment from a biographer who elevated Italian (especially Florentine) artists above all others.The work reproduced here—Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin Mary—depicts a well-established subject in Northern Renaissance art ( FIG. 23-14A ). But, in striking contrast to Rogier van der Weyden's painting ( FIG. 20-1 ) of the same theme, in which the artist and his models occupy a room in a Flemish home, in Gossaert's panel, Saint Luke draws the Virgin and Child (with the aid of an angel, who guides his hand) in an Italian palace featuring classical piers, columns, and arches decorated with reliefs modeled on Roman architectural friezes. The Madonna is not really posing for the artist, however. Gossaert presented her as a miraculous apparition floating on clouds and accompanied by putti, two of which hold her crown over her head. To Luke's right is a statue of Moses with the Ten Commandments atop an Ionic tempietto. Moses, too, beheld a divine apparition when the Lord spoke to him at the burning bush and commanded him to remove his shoes because he stood on holy ground. In Gossaert's painting, Luke has also taken off his sandals, and he kneels before his writing desk in the presence of the queen of Heaven. This new conception of a venerable theme is consistent with the Renaissance idea, born in Italy, of the artist as divinely inspired.end sidebar

Law and Gospel

Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1530, woodcut, 10.625'' x 1'.75'', british museum, london.

Burial of Count Orgaz

More typical of El Greco's work is Burial of Count Orgaz ( FIG. 23-27 ), painted in 1586 for the church of Santo Tomé (Saint Thomas) in Toledo. El Greco based the painting on the legend of the count of Orgaz, who had died some three centuries before and who had been a great benefactor of Santo Tomé. According to the legend, Saints Stephen and Augustine miraculously descended from Heaven to lower the count's body into its sepulcher in the church. In the painting, El Greco carefully distinguished the terrestrial and celestial spheres. The radiant Heaven above illuminates the earthly scene below. The painter represented the terrestrial realm with a firm realism, whereas he depicted the celestial, in his quite personal manner, with elongated undulating figures, fluttering draperies, and a visionary swirling cloud. Below, the two saints lovingly lower the count's armor-clad body, the armor and heavy draperies painted with all the rich sensuousness of the Venetian school. A solemn chorus of personages dressed in black fills the background. Among the witnesses to the miracle are El Greco himself (third from the left in the row of mourners, above Saint Stephen's head); his young son, Jorge Manuel (the young page at the lower left next to Saint Stephen); the robed, reading priest who commissioned the painting, Andrés Núñez (at the far right); and the Spanish king Philip II, whom El Greco placed among the blessed in the heavenly realm below . In the carefully individualized features of these figures, El Greco demonstrated that he was also a great portraitist.The upward glances of some of the figures below and the flight of an angel above link the painting's lower and upper spheres. The action of the angel, who carries the count's soul in his arms as Saint John and the Virgin (next to Saint Peter, who displays the keys to the kingdom of Heaven) intercede for Orgaz before the throne of Christ, reinforces this connection. El Greco's deliberate change in style to distinguish between the two levels of reality gives the viewer an opportunity to see the artist's early and late manners in the same work, one below the other. His relatively realistic presentation of the earthly sphere is still strongly rooted in Venetian art, but the abstractions and distortions that El Greco used to show the immaterial nature of the heavenly realm characterize his later style. His elongated figures existing in undefined spaces, bathed in a cool light of uncertain origin, explain El Greco's usual classification as a Mannerist, but his art is impossible to define using conventional labels. Although El Greco used Mannerist formal devices, his primary concerns were conveying emotion and religious fervor and arousing those feelings in viewers. The forcefulness of his paintings is the result of his unique, highly developed expressive style, which foreshadowed developments of the Baroque era in Spain and Italy, examined in the next chapter.

