Durer, AlbrechtSelf-Portrait at 281500 Oil on panel

Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Reformation and Counter

Reformation:Catholic and

Protestant Art

Reformation vs. Counter-Reformation

High Renaissance in Northern Europe: Grunewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece

Catholicism vs Protestantism

Albrecht Durer

Pieter Breughel

The Counter Reformation

St. Peter’s Cathedral

Caravaggio

El Greco

Visualizing Sickness and Salvation:

The complex Isenheim Altarpiece consists of a wooden shrine with gilded and polychromed statues and two pairs of movable wings that open at the center, on which Matthias Grünewald painted eight scenes (four on each pair) dealing with the themes of dire illness and miraculous healing. Emphasis is given to Saint Anthony. The exterior panels of the closed altarpiece shows the Crucifixion and emphasizes Christ's pain and suffering.

The High Renaissance in Northern Europe:

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Isenheim Altarpiece , ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail

Isenheim Altarpiece , ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca.

1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca.

1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca.

1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca.

1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece ,

ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail

Isenheim Altarpiece , ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece ,

ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca. 1510-1515

MATTHIAS GRÜNEWALD, Detail Isenheim Altarpiece , ca.

1510-1515

The Protestant Reformation grew out of dissatisfaction with Church leadership and the perception that popes and upper-level clergy were too concerned with temporal power and material wealth. Because of inadequate support and leadership, movements such as the Modern Devotion, comprised of the lay religious order the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life, placed new emphasis on personal religious rituals and encouraged a more direct spiritual communion with God.

Replacing Church Practices With Personal Faith

Dissatisfaction with the Church led to Martin Luther issuing his Ninety-Five Theses, in which he listed objections to Church practices. Luther argued that the ecclesiastical structure of the Catholic Church had no basis in the Bible. He maintained that salvation was not earned by people but was attained through God's bestowal of his grace. Only faith in Christ, guided by Scripture, could ensure salvation. Luther advocated the Bible as the sole foundation for Christianity and the source of all religious truth.

Ninety-five Theses and Lutheranism

Because the Scriptures were open to different interpretations, differences arose among the various Protestant reformers such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin. The followers of these reformers became known as Lutherans, Zwinglians, and Calvinists. Other groups emerged, such as the Anabaptists, descendants of which include the Mennonites and the Amish. The Catholic Counter-Reformation was intended to counteract the popularity of Protestantism.

Calvinism, Anabaptism, and the Anglican Church

Divergent Views on Religious Imagery Catholics and Protestants differed on the role of visual imagery in religion. Catholics embraced church decoration as an aid to communicating with God; whereas Protestants believed such imagery could lead to idolatry and distracted viewers from communicating directly with God. Because of this, Protestant churches were relatively bare. However, Protestants did use art, and especially prints, as a teaching tool.

Holy Roman Empire (Including Germany)

Lucas Cranach's Allegory of Law and Grace is a small woodcut print produced after the Reformation began. It shows the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism.

LUCAS CRANACH THE ELDER, The Law and the Gospel , ca. 1530.

Woodcut, 10 5/8" x 12 3/4". British Museum, London.

Catholicism vs. Protestantism:

From Lucas Cranach the Elder. "Passional Christi und Antichristi." Woodcut. 1521.

From Albrecht Dürer. "Market Peasants." 1512.

This 1512 work by Albrecht Dürer shows peasants at market. Peasants often had to sell produce that they may well have needed themselves in order to pay the rents and fees they owed to their lords. German peasants usually lived in thatch houses with dirt floors. Wooden chimneys covered with clay kept them warm without burning down their humble homes. Often, any animals a peasant family owned slept in the house with them. (Mosaic)

Supporting the Lutheran Cause: Dürer's simple and straightforward woodcut of the Last Supper alludes to Lutheran doctrine that the sacrament of Communion was a commemorative event.

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Last Supper, 1523. Woodcut, 8 3/8" x 11 13/16". British Museum, London.

Dürer conveyed Lutheran ideas in his painting Four Apostles by giving prominence to John the Evangelist and by showing Peter and John both reading from the Bible. Dürer also included quotations from each of the Four Apostles' books in the German of Luther's translation of the New Testament on the frames of each panel.

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Four Apostles, 1526. Oil on panel, each

panel 7' 1" x 2' 6". Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

Emphasizing the Bible:

Dürer's Lutheran sympathies are also apparent in his engraved portrait of the Protestant scholar Philipp Melanchthon

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Philipp Melanchthon, 1526. Engraving, 6 7/8" x 5 1/16".

British Museum, London.

A Protestant Portrait

of Intellect:

Holbein's The Ambassadors

(1834)

ALBRECHT DÜRER, Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513. Engraving, 95/8" x 73/8". Metropolitan Museum of Art,

New York.

Knight, Death, and the Devil

Dürer's finely detailed engraving Knight, Death, and the Devil is both idealized and naturalistic.

Elevating the Art of

Engraving:

ALBRECHT DÜRER, The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve), 1504.

Engraving, approx. 10" x 71/2".

Dürer's interest in classical ideas, as transmitted through Italian Renaissance artists, is seen in his engraving The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve), for which he studied the Vitruvian theory of human proportions. Adam and Eve are idealized figures who otherwise stand in a carefully observed landscape with detailed foliage and animals. The animals are believed to be symbolic references to the four humors.

Classical Ideas in

the North:

Durer, AlbrechtSelf-Portrait at 28

1500Oil on panel67 x 49 cm

Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Dürer's precise watercolor study of a piece of turf is scientifically accurate.

