1.
Self-portrait
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A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. With better and cheaper mirrors, and the advent of the panel portrait, Portrait of a Man in a Turban by Jan van Eyck of 1433 may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait. He painted a portrait of his wife, and he belonged to the social group that had begun to commission portraits. The genre is venerable, but not until the Renaissance, with increased wealth and interest in the individual as a subject, a self-portrait may be a portrait of the artist, or a portrait included in a larger work, including a group portrait. Many painters are said to have included depictions of specific individuals, including themselves, in these works, the artist usually appears as a face in the crowd or group, often towards the edges or corner of the work and behind the main participants. Rubenss The Four Philosophers is a good example and this culminated in the 17th century with the work of Jan de Bray. Many artistic media have used, apart from paintings, drawings. In the famous Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck is probably one of two figures glimpsed in a mirror – a surprisingly modern conceit. The Van Eyck painting may have inspired Diego Velázquez to depict himself in view as the painter creating Las Meninas, as the Van Eyck hung in the palace in Madrid where he worked. This was another modern flourish, given that he appears as the painter, in what may be one of the earliest childhood self-portraits now surviving, Albrecht Dürer depicts himself as in naturalistic style as a 13-year-old boy in 1484. In later years he appears variously as a merchant in the background of Biblical scenes, leonardo da Vinci may have drawn a picture of himself at the age of 60, in around 1512. The picture is often reproduced as Da Vincis appearance, although this is not certain. In the 17th century, Rembrandt painted a range of self-portraits, family and professional group paintings, including the artists depiction, became increasingly common from the 17th century on. From the later 20th century on, video plays a part in self-portraiture. Vigée-Lebrun painted a total of 37 self-portraits, many of which were copies of earlier ones, Women artists have historically embodied a number of roles within their self-portraiture. Most common is the artist at work, showing themselves in the act of painting, or at least holding a brush and palette. Often, the viewer if the clothes worn were those they normally painted in. Images of artists at work are encountered in Ancient Egyptian painting, one of the first self-portraits was made by the Pharaoh Akhenatens chief sculptor Bak in 1365 BC
2.
Breda
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Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark, as a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance. Breda had a population of 180,420 in 2014, the area had a population of 324,812. In the 11th century, Breda was a fief of the Holy Roman Emperor. The city of Breda obtained a charter in 1252. After that Breda had the rights to build fortifications, the city constructed brick walls and Roman-style gates. In 1327 Adelheid of Gaveren Breda sold Breda to Duke Johannes III of Brabant, in 1350, the fief was resold to Johannes II of Wassenaar. In 1403 the heiress of his line, Johanna of Polanen, thus, the baron of Breda was also count of Nassau, Germany, prince of Orange and stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. Breda remained part of the barony Breda until it was taken by French revolutionary forces in 1795, the acquisition of the city by the House of Orange-Nassau marked its emergence as a residentiestad. The presence of the Orange-Nassau family attracted other nobles, who built palatial residences in the old quarters of the city. The most impressive one, built by the Italian architect Thomas Vincidor de Bologna for the first Dutch prince, was the first renaissance-style palace built north of the Alps, in the 15th century the citys physical, economic and strategic importance expanded rapidly. A great church was built in Brabantine Gothic style with a gallant 97-metre-high tower, in 1534 Henry III of Nassau-Breda rebuilt the modest medieval fortifications in impressive style. In 1534 a fire destroyed over 90 percent of the city, close to 1300 houses, churches and chapels, only 150 houses and the main church remained. In July 1581, during the Eighty Years War, Breda was captured by surprise by Spanish troops then under the command of Claudius van Barlaymont, although the city had surrendered upon the condition that it would not be plundered, the troops vented their fury upon the inhabitants. In the resulting mayhem, known as Haultpennes Fury, over 500 citizens were killed, the so-called Spaniards Hole marks the spot where the peat-boat allegedly lay, although this has not been historically proven. After a ten-month siege in 1624–25, the city surrendered to the Spaniards under Spinola, in 1637 Breda was recaptured by Frederick Henry of Orange after a four-month siege, and in 1648 it was finally ceded to the Dutch Republic by the Treaty of Westphalia. The Treaty of Breda was signed in the city, July 31,1667, during World War II the city was under German occupation. It was liberated following a successful outflanking manoeuvre planned and performed by forces of 1st Polish Armoured Division of Gen. Maczek on October 29,1944
3.
Duchy of Brabant
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The Duchy of Brabant was a State of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183. Today all the former territories, apart from exclaves are in Belgium except for the Dutch province of North Brabant. The Duchy of Brabant was historically divided into four parts, each with its own capital, the four capitals were Leuven, Brussels, Antwerp and s-Hertogenbosch. Before s-Hertogenbosch was founded, Tienen was the fourth capital and its most important cities were Brussels, Antwerp, Leuven, Breda, s-Hertogenbosch, Lier and Mechelen. The modern flag of Belgium takes its colors from Brabants coat of arms, probably first used by Count Lambert I of Louvain, the lion is documented in a 1306 towns seal of Kerpen, together with the red lion of Limburg. Up to the present, the Brabant lion features as the charge on the coats of arms of both Flemish and Walloon Brabant, and of the Dutch province of North Brabant. The regions name is first recorded as the Carolingian shire pagus Bracbatensis, upon the 843 Treaty of Verdun it was part of Lotharingia within short-lived Middle Francia, and was ceded to East Francia according to the 880 Treaty of Ribemont. In earlier Roman times, the Nervii, a Belgic tribe and they were incorporated into the Roman province of Belgica, and considered to have both Celtic and Germanic cultural links. At the end of the Roman period the region was conquered by the Germanic Franks, in 959 the East Frankish king Otto I of Germany elevated Count Godfrey of Jülich to the rank of duke of Lower Lorraine. In 962 the duchy became a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Here, the counts of Leuven rose to power, when about 1000 Count Lambert I the Bearded married Gerberga, the daughter of Duke Charles of Lower Lorraine, and acquired the County of Brussels. About 1024 southernmost Brabant fell to Count Reginar V of Mons, in 1190, after the death of Godfrey III, Henry I also became Duke of Lower Lotharingia. By that time the title had lost most of its territorial authority, according to protocol, all his successors were thereafter called Dukes of Brabant and Lower Lotharingia. After the Battle of Worringen in 1288, the dukes of Brabant also acquired the Duchy of Limburg, in 1354 Duke John III of Brabant granted a Joyous Entry to the citizens of Brabant. In 1430 the Duchies of Lower Lotharingia, Brabant and Limburg were inherited by Philip the Good of Burgundy, in 1477 the Duchy of Brabant became part of the House of Habsburg as part of the dowry of Mary of Burgundy. At that time the Duchy extended from Luttre, south of Nivelles to s Hertogenbosch, the subsequent history of Brabant is part of the history of the Habsburg Seventeen Provinces. The Eighty Years War brought the parts under military control of the northern insurgents. The southern part remained in Spanish Habsburg hands as a part of the Southern Netherlands and it was transferred to the Austrian branch of the Habsburg monarchy in 1714
4.
Habsburg Netherlands
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Habsburg Netherlands is the collective name of Holy Roman Empire fiefs in the Low Countries held by the House of Habsburg and later by the Spanish Empire, also known as the Spanish Netherlands. Then known as Seventeen Provinces, they were held by the Spanish Empire from 1556, in 1581, the Seven United Provinces seceded to form the Dutch Republic, the remaining Spanish Southern Netherlands eventually passed on to Habsburg Austria. Finally the Austrian Netherlands were annexed by the French First Republic in 1795, the Habsburg Netherlands was a geo-political entity covering the whole of the Low Countries from 1482 to 1581. The centre of the Burgundian possessions was the Duchy of Brabant, deeply disappointed, he entered into the disastrous Burgundian Wars and was killed in the Battle of Nancy. Upon the death of Mary of Burgundy in 1482, her possessions including the Burgundian Netherlands passed to her son. Through his father Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor from 1493, Philip was a Habsburg scion, the period 1481–1492 saw the Flemish cities revolt and Utrecht embroiled in civil war, but by the turn of the century both areas had been pacified by the Spanish rulers. Philips son Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, born in Ghent, succeeded his father in 1506 and his grandfather Emperor Maximilian I incorporated the Burgundian heritage into the Burgundian Circle, whereafter the territories in the far west of the Empire developed a certain grade of autonomy. Attaining full age in 1515, Charles went on to rule his Burgundian heritage as a native Netherlander and he acquired the lands of Overijssel and the Bishopric of Utrecht, purchased Friesland from Duke George of Saxony and regained Groningen and Gelderland. His Seventeen Provinces were re-organised in the 1548 Burgundian Treaty, whereby the Imperial estates represented in the Imperial Diet at Augsburg acknowledged a certain autonomy of the Netherlands. It was followed by a sanction by the Emperor the next year. By a 1522 inheritance treaty with his younger brother Archduke Ferdinand I of Austria, Emperor Charles V had established the Austrian, upon his abdication in 1556, the Seventeen Provinces fell to the Spanish Crown. Charless son and successor King Philip II of Spain by his despotism and Catholic persecutions sparked the Dutch Revolt, the Spanish hold on the northern provinces was more and more tenuous. In 1579 the northern provinces established the Protestant Union of Utrecht, after the secession of 1581, the southern provinces, called t Hof van Brabant remained with the House of Habsburg until the French Revolutionary Wars. After the extinction of the Spanish Habsburgs and the War of the Spanish Succession, the southern provinces were also known as the Austrian Netherlands from 1715 onwards
5.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
6.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
7.
