Post #2, The Northern Renaissance

When using art to understand an era, several lenses may be employed to grasp the full scope of the world and the ideas of the people who lived then. The acronym PERSIA, which stands for Politics, Economics, Religion, Social, Intellectual, and Aesthetic, offers a fairly comprehensive way to analyze these things. To understand the art, and thus the people living during the time of the Renaissance, and specifically the Northern Renaissance, we can look at the PERSIA elements.

Politically, the land in the North was divided among brothers of royalty, creating a fairly balanced network of rulers, though during this time war was a fairly usual part of life. Around the time of the Northern Renaissance, power began to shift from those born into wealth and a title to those who worked for their respect and money. This added to the idea of a more individualistic person populating the world of the Renaissance. Economically, Art during this time was considered a luxury, and was used as a sign of great wealth and power. Items such as illuminated manuscripts, and gold-thread tapestries were commissioned by wealthy families to flaunt their worth.

Religion played a huge role in the world of the Northern Renaissance, and was supposed to be the single-most valued idea in the life of every man, woman and child. So much of the art of this time depicts scenes of holy people, objects, or symbolism, showing the overwhelming dominance of this value in the people’s lives. The idea of visual communion, where, upon viewing something through the portal of the eye, a part of it is transmitted to the soul, was very popular during this time. Such a concept shows how valuable and powerful it would have been to people to have seen physical representations of holy persons, and why it so heavily occupied the world of art of this time.

Socially, artists occupied a very low place in the social hierarchy, and it was not until the emergence of Jan Van Eyck that artists began to sign and celebrate their work. Art as a whole, however, was beginning to emerge as a much more powerful tool and craft than had been appreciated in the years leading up to the Renaissance. Intellectually, as mentioned earlier, people were beginning to take more notice of themselves and their place in the world as individuals. This allowed the view of the common man to shift from that of a collective group mentality to a new independence and individuality that strongly affected art produced during this era.

Aesthetically, the art of the Northern Renaissance can be categorized and recognized by several characteristics. Firstly, the most common and popular types of art produced during this time were paintings, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, and sculpture. These mediums, although not new to the world of art, were revolutionized by artists through the uses of innovative techniques and new approaches. The style of art from the Northern Renaissance, International Gothic, can be discerned by the idealized, graceful subjects, lavish details, and light, bright colors with heavy use of gold and other metallic colors. More importantly than the specific style is the mindset behind many of the super realistic works created during the Northern Renaissance. Artists like Jan Van Eyck helped shift art from the act of creating something that depicts a beautiful object, and instead showed us the world itself, a window to the world around us. A new level of realism was achieved through Van Eyck’s paintings, which astonish viewers even today. Another example of this practice is in the creation of illuminate manuscripts, the pictures of which were meant to be windows of scenes of holy people, instead of just a picture of the being. Artists were bringing the subjects of their paintings to life, and inviting the viewers to feel like a part of the picture and the experience.