The 300 – year golden age of enlightenment known as the rebirth in English, and the Renaissance in French, brought a shift in artistic taste in Europe.
Men were no longer content with the status quo. A hunger to know more led church goers to develop what is called secular curiosity. People began to look elsewhere than the church to provide knowledge.
And the invention of the printing press made it possible for works of art to be copied and spread.
The Bible says in the book of 1Corinthians 1:22 that the Greek seek for wisdom and the Jews a sign. Greeks from time immemorial sought knowledge – they had an insatiable hunger to expand their scope of knowledge.
We have already mentioned that fleeing Greek scholars from Constantinople fled straight to Florence where things had already begun to happen.
The Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps is called Northern Renaissance. Within the northern hemisphere are such countries as England, Ireland, Netherlands, Denmark, Latvia, Norway, and so on.
There is a huge difference between the Italian Renaissance also known as the Southern Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. And the differences are not in geographical location.
Italian Renaissance humanism was until 1497 all for Italy. Later it started spreading to other European locations, but with a focal difference. Historians said it was as a result of the travels of Renaissance man, Albrecht Durer.
The differences are: religious reforms sparked off the Northern Renaissance. While the Italian or Southern Renaissance was as a quest to revive classical antiquity – Italian artists were interested in Classical civilization, classical visual and material cultures and the literature and the thought of classical people.
Protestant reforms influenced Northern arts. Artists of the Northern Renaissance went for realism and humanism, while the Italians were bound by the quest for mythology and classical idealism.
The Northern Renaissance produced such great artists like art luminary, Jan Van Eyck, a Flemish painter. Although he did not invent the oil painting, he was the first master of the technique. He perfected it in his time which earned him the name the Father of Oil Painting. He also employed the panel paintings in his works.
Jan Van Eyck was the promoter of the early Netherlands painting. In 1432, he painted his famous portrait, the altarpiece, The Adoration of the Lamb, also known as the Ghent Portrait. Another masterpiece, Arnolfini Wedding followed in 1434.
Van Eyck was patronized by John lll, Duke of Bavaria, later Phillip the Good.
Albrecht Durer was one of the foremost runners of the Northern Renaissance because of his travels and meddling with Italian renaissance artists.
He was said to have travelled widely, going mostly to Italy and being in communication with such Italian Renaissance luminaries as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Giovanni Bellini. He was patronized by Emperor Maximilian1 (Holy Roman Emperor (1459-1519)).
He found early fame with his high quality woodcut prints. Durer was a German Renaissance painter, a printmaker and theorist, a true Renaissance man; he was a giant in the Renaissance art.
He has been credited with inventing ray tracing, a technique used in modern computer graphics. He is one of the most important artists of the Northern Renaissance having introduced classical motifs into the Northern art through his knowledge of Italian art and German humanism.
His famous works are: engravings, altarpieces, portraits/self portraits, watercolours and books. His famous woodcuts are the Apocalypse series (1498); his famous engravings are: Knight, Death and the Devil (1513), and so on. He was one of the pioneers of the landscape artists through his watercolours.
These two are some of the famous artists who transformed art during the Northern Renaissance.
The artists of the Italian Renaissance portrayed visual reality (that which you can see) through human framework, proportion and point of view. They were huge in the portrayal of classical mythology, while the Northern Renaissance focused on domestic interiors and portraits.
You cannot divorce arts or literature from the times they were produced. In fact, literary activities reflect the signs of the times. Those who are writing and painting now are very much concerned with contemporary evils like kidnapping, human trafficking, modern day slavery, human organs harvesting, hacking, yahoo or cyber crimes which are entirely 21st century problems. Our ancestors never dealt with cyber crimes! In Lagos, for instance, we’ve had a spate of suicide deaths.
It would be wrong for writers and other artistic people not to reflect these signs of the modern times in their works.
Artists (these include writers, poets, architects, dramatists like Shakespeare, Dryden, etc.) believed that the ancient period would provide a guide in their age. They channeled their curiosity to the classical or ancient period. Humanism or the idea that humans could use their reasons to better selves was also a major content focus in their works.
In line with artists focusing on the signs of the times, in 1430, Jan van Eyck, began to borrow the Italian Renaissance techniques of linear perspective, naturalistic observation, and a realistic figurative approach for his paintings. Those were the signs of the times he lived in.
The Southern Renaissance began earlier than the Northern Renaissance. In the south, the renaissance was generalized, spreading their focus on the improvement of different disciplines, including sciences, literature, architecture, politics and religion.
The Northern Renaissance is believed to have started in the 16th century. Its delay was factored on the Black Death disease or plague, while its birth was said to result from the invention of the printing press.
But, a major factor is because the north had less exposure to trade and new ideas. Northern humanism took a different perspective, focusing on the humanity of Jesus and on how people lived.
Northern Renaissance advanced oil painting techniques, realistic and expressive altarpiece art, portraiture on wooden panel paintings, as well as woodcuts and other forms of printmaking. Stone sculpture was not popular. Wood-carving which was a German specialty was popular.
The support of monarchs contributed to the spread of Renaissance ideas, and of course the growth of new cities. Renaissance ideas flowed from city to city. The invention of Printing and the use of vernacular (writers began to explore their local tongues instead of Latin or French – this is what also happened to Nigerian music.
The moment music producers allowed Nigerian musicians to employ pidgin and local parlances to make music, Nigerian music shot to the limelight and became exportable), helped to spread renaissance ideas and increased learning.
The invention of the printing press could be attributed to the Southern or Italian Renaissance spreading northwards. With the proliferation of knowledge, Renaissance artists learned about the invention of the printing press and since they would want to print or make copies of their works, there was a cross-cultural advancement.
Nota Bene (note well): art luminaries like Van Eyck and Durer both had patrons. Arts and culture need support.
.Next week, we begin to look at the Elizabethans.