Brussels
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Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, is a region of Belgium comprising 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, but is separate from the region of Flanders or Wallonia. The region has a population of 1.2 million and an area with a population of over 1.8 million. Brussels is the de facto capital of the European Union as it hosts a number of principal EU institutions, the secretariat of the Benelux and the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are also located in Brussels. Today, it is considered an Alpha global city, historically a Dutch-speaking city, Brussels has seen a language shift to French from the late 19th century onwards. Today, the majority language is French, and the Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. All road signs, street names, and many advertisements and services are shown in both languages, Brussels is increasingly becoming multilingual with increasing numbers of migrants, expatriates and minority groups speaking their own languages. The most common theory of the origin of Brussels name is that it derives from the Old Dutch Broekzele or Broeksel, meaning marsh, Saint Vindicianus, the bishop of Cambrai made the first recorded reference to the place Brosella in 695 when it was still a hamlet. The origin of the settlement that was to become Brussels lies in Saint Gaugericus construction of a chapel on an island in the river Senne around 580. The official founding of Brussels is usually situated around 979, when Duke Charles of Lower Lotharingia transferred the relics of Saint Gudula from Moorsel to the Saint Gaugericus chapel, Charles would construct the first permanent fortification in the city, doing so on that same island. Lambert I of Leuven, Count of Leuven gained the County of Brussels around 1000 by marrying Charles daughter, as it grew to a population of around 30,000, the surrounding marshes were drained to allow for further expansion. The Counts of Leuven became Dukes of Brabant at about this time, in the 13th century, the city got its first walls. After the construction of the city walls in the early 13th century, to let the city expand, a second set of walls was erected between 1356 and 1383. Today, traces of it can still be seen, mostly because the small ring, Brabant had lost its independence, but Brussels became the Princely Capital of the prosperous Low Countries, and flourished. In 1516 Charles V, who had been heir of the Low Countries since 1506, was declared King of Spain in St. Michael and St. Gudula Cathedral in Brussels. Upon the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 and it was in the Palace complex at Coudenberg that Charles V abdicated in 1555. This impressive palace, famous all over Europe, had expanded since it had first become the seat of the Dukes of Brabant. In 1695, during the Nine Years War, King Louis XIV of France sent troops to bombard Brussels with artillery, together with the resulting fire, it was the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels
8.
Painting
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, gesture, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, photographic, abstract, narrative, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is also used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, thus, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols. In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians, writers and scientists, including Goethe, Kandinsky, and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, indigo, cobalt, ultramarine, and so on. Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, rather, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, collage, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, cement, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
9.
Printmaking
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Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints that have an element of originality, except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable of producing multiples of the same piece, which is called a print. Each print produced is not considered a copy but rather is considered an original, a print may be known as an impression. Printmaking is not chosen only for its ability to multiple impressions. Prints are created by transferring ink from a matrix or through a screen to a sheet of paper or other material. Screens made of silk or synthetic fabrics are used for the screenprinting process, other types of matrix substrates and related processes are discussed below. Multiple impressions printed from the matrix form an edition. Prints may also be printed in book form, such as illustrated books or artists books, Printmaking techniques are generally divided into the following basic categories, Relief, where ink is applied to the original surface of the matrix. Relief techniques include woodcut or woodblock as the Asian forms are known, wood engraving. Intaglio, where ink is applied beneath the surface of the matrix. Intaglio techniques include engraving, etching, mezzotint, aquatint, planographic, where the matrix retains its original surface, but is specially prepared and/or inked to allow for the transfer of the image. Planographic techniques include lithography, monotyping, and digital techniques, stencil, where ink or paint is pressed through a prepared screen, including screenprinting and pochoir. Other types of printmaking techniques outside these groups include collagraphy and viscosity printing, collagraphy is a printmaking technique in which textured material is adhered to the printing matrix. This texture is transferred to the paper during the printing process, Contemporary printmaking may include digital printing, photographic mediums, or a combination of digital, photographic, and traditional processes. Many of these techniques can also be combined, especially within the same family, for example, Rembrandts prints are usually referred to as etchings for convenience, but very often include work in engraving and drypoint as well, and sometimes have no etching at all. Woodcut, a type of print, is the earliest printmaking technique. It was probably first developed as a means of printing patterns on cloth, woodcuts of images on paper developed around 1400 in Japan, and slightly later in Europe. These are the two areas where woodcut has been most extensively used purely as a process for making images without text, the artist draws a design on a plank of wood, or on paper which is transferred to the wood
10.
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a painting in oil on canvas measuring 73.5 by 112 centimetres in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels. It was long thought to be by the painter of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting. According to the museum, It is doubtful the execution is by Breugel the Elder, largely derived from Ovid, the painting is described in W. H. In Greek mythology, Icarus succeeded in flying, with wings made by his father Daedalus, ignoring his fathers warnings, Icarus chose to fly too close to the sun, melting the wax, and fell into the sea and drowned. His legs can be seen in the water just below the ship, the sun, already half-set on the horizon, is a long way away, the flight did not reach anywhere near it. Daedalus does not appear in this version of the painting, though he does, still flying, there is also a Flemish proverb, And the farmer continued to plough. Pointing out the ignorance of people to fellow mens suffering, the painting may, as Audens poem suggests, depict humankinds indifference to suffering by highlighting the ordinary events which continue to occur, despite the unobserved death of Icarus. Giving more prominence to low subject-matter than high in the work is a feature of some Northern Mannerist art. The traditional moral of the Icarus story, warning against excessive ambition, is reinforced by fore-grounding humbler figures who appear content to fill useful agricultural roles in life, the painting is probably a version of a lost original by Bruegel. A date of c.1558 has been suggested for the lost original, based on Bruegels other works and it is in oils whereas Bruegels other paintings on canvas are in tempera. The original would have been Bruegels only known painting of a mythological subject, the perspective of the ship and figures is not entirely consistent, although this may enhance the power of the composition. Bruegel also produced a design for an engraving with the ship, in 1963, Philippe Roberts-Jones, curator at the museum, and the Bruegel specialist Georges Marlier, hypothesized that an original panel painting had been later moved onto canvas, as was once common. As mentioned here above, the conclusion of this dating was that P. Bruegel the Elder cannot have painted on this canvas, later, in 2006, Prof. J. Reisse challenged this dating on technical grounds. From bottom to top, Canvas, Oily lead white, Thick oily layer with azurite, Chalk ground, Oily lead white with scarce particles of charcoal, Oily blue with azurite, with layers 4 to 6 being original. The presence of ground under the original blue proves that this is a panel painting transposed on a canvas. The original blue layer is white with azurite containing a few grains of ochre. These structure and composition match perfectly those found on other certified panels of Peter Bruegel, moreover, it is noticeable that the wood charcoal particles are very peculiar, being very long and acicular, exactly the same as those found only in The Census from the same Museum. Recently, a study of the underdrawing using infrared reflectography has been published, reflectography is based on the fact that the infrared light penetrates all colors except black
11.
The Hunters in the Snow
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The Hunters in the Snow, also known as The Return of the Hunters, is a 1565 oil-on-wood painting by Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Northern Renaissance work is one of a series of works, five of which still survive, the painting is in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. The painting shows a scene in which three hunters are returning from an expedition accompanied by their dogs. By appearances the outing was not successful, the appear to trudge wearily. One man carries the corpse of a fox illustrating the paucity of the hunt. In front of the hunters in the snow are the footprints of a rabbit or hare - which has escaped or been missed by the hunters. The overall visual impression is one of a calm, cold, overcast day, the colors are muted whites and grays, the trees are bare of leaves, several adults and a child prepare food at an inn with an outside fire. Of interest are the mountain peaks which do not exist in Belgium or Holland. The landscape itself is a valley with jagged peaks visible on the far side. A watermill is seen with its wheel frozen stiff, in the distance, figures ice skate, play hockey with modern style sticks and curl on a frozen lake, they are rendered as silhouettes. The 1560s was a time of revolution in the Netherlands. Hunters in the Snow is used extensively in Russian director Andrei Tarkovskys films Solaris and The Mirror and it appears also in Alain Tanners film Dans la ville blanche. It was an inspiration for Roy Anderssons 2014 film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. The surviving Months of the Year cycle are, Kunsthistorisches Museum website Hunters in the painting on Google Art Project Orenstein, Nadine M. ed. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Drawings
12.
