Slide List 6
Mathias Grunewald, Isenhaim Altarpiece (closed), Crucifixion (center), St. Sebastian (left wing), St. Anthony Abbot (Right Wing), The chapel of the Hospital of Saint Anthony, Isenheim, Germany, Oil on Wood, c1512-1515
- A complex monument that reflects Catholic beliefs and incorporates several references to Catholic doctrines, such as the lamb (symbol of the son of god), whose wound spurts blood into a chalice in the crucifixion scene - Although at the opening of the 16th century many in the Holy Roman Empire were expressing dissatisfaction with the Church in Rome, Martin Luther had not yet posted the Ninety-five Theses that launched the Protestant Reformation. The Catholic clergy in Germany still offered artists important commissions to adorn churches and other religious institutions. - Grünewald painted the exterior panels of the first pair (visible when the altarpiece is closed, FIG. 18-2, top) between 1510 and 1515: Crucifixion in the center, Saint Sebastian on the left, Saint Anthony on the right, and Lamentation in the predella. - The placement of this altarpiece in the choir of a church adjacent to the monastery 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. 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 encompassed his role as both vengeful dispenser of justice (by inflicting disease) and benevolent healer. - Grünewald brilliantly used color to enhance the impact of the altarpiece.He intensified the contrast of horror and hope by playing subtle tones and soft harmonies against shocking dissonance of color. - 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). Although doctors did not discover the cause of ergotism until about 1600, people lived in fear of its recognizable symptoms (convulsions and gangrene). The public referred to this illness as "Saint Anthony's Fire," and it was one of the major diseases treated at the Isenheim hospital. The gangrene often compelled amputation, and scholars have noted that the two movable halves of the altarpiece's predella (FIG. 18-2, top), if slid apart, make it appear as if Christ's legs have been amputated. The same observation can be made with regard 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.
Hans Baldung Grien, Witches' Sabbath, Chiaroscuro woodcut, 1510
- Chiaroscuro woodcuts were a recent German innovation. The technique requires the use of two blocks of wood instead of one. The printmaker carves and inks one block in the usual way in order to produce a traditional black-and-white print (see "Woodcuts, Engravings, and Etchings,"Chapter 15, page 415). Then the artist cuts a second block consisting of broad highlights that can be inked in gray or color 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. - Witchcraft was a counter-religion in the 15th and 16th centuries that involved 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. 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, Baldung depicted a night scene in a forest in which a coven of nude witches—both young seductresses and old hags—gathers 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.
El Greco, View of Toledo, Oil on Canvas, c. 1610
- Doménikos Theotokópoulos, called El Greco (ca. 1547-1614), was born on Crete but emigrated to Italy as a young man. In his youth, he absorbed the traditions of Late Byzantine frescoes and mosaics. While still young, El Greco went to Venice, where he worked in Titian's studio, although Tintoretto's painting apparently 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 is a strong personal blending of Byzantine and Mannerist elements. The intense emotionalism of his paintings, which naturally appealed to Spanish piety, and a great reliance on and mastery of color bound him to 16thcentury Venetian art and to Mannerism. El Greco's art was not strictly Spanish (although it appealed to certain sectors of that society), for it had no Spanish antecedents and little effect on later Spanish painters. Nevertheless, El Greco's hybrid style captured the fervor of Spanish Catholicism. -
Albrecht Durer, Melencolia I, Engraving, 1514
- Durer asserts himself technically - Dressed himself in the latest fashion - The artist is a gentleman and a scholar - Not identified with a lower class - landscape in the back aligns with flemish painting - Controversial because he has made himself appear like Jesus - Hand positioning is a symbol - Similar to Workshop of Hans Memling, Salvator Mundi, Oil on wood, 1475-1499 - Durer is suggesting through association that art is an act of creation.
