Chapter 23 16th Century Art in Northern Europe and Spain Notes
Spain became the dominant power in Europe by the end of the 16th century. After the dissolution of the Burgundian Netherlands in 1477 and its absorption by France and the Holy Roman Empire (mainly Germany), Spain achieved this through calculated marriages, and military exploits. Monarchs increased their authority over their subjects and cultivated a stronger sense of cultural and political unity among the populace laying the foundation for the modern nation. The Reformation overshadowed all these political events. The establishment of Protestantism prompted the Catholic Church’s response, The Counter Reformation.
The Reformation had its roots in the long term dissatisfaction with Church leadership. This created a great obstacle for those who sought meaningful faith. There was the perception that the popes were after only worldly gain and not salvation. The popes and cardinals came from wealthy families such as the Medici. Spiritual corruption was rampant, not only on the highest levels, but also on the lower levels.
People sought new ways to invigorate their spiritual commitment and ensure salvation. In the 15th century these attempts included pilgrimages, joining confraternities and orders, and commissioning artworks, such as Books of Hours, rosaries, prints and paintings as visual aids in private devotions.
The most outspoken critic to papal authority was German theologian Martin Luther (1483-1546). He sparked the Reformation with his posting of his Ninety-Five Theses on the Church in Wittenberg in 1517. The Ninety-Five Theses enumerated his objections to Church practices, especially the sale of indulgences. Indulgences were reductions in time spent in Purgatory. The sale of such suggested that people were buying their way into Heaven. Luther’s goal was significant reform and clarification of major spiritual issues, but these ideas led to a split in Christendom. Luther contended that the Church’s political structure needed to be cast out for it had no basis in scripture. The Bible and nothing else should serve as the foundational authority for Christianity. Luther declared the pope as Antichrist (for which the pope excommunicated him), called the Church the “Whore of Babylon,” and denounced ordained priests. He also rejected most of the Catholic Church’s sacraments, decrying them as obstacles to salvation. He did accept two sacraments Baptism and Communion of the Lord’s Supper. For Christianity to be restored to its original purity, the Church needed cleansing of all the impurities of doctrine that had developed over the ages.
Central to the reformers creed was how to achieve salvation. Rather than perceive salvation as something which weak and sinful humans must constantly strive through good deeds performed under the watchful eye of a punitive God. Luther proposed that faithful individuals attain redemption by God’s bestowal of his grace. Therefore people cannot earn salvation. There is no need for ecclesiastical machinery with its rites and indulgent forgiveness, for they could not save. Justification was by faith alone, and faith is informed by scripture. This was the fundamental doctrine of Protestantism. The Bible was the sole authority and the source of all religious truth, not the Church’s councils, law, and rituals. Luther produced the first translation of the Bible in vernacular language.
Catholicism versus Protestantism
The doctrinal differences between Protestantism and Catholicism are expressed visually in Allegory of Law and Grace by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472 - 1553). Produced in the years after the onset of the Reformation, Allegory is a small woodcut print. Protestants viewed low key images such as woodcut prints as useful devotional aids. Prints provided a prime vehicle for “educating the masses,” because artists could print them easily, permitting wide circulation and the sale of numerous copies. The low cost of prints made them more accessible to the masses than other costly mediums.
In Allegory of Law and Grace, Cranach depicted the difference between Catholicism (based on Old Testament Law, according to Luther) and Protestantism (based on a belief in God’s grace) in two images separated by a centrally placed tree. On the left half Judgment Day has arrived, as represented by Christ at the top of the scene. Christ raises his left hand in the traditional gesture of damnation, and below a skeleton drives off a terrified person to burn for all 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 commandments Catholics follow in their attempt to obtain salvation. The right side depicts the Protestant view that emphasizes God’s grace as the source of redemption. Accordingly, God showers the sinner with grace, as streams of blood flow from the crucified Christ. On the far right Christ emerges from the tomb and promises salvation to all who believe in him. Cranach’s close relationship with Luther has led scholars to refer to Cranach as the “painter of the Reformation.”