The Peasant Wedding
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The Peasant Wedding is a 1567 genre painting by the Flemish Renaissance painter and printmaker Pieter Bruegel the Elder, one of his many depicting peasant life. It is currently housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, the bride is in front of the green textile wall-hanging, with a paper-crown hung above her head. She is also wearing a crown on her head, and she is sitting passively, the Bridegroom is not in attendance of the wedding feast in accordance to Flemish custom. The feast is in a barn in the summertime, two sheaves of grain with a rake recalls the work that involves, and the hard life peasants have. The plates are carried on a door off its hinges, the main food was bread, porridge and soup. The scene is claimed to depict an accurate portrayal of the 16th-century way of celebrating a peasant wedding, There has been much conjecture as to the identity of the groom in this painting. It has also suggested that according to contemporary custom, the groom is not seated at the table. Or he may be according to the same custom serving the food instead, according to this theory, the groom is the young man wearing a red cap, who is serving his guests the food, handing out plates to his guests. In a Freudian vein, Rudy Rucker speculates, the groom is the man in the red hat, passing food towards the bride. The motion of a husband, to penetrate the wife, note that near him are no less than three phallic symbols pointing towards the wife, the man’s arm, the knife on the table, and the salt-cellar on the table. Note also that at the end of the arm is an ellipse of an angle-seen dish that is oriented and located in the right location to represent the bride’s vagina. Some authors have suggested that the groom is not even included in the painting. Van der Elst speculated that this could be the depiction of an old Flemish proverb, like some of There is an old Flemish proverb and that seems to be the case here. Some argued that it is a presentation of the mystical Wedding of Cana, the painting was parodied in Asterix in Belgium. Another parody was the postcard for the Belgian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest 1979, orenstein, Nadine M. ed. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Drawings and Prints. Media related to The Peasant Wedding at Wikimedia Commons
13.
Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting
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Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting represents the 16th century response to Italian Renaissance art in the Low Countries. Antwerp was the most important artistic centre in the region, many artists worked for European courts, including Bosch, whose fantastic painted images left a long legacy. Jan Mabuse, Maarten van Heemskerck and Frans Floris were all instrumental in adopting Italian models and incorporating them into their own artistic language. Pieter Brueghel the Elder, with Bosch the only artist from the period to remain widely familiar, may seem atypical, dutch and Flemish painters were also instrumental in establishing new subjects such as landscape painting and genre painting. Like the world landscapes, these represented a typically Mannerist inversion of the normal decorum of the hierarchy of genres, Italian Renaissance influences begin to show on Early Netherlandish painting around 1500, but in many ways the older style was remarkably persistent. Antwerp Mannerism is a term for painters showing some Italian influence, hieronymus Bosch is a highly individual artist, whose work is strange and full of seemingly irrational imagery, making it difficult to interpret. The Romanists were the phase of influence, adopting Italian styles in a far more thorough way. The Fall of Icarus, although highly atypical in many ways and it hints at the renewed interest for antiquity, but the hero Icarus is hidden away in the background. The main actors in the painting are nature itself and, most prominently, the peasant, Brueghel shows man as an anti-hero, comical and sometimes grotesque. Northern Renaissance Art,1985, Harry N. Abrams, ISBN 0-13-623596-4 Orenstein, Nadine M. ed. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Drawings and Prints
14.
Landscape painting
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In other works, landscape backgrounds for figures can still form an important part of the work. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather is often an element of the composition, detailed landscapes as a distinct subject are not found in all artistic traditions, and develop when there is already a sophisticated tradition of representing other subjects. The two main traditions spring from Western painting and Chinese art, going well over a thousand years in both cases. Landscape views in art may be imaginary, or copied from reality with varying degrees of accuracy. If the primary purpose of a picture is to depict an actual, specific place, especially including buildings prominently, within a few decades it was used to describe vistas in poetry, and eventually as a term for real views. However the cognate term landscaef or landskipe for a patch of land had existed in Old English. The earliest pure landscapes with no figures are frescos from Minoan Greece of around 1500 BCE. The frescos from the Tomb of Nebamun, now in the British Museum, are a famous example. These were frequently used, as in the illustrated, to bridge the gap between a foreground scene with figures and a distant panoramic vista, a persistent problem for landscape artists. The Chinese style generally showed only a distant view, or used dead ground or mist to avoid that difficulty, aesthetic theories in both regions gave the highest status to the works seen to require the most imagination from the artist. They were often also poets whose lines and images illustrated each other, a revival in interest in nature initially mainly manifested itself in depictions of small gardens such as the Hortus Conclusus or those in millefleur tapestries. The frescos of figures at work or play in front of a background of trees in the Palace of the Popes. Several frescos of gardens have survived from Roman houses like the Villa of Livia, a particular advance is shown in the less well-known Turin-Milan Hours, now largely destroyed by fire, whose developments were reflected in Early Netherlandish painting for the rest of the century. Landscape backgrounds for various types of painting became prominent and skilful during the 15th century. The Italian development of a system of graphical perspective was now known all over Europe. Indeed, certain styles were so popular that they became formulas that could be copied again and again, after the publication of the Small Landscapes, landscape artists in the Low Countries either continued with the world landscape or followed the new mode presented by the Small Landscapes. The popularity of landscape scenes can be seen in the success of the painter Frans Post. Salvator Rosa gave picturesque excitement to his landscapes by showing wilder Southern Italian country, there are different styles and periods, and subgenres of marine and animal painting, as well as a distinct style of Italianate landscape
15.
Peasant
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A peasant is a member of a traditional class of farmers, either laborers or owners of small farms, especially in the Middle Ages under feudalism, or more generally, in any pre-industrial society. In Europe, peasants were divided into three classes according to their status, slave, serf, and free tenant. Peasants either hold title to land in fee simple, or hold land by any of several forms of tenure, among them socage, quit-rent, leasehold. The implication of the term is that the peasant is uneducated, ignorant, the word peasant is also commonly used in a non-pejorative sense as a collective noun for the rural population in the poor and under-developed countries of the world. The word peasant is derived from the 15th century French word païsant, meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, Peasants typically made up the majority of the agricultural labour force in a pre-industrial society. The majority of the people in the Middle Ages were peasants, more generally, the word peasant is sometimes used to refer pejoratively to those considered to be lower class, perhaps defined by poorer education and/or a lower income. The open field system of agriculture dominated most of northern Europe during medieval times, under this system, peasants lived on a manor presided over by a lord or a bishop of the church. Peasants paid rent or labor services to the lord in exchange for their right to cultivate the land, fallowed land, pastures, forests, and wasteland were held in common. The open field system required cooperation among the peasants of the manor and it was gradually replaced by individual ownership and management of land. This process happened in a pronounced and truncated way in Eastern Europe. Lacking any catalysts for change in the 14th century, Eastern European peasants largely continued upon the original medieval path until the 18th and 19th centuries, even before emancipation in 1861, serfdom was on the wane in Russia. The proportion of serfs within the empire had decreased from 45-50 percent at the end of the eighteenth century. In Germany, peasants continued to center their lives in the well into the 19th century. They belonged to a body and helped to manage the community resources. In the East they had the status of serfs bound permanently to parcels of land, a peasant is called a Bauer in German and Bur in Low German. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents, Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange marriages for his children. Much of the communal life centered on church services and holy days
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Genre art
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Genre art is the pictorial representation in any of various media of scenes or events from everyday life, such as markets, domestic settings, interiors, parties, inn scenes, and street scenes. Such representations may be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, some variations of the term genre art specify the medium or type of visual work, as in genre painting, genre prints, genre photographs, and so on. Rather confusingly, the meaning of genre, covering any particular combination of an artistic medium. Painting was divided into a hierarchy of genres, with painting at the top, as the most difficult and therefore prestigious. But history paintings are a genre in painting, not genre works, the following concentrates on painting, but genre motifs were also extremely popular in many forms of the decorative arts, especially from the Rococo of the early 18th century onwards. Single figures or small groups decorated a huge variety of such as porcelain, furniture, wallpaper. Genre painting, also called genre scene or petit genre, depicts aspects of life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. A work would often be considered as a genre work even if it could be shown that the artist had used a known member of his family. In this case it would depend on whether the work was likely to have intended by the artist to be perceived as a portrait—sometimes a subjective question. The depictions can be realistic, imagined, or romanticized by the artist, because of their familiar and frequently sentimental subject matter, genre paintings have often proven popular with the bourgeoisie, or middle class. Genre themes appear in all art traditions. These were part of a pattern of Mannerist inversion in Antwerp painting, giving low elements previously in the background of images prominent emphasis. The generally small scale of these paintings was appropriate for their display in the homes of middle class purchasers. Often the subject of a painting was based on a popular emblem from an Emblem book. The merry company showed a group of figures at a party, other common types of scenes showed markets or fairs, village festivities, or soldiers in camp. In Italy, a school of painting was stimulated by the arrival in Rome of the Dutch painter Pieter van Laer in 1625. He acquired the nickname Il Bamboccio and his followers were called the Bamboccianti, whose works would inspire Giacomo Ceruti, Antonio Cifrondi, jean-Baptiste Greuze and others painted detailed and rather sentimental groups or individual portraits of peasants that were to be influential on 19th-century painting. Spain had a tradition predating The Book of Good Love of social observation and commentary based on the Old Roman Latin tradition, practiced by many of its painters and illuminators
17.