Heronymous Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, (open) oil on wood, 1505-1510
- During the second half of the 16th century, the Netherlands was under the political control of Philip II of Spain (r. 1556-1598), who had inherited the region from his father Charles V. The economic prosperity of the Netherlands served as a potent incentive for Philip II to strengthen his control over the territory. However, his heavyhanded tactics and repressive measures led in 1579 to revolt, resulting in the formation of two federations. The Union of Arras, a Catholic confederation of southern Netherlandish provinces, remained under Spanish dominion, and the Union of Utrecht, consisting of Protestant northern provinces, became the Dutch Republic. The increasing number of Netherlandish citizens converting to Protestantism affected the arts and resulted in a corresponding decrease in large-scale altarpieces and religious works (although grand works continued to be commissioned for Catholic churches). Much of Netherlandish art of this period provides a wonderful glimpse into the lives of various strata of society, from nobility to peasantry, capturing their activities, environment, and values. - Garden of Earthly Delights is Bosch's most enigmatic, and no interpretation has ever won universal acceptance. This large-scale work takes the familiar form of a monumental triptych. The format suggests a religious function for Bosch's painting, but Garden of Earthly Delights resided in the palace of Henry III of Nassau, regent of the Netherlands, seven years after its completion. This location suggests a secular commission for private use. Some scholars have proposed that, given the work's central themes of marriage, sex, and procreation, the painting probably commemorates a wedding, a theme seen earlier in Giovanni Arnolfini and His Bride (FIG. 15-1) and in A Goldsmith in His Shop - In the left panel, God presents Eve to Adam in a landscape, presumably the Garden of Eden. Bosch placed the event in a wildly imaginative setting that includes an odd pink fountainlike structure in a body of water and an array of fanciful and unusual animals. These details may hint at an interpretation involving alchemy—the medieval study of seemingly magical changes, especially chemical changes. (Witchcraft also involved alchemy.) - Sandwiched between Paradise and Hell is the huge central panel, in which nude people blithely cavort in a landscape dotted with bizarre creatures and unidentifiable objects. The numerous fruits and birds (fertility symbols) in the scene suggest procreation, and, indeed, many of the figures are paired off as couples. The orgiastic overtones of this panel, in conjunction with the terrifying image of Hell, have led some scholars to interpret this triptych as they have other Last Judgment images—as a warning to viewers of the fate awaiting the sinful, decadent, and immoral.
Albrecht Durer, Four Apostiles, from the city hall, Nuremberg, Germany, oil on wood, 1526
- Four Apostles (FIG. 18-6) is a two-panel oil 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. - 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. John assumed particular prominence for Luther because of the evangelist's focus on Christ's 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, the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). At the bottom of the panels, Dürer included quotations from each of the four apostles' books, using Luther's German translation. The excerpts warn against the coming of perilous times and the preaching of false prophets who will distort God's word.
Jean Clouet, Francis I, tempera and oil on wood , 1525-1530
- Francis I endeavored to elevate his country's cultural profile. To that end, he invited several esteemed Italian artists, including Leonardo da Vinci, to his court. Francis's attempt to glorify the state and himself meant the religious art that dominated the Middle Ages no longer prevailed, for the king and not the Christian Church held the power. - The portrait (FIG. 18-10) Jean Clouet (ca. 1485-1541) painted of Francis I about a decade after he became king shows 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 Louis XI founded in 1469 - he 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.
Albrecht Durer, Self Portrait, Oil on Wood. 1500
- Highly symbolic painting - Emblem of melemcholy - Weight scale, hourglass - measures weight and time - Magic square - numbers vertically, horizontally and diagonally add up to 34 - Melencolia I is a depiction of the intellectual situation of the artist and is thus, by extension, a spiritual self-portrait of Dürer. - In medieval philosophy each individual was thought to be dominated by one of the four humors; melancholy, associated with glack gall, was the least desirable of the four, and melancholics were considered the most likely to succumb to insanity. Renaissance thought, however, also linked melancholy with creative genius; thus, at the same time that this idea changed the status of this humor, it made the self-conscious artist aware that his gift came with terrible risks. - The winged personification of Melancholy, seated dejectedly with her head reasting on her hand, holds a caliper and is surrounded by other tools associated with geometry, the one of the seven liberal arts that underlies artistic creation--and the one through which Dürer, probably more than most artists, hoped to approach perfection in his own work.
Hans Holbien the Younger, The French Ambassadors, oil and tempera on wood, 1533
- Holbein began his artistic career in Basel, where he knew Erasmus of Rotterdam. 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 did move and became painter to the English court. While there, he produced a superb double portrait of the French ambassadors to England, Jean de Dinteville (at left) and Georges de Selve. - Of particular interest is the long gray shape that slashes diagonally across the picture plane and interrupts the stable, balanced, and serene composition. This form is an anamorphic image, a distorted image recognizable only when viewed with a special device, such as a cylindrical mirror, or by looking at the painting at an acute angle. In this case, if the viewer stands off to the right, the gray slash becomes a skull. Although scholars do not agree on the skull's meaning, at the very least it certainly refers to death. - This painting 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.
