16th Century art in Northern Europe

In 1517 Martin Luther, a former catholic priest, wrote the 95 Theses stating the Reformation of the Church. Many people were tired of the rich and lavish lifestyles the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church was living while many of the people were starving. Men such as Martin Luther proposed to learn about Christianity through individual means, to seek God not through the Pope, but through the Bible. What helped evolve Reformation was the invention of the printing press, the printing press helped distribute ideas and debates of how religion should be followed. As well as the translation of the Bible to vernacular Italian or other languages helped the common people who could read better understand for themselves of what the meanings of the Bible are. As the Church was losing its influence on the people many Catholic artists had to move to other countries to find patronage to pay for their art. Also many artists made their own interpretation of the religious texts and decided to portray religious art more humanized. Art was no longer important in the religious realm; so many artists started depicted self-portraits, secular (non religious) objects, still lives, landscapes, and more humanized humans.

            The types of subject matter at that time that was sought after were usually self-portraits or paintings of scenery. A sort of Capitalistic system was starting to burgeon in Northern Europe, many men started to acquire wealth through selling commodities and other business like affairs, unlike the past way of inheriting wealth. As these men started to build their wealth many wanted to decorate their homes with furnishings and art. Individualism was taking place across the Northern European land, so many wanted artists to paint themselves in self- portraits to embody themselves in a grandeur style. Religious art was still made, but many artists started to make their own interpretations of religious scenes. For example in the Engraving of Adam and Eve by Albrecht Durer there is still a presence of religious subject matter that was popular in Catholic art. The differences are that Catholic art was more focused on the subject matter, the message, than the art itself. Durer went away from this and combined the immaculate detail of the Northern Renaissance to the religious theme of the piece. As one can see the background is very detailed, the foliage of the leaves, the array of bark markings on the tree, the feathers of the bird, the cliffs in the background, the animals around the forest and the humans themselves. Durer went away from the Catholic human form to the Classical representation of the human body. Durer made an ideal depiction of Adam and Eve, giving them appropriate proportions and well presentation of human anatomy.

Although Durer was immaculate in his detail, he still tried to include symbolism in his art to pay homage to the Catholic art. In the engraving Durer tried to emphasize the fall of man and his weakness. The animals portrayed in the engraving all have symbolic meaning to the weaknesses of man. The text Art History describes the symbolism as the stubbornly elk, the choleric cat, the phlegmatic ox, the sensual rabbit, and the mouse a symbol of Satan. Durer was able to mold both the past artistic trends of the Catholic art of subject matter and religious theme, and the future, of including fine detail and proportionate human beings.