Butcher's Stall

Pieter Aersten, 1551, oil on wood, 4'.375'' x 6'5.75'', Uppsala University Art Collection, Upssala

Fall of Icarus

Pieter Brugel the Elder, 1555-1560, oil on wood transferred to canvas, 2'5'' x 3'8.5'' Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Begique, Brussels

El Greco

Reflecting the increasingly international character of European art as well as the mobility of artists, the greatest Spanish painter of the era was not a Spaniard. Born on Crete, Domenikos Theotokopoulos, called El Greco (ca. 1547-1614), emigrated to Italy as a young man. After studying Late Byzantine frescoes and mosaics, El Greco, still young, went to Venice, where he worked in Titian's studio, although Tintoretto's paintings ( FIG. 22-50 ) seem to have made a stronger impression on him. A brief trip to Rome explains the influences of Roman and Florentine Mannerism on his work. By 1577, he had left for Spain to spend the rest of his life in Toledo.El Greco's art, which is a strong personal blending of Byzantine and Mannerist elements, had no Spanish antecedents and little effect on later Spanish painters. His great reliance on and mastery of color reflect his exposure to Venetian art, and his figural style owes a strong debt to Italian Mannersim. His hybrid art, therefore, is not strictly Spanish, but its intense emotionalism appealed to Spanish piety and captured the fervor of Spanish Catholicism.

Spain

Spain's ascent to power in Europe began in the mid-15th century with the marriage of Isabella of Castile (1451-1504) and Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516) in 1469. By the end of the 16th century, Spain had emerged as the dominant European power. Under the Habsburg rulers Charles V and Philip II, the Spanish Empire controlled a territory greater in extent than any ever known—a large part of Europe, the western Mediterranean, a strip of North Africa, and vast expanses in the New World. Spain acquired many of its New World colonies through aggressive overseas exploration. Among the most notable conquistadors sailing under the Spanish flag were Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), Vasco Núñez de Balboa (ca. 1475-1517), Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521), Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), and Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1470-1541). The Habsburg Empire, enriched by New World plunder, supported the most powerful military force in Europe. Spain defended and then promoted the interests of the Catholic Church in its battle against the inroads of the Protestant Reformation. Indeed, Philip II earned the title "Most Catholic King." Spain's crusading spirit, nourished by centuries of war with Islam, prepared the country to assume the role of the most Catholic civilization of Europe and the Americas. In the 16th century, for good or for ill, Spain left the mark of its power, religion, language, and culture on two hemispheres.

Luther and the Reformation

The Protestant Reformation, which came to fruition in the early 16th century, had its roots in long-term, growing dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church's leadership. The deteriorating relationship between the faithful and the Church of Rome's hierarchy stood as an obstacle for the millions who sought a meaningful religious experience. Particularly damaging was the perception that the Roman popes concerned themselves more with temporal power and material wealth than with the salvation of their Christian flock. The fact that many 15th-century popes and cardinals came from wealthy families, such as the Medici, intensified this perception. It was not only those at the highest levels who seemed to ignore their spiritual duties. Archbishops, bishops, and abbots began to accumulate numerous offices, thereby increasing their revenues but making it more difficult for them to fulfill all of their responsibilities. By 1517, dissatisfaction with the Roman Church had grown so widespread that Luther felt free to openly challenge papal authority by posting on October 31 in Wittenberg his Ninety-five Theses, in which he enumerated his objections to Catholic practices, especially the sale of indulgences. Indulgences were Church-sanctioned remittances (or reductions) of time that Catholics had to spend in Purgatory for confessed sins. The increasing frequency of their sale suggested that those who could afford to purchase indulgences were buying their way into Heaven.Luther's goal was significant reform and clarification of major spiritual issues, but his ideas ultimately led to splitting Western Christendom apart. According to Luther, the Catholic Church's extensive structure needed casting out, for it had no basis in scripture. The Bible and nothing else could serve as the foundation for Christianity. Luther called the pope the Antichrist (for which Pope Leo X excommunicated him in 1520) and the Church of Rome the "***** of Babylon." He denounced ordained priests and also rejected most of Catholicism's sacraments other than baptism and communion, decrying them as obstacles to salvation (see " Catholic versus Protestant Views of Salvation "). Luther maintained that for Christianity to be restored to its original purity, the Catholic Church needed cleansing of all the doctrinal impurities that had collected through the ages. Luther advocated the Bible as the source of all religious truth. The Bible—the sole scriptural authority—was the word of God. The Church's councils, laws, and rituals carried no weight. Luther facilitated the lay public's access to biblical truths by publishing the first translation of the Bible in a vernacular language.

