[Redbook9:265][19910505:1200l]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (12)] – Northern Mannerism}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
*
**
*[Note ms marginal emphasis mark at mid-left of extract]
** – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 673-674
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[Redbook9:264-265][19910505:1200k]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (11)] – Northern Complexity and Simplicity}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
‘In the course of the following three decades* a sudden and dramatic upsurge of interest in Italian art swept away many of the artistic forms that had dominated Northern art for most of the 15th century. The reasons behind this phenomenon have yet to be satisfactorily explained. While it is true that the intervention of France and the Empire in Italian political affairs brought the aristocracy of both states into increased contact with the culture of the Italian Renaissance, the precise significance of this development for Northern artists is far from clear. As we have already seen, a number of Northern painters visited Italy during the 15th century and were content to appropriate certain elements of Italian art while retaining an overall affiliation to their native style. Their successors had a much more thoroughgoing interest in the classicizing art of the South, which parallels the growth of Humanist studies in Northern literary circles during the same period. Whilst earlier borrowings had been occasional and haphazard, those of the 16th century were part of a general infiltration of Italian ideas into Northern culture.’
**
*[following the end of the 15th century – see last previous ts journal extract]
** – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 671
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[Redbook9:264-265][19910505:1200j]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (10)] – Northern Complexity and Simplicity}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
‘The reorientation in the visual arts c[irca]1500[ce]. At the end of the 15th century the artistic prospect of Europe was one of intense variety. It is nevertheless possible to discern to underlying trends; on the one hand, a tendency towards increasing formal and iconographic complexity and, on the other, a search for a more monumental simplicity of form. A comparison between the art of Hieronymous Bosch (c[irca]1450-1516[ce]) and * that of Gerard David (c[irca]1460-1531[ce]) provides a vivid example of this dichotomy. Some artists, including the German sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider (c[irca]1460-1531[ce], worked in a style that combines aspects of both outlooks.
**
*
** – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 671
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[Redbook9:262-263][19910505:1200i]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (9)] (The Marriage Contract)}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
{(}
‘’Unlike the other six sacraments, marriage was the only one not dispensed by the clergy but directly by the recipients themselves. Until the reforms of the Council of Trent, instituted in 1563[ce], it was legal for a man and a woman to marry without a priest and wherever they thought fit.’
{)}
*
* – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 666
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[Redbook9:262-263][19910505:1200h]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (8)] – Rogier van der Weyden}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
‘Apart from Jan [van Eyck], the artist most often praised in 15th-century [ce] sources is Rogier van der Weyden (c[irca]1399-1464[ce]). After studying under the Master of Flémalle, he settled in Brussels, where he was made Town Painter in 1435[ce]. His artistic aims are readily apparent in his best-known work, the Descent from the Cross* (c[irca]1438[ce]) in the Prado, Madrid. Whereas Jan van Eyck made manifest the objective and immutable qualities of the new realism, Rogier van der Weyden explored its emotive and dynamic possibilities. In this aim he was aided by a brilliant sense of abstract design. The contorted poses of the mourners in his Descent [from the Cross], compressed within a claustrophobic space around the still twin forms of the dead Christ and the unconscious Virgin, convey unbearable anguish. Rogier’s figure-types are generally melancholic and brooding, with long necks, aquiline noses, and sorrowful eyes. That this is true even of his portraits indicates just how essential to his art was the austere sense of tragedy which so impressed his contemporaries. More than any other artist of his generation, Rogier plumbed the psychological and emotional depths of the human spirit.’
**
*(illus[tration] ibid 668)
[not reproduced in ms or ts]
** – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 663
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[Redbook9:262][19910505:1200g]{The Northern Renaissance [continued (7)] – Symbolism of Jan van Eyck}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
‘Although Jan van Eyck made exceedingly important excursions in the field of portraiture, his large-scale work remained tied to the fundamentally religious context of most 15th century patronage. The remarkable realism with which he and his contemporaries depicted their subjects endowed the often hackneyed old motifs of Christian art with a pervasive new force. As reality became saturated with symbolism, so new devices were introduced to express ever more complex and exact layers of meaning. Thus the fall of light through a crystal vase of sparkling water could evoke the mystery of the Virgin Birth; or the accurate distinction between a Romanesque colonnade and a flamboyant Gothic portal express the supersession of the Old Testament by the New. The iconographic richness which this intimate relationship between form and content engendered remains one of the supreme achievements of 15th-century Northern art.’
*
* – ibid [Encyclopaedia of Visual Art 4:] 663
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[Redbook9:261][19910505:1200f]{‘The Northern Renaissance’ [continued (6)] [– International Gothic [continued (3)]]}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
*
*E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 4: 661
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[The source text reproduced in the ms also includes a reproduction of ‘St. Joseph in his shop, the right-hand panel of the Merode Altartpiece, a triptych by the Master of Flémalle (Robert Campin); oli on panel, 64x27cm (28x11in); c[irca]1426[ce]. Cloisters, New York.’ (ibid: 662), which is not reproduced in the ts]
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[Redbook9:260-261][19910505:1200e]{‘The Northern Renaissance’ [continued (5)] [– International Gothic [continued]]}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
*
*E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 4: 660-661
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[Redbook9:260][19910505:1200d]{‘The Northern Renaissance’ [continued (4)] [– International Gothic]}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
*
*E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 4: 660
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[Redbook9:260-262][19910505:1200c]{‘The Northern Renaissance’ [continued (3)]}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
**
*[{cf 185} – see [Redbook9:260-262][19910505:1200b]{‘The Northern Renaissance’}[5th May 1991]↑, fn=1]
**E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 4: 660
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[Redbook9:260-262][19910505:1200c]{‘The Northern Renaissance’ [continued]}[5th May 1991]
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[continued]
*
*E[ncyclopaedia of] V[isual] A[rt] 4: 660
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