Northern Renaissance Art Essay

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The Renaissance was a cultural movement that took place from the 14th to the 17th century. It is believed to have begun in Florence, Italy in the late Middle Ages, aided by the political and civil structure of the city, the patronage of the powerful Medici family, and the migration of Greek scholars and their texts after the Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks. The movement focused on a return to the concept of humanism, which centers on humans and their values, capacities, and worth. The Renaissance affected literature, philosophy, religion, science, politics, and art. Its two main divisions are the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance, although the later covers a much larger area and even though every country had its own…show more content…
These ideals and concerns heavily influenced the subject matter of the art produced under each movement. Italian Renaissance art focused on classical Greek and Roman mythology, like Sandro Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus. Northern Renaissance art turned its attention to portraits and domestic scenes, the most famous of which is Jan van Eyck’s Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife. Along with subject matter, both the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance had distinct styles also influencing the look of its art. Italian Renaissance art was heavy on symmetry and balance and giving the subjects a sense of mass and volume by using knowledge of the underlying anatomy of the human figure. This allowed for more realistic art with shadows and motion in sharp contrast to the flat art of the Middle Ages. A fine example of this is another work of Michelangelo’s from the Sistine Chapel, titled the Creation of Adam. Northern Renaissance art, while also more realistic than previous movements, focused heavily on the minute surface details and naturalism. A kind of documentary nature takes hold in this kind of art, as if the painters are capturing a moment in time, much the way a photograph would. A Goldsmith in His Shop, by Petrus Christus, who was thought to be a student of van Eyck, displays this
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