ALBRECHT DÜRER, The Great Piece of Turf,

1503. Watercolor, approx. 16" x 121/2". Graphische

Sammlung Albertina, Vienna. Turf

A Painting of Botanical Accuracy:

The Adoration of the Kings. 1564. Oil on panel. National Gallery, London, UK. More

A Materialist View of Human Nature

Breugel’s Religious Paintings:

Detail The Adoration of the Kings. 1564. Oil on panel. National Gallery, London, UK.

Detail The Adoration of the Kings. 1564. Oil on panel. National Gallery,

London, UK.

Detail The Adoration of the Kings. 1564. Oil on panel. National Gallery,

London, UK.

Detail The Adoration of the Kings. 1564. Oil on panel. National Gallery,

London, UK.

'Dulle Griet' (Mad Meg). Detail. c. 1562. Oil on panel. Musée Mayer

van der Bergh, Antwerp, Belgium.

Religious War

Bruegel, Pieter Dulle Griet (Mad Meg) c. 1562Oil on panel 117.4 x 162 cm Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Massacre of the Innocents. 1565-7. Oil on panel. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

Bruegel, Pieter The Procession to Calvary 1564 Oil on canvas 124 x 170 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Parable of the Blind. 1568. Oil on canvas. Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, Italy

Kermis / The Peasant Dance, ca. 1568

Pieter Bruegel: Observer of Peasant Village Life

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Head of the Old Peasant

Woman. c. 1568. Oil on wood. Alte Pinakothek, Munich,

Germany.

Bruegel, Pieter Peasant wedding c. 1568 Oil on wood 114 x 164 cm (45 x 64 1/2 in.) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Hunters in the Snow, 1565 Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Harvesters, 1565 Pieter Bruegel the Elder

In answer to the growth of the Protestant movement, the Catholic Church instituted its own series of reforms that balanced real reform with a strident and conservative reaction to Protestantism. This movement was called the Counter-Reformation.

Organizations that included both clergy and lay people and encouraged a return to simple ethical living and piety. The most important of the reactionary movements was the Society of Jesus or the Jesuits, founded by Ignatius of Loyola in the 1530's. The basis of the Society of Jesus was a return to the strictest and most uncompromising obedience to the authority of the church and its ecclesiastical hierarchy. (Hooker)

Counter-Reformation imperatives encouraged artists to produce art that moved viewers towards greater devotion and piety.

The Counter Reformation

St. Peter’s Cathedral, Vatican City, Rome

Welcoming the Pious in Rome:

The monumental piazza in front of Saint Peter's, designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini, is in the form of a vast oval embraced by two colonnades of huge Tuscan columns and joined to the façade of the church by two diverging wings. To counteract the excessive width of the façade of Saint Peter's, Bernini designed the diverging wings to counteract the natural perspective of the view and create the impression of the façade being narrower and taller.

A Soaring Bronze Canopy:

The four spiral columns of the gigantic bronze baldacchino erected by Bernini over the main altar recall those of the ancient baldacchino over the same

spot in Old Saint Peter's.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, baldacchino, Saint Peter's, Vatican City, Rome, 1624–1633. Gilded bronze, approx. 100' high

In the Cornaro Chapel, Bernini employed a combination of architecture, sculpture, and painting to create an appropriate dramatic tension for the mystical drama of the ecstasy of Saint Theresa. The white marble group of swooning saint and smiling angel appears to float as a vision might in the cleverly illuminated central niche.

Gianlorenzo Bernini, Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, Cornaro Chapel,

Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome, 1645-1652.

Baroque Sculpture

In his naturalistic treatment of the Conversion of Saint Paul, Caravaggio employs dramatic chiaroscuro effects (called tenebrism) with sharply lit figures seen emerging from a dark background. The dramatic spotlight-like light illuminates the figure of Saint Paul and at the same time serves as the divine source of his conversion.

Caravaggio, Conversion of Saint Paul, ca. 1601. Oil on canvas,

approx. 7' 6" X 5' 9". Cerasi Chapel, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

Caravaggio: Stark Contrasts of Light and Dark:

Visualizing Transubstantiation:

In the Entombment, Caravaggio includes plebian figure types and dramatically contrasted darks and lights. The action takes place in the foreground, and the impression is that the men are laying the dead body of Christ onto the real altar in front of the painting.

Caravaggio, Entombment, ca. 1603. Oil on canvas, 9' 10 1/8" x 6' 7

15/16". Musei Vaticani, Pinacoteca, Rome.

From Tax Collector to Disciple:

Light also carries this double meaning in the dramatically lit commonplace setting of Caravaggio's Calling of Saint

Matthew.

Caravaggio, Calling of Saint Matthew, ca. 1597-1601. Oil

on canvas, 11' 1" X 11' 5". Contarelli Chapel, San Luigi

dei Francesi, Rome

View of Toledo

(1597) El Greco

El Greco

A Martyr at Peace:

Francisco de Zurbarán was influenced by Caravaggio's naturalism and dramatic lighting effects. In his painting of Saint Serapion, he shows the coarse-featured saint emerging in bright light from a dark background.

Francisco De Zurbarán, Saint Serapion, 1628. Oil on canvas, 47 1/2" x 40 3/4". Wadsworth

Atheneum, Hartford

José de Ribera, Martyrdom of Saint

Bartholomew, ca. 1639. Oil on canvas, approx. 7'

8" X 7' 8". Museo del Prado, Madrid.

El Greco, The Resurrection of Christ,

c. 1597-1610.

El Greco, The Burial of Count Orgaz, 1586 The Prado

Madrid