Dutch Golden Age painting
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The new Dutch Republic was the most prosperous nation in Europe, and led European trade, science, and art. Most work, including that for which the period is best known, a distinctive feature of the period is the proliferation of distinct genres of paintings, with the majority of artists producing the bulk of their work within one of these. The full development of specialization is seen from the late 1620s. A distinctive feature of the period, compared to earlier European painting, was the amount of religious painting. Dutch Calvinism forbade religious painting in churches, and though biblical subjects were acceptable in private homes, the development of many of these types of painting was decisively influenced by 17th-century Dutch artists. The widely held theory of the hierarchy of genres in painting, whereby some types were regarded as more prestigious than others, however this was the hardest to sell, as even Rembrandt found. Many were forced to produce portraits or genre scenes, which much more easily. In descending order of status the categories in the hierarchy were, history painting, including allegories, most paintings were relatively small – the only common type of really large paintings were group portraits. Painting directly onto walls hardly existed, when a wall-space in a public building needed decorating fitted framed canvas was normally used, painted delftware tiles were very cheap and common, if rarely of really high quality, but silver, especially in the auricular style, led Europe. With this exception, the best artistic efforts were concentrated on painting and printmaking, the volume of production meant that prices were fairly low, except for the best known artists, as in most subsequent periods there was a steep price gradient for more fashionable artists. In particular the French invasion of 1672, brought a depression to the art market. The distribution of pictures was very wide, yea many tymes, blacksmithes, cobblers etts. will have some picture or other by their Forge, such is the generall Notion, enclination and delight that these Countrie Native have to Painting reported an English traveller in 1640. There were for virtually the first time many professional art dealers, several significant artists, like Vermeer and his father, Jan van Goyen. Rembrandts dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh and his son Gerrit were among the most important, typically workshops were smaller than in Flanders or Italy, with only one or two apprentices at a time, the number often being restricted by guild regulations. In many cases involved the artists extricating themselves from medieval groupings where they shared a guild with several other trades. Several new guilds were established in the period, Amsterdam in 1579, Haarlem in 1590, the Leiden authorities distrusted guilds and did not allow one until 1648. The Hague, with the court, was an early example, there were many dynasties of artists, and many married the daughters of their masters or other artists. Many artists came from families, who paid fees for their apprenticeships
18.
Antwerp
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Antwerp is a city in Belgium, the capital of Antwerp province in the region of Flanders. With a population of 510,610, it is the most populous city proper in Belgium and its metropolitan area houses around 1,200,000 people, which is second behind Brussels. Antwerp is on the River Scheldt, linked to the North Sea by the Westerschelde estuary, the Port of Antwerp is one of the biggest in the world, ranking second in Europe and within the top 20 globally. Antwerp has long been an important city in the Low Countries, the inhabitants of Antwerp are nicknamed Sinjoren, after the Spanish honorific señor or French seigneur, lord, referring to the Spanish noblemen who ruled the city in the 17th century. The city hosted the 1920 Summer Olympics, according to folklore, notably celebrated by a statue in front of the town hall, the city got its name from a legend about a giant called Antigoon who lived near the Scheldt river. He exacted a toll from passing boatmen, and for those who refused, he severed one of their hands, eventually the giant was killed by a young hero named Silvius Brabo, who cut off the giants own hand and flung it into the river. Hence the name Antwerpen, from Dutch hand werpen, akin to Old English hand and wearpan, a longstanding theory is that the name originated in the Gallo-Roman period and comes from the Latin antverpia. Antverpia would come from Ante Verpia, indicating land that forms by deposition in the curve of a river. Note that the river Scheldt, before a period between 600 and 750, followed a different track. This must have coincided roughly with the current ringway south of the city, however, many historians think it unlikely that there was a large settlement which would be named Antverpia, but more something like an outpost with a river crossing. However, John Lothrop Motley argues, and so do a lot of Dutch etymologists and historians, aan t werp is also possible. This warp is a hill or a river deposit, high enough to remain dry at high tide. Another word for werp is pol hence polders, historical Antwerp allegedly had its origins in a Gallo-Roman vicus. Excavations carried out in the oldest section near the Scheldt, 1952–1961, produced pottery shards, the earliest mention of Antwerp dates from the 4th century. In the 4th century, Antwerp was first named, having been settled by the Germanic Franks, the name was reputed to have been derived from anda and werpum. The Merovingian Antwerp was evangelized by Saint Amand in the 7th century, at the end of the 10th century, the Scheldt became the boundary of the Holy Roman Empire. Antwerp became a margraviate in 980, by the German emperor Otto I, in the 11th century Godfrey of Bouillon was for some years known as the marquis of Antwerp. In the 12th century, Norbert of Xanten established a community of his Premonstratensian canons at St. Michaels Abbey at Caloes
19.
Old master print
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An old master print is a work of art produced by a printing process within the Western tradition. Fifteenth-century prints are rare that they are classed as old master prints even if they are of crude or merely workmanlike artistic quality. A date of about 1830 is usually taken as marking the end of the period whose prints are covered by this term, the main techniques used, in order of their introduction, are woodcut, engraving, etching, mezzotint and aquatint, although there are others. Different techniques are combined in a single print. With rare exceptions printed on textiles, such as silk, or on vellum, many great European artists, such as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, and Francisco Goya, were dedicated printmakers. In their own day, their international reputations largely came from their prints, influences between artists were also mainly transmitted beyond a single city by prints, for the same reason. Prints therefore are frequently brought up in detailed analyses of individual paintings in art history, today, thanks to colour photo reproductions, and public galleries, their paintings are much better known, whilst their prints are only rarely exhibited, for conservation reasons. But some museum print rooms allow visitors to see their collection, the oldest technique is woodcut, or woodblock printing, which was invented as a method for printing on cloth in China, and perhaps separately in Egypt in the Byzantine period. This had reached Europe via the Byzantine or Islamic worlds before 1300, religious images and playing cards are documented as being produced on paper, probably printed, by a German in Bologna in 1395. However, the most impressive printed European images to survive from before 1400 are printed on cloth, for use as hangings on walls or furniture, including altars, some were used as a pattern to embroider over. Some religious images were used as bandages, to speed healing, the earliest print images are mostly of a high artistic standard, and were clearly designed by artists with a background in painting. Whether these artists cut the blocks themselves, or only inked the design on the block for another to carve, is not known, the great majority of surviving 15th-century prints are religious, although these were probably the ones more likely to survive. Their makers were sometimes called Jesus maker or saint-maker in documents, as with manuscript books, monastic institutions sometimes produced, and often sold, prints. No artists can be identified with specific woodcuts until towards the end of the century, the little evidence we have suggests that woodcut prints became relatively common and cheap during the fifteenth century, and were affordable by skilled workers in towns. For example, what may be the earliest surviving Italian print, the school caught fire, and the crowd who gathered to watch saw the print carried up into the air by the fire, before falling down into the crowd. This was regarded as an escape and the print was carried to Forlì Cathedral. Like the majority of prints before approximately 1460, only a single impression of this print has survived, Woodcut blocks are printed with light pressure, and are capable of printing several thousand impressions, and even at this period some prints may well have been produced in that quantity. Many prints were hand-coloured, mostly in watercolour, in fact the hand-colouring of prints continued for many centuries, Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands were the main areas of production, England does not seem to have produced any prints until about 1480
20.
Illuminated manuscript
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An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented with such decoration as initials, borders and miniature illustrations. Comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as painted, islamic manuscripts may be referred to as illuminated, illustrated or painted, though using essentially the same techniques as Western works. This article covers the technical, social and economic history of the subject, for an art-historical account, the earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period 400 to 600, produced in the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths and the Eastern Roman Empire. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent artistic and historical value, had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, most literature of Greece and Rome would have perished in Europe. As it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians, the majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, a number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls, a very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus, which does not last nearly as long as vellum or parchment. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment, beginning in the late Middle Ages manuscripts began to be produced on paper. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, Manuscripts are among the most common items to survive from the Middle Ages, many thousands survive. They are also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting, indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting. There are a few examples from later periods, the type of book that was most often heavily and richly illuminated, sometimes known as a display book, varied between periods. In the first millennium, these were most likely to be Gospel Books, such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Romanesque period saw the creation of many huge illuminated complete Bibles – one in Sweden requires three librarians to lift it. Many Psalters were also illuminated in both this and the Gothic period. Finally, the Book of Hours, very commonly the personal book of a wealthy layperson, was often richly illuminated in the Gothic period. Other books, both liturgical and not, continued to be illuminated at all periods, the Byzantine world also continued to produce manuscripts in its own style, versions of which spread to other Orthodox and Eastern Christian areas. See Medieval art for other regions, periods and types, reusing parchments by scraping the surface and reusing them was a common practice, the traces often left behind of the original text are known as palimpsests. The Gothic period, which saw an increase in the production of these beautiful artifacts, also saw more secular works such as chronicles
21.
