NORTHERN ART OF THE 15TH & 16TH CENTURY

Origins of Northern Art – Illuminated manuscripts with meticulous detail

Effect of Reformation, 1526, Germany, Holland & England – Painters in Protestant regions lost their best source of income (the painting of altar panels). What was left? Book Illustration and Portrait Painting. So we see the growth of Portrait painting and a relatively new form of art called Genre painting. Holbein 1497–1543 (Portraits), Breughel 1525/30 (Genre)

MOST IMPORTANT INNOVATIONS FROM THE NORTH

*Introduction of Oil Painting*Introduction of Printing

Principle characteristics to consider

  1. The rise of the Landscape and Genre painting
  2. New importance of Portraiture
  3. Tapering off of religious patronage in favour of royal and private patronage of a purely secular character (influence of Reformation)
  4. Technical features i.e. development of oil painting (there was hardly any fresco painting in the north due to the climate which was darker, colder and damper). Less sculpture. Development of printing.
  5. Dissemination of prints i.e. Dürer’s woodcuts and engravings in Northern Europe and Italy and their influence.
  6. The Northeners had no desire to emulate the ancients (classical antiquity was not the golden age of their past)
  7. The position of Northern artists in society was one of an artisan not a member of the intelligentsia.
  8. Emphasis on craftsmanship
  9. Use of symbolism
  10. Change from medieval forms in buildings to a developed Gothic style and later showing the influence of Renaissance forms from the south.
  11. The emergence of painting from a rather limited concentration on fine manuscripts i.e. Limbourg Brothers ‘Book of Hours’ into large and important pictures in the Netherlands.

Difference in approach between Italy and the North Italy

The approach was scientific with the use of a framework of perspective lines, knowledge of anatomy and the laws of foreshortening. The characteristics were: bold outlines, clear perspective, and a sure and mastery of the beautiful human body.

The North

Patient and careful process of adding detail upon detail in order to achieve an illusion of nature and a mirror of the visible world. The characteristics were a representation of the beautiful; surface of things, of flowers, of jewels and of fabric. (Van Eyck’s use of the oil paint meant that he could work more slowlyon his paintings and achieve smooth transitions from light to dark and from one colour to another).

15th Century Architecture in the North

Brunelleschi had put an end to the Gothic style in Florence by introducing the Renaissance method of using classical motifs for his buildings. It was nearly a century before the architects outside Italy followed his example. All through the 15th century they continued developing the Gothic style of the preceding century i.e. using pointed arches etc.

In the 15th century taste for complicated tracery and ornament went even further. For example, the ‘Flamboyant Gothic’ style of the ‘Palace of Justice’ in Rouen 1482, where the whole building is covered with an infinite variety of decoration with no consideration for whether it performed any function. The last phase of the Gothic style seen in England was the ‘Perpendicular Gothic’ style e.g. ‘KingsCollege Chapel’ in Cambridge 1446. (Straight lines are more frequent than curves, the ceiling is fan vaulted, there are no side aisles. It appears to be designed more like a lofty hall.

JAN VAN EYCK (1390 - 1441)

‘Ghent Altarpiece’ 1432, ‘Arnolfini Marriage’ 1432

CONRAD WITZ (1400/10 – 1444/6)

‘Christ Walking on the Waves’ 1444

ROGIER VAN DER WEYDEN (1400 – 1464)

‘Descent from the cross’ 1435 (Altar Painting)

DÜRER (1471 – 1528)

‘Self Portrait’ 1498, ‘St. Michaels Fight against the Dragon’ 1498 (Wood cut illustration), ‘Piece of Lawn’ 1502 (Watercolour study), ‘Adam and Eve’ 1504 (Engraving)

GRUNEWALD (1470/80 – 1528)

‘Crucifixion from the Isenheim Altarpiece’ 1509-11

CRANACH (1472 - 1553)

‘The Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ 1504

ALTDORFER (1480 – 1538)

‘Landscape’ 1532

EURONYMOUS BOSCH (1450 – 1516)

‘Garden of Earthly Delights’ about 1510