The conflicts between Catholicism and Protestantism were often violent and bloody. In Catholic France some citizens embraced Protestantism which was declared illegal in 1534 by the king of France, Francis I. The state prosecuted the Protestants and Huguenots, and drove them underground. The Protestants and Catholics clashed in August 1572 and was one of the bloodiest religious massacres in European history and was part of a long running war that lasted to the end of the 16th century.
The Reformation affected the arts and patronage and the types of art commissioned. Catholics embraced Church decoration as an aid to communicate with God. In contrast Protestants believed such imagery could lead to idolatry and distract viewers from their real reason in Church, to communicate with God directly. As a result, Protestant Church's were relatively bare and did not have extensive decorating programs. There was still use for visual images for Protestants, especially prints as mentioned earlier. The popularity of prints both contributed to and was fueled by the transition from handwritten illuminated manuscripts to print media in Northern Europe during the 16th century.
Largely because of Luther’s presence, the Reformation initially had its greatest impact in the Holy Roman Empire. The difference between Catholic and Protestant works can be seen by comparing two German artworks, one pre-Reformation by Matthias Grunewald and one by Albrecht Durer produced in the years after the Reformation began.
Matthias Grunewald (1480-1528) worked for the archbishops of Mainz from 1511 as a court painter and decorator. He eventually moved to Northern Germany. Around 1510, Grunewald began work on the Isenheim Altarpiece a complex and fascinating monument that reflects Catholic beliefs.
The altarpiece was created for the monastic hospital order Saint Anthony of Isenheim. It consisted of a wooden shrine (carved by sculptor Nicholaus Hagenauer in 1490) that includes gilded and polychromed statues of Saint Anthony Abbot, Augustine, and Jerome. Grunewald’s contribution, commissioned by the head administrator of the monastery, Guidio Guersi, consists of two pairs of moveable wings that open at the center, Hinged together at the sides, one pair stands directly behind the other. Painted by Grunewald between 1510 and 1515, the exterior panels of the first pair (visible when the altarpiece is closed, present four scenes - Crucifixion in the center, Saint Sebastian on the left, and Saint Anthony on the right, and Lamentation in the predella. When the exterior wings are opened, four additional scenes are revealed: Annunciation, Angelic Concert, Madonna and Child, and Resurrection. Opening this second pair of wings exposes the interior shrine, flanked by Meeting of Saints Anthony and Paul and Temptation of Saint Anthony.
The placement of this altarpiece in the choir of a church adjacent to the monastery hospital dictated much of the imagery. Saints associated with diseases such as the plague and with miraculous cures, such as Saint Anthony and Saint Sebastian, appear prominently in the Isenheim Altarpiece. Grunewald’s panels deal with the themes of dire illness and miraculous healing and emphasize the suffering of Saint Anthony, the orders patron saint. Grunewald’s images served as warnings, thereby 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. The artist enhanced the impact of this altarpiece through his effective use of color. He intensified the contrast horror and hope by playing subtle tones and soft harmonies against shocking dissonance of color.
One of the most memorable scenes is Temptation of Saint Anthony, to the right of the sculpted shrine. It is a terrifying image of five temptations, depicted as ghoulish creatures in a dark landscape, attacking the saint. In the foreground is a grotesque image of a man with oozing boils, withered arm and bloated belly, all suggesting some horrible disease. Medical experts have connected these symptoms with ergotism (a disease caused by a fungus that grows on rye.) The public referred to this illness as “Saint Anthony’s Fire,” and was a disease treated at this hospital. The gangrene that accompanied it often resulted in amputation. The front panel with the Crucifixion and Lamentation have the figures of Christ placed so that when opened, Christ's legs in Lamentation and his right arm in Crucifixion would be severed.
Grunewald carefully selected and presented his iconography to be particularly meaningful for viewers of this hospital. In the interior shrine, the artist balanced the horrors of the disease and the punishments that awaited those who did not repent with scenes such as the Meeting of Saints Anthony and Paul, depicting the two saints, healthy and aged, conversing peacefully. The exterior panels (the closed altarpiece) convey the same concerns. The Crucifixion emphasizes Christ’s pain and suffering, but the knowledge that this acted redeemed humanity tempers the misery. Saint Anthony appears in the right wing as a devout follower of Christ, who like Christ and for Christ endured intense suffering for his faith. This reinforces the themes that are intertwined throughout the altarpiece - themes of pain, illness, and death as well as those of hope, comfort, and salvation.