Melencolia I

The Renaissance celebration of artistic genius led many artists to reflect on their own talents and worth. Dürer was certainly a man who engaged in probing introspection (literally "looking inside"). Melencolia I ( FIG. 23-5 ), perhaps Dürer's most famous print, reveals not only his unsurpassed skill with the engraver's burin but also a great deal about his psyche as a Renaissance artist. Melancholy is one of the temperaments associated with the four humors—the fluids that were the basis of the theories about body functions developed by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates and practiced in medieval physiology. The Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) had written an influential treatise (De vita triplici, 1482-1489) in which he asserted that artists were distinct from the population at large because they were born under the sign of the planet Saturn, named for the ancient Roman god. They shared that deity's melancholic temperament because they had an excess of black bile (one of the four humors) in their systems. Artists therefore were "saturnine"—eccentric and capable of both inspired artistic frenzy and melancholic depression. Raphael had depicted Michelangelo in the guise of the brooding Heraclitus in his School of Athens ( FIG. 22-9 ), and Dürer used a similarly posed female figure for his winged personification of Melancholy.In 1510, in De occulta philosophia, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486-1535) of Nettesheim identified three levels of melancholy. The first was artistic melancholy, which explains the Roman numeral on the banner carried by the bat—a creature of the dark— in Dürer's engraving. Above the brooding figure of Melancholy is an hourglass with the sands of time running out. All around her are the tools of the artist and builder (compare FIG. 13-33 )—compass, hammer, nails, and saw among them. However, those tools are useless to the frustrated artist while suffering from melancholy. Melancholy's face is obscured by shadow, underscoring her state of mind. But Dürer also included a burst of light on the far horizon behind the bat, an optimistic note suggesting that artists can overcome their depression and produce works of genius—such as this engraving. 1514, engraving, 9.375'' x 7.5'' victoria and albert museum, london

Lucas Cranach the Elder

The artist most closely associated with the Protestant Reformation and with Martin Luther in particular was Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553), who provided the illustrations for Luther's vernacular Bible. Cranach and Luther were godfathers to each other's children, and many scholars have dubbed Cranach "the painter of the Reformation." Cranach was also an accomplished graphic artist who used the new, inexpensive medium of prints on paper to promote Lutheran ideology ( FIG. 23-7 ). Cranach's work encompasses a wide range of themes, however. For example, for aristocratic Saxon patrons, he produced a large number of paintings of classical myths featuring female nudes in suggestive poses.One classical theme that Cranach depicted several times was Judgment of Paris, of which the small panel ( FIG. 23-8 ) now in Karlsruhe is the best example. Homer recorded the story in the eighth century bce, but Cranach's source was probably the elaboration of the Greek tale in Roman times by Lucian (ca. 120-ca. 180). Mercury chose a handsome young shepherd named Paris to be the judge of a beauty contest among three goddesses—Juno, wife of Jupiter; Minerva, Jupiter's virgin daughter and goddess of wisdom and war; and Venus, the goddess of love (see " The Gods and Goddesses of Mount Olympus "). According to Lucian, each goddess attempted to bribe Paris with rich rewards if he chose her. Venus won by offering Paris the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Troy, and thus set in motion the epic war between the Greeks and Trojans recounted in Homer's Iliad.No one, however, could confuse Cranach's painting with an ancient depiction of the myth. The setting is a German landscape with a Saxon castle in the background, and the seated shepherd is a knight in full armor wearing a fashionable hat. Mercury, an aged man (as he never is in ancient art), also wearing armor, bends over to draw Paris's attention to the three goddesses. They are nude save for their fine jewelry and, in the case of Juno, an elegant hat. Cranach's goddesses are loosely based on classical representations of the Three Graces (compare FIG. 21-28 ), although ancient artists never depicted Juno or Minerva undressed. The German painter's figures also do not have the proportions (or modesty) of Praxiteles's Aphrodite of Knidos ( FIG. 5-62 ) or Botticelli's Venus ( FIG. 21-1 ). Slender, with small heads and breasts and long legs, they pose seductively before the judge. Venus performs a dance for Paris, but he seems indifferent to all three goddesses. Only the rearing horse appears to be excited by the spectacle—a touch of humor characteristic of Cranach.