Oil painting
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Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. Commonly used drying oils include linseed oil, poppy seed oil, walnut oil, the choice of oil imparts a range of properties to the oil paint, such as the amount of yellowing or drying time. Certain differences, depending on the oil, are visible in the sheen of the paints. An artist might use different oils in the same painting depending on specific pigments and effects desired. The paints themselves also develop a particular consistency depending on the medium, the oil may be boiled with a resin, such as pine resin or frankincense, to create a varnish prized for its body and gloss. Its practice may have migrated westward during the Middle Ages, Oil paint eventually became the principal medium used for creating artworks as its advantages became widely known. In recent years, water miscible oil paint has come to prominence and, to some extent, water-soluble paints contain an emulsifier that allows them to be thinned with water rather than paint thinner, and allows very fast drying times when compared with traditional oils. Traditional oil painting techniques often begin with the artist sketching the subject onto the canvas with charcoal or thinned paint, Oil paint is usually mixed with linseed oil, artist grade mineral spirits, or other solvents to make the paint thinner, faster or slower-drying. A basic rule of oil paint application is fat over lean and this means that each additional layer of paint should contain more oil than the layer below to allow proper drying. If each additional layer contains less oil, the painting will crack. This rule does not ensure permanence, it is the quality and type of oil leads to a strong. There are many media that can be used with the oil, including cold wax, resins. These aspects of the paint are closely related to the capacity of oil paint. Traditionally, paint was transferred to the surface using paintbrushes. Oil paint remains wet longer than other types of artists materials, enabling the artist to change the color. At times, the painter might even remove a layer of paint. This can be done with a rag and some turpentine for a time while the paint is wet, Oil paint dries by oxidation, not evaporation, and is usually dry to the touch within a span of two weeks. It is generally dry enough to be varnished in six months to a year, art conservators do not consider an oil painting completely dry until it is 60 to 80 years old
22.
Pieter Brueghel the Younger
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Pieter Brueghel the Younger or Pieter Bruegel the Younger was a Flemish painter, known for numerous copies after his father Pieter Bruegel the Elders work as well as his original compositions. The large output of his studio, which produced for the local and export market and these paintings have now been attributed to his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder. Pieter Brueghel the Younger was born in Brussels, the oldest son of the famous sixteenth-century Netherlandish painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his father died in 1569, when Pieter the younger was only five years old. Following the death of his mother in 1578, Pieter, together with his brother Jan Brueghel the Elder and sister Marie, Mayken Verhulst was the widow of the prolific artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst and an accomplished artist in her own right, known for her miniature paintings. According to the early 17th-century Flemish biographer Karel van Mander Mayken Verhulst was possibly the first teacher of her two grandsons, the Brueghel family moved to Antwerp sometime after 1578 and Pieter possibly entered the studio of the landscape painter Gillis van Coninxloo. His teacher left Antwerp in 1585 and in the 1584/1585 registers of the Guild of Saint Luke, on 5 November 1588 Pieter married Elisabeth Goddelet. The couple had seven children, many of whom died young, one son called Pieter Brueghel III was also a painter. Pieter Brueghel the Younger operated a studio in Antwerp which produced mainly inexpensive copies of his fathers work for local sale. He was nevertheless often in difficulties, possibly due to drinking. He had at least 9 pupils including Frans Snyders and Andries Daniels and he died in Antwerp, aged 72. Pieter Brueghel the Younger painted landscapes, religious subjects, proverbs and his genre paintings of peasants emphasize the picturesque, and are regarded by some as lacking Pieter the Elders subtlety and humanism. He and his workshop were prolific copyists of Pieter Bruegel the Elders most famous compositions and his name and work were largely forgotten in the 18th and 19th centuries until he was rediscovered in the first half of the 20th century. Pieter Brueghel the Younger created original works largely in the idiom of his father which are energetic, bold and bright, one of the artists most successful original designs was the painting of The Village Lawyer. The different titles of the work indicate that it may have been interpreted in different ways in the 17th century. The picture also shows peasants lining up with such as chickens and eggs to please the lawyer. The painting shows his interest in and close observation of village life, Pieter Brueghel the Youngers workshop made many copies of the composition in different formats. There exist 19 signed and dated versions of work out of some 25 originals and 35 questionable versions. Another original composition of Pieter Brueghel the Younger is the Whitsun Bride, one of the copies was formerly held by the Metropolitan Museum
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Engraving
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Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it. Wood engraving is a form of printing and is not covered in this article. Engraving was an important method of producing images on paper in artistic printmaking, in mapmaking. Other terms often used for printed engravings are copper engraving, copper-plate engraving or line engraving, hand engraving is a term sometimes used for engraving objects other than printing plates, to inscribe or decorate jewellery, firearms, trophies, knives and other fine metal goods. Traditional engravings in printmaking are also engraved, using just the same techniques to make the lines in the plate. Each graver is different and has its own use, engravers use a hardened steel tool called a burin, or graver, to cut the design into the surface, most traditionally a copper plate. Modern professional engravers can engrave with a resolution of up to 40 lines per mm in high grade work creating game scenes, dies used in mass production of molded parts are sometimes hand engraved to add special touches or certain information such as part numbers. In addition to engraving, there are engraving machines that require less human finesse and are not directly controlled by hand. They are usually used for lettering, using a pantographic system, there are versions for the insides of rings and also the outsides of larger pieces. Such machines are used for inscriptions on rings, lockets. Gravers come in a variety of shapes and sizes that yield different line types, the burin produces a unique and recognizable quality of line that is characterized by its steady, deliberate appearance and clean edges. The angle tint tool has a curved tip that is commonly used in printmaking. Florentine liners are flat-bottomed tools with multiple lines incised into them, ring gravers are made with particular shapes that are used by jewelry engravers in order to cut inscriptions inside rings. Flat gravers are used for work on letters, as well as wriggle cuts on most musical instrument engraving work, remove background. Knife gravers are for line engraving and very deep cuts, round gravers, and flat gravers with a radius, are commonly used on silver to create bright cuts, as well as other hard-to-cut metals such as nickel and steel. Square or V-point gravers are typically square or elongated diamond-shaped and used for cutting straight lines, V-point can be anywhere from 60 to 130 degrees, depending on purpose and effect. These gravers have very small cutting points, other tools such as mezzotint rockers, roulets and burnishers are used for texturing effects. Burnishing tools can also be used for stone setting techniques
24.
Hieronymus Cock
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Hieronymus Cock, or Hieronymus Wellens de Cock was a Southern Netherlandish painter and etcher as well as a publisher and distributor of prints. His house published more than 1,100 prints between 1548 and his death in 1570, a vast number by earlier standards and he was born into an artistic family. His father Jan Wellens de Cock and his brother Matthys Cock were both painters and draftsmen and he was admitted to the painters guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp in 1545. He resided in Rome from 1546 to 1548, when he returned to Antwerp in 1548, he founded his own publishing house, Aux quatre vents or In de Vier Winden. He issued his first prints there in 1548, the Italian historian of architecture Vincenzo Scamozzi copied many of the engravings published by Cock in 1551 for his volume on Rome entitled Discorsi sopra Lantichita di Roma. In 1559 and 1561 he published two series of prints by an anonymous Flemish draughtsman now referred to as the Master of the Small Landscapes. The series of landscapes were drawn from nature in the vicinity of Antwerp and had an important influence on the development of Flemish, Cock collaborated with the Spanish cartographer Diego Gutiérrez on a 1562 Map of America. The publication of these contributed to the spread of the so-called Floris style throughout the Netherlands. The Dutch publisher Philip Galle worked at Cocks printing house from 1557, at his death in 1570 he left behind the most prominent print publishing establishment in Europe north of the Alps. His widow Volcxken Diericx continued the house until her death in 1601. Hieronymus Cock had been working on publication at the time of his death. The quality of the 23 prints was outstanding as they had made by some of the leading engravers of the time such as Jan Wierix, Adriaen Collaert. The book includes a poem by Lampsonius dedicated to the memory of Hieronymus Cock, the portraits and texts present an honour roll of the earlier generations of Netherlandish artists. The publisher Hendrik Hondius I published in 1610 a book with almost the same title that contained 69 engraved portraits of painters, Hondius work included in its first part reworked versions of 22 of the portraits of the 1572 publication. The portrait of Hieronymus Cock was not included by Hondius maybe because the likeness was made after death, rather than drawn ad vivum as was the case for the other portraits
25.