The Protestant faith had not been formally established when Hagenauer and Grunewald produced the Isenheim Altarpiece, and the complexity and monumentality of the altarpiece must be viewed as Catholic in orientation. Further Grunewald incorporated several references to Catholic doctrines, such as the lamb whose wound spurts blood into a chalice in the Crucifixion scene.
Albrecht Durer (1471 - 1528) was a dominant artist in the early 16th century in the Holy Roman Empire, and was the first artist outside of Italy to become an international art celebrity. Durer traveled widely and was thus personally aquatinted with many of the leading humanists and artists of his time including Giovanni Bellini and Erasmus of Rotterdam. Durer was a man of exceptional talents and energy, achieving wide spread fame and reputation in his own time and since. Durer was ambitious and employed an agent to sell his prints. His wife was his manager, and his mother sold his prints at the market. Durer bringing a lawsuit against an Italian artist for copying his prints is believed to be the first of its kind in history over artistic copyright. At age 15 he was apprenticed to a painter and quickly mastered the art of woodcut and watercolor.
Like Leonardo, Durer wrote treatises on a variety of subjects, such as perspective, human proportions and fortifications. Unlike Leonardo he finished and published his writings. Through his prints, he exerted strong influence throughout Europe, Flanders and Italy. He was the first northern artist to leave a record of his life and career through several excellent self portraits, through his correspondence, and through a carefully kept, detailed and readable diary.
A native of Nuremberg, a major city and center of Reformation, Durer immersed himself in the religious debates of his day and displayed his Lutheran sympathies in many of his art works. Last Supper is a woodcut Durer produced six years after Luther nailed his Ninety Five Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Church. Durer’s treatment of the traditional subject alludes to Lutheran doctrine about Communion. Rather than promote the doctrine of transubstantiation, the Catholic belief that when consecrated by the priest the bread and wine miraculously became the actual literal Body and Blood of Christ, Luther insisted that Communion was commemorative, not a reenactment.
This narrative emphasizes sorrow and community. Christ has announced his betrayal and only eleven disciples remain. The bread and the wine appear prominently in the lower right corner and the empty plate in the foreground refers to the commemorative function of the Lords Supper, rather than the literal nature. Traditional depictions often have a slaughtered lamb on the plate, conspicuously absent here.
Through his prints, Durer became famous for his mastery of graphic arts. His technical ability and his feeling for the form creating possibilities of line enabled him to produce a body of work in woodcuts and engravings that has seldom been rivaled for quality and number. Durer created numerous book illustrations; he also circulated and sold prints in single sheets, which people of ordinary means could buy, expanding his audience considerably. Aggressively marketing his works, Durer became a wealthy man from their sale.
Emphasizing the Bible
Durer’s support of Lutheranism surfaces again in his painting Four Apostles. The work was produced without commission and the two panels were presented to the city fathers of Nuremberg in 1526 to be hung in the city hall suggests that this work reflected his personal attitudes. John and Peter appear on the left panel, and Mark and Paul on the right. The title could be argued is a misnomer; Mark was an Evangelist not an Apostle. Durer’s Lutheran orientation can be seen in the arrangement of the figures. Peter, as representative of the pope, is regulated to a secondary role by placing him behind John the Evangelist. John assumed particular prominence for Luther because of the Evangelist’s focus on the person of Christ in his Gospel. In addition, both Peter and John read the Bible, the single authoritative source of religious truth, according to Luther. The Bible in John’s hand is open to the legible beginning of John’s Gospel; “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 are quotations from each of the Four Apostle’s books, using Luther’s German translation. The excerpts warn against the coming of perilous times and preaching of false prophets who will distort God’s Word. The individuality of each of the four men’s faces, along with the detailed depiction of their attire and attributes, communicate an integrity and spirituality.