Northern Europe in the 16th century

The dissolution of the Burgundian Netherlands in 1477 led in the early 16th century to a realignment in the European geopolitical landscape ( MAP 23-1 ). France and the Holy Roman Empire absorbed the former Burgundian territories and increased their power. But by the end of the century, through calculated marriages, military exploits, and ambitious territorial expansion, Spain was the dominant European state. Throughout the Continent, monarchs increasingly used art and architecture to glorify their reigns and to promote a stronger sense of cultural and political unity among their subjects, thereby laying the foundation for today's European nations. Wealthy merchants also cultivated art as a status symbol, and the commissioning and collecting of artworks became less and less the exclusive province of the aristocracy.These important societal changes occurred against the backdrop of a momentous religious crisis. Concerted attempts to reform Church practices led to the Reformation and the establishment of Protestantism (as distinct from Catholicism), which in turn prompted the Church of Rome's response, the Counter-Reformation (see " The Council of Trent "). Ultimately, the Reformation split Christendom in half and produced a hundred years of civil war between Protestants and Catholics.

Hieronymus Bosch

The leading Netherlandish painter at the turn of the century was Hieronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516), one of the most fascinating artistic personalities in history. Bosch's most famous painting, Garden of Earthly Delights ( FIG. 23-13 ), is also his most puzzling, and no interpretation has ever won universal acceptance (see " Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights ").

Fall of Man

Trained as a goldsmith by his father before he took up painting and printmaking, Dürer developed an extraordinary proficiency in handling the burin This technical ability, combined with his extraordinary skill in drawing, enabled Dürer to produce a body of graphic work that few artists have rivaled for quality and number. Many of his prints were book illustrations, and Dürer also sold prints in single sheets, which people of ordinary means could buy, expanding his audience considerably and, as noted, making him a wealthy man. Erasmus praised Dürer as "the Apelles [the most renowned ancient Greek painter] of black lines," * and the German artist's mastery of all aspects of printmaking is evident also in his woodcuts ( FIG. I-9 ).One of Dürer's early masterpieces, Fall of Man (Adam and Eve; FIG. 23-4 ), represents the first distillation of his studies of the Vitruvian theory of human proportions (compare FIG. 22-6A ), a theory based on arithmetic ratios. Clearly outlined against the dark background of a Northern European forest, the two idealized figures of Adam and Eve stand in poses reminiscent of specific classical statues of Apollo and Venus. Preceded by numerous geometric drawings in which the artist attempted to systematize sets of ideal human proportions in balanced contrapposto poses, the final print presents Dürer's concept of the "perfect" male and female figures. Yet he tempered this idealization with naturalism, demonstrating his well-honed ob-servational skills in his rendering of the background foliage and animals (compare FIGS. 23-3A and 23-4A ). The gnarled bark of the trees and the feathery leaves authenticate the scene, as do the various creatures skulking underfoot. The animals populating the print are symbolic. The choleric cat, the melancholic elk, the sanguine rabbit, and the phlegmatic ox represent humanity's temperaments based on the "four humors" (see the discussion of FIG. 23-5 ), which, prior to the fall of man, are in balance. Nonetheless, the tension between the cat and the mouse in the foreground symbolizes the relation between Adam and Eve at the crucial moment before they commit the Original Sin. 1504, engraving, 1.875'' x 7.625'', Boston,