Karel van Mander
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Karel van Mander or Carel van Mander I was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembered as a biographer of Early Netherlandish painters, as an artist and art theoretician he played a significant role in the spread and development of Northern Mannerism in the Dutch Republic. It is not certain who wrote this sketch and various candidates have been proposed. Most recently it has argued that it was written by his son Karel van Mander the Younger. His son would have relied on information that Karel van Mander had written himself as well as on his own recollections. The information in the sketch is not entirely reliable but is still regarded as the best source of information on van Manders life. Van Mander was born into a family in Meulebeke, in the County of Flanders. He studied under Lucas de Heere in Ghent, and in 1568-1569 under Pieter Vlerick in Kortrijk, the next five years he devoted to the writing of religious plays for which he also painted the scenery. Then followed three years in Rome and his biographical sketch refers to van Mander as the discoverer of caves in Rome. This may be a reference to the Catacombs of Rome although the meaning of the reference is unclear. In Rome he may also have come into contact with fellow Fleming Bartholomeus Spranger and his patrons in Rome included several cardinals. On his return journey he passed through Vienna, where, together with Spranger, van Mander settled in Meulebeke in 1578 where he was active as a painter and writer. He married an 18-year-old local girl, with whom he had a son, in 1580 he left for Kortrijk due to religious troubles caused by Catholic zealots in Meulebeke. Karel van Mander had at some point become a Mennonite and was therefore a target of these zealots. In Kortrijk he got a commission for an altar piece, in Kortrijk another son was born. He left Kortrijk for Bruges in 1582 because of an outbreak of the plague, in Bruges, he worked with the painter Paul Weyts. Here he worked for 20 years on a commission by the Haarlem city fathers to inventory their art collection, the city of Haarlem had confiscated all Catholic religious art after the satisfactie van Haarlem, which gave Catholics equal rights to Protestants, had been overturned in 1578. Van Mander used his work on the commission in his Schilder-boeck, while in Haarlem he continued to paint, concentrating his energy on his favourite genre, historical allegories
26.
Schilder-boeck
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Het Schilder-Boeck or Schilderboek is a book written by the Flemish writer and painter Karel van Mander first published in 1604 in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, where van Mander resided. The book is written in 17th century Dutch and its title is translated into English as The Book of Painters or The Book of Painting. Het Schilder-Boeck consists of six parts and is considered one of the sources on the history of art and art theory in the 15th and 16th century Low Countries. The book was well received and sold well. Karel van Mander died two years after its publication, a second posthumous edition, which included a brief, anonymous biography of van Mander was published in 1618. This second edition was translated by Hessel Miedema into English and published in 1994-1997 together with a facsimile of the original and 5 volumes of notes on the text, Het Schilder-Boeck is divided into six parts that have separate title pages and are indexed. This book formed a source for Giorgio Vasaris famous biographical accounts of painters in his book Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, often referred to as the Vite. That tradition took little account of the topology of the Low countries. Karel van Mander intended to correct this misconception by listing all the famous early Netherlandish painters and he encountered many difficulties in obtaining accurate information, due to the political and religious unrest at the time. The biographies in the Schilder-Boeck are similar in style and format to Vasaris Vite, the second edition includes a biography of van Mander himself that Miedema believes was written by his brother, who may have been with him on his deathbed. Other candidates have proposed as authors of the biography. Recently his son Karel van Mander the Younger was identified as a possible author and his son would have relied on biographical information that Karel van Mander had written himself as well as on his own recollections and notes. The information in the sketch is not entirely reliable but is still regarded as the best source of information on van Manders life. Van Mander was writing in a country where Calvinists where powerful, the market for religious subjects was quickly replaced in favor of genre scenes and historical allegories. It became fashionable to choose politically correct such as stories too old to be offensive to either Protestants or Catholics. The city of Haarlem needed to reinvent itself after losing its attraction as a site for St. Bavo. Its leaders commissioned paintings depicting the citys glorious past, such as in the story of the crusade against Damietta, artists and writers helped update the local source of inspiration for art. The book begins with a book on the foundation of the art of paintings and this introductory book has fourteen chapters on art theory listing such subjects as landscapes, animals, drapery, and arrangements of subjects
27.
The Blind Leading the Blind
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The Blind Leading the Blind, Blind, or The Parable of the Blind is a painting by the Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder, completed in 1568. Executed in distemper on linen canvas, it measures 86 cm ×154 cm and it depicts the Biblical parable of the blind leading the blind from the Gospel of Matthew 15,14, and is held in the collection of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. The painting reflects Bruegels mastery of observation, each figure has a different eye affliction, including corneal leukoma, atrophy of globe and removed eyes. The men hold their heads aloft to make use of their other senses. The diagonal composition reinforces the off-kilter motion of the six figures falling in progression and it is considered a masterwork for its accurate detail and composition. It was painted the year before Bruegels death, and has a bitter and this may be related to the establishment of the Council of Troubles in 1567 by the government of the Spanish Netherlands. The council ordered mass arrests and executions to enforce Spanish rule, the placement of Sint-Anna Church of the village Sint-Anna-Pede has led to both pro- and anti-Catholic interpretations, though it is not clear that the painting was meant as a political statement. The painting depicts a procession of six blind, disfigured men and they pass along a path bordered by a river on one side and a village with a church on the other. The leader of the group has fallen on his back into a ditch and, because they are all linked by their staffs, a cowherd stands in the background. Bruegel based the work on the Biblical parable of the leading the blind from Matthew 15,14. According to art critic Margaret Sullivan, Bruegels audience was likely as familiar with classical literature as with the Bible, Bruegel expands the two blind men in the parable to six, they are well dressed, rather than wearing the peasant clothing that typifies his late work. The first blind mans face is not visible, the second twists his head as he falls, the shinguard-clad third man, on his toes with knees bent and face to the sky, shares a staff with the second, by which he is being pulled down. The others have yet to stumble, but the fate seems implied. The faces and bodies of the men, and background detail including the church, are rendered in exceptionally fine detail. The backward-falling posture of the guide demonstrates Bruegels mastery of foreshortening, Bruegels settings tend to be fictional, but that of The Blind Leading the Blind has been identified as the village Sint-Anna-Pede, and the church as Sint-Anna Church. One of four surviving Bruegel paintings in distemper, the work is a tüchlein and this medium was widely used in painting and manuscript illumination before the advent of oil paint. Due to the high perishability of linen cloth and the solubility of hide glue, the Blind Leading the Blind is in good condition and has suffered no more than some erosion, such as of a herdsman and some fowl in the middle ground. The grain of the canvas is visible beneath the delicate brushstrokes
28.
House of Orange-Nassau
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Several members of the house served during this war and after as governor or stadtholder during the Dutch Republic. However, in 1815, after a period as a republic. The dynasty was established as a result of the marriage of Henry III of Nassau-Breda from Germany and their son René inherited in 1530 the independent and sovereign Principality of Orange from his mothers brother, Philibert of Châlon. As the first Nassau to be the Prince of Orange, René could have used Orange-Nassau as his new family name, however, his uncle, in his will, had stipulated that René should continue the use of the name Châlon-Orange. History knows him therefore as René of Châlon, after the death of René in 1544 his cousin William of Nassau-Dillenburg inherited all his lands. This William I of Orange, in English better known as William the Silent, the Castle of Nassau was founded around 1100 by Count Dudo-Henry of Laurenburg, the founder of the House of Nassau. In 1120, Dudo-Henrys sons and successors, Counts Robert I and Arnold I of Laurenburg and they renovated and extended the castle complex in 1124. The first man to be called the count of Nassau was Robert I of Nassau, the Nassau family married into the family of the neighboring Counts of Arnstein. His sons Walram and Otto split the Nassau possessions, the descendants of Walram became known as the Walram Line, which became Dukes of Nassau, and in 1890, the Grand Dukes of Luxembourg. This line also included Adolph of Nassau, who was elected King of the Romans in 1292, the descendants of Otto became known as the Ottonian Line, which inherited parts of Nassau County, and properties in France and the Netherlands. The House of Orange-Nassau stems from the younger Ottonian Line, the first of this line to establish himself in the Netherlands was John I, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, who married Margareta of the Marck. The real founder of the Nassau fortunes in the Netherlands was Johns son and he became counsellor to the Burgundian Dukes of Brabant, first to Anton of Burgundy, and later to his son Jan IV of Brabant. He also would later serve Philip the Good, in 1403 he married the Dutch noblewoman Johanna van Polanen, and so inherited lands in the Netherlands, with the Barony of Breda as the core of the Dutch possessions and the family fortune. A nobles power was based on his ownership of vast tracts of land. It also helped that much of the lands that the House of Orange and Nassau controlled sat under one of the commercial and mercantile centers of the world (see below under Lands and Titles. The importance of the Nassaus grew throughout the 15th and 16th centuries as they became councilors, generals, Engelbert II of Nassau served Charles the Bold and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, who had married Charless daughter Mary of Burgundy. In 1496 he was appointed stadtholder of Flanders and by 1498 he had been named President of the Grand Conseil, in 1501, Maximilian named him Lieutenant-General of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands. From that point forward, Engelbert was the representative of the Habsburg Empire to the region
29.