Joachim Patinir, Landscape with Saint Jerome, oil on wood, 1505-1510
- Landscape painting also flourished in the Netherlands. Particularly well known for his landscapes was Joachim Patinir (d. 1524). According to one scholar, the word Landschaft (landscape) first emerged in German literature as a characterization of an artistic genre (category of art) when Dürer described Patinir as a "good landscape painter." - Patinir subordinated the saint, who removes a thorn from a lion's paw in the foreground, to the exotic and detailed landscape - Craggy rock formations, verdant rolling fields, villages with church steeples, expansive bodies of water, and a dramatic sky fill most of the panel. Patinir amplified the sense of distance by masterfully using color to enhance the visual effect of recession and advance.
El Greco, The Burial of Count Orgaz, Oil on Canvas, Santo Tome, Toleda, 1586
- 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 Nuñez 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, engaged body and soul in forming the most Catholic civilization of Europe and the Americas. In the 16th century, for good or for ill, Spain left the mark of Spanish power, religion, language, and culture on two hemispheres. - A vivid expression of this fervor is the artist's masterpiece, Burial of Count Orgaz (FIG. 18-25), painted in 1586 for the church of Santo Tomé in Toledo. El Greco based the painting on the legend that the count of Orgaz, who had died some three centuries before and who had been a great benefactor of Santo Tomé, was buried in the church by Saints Stephen and Augustine, who miraculously descended from Heaven to lower the count's body into its sepulcher. - In the painting, El Greco carefully distinguished the terrestrial and celestial spheres. The brilliant Heaven that opens above irradiates the earthly scene. 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. - A solemn chorus of black-clad Spanish personages fills the background. In the carefully individualized features of these figures, El Greco demonstrated that he was also a great portraitist. These men call to mind both the conquistadors of the early 16th century and the Spanish naval officers who, two years after the completion of this painting, led the Great Armada against both Protestant England and the Netherlands - 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 sumptuous and realistic presentation of the earthly sphere still has strong roots in Venetian art, but the abstractions and distortions El Greco used to show the immaterial nature of the heavenly realm characterized 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
Caterina Van Hemessen, Self Portrait, Oil on wood, 1548
- The Netherlands was among the most commercially advanced and prosperous European countries. Its extensive network of rivers and easy access to the Atlantic Ocean provided a setting conducive to overseas trade, and shipbuilding was one of the most profitablecbusinesses. The region's commercial center shifted geographically toward the end of the 15th century, partly because of buildup of silt in the Bruges estuary. Traffic relocated to Antwerp, which became the hub of economic activity in the Netherlands after 1510. As many as 500 ships a day passed through Antwerp's harbor, and large trading companies from England, the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, Portugal, and Spain established themselves in the city. - With the accumulation of wealth in the Netherlands, portraits increased in popularity. The selfportrait by Caterina van Hemessen (1528-1587) is the first known Northern European self-portrait by a woman - Here, she confidently presented herself as an artist who interrupts her work 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 canvas with her right hand. - Van Hemessen's father, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, a well known painter, trained her. Caterina ensured proper identification (and credit) through the inscription in the painting: "Caterina van Hemessen painted me / 1548 / her age 20."
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow, oil on wood, c. 1565
- The greatest Netherlandish painter of the mid-16th century was Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1528-1569), whose works reveal both an interest in the interrelationship of human beings and nature and Patinir's influence. But in Bruegel's paintings, no matter how huge a slice of the world the artist shows, human activities remain the dominant theme. - illustrates the dynamic variety of Bruegel's work. One of a series of six paintings (some scholars think there were originally 12) illustrating seasonal changes in the year, Hunters refers back to older traditions of depicting seasons and peasants in Books of Hours - The painting shows human figures and landscape locked in winter cold, reflecting the particularly severe winter of 1565, when Bruegel produced the painting. 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. - The painter's consummate skill in using line and shape and his subtlety in tonal harmony make this one of the great landscape paintings and an occidental counterpart of the masterworks of classical Chinese landscape
Pierre Lescot, west wing of the Cour Carree (Square Court; looking west) of the Louvre, Paris, France, begun 1546
- 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 supported by consoles have direct antecedents in several High Renaissance palaces (for example, FIG. 17-27). - the decreasing height of the stories, the scale of the windows (proportionately much larger than in Italian Renaissance buildings), and the steep roof suggest Northern European models. - Especially French are the pavilions jutting from the wall. A feature the French long favored—double columns framing a niche—punctuates the pavilions - The modified classicism the French produced was the only classicism to serve as a model for Northern European architects through most of the 16th century.