El Escorial

Under Philip II, the Plateresque style gave way to an Italian-derived classicism that also characterized 16th-century French architecture ( FIG. 23-23 ). The Italian style is on display in the expansive complex called El Escorial ( FIG. 23-25 ), which Juan de Herrera (ca. 1530-1597) and Juan Bautista de Toledo (d. 1567), principally the former, constructed for Philip II. In his will, Charles V stipulated that a "dynastic pantheon" be built to house the remains of past and future monarchs of Spain. Philip II, obedient to his father's wishes, chose a site some 30 miles north-west of Madrid in rugged terrain with barren mountains. Here, he built El Escorial, which incorporated not only a royal mausoleum but also a church, a monastery, and a palace. Legend has it that the gridlike plan for the enormous complex, 625 feet wide and 520 feet deep, symbolized the gridiron on which Saint Lawrence, El Escorial's patron saint, suffered his martyrdom (see " Early Christian Saints ").The vast structure is in keeping with Philip's austere character, his passionate Catholicism, his proud reverence for his dynasty, and his stern determination to impose his will worldwide. He insisted that in designing El Escorial, the architects should focus on simplicity of form, severity in the whole, nobility without arrogance, and majesty without ostentation. The result is a classicism of Doric severity, ultimately derived from Italian architecture and with the grandeur of Saint Peter's ( FIGS. 24-3 and 24-4 ) implicit in the scheme, but without close parallel in European architecture.Only the three entrances, with the dominant central portal framed by superimposed orders and topped by a pediment in the Italian fashion, break the long sweep of the structure's severely plain walls. Massive square towers punctuate the four corners. The stress is on the central axis, echoed in the two flanking portals. The construction material for the entire complex (including the church)— granite, a difficult stone to work—conveys a feeling of starkness and gravity. The church's imposing facade and the austere geometry of the interior complex, with its blocky walls and ponderous arches, produce an effect of overwhelming strength and weight. The entire complex is a monument to the collaboration of a great king and remarkably understanding architects. El Escorial stands as the overpowering architectural expression of Spain's spirit in its heroic epoch and of the character of Philip II, the extraordinary ruler who directed it.

Hans Baldung Grien

When Albrecht Dürer undertook his second trip to Italy in 1505, he placed his most gifted assistant, Hans Baldung Grien (ca. 1484-1545), in charge of his studio. The son of a prosperous attorney and the brother of a university professor, Baldung chose to pursue printmaking ( FIG. 23-9 ) and painting ( FIG. 23-10 ) as a profession rather than the law or letters. He eventually settled in Strasbourg, a center of humanistic learning, where he enjoyed a long and successful career. Baldung produced some religious works, but his reputation rested primarily on his exploration of nontraditional subjects, such as witchcraft (see " Witchcraft and the Macabre ").One of the works that Baldung devoted to witchcraft is Witches' Sabbath ( FIG. 23-9 ), a chiaroscuro woodcut —a recent innovation usually attributed to the Flemish woodcutter Jost de Negker (ca. 1485- ca. 1544). The technique requires the use of two blocks of wood instead of one. The printmaker carves and inks one block (the key block ) in the usual way in order to produce a traditional black-and-white print (see " Printed Books "). Then the artist cuts a second block (the tone block ) consisting of broad highlights to be inked in grays or colors and printed over the first block's impression. Chiaroscuro woodcuts therefore incorporate some of the qualities of painting and feature tonal subtleties absent in traditional woodcuts.

Caterina van Hemessen

With the accumulation of wealth in the Netherlands, private portraits increased in popularity. The example illustrated here ( FIG. 23-16 ), by Caterina van Hemessen (1528-1587), is the first known Northern European self-portrait by a woman. The artist signed the work "Caterina van Hemessen painted me / 1548 / her age 20" and confidently presented herself as a painter who interrupts her work at her easel to look toward the viewer. She holds brushes, a palette, and a maulstick (a stick used to steady the hand while painting) in her left hand, and delicately applies pigment to the panel with her right hand. Professional women artists remained unusual in the 16th century in large part because of the difficulty in obtaining formal training (see " The Artist's Profession in Flanders "). Caterina was typical in having been taught by her father, Jan Sanders van Hemessen (ca. 1500-1556), a well-known painter in Antwerp who had traveled in Italy in the 1520s. She acquired an enviable reputation for her portraits of women and enjoyed the patronage of Mary, queen consort of Hungary (1505-1558).