Why Was the Renaissance Delayed in Northern Europe: Analytical Essay

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P1- Introduction

Although the Renaissance is known to have begun in Italy it was not a stand-alone occurrence, countries throughout Europe began the process of re-evaluation and rebirth of their classical inheritance. Although most of the famous Renaissance artists come from Italy there are many notable artists that came from the Spanish, Northern, and Flemish Renaissances that support the claims of the Renaissance occurring outside of Italy. They each formed their own techniques and across different years but the transition is evident.

P2 – Spanish Renaissance and El Greco

The Renaissance in Spain was not taken to initially well and it was not the Italian ideas and reforms that influenced it directly, the temperament and the wave of humanism and pagan feeling that swept Italy were in real opposition when it came to Spain. It was the Northern Renaissance and more particularly Netherlandish Renaissance ideas that influenced the painters and artists of Spain. The most important characteristic of Spanish Renaissance art, that was different from most other countries was the subject matter rather than the style, a rejection of mythological themes and the cult of the nude in the 15th century that was loosened in the 16th century to become not exclusively religious and more portraiture flourished.

El Greco was a supreme individualist and had well-known excellent technique, influenced by Michelangelo on the grandeur of the human form, his arrival in Spain was a revolution for Spanish art. The humanism that is seen in his art was probably the result of a liberal education, and indeed even his earliest paintings reflect some awareness of Italian culture. Mainly in Spain did he produce his masterpieces and developed a style uniquely personal and at odds with the conventions of his time, in both its violent, upsurging, elongated, and twisted forms and its strident colors, which make clothes and draperies take on an abstract, animated like of their own. El Greco is known for using the late Renaissance style of mannerism, which utilized elongated fingers, loose and free brushwork, expressive lighting, and connections of colors. Through El Greco’s artworks, you can see the strong Catholic faith of Spain, especially in the scene of The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586) in Santo Tome. The main idea of the piece was to show that to obtain salvation you must do good works and it reveals the power of the almighty saints. The idealized figures that El Greco painted were never distant creatures but were also not restricted to any physical likeness. He creates a unity of the real and supernatural worlds, a simultaneous view of two zones of creation. The painting is evidently divided into two distinguished zones, the lower section shows the funeral of the Count of Orgaz. Two saints are depicted bearing Count Orgaz to his grave while a figure to the right reads a requiem. Above angels lead Count Orgaz’s soul which is depicted in the childlike form to the awaiting depiction of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist. The figures in the heaven portion of the painting have looser brushstrokes that give them a more ethereal quality to them, and his color choice is those that give the figures a shimmering quality and reflection of light. The lower, he has used lower darker earthier tones for a more naturalistic appearance. El Greco’s popularity and notoriety were gained through his highly expressive and idealized religious themes and work outside of this genre was rare. The color was the most important aspect in paintings to El Greco, declaring that it was most important than form. Combing his Byzantine art background with new western renaissance art was something that was disliked about his art in his life and a while after his death as well.

Spanish art is essentially concrete and direct, drawing on elements of real life for inspiration, while El Greco inhabits a spiritual realm, giving expression to ideas and emotions and filling his universe with divine and supernatural presences. He was one of the more influential artists in the late Renaissance and especially within Spain, through his techniques, styles, and views on what art should be.

P3 – Northern Renaissance and Hans Holbein the Younger

With the many changes that happened in Northern Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Northern Renaissance art can be seen to change as well as many religious, cultural, and industrial changes. In Germany, as in France and Flanders, the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century is a period of emancipation and optimism. During the first quarter of the sixteenth century, Germany underwent a religious and social revolution, whose most spectacular results were in the Reformation brought about by Martin Luther. The invention of the printing press, the formation of a merchant class, and the protestant reformation along with international trade brought many new ideas and materials to places all over Europe. The Northern Renaissance owes its beginning mainly to the artist Albrecht Durer, who brought his knowledge from Italy back to Germany. Although there are many similar things about the Italian and German Renaissances, there are also many differences. There was a focus on empirical observation and accuracy of the visual reality in the Northern movement that the Italian artists did through proportion, perspective, and anatomical accuracy. The Italians focused on mythology whereas the Germans focused on domestic scenes and portraits.

The outstanding portrait and religious painter Hans Holbein the Younger was famous for his excellent portraiture work of nobility, royalty, and notable figures. Hans Holbein the Younger, one of the most versatile and admired painters of the Northern Renaissance, trained under his father in Augsburg and then worked for leading patrons in Switzerland before settling in England as Court Painter to Henry VIII.

His painting titled The Ambassadors (1533) is an exemplar of his work and is one of his most famous. It depicts Jean de Dinteville, a French ambassador, and Georges de Selve a bishop of France. Their back group has been noted to be Westminster Abbey and is filled with details that now identify with the idea of naturalism in the Renaissance. What is unique about this painting in particular is the anamorphic skull in the foreground of the painting which is only present when viewed at a certain angle. Even Holbein’s slightest portraits show that he regarded every sitter as a specimen of humanity who deserved to be studied impartially. He had a capacity for making his subjects reveal their secret emotions, their habits, and the many dies of their characters, by surprising something in their eyes, on their lips, on in their bearing. The is no anguish, fantasies of the imagination, nor any leaning towards sentimentality, only a cold objectivity reflected in the technique itself. No other German painter had an apprehension so instinctive and complete of the Italian ideal of the beautiful. He possessed what Vasari, speaking of Raphael, called ‘an amazing natural facility’, but where Raphael makes the viewer feel the love he brought to the creation, Holbein shows no trace of any emotion.

The Italian Renaissance is the most well-known Renaissance to occur, but the changes in other countries across Europe highlight the international progression in trade of not only merchandise and materials but ideas which is evident in the spread of the Renaissance ideals all throughout Europe. Despite it coming from Italy, countries brought their own history, religious background, and circumstances and evolved the Renaissance to suit their ideals. Despite its importance in Germany, the Renaissance lasted for only a comparatively short period, coming between the late Gothic and the Baroque, which flourished at the end of the thirty years War. Hans Holbein was a star of the German Renaissance where El Greco was a revolution in Spain, both were significant contributors in their lifetime and also long after they died.

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Why Was the Renaissance Delayed in Northern Europe: Analytical Essay

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