Renaissance humanism
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Renaissance humanism is the study of classical antiquity, at first in Italy and then spreading across Western Europe in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. The term Renaissance humanism is contemporary to that period — Renaissance, Renaissance humanism was a response to the utilitarian approach and what came to be depicted as the narrow pedantry associated with medieval scholasticism. This was to be accomplished through the study of the studia humanitatis, today known as the humanities, grammar, rhetoric, history, poetry, and moral philosophy. Humanism was a cultural mode and not the program of a small elite, a program to revive the cultural legacy, literary legacy. There were important centres of humanism in Florence, Naples, Rome, Venice, Genoa, Mantua, Ferrara, some of the first humanists were great collectors of antique manuscripts, including Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Coluccio Salutati, and Poggio Bracciolini. Of the four, Petrarch was dubbed the Father of Humanism because of his devotion to Greek, some of the highest officials of the Catholic Church were humanists with the resources to amass important libraries. Such was Cardinal Basilios Bessarion, a convert to the Catholic Church from Greek Orthodoxy, who was considered for the papacy, and was one of the most learned scholars of his time. There were several 15th-century and early 16th-century humanist Popes one of whom, Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, was a prolific author and these subjects came to be known as the humanities, and the movement which they inspired is shown as humanism. They included Gemistus Pletho, George of Trebizond, Theodorus Gaza, budé was a royal absolutist who was active in civic life, serving as a diplomat for François I and helping to found the Collège des Lecteurs Royaux. Many humanists were churchmen, most notably Pope Pius II, Sixtus IV, and Leo X, humanity—with all its distinct capabilities, talents, worries, problems, possibilities—was the center of interest. It has been said that medieval thinkers philosophised on their knees, inevitably, the rediscovery of classical philosophy and science would eventually challenge traditional religious beliefs. Lorenzo Valla, however, puts a defense of epicureanism in the mouth of one of the interlocutors of one of his dialogues. And if it is names that bother us, no one deserves the name of Epicurean than the revered founder and head of the Christian philosophy Christ. Completely mistaken, therefore, are those who talk in their foolish fashion about Christs having been sad and gloomy in character, on the contrary, he alone shows the most enjoyable life of all and the one most full of true pleasure. This passage exemplifies the way in which the humanists saw pagan classical works, such as the philosophy of Epicurus, Renaissance Neo-Platonists such as Marsilio Ficino attempted to reconcile Platonism with Christianity, according to the suggestions of early Church fathers Lactantius and Saint Augustine. In this spirit, Pico della Mirandola attempted to construct a syncretism of all religions, historian Steven Kreis expresses a widespread view, when he writes that, The period from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth worked in favor of the general emancipation of the individual. The city-states of northern Italy had come into contact with the customs of the East. The writings of Dante, and particularly the doctrines of Petrarch and humanists like Machiavelli, emphasized the virtues of intellectual freedom, in the essays of Montaigne the individualistic view of life received perhaps the most persuasive and eloquent statement in the history of literature and philosophy
30.
Pieter Coecke van Aelst
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Pieter Coecke van Aelst or Pieter Coecke van Aelst the Elder was a Flemish painter, sculptor, architect, author and designer of woodcuts, stained glass and tapestries. His principal subjects were Christian religious themes and he worked in Antwerp and Brussels and was appointed court painter to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Coecke van Aelst was a polyglot and he published translations of Ancient Roman and modern Italian architectural treatises into Flemish, French and German. These publications played a role in spreading Renaissance ideas to the Low Countries. They contributed to the transition in Northern Europe from the late Gothic style then prevalent towards a modern antique-oriented architecture, Pieter Coecke van Aelst was the son of the Deputy Mayor of Aalst. The early Flemish biographer Karel van Mander wrote in his Schilder-boeck published in 1604 that Coecke van Aelst studied under Bernard van Orley, there are no documents that prove this apprenticeship but there are strong stylistic similarities between the styles of the two artists. According to Karel van Mander Pieter Coecke van Aelst later studied in Italy where in Rome he made drawings of sculpture and architecture, although there is no firm evidence that Coecke van Aelst travelled to Italy, stylistic evidence supports the notion that he travelled to Italy. The Italian influence could, however, also be attributed to the fact that Raphael’s tapestry cartoons were available in Brussels, but Coecke van Aelst clearly also knew Raphael’s Triumph of Galatea fresco, which he could only have seen in Italy. Pieter Coecke van Aelst married twice and he married his first wife Anna van Dornicke in 1525 shortly after his move to Antwerp. Anna was the daughter of the Antwerp painter Jan Mertens van Dornicke and his father in law may have been his teacher and Coecke van Aelst took over his father-in-laws workshop after the latters death in 1527. There were two children from this first marriage, Michiel and Pieter II, Coecke van Aelst is recorded joining the local Guild of Saint Luke of Antwerp in 1527. In 1533, he travelled to Constantinople where he stayed for one year in an attempt to persuade the Turkish sultan to give him tapestry commissions and this mission failed to generate any commissions from the sultan. Coecke made many drawings during his stay in Turkey including of the buildings, people and he seems to have retained from this trip an abiding interest in the accurate rendering of nature that gave his tapestries an added dimension. The giant made its premiere many years later in 1549 at the occasion of the Joyous entry into Antwerp of Prince Philip, the giant became a regular fixture in public processions in Antwerp until the 20th century. In the year 1537 Coecke van Aelst was elected dean of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke and he also received a stipend from the Antwerp city government. Around this time Coecke van Aelst received major commissions for the design of windows including for the Antwerp Cathedral. In the 1530s Coecke van Aelsts friend, the important painter Joos van Cleve died, around 1538-1539 Coecke van Aelst married for the second time. His second wife Mayken Verhulst was originally from Mechelen and a painter of miniatures, the couple had three children, two daughters called Katelijne and Maria and a son named Pauwel
31.
Mechelen
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Mechelen is a city and municipality in the province of Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium. The municipality comprises the city of Mechelen proper, some quarters at its outskirts, the hamlets of Nekkerspoel and Battel, as well as the villages of Walem, Heffen, Leest, Hombeek, and Muizen. The Dyle flows through the city, hence it is referred to as the Dijlestad. Mechelen lies on the urban and industrial axis Brussels–Antwerp, about 25 km from each city. Mechelen is one of Flanders prominent cities of art, with Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, Ghent. The area of Mechelen was settled on the banks of the river during the Gallo-Roman period as evidenced by several Roman ruins, around 1200 started the building of the cathedral that is dedicated to the saint. Antwerp lost profitable stapelrechten for wool, oats and salt to Mechelen in 1303 when John II, Duke of Brabant and this started a rivalry between these cities that would last well into the 20th century. In the 15th century, the city came under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy, in 1473 Charles the Bold moved several political bodies to the city, and Mechelen served as the seat of the Superior Court until the French Revolution. In 1490, a postal service between Mechelen and Innsbruck was established. During the 16th century the political influence decreased dramatically, due to many governmental institutions being moved to Brussels. In 1961, Brussels was added to the title, resulting in the current Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels, Mechelen also retained further relevance as the Great Council of Mechelen remained the supreme court of the territory until the French Revolutionary Wars. In 1572, during the Eighty Years War, the city was burned and sacked by the Spanish, after this pillaging, the city was rebuilt. It was during this time that the tradition of making, still seen today. The city entered the age in the 19th century. In 1835, the first railway on the European continent linked Brussels with Mechelen and this led to a development of metalworking industries, among others the central railway workshops which are still located in the town today. During the Second World War, the extensive Mechlinian railway structure had caused the Nazi occupation forces to choose Mechelen for their infamous transit camp, over 25,000 Jews and Roma were sent by rail to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp from Mechelen. The site of the camp now houses the Jewish Museum of Deportation. Several famous meetings on the Christian religion are connected to the name of the city, one in 1909 is thought to have inaugurated the Liturgical Movement
32.
Peeter Baltens
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Peeter Baltens, Pieter Balten or Pieter Custodis, was a Flemish Renaissance painter, draughtsman, engraver and publisher. Baltens was also active as an art dealer and poet and he was known for his genre paintings, religious compositions and landscapes. His career and artistic development and that of the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder were closely intertwined and he is credited as being one of the key inventors of the genre of the village scene in Flemish and Dutch art. Details on the life of Pieter Baltens are scarce, Baltens was born in Antwerp c.1527 as the son of the sculptor Baltens Custodis. He was registered as a member of the local Guild of Saint Luke in 1540 under the name Pierken Custodis and he was admitted as a master of the Guild in 1550. The early 17th-century Flemish art historian Karel van Mander is the key source on the life of Baltens, Van Mander stated in his 1604 Schilder-boeck that Baltens became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1579. It is now known from sources that van Mander had this date wrong. Van Manders error is due to a misreading of the date 1569. Another erroneous statement by van Mander, which had a impact on Baltens art historical reputation, was to call Baltens a follower of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Van Mander was in fact wrong on the date on which Baltens joined the local Guild as well as on Baltens relationship with Pieter Bruegel the Elder which he qualified as that of a follower, in 1550-1551 Bruegel in fact worked as an assistant of Peeter Baltens. The two artists are known to have collaborated on an altarpiece for the Glovemakers Guild in Mechelen, in this commission it was Baltens who painted the central part of the altarpiece and Bruegel the wings in grisaille. This division of tasks suggests that Baltens was the established figure in the collaboration. Van Mander further claimed that Baltens visited different countries and made various views from life even though there is no record of such travels, Van Mander wrote that Baltens was a good poet and rederijker and collaborated from time to time with the painter Cornelis Ketel. Peeter Baltens was a member of the Chamber of rhetoric called Violieren, Baltens son Dominicus moved to Germany where he married the widow of Bartholomäus Kilian. He set up a workshop in Augsburg, which was known as the Kilian family of engravers. Baltens known oeuvre is limited to 13 paintings and 11 drawings, of only one is fully signed. Baltens painted religious works, village scenes and landscapes, some of which were winter landscapes and he is also believed to have painted tronies, a type of portrait painting depicting unidentified sitters usually with exaggerated facial expressions. An example is the Portrait of a weeping peasant attributed to the artist, some of the tronies earlier attributed to Baltens have been re-attributed to Marten van Cleve, a contemporary artist with a similar interest in peasant scenes and tronies
33.
