Art During the Protestant Reformation Marshall High School Western Civilization II Mr. Cline Unit Two NA
Durer's Self-Portrait Take a look at this picture. Who do you see? If you said Jesus, you're wrong...but then again, you're right. You're wrong because this is a self-portrait, painted by the German artist Albrecht Durer around 1500 AD.
Durer's Self-Portrait But you're right because this image still looks an awful lot like the traditional depiction of Jesus: the long hair, the beard, even the hand, half-raised, as if in blessing. This similarity is no coincidence. Durer is clearly trying to tell us something by painting himself as Jesus. It may be as simple as a proud young artist flaunting his Godgiven talent. However, some scholars believe there is more to this painting than mere pride. At the Crossroads of History Durer painted this portrait at the crossroads of two important movements in Europe. From the South, the Renaissance, with its humanistic ideals of emphasizing the value and dignity of human beings, had been going on for the better part of a century and finally made its way up to Northern Europe
At the Crossroads of History Durer painted this portrait at the crossroads of two important movements in Europe. From the South, the Renaissance, with its humanistic ideals of emphasizing the value and dignity of human beings, had been going on for the better part of a century and finally made its way up to Northern Europe. From the North, in just a few years, Martin Luther would nail his 95 Theses to the doors of the church at Wittenberg. This would give rise to the Protestant Reformation and its concepts of personal salvation through faith alone. We can see the influence of the Renaissance on Durer clearly. The realism of his technique and the bold humanism of his subject are both characteristic of the Renaissance.
At the Crossroads of History From a Renaissance perspective, perhaps it is possible that Durer was not so much painting himself as Jesus, but rather that he was painting Jesus as a normal human being, something typical of the Renaissance. Yet the fact remains that the human being depicted was none other than Durer himself. That rings of something more personal. From a Protestant perspective, Durer's painting takes on a deeper meaning. It suggests that one's relationship with Jesus is an intensely personal affair. It says 'I don't need any Church to commune with Christ. Christ is in me.' Although Durer's portrait predates Luther's 95 Theses, this painting is a reminder that Luther's ideas did not form in a vacuum. Luther's theses would have had no effect whatsoever if the people who read them hadn't agreed with him
At the Crossroads of History Fortunately for Luther, that was not the case. Luther's 95 Theses, like Durer's paintings, were an expression of the ideals and beliefs of his time. Did Luther mold those beliefs? Absolutely! But Luther's immediate popularity suggests that he had simply given a voice to what many people around him were feeling, just as Durer had given those feelings a face. Out with the Old and in with the New Meanwhile, across Northern Europe, people were removing the faces of the old order. Many Protestants thought the Catholic use of religious images bordered on idolatry. In all fairness, the Roman Catholic Church also called the worship of holy images idolatry.
Out with the Old and in with the New The Church's Council of Trent even released a decree reminding the faithful that images of holy people were not themselves holy. In this, the Catholic Church differed sharply from their Eastern counterpart. The creation of religious images, or icons, was much more popular in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where the icons themselves were worshiped and adored. The Protestants weren't taking any chances with idolatry. Even if the Church's official position denied that religious icons were holy, a lot of Catholic practices still looked a lot like idolatry. Protestants had seen devout Catholics whispering prayers to a statue of the Virgin Mary or abasing themselves in front of a revered crucifix. To protect people from the evil of idolatry, Protestants set about destroying religious icons in churches and monasteries throughout the North.
Out with the Old and in with the New This wholesale destruction of holy images is known as iconoclasm, and it was one of the defining features of the Protestant Reformation. This meant that the market for religious images dropped dramatically as people stopped focusing on pictures and statues and started focusing the word of God: the Bible. But words on a page are boring. The Catholic Church knew this, which was why it didn't bother with the words and skipped straight to the pictures. (No one would have understood the words anyway, since Catholic Bibles were written in Latin). By contrast, Protestantism depended on people actually reading their Bibles. If people needed pictures to get through it, then so be it.
Out with the Old and in with the New Engraving So, armed with new printing technologies, the artists of the Northern Renaissance created new religious images to spice up people's Bibles, and a new form of art exploded across Northern Europe: the engraving. Engraving was hardly a new technology. The Chinese had been at it for almost a thousand years. Even Europeans had been printing images with woodblocks for at least a century. Yet these were often crude images, lacking the realism of the Renaissance. The engravers of the Northern Renaissance created images that practically lived and breathed, and at the forefront of this new art was Durer.
Engraving Other Greats of this art form were Martin Schongauer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Lucas Van Leyden. These artists enjoyed unprecedented popularity in their time because their works could be printed again and again. Of course, people weren't just printing Bibles and religious texts. Europe was hungry for more books, which meant printers were hungry for more engravings. Durer and his fellow engravers were happy to provide images of a more secular nature. This was a good business move, because with the rise of Protestant iconoclasm, the demand for religious images was already dropping sharply. Other artists of the Northern Renaissance got the message, especially the painters.
Northern Renaissance Painting Oh, they still painted the occasional religious image, but they tended to avoid anything that might be confused for a religious icon. Instead, they painted scenes from the Bible, full of detail and allegory, like this painting of the Last Supper by Cranach the Elder depicting leaders of the reformation as Jesus' disciples;
Northern Renaissance Painting this lovely but confusing Altarpiece by Jan Van Eyk;
Northern Renaissance Painting this terrifying Triptic by Bosch depicting the Garden of Eden, Earth and Hell;
Northern Renaissance Painting Brueghel's famous Tower of Babel;
Northern Renaissance Painting and Holbein's naturalistic depiction of a kung fu Christ meeting Mary Magdalene after his resurrection. Art historians can only assume he's about to kick her in the head.
Northern Renaissance Painting All joking aside, religion remained a central part of peoples' lives during the Reformation, and the art of the Northern Renaissance reflects that. But Northern Renaissance painters knew that their audience also wanted to see new things. They didn't want more paintings of Jesus; they wanted landscapes, portraits, moral allegories, historical scenes and depictions of everyday life.