Grisaille
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Grisaille is a term for a painting executed entirely in shades of grey or of another neutral greyish colour. It is particularly used in decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. Many grisailles in fact include a slightly wider range, like the Andrea del Sarto fresco illustrated. Paintings executed in brown are referred to as brunaille, and paintings executed in green are called verdaille, a grisaille may be executed for its own sake, as underpainting for an oil painting, or as a model for an engraver to work from. Rubens and his school sometimes use monochrome techniques in sketching compositions for engravers, originally these were the sides on display for most of the time, as the doors were normally kept closed except on feast days or at the request of tourists. However today these images are invisible in museums when the tryptych is displayed open. In these cases imitation of sculpture was intended, sculpture was still more expensive than a painting even by a top master. The ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel have portions of the design in grisaille, Grisaille, while less widespread in the 20th Century, continues as an artistic technique. Pablo Picassos painting Guernica is one contemporary example, hugo Bastidas is a contemporary American painter known for black and white paintings that imitate the effect of grisaille and often resemble black and white photographs. Bastidas’ paintings frequently reference architecture, water, vegetation and art history, and reflect his concern about the condition, globalization. After returning to New York from a Fulbright Fellowship in his native Ecuador in the early 1990s, Bastidas began using a color palette of black. His medium- and large-scale paintings allude to black-and-white photography, and feature contrasting zones of high, by making thousands of marks with a size No.1 hogs bristle brush on linen primed with rabbit-skin glue, Bastidas achieves a high level of image definition. He also works in photography, which informs his subject matter without rendering a photo-realistic effect. With the 20th centurys emphasis on painting, the grisaille technique lost favour with artists of the period. This historic method is still incorporated into the curriculum of some private ateliers, the term is also applied to monochrome painting in other media such as enamels, where an effect similar to a relief in silver may be intended. It is common in stained glass, where the need for sections in different colours was thereby greatly reduced, portions of a window may be done in grisaille — using, for example, silver stain or vitreous paint — while other sections are done in coloured glass. Sepia tone References A Watercolour Demonstration Using Grisaille Notes Jan Gossarts Saint Jerome Penitent using grisaille Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and workshop, Odalisque in Grisaille
34.
Guild of Saint Luke
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The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the saint of artists. One of the most famous such organizations was founded in Antwerp and it continued to function until 1795, although by then it had lost its monopoly and therefore most of its power. In most cities, including Antwerp, the government had given the Guild the power to regulate defined types of trade within the city. Guild membership, as a master, was required for an artist to take on apprentices or to sell paintings to the public. Similar rules existed in Delft, where members could sell paintings in the city or have a shop. The guild of Saint Luke not only represented painters, sculptors, and other artists, but also—especially in the seventeenth century—dealers, amateurs. In traditional guild structures, house-painters and decorators were often in the same guild, however, as artists formed under their own specific guild of St. Luke, particularly in the Netherlands, distinctions were increasingly made. In general, guilds also made judgments on disputes between artists and other artists or their clients, in such ways, it controlled the economic career of an artist working in a specific city, while in different cities they were wholly independent and often competitive against each other. Although it did not become an artistic center until the sixteenth century, Antwerp was one of, if not the first. It is first mentioned in 1382, and was given privileges by the city in 1442. The registers, or Liggeren, from the guild exist, cataloging when artists became masters, who the dean for each year was, what their specialities were, and the names of any students. Perhaps because of this link, for a period they had a rule that all miniatures needed a tiny mark to identify the artist, only under special privileges, such as court artist, could an artist effectively practice their craft without holding membership in the guild. Membership also allowed members to sell works at the guild-owned showroom, Antwerp, for example, opened a market stall for selling paintings in front of the cathedral in 1460, and Bruges followed in 1482. Guilds of St. Luke in the Dutch Republic began to reinvent themselves as cities there changed over to Protestant rule, many St. Luke guilds reissued charters to protect the interests of local painters from the influx of southern talent from places like Antwerp and Bruges. Many cities in the republic became more important artistic centres in the late sixteenth. Amsterdam was the first city to reissue a St. Lukes charter after the reformation in 1579, and it included painters, sculptors, engravers, for example, Gouda, Rotterdam, and Delft, all founded guilds between 1609 and 1611. On the other hand, these distinctions did not take effect at that time in Amsterdam or Haarlem, in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, however, a strict hierarchy was attempted in 1631 with panel painters at the top, though this hierarchy was eventually rejected
35.
Reggio Calabria
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Reggio di Calabria, commonly known as Reggio Calabria listen or simply Reggio in Southern Italy, is the biggest city and the most populated comune of Calabria, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Metropolitan City of Reggio Calabria, Reggio is located on the toe of the Italian Peninsula and is separated from the island of Sicily by the Strait of Messina. It is situated on the slopes of the Aspromonte, a long, about 560,000 people live in the metropolitan area, recognised in 2015 by Italian Republic as a metropolitan city. The region has been subject to earthquakes and it is a major economic center for regional services and transport on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. Reggio, with Naples and Taranto, is home to one of the most important archaeological museums, Reggio is the seat, since 1907, of the Archeological Superintendence of Bruttium and Lucania. The city center, consisting primarily of Liberty buildings, has a development along the coast with parallel streets. The city was an Italian candidate to become the European Capital of Culture. in 2019, during its 3, 500-year history Reggio has often been renamed. Each name corresponds with the major historical phases, Recion. Erythrà, the pre-Greek settlement populated by the Italic people, Rhégion, the Greek city from the archaic age to the Magna Grecia age, from the 8th to the 3rd centuries BC. Febèa, a period under Dionysius II of Syracuse, in the 4th century BC. Regium, its first Latin name, during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, rhègium Julium, as a noble Roman city during the Imperial age. Rivàh, Arabic name under the domination by Emirate of Sicily. Rìsa, under the Normans, between the 11th and 12th centuries, regols, Aragonese name under the Crown of Aragon, in the late 13th century. Reggio or Regio, usual Italian name in the Middle and Modern age, règgio di Calàbria, post Italian Unification. The toponym of the city is derived from Chaldean word Rec or maybe from the Greek one régnȳmi referring to the Straits between Calabria and Sicily as a break in the land. The sculptor Léarchos was at Reggio at the end of the 15th century BC, the land around Reggio was first known as Saturnia, or Neptunia, and later Italia, which in Roman times became the name of the whole Italian peninsula. After Cumae, Reggio is one of the oldest Greek colonies in southern Italy, the colony was settled by the inhabitants of Chalcis in 730 or 743 BC on the site of the older settlement, Erythrà, meaning the Red one. This dated back to the 3rd millennium BC and was established by the Ausones
36.
Sicily
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Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is an autonomous Region of Italy, along with surrounding minor islands, Sicily is located in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula, from which it is separated by the narrow Strait of Messina. Its most prominent landmark is Mount Etna, the tallest active volcano in Europe, the island has a typical Mediterranean climate. The earliest archaeological evidence of activity on the island dates from as early as 12,000 BC. It became part of Italy in 1860 following the Expedition of the Thousand, a revolt led by Giuseppe Garibaldi during the Italian unification, Sicily was given special status as an autonomous region after the Italian constitutional referendum of 1946. Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially regard to the arts, music, literature, cuisine. It is also home to important archaeological and ancient sites, such as the Necropolis of Pantalica, the Valley of the Temples, Sicily has a roughly triangular shape, earning it the name Trinacria. To the east, it is separated from the Italian mainland by the Strait of Messina, about 3 km wide in the north, and about 16 km wide in the southern part. The northern and southern coasts are each about 280 km long measured as a line, while the eastern coast measures around 180 km. The total area of the island is 25,711 km2, the terrain of inland Sicily is mostly hilly and is intensively cultivated wherever possible. Along the northern coast, the ranges of Madonie,2,000 m, Nebrodi,1,800 m. The cone of Mount Etna dominates the eastern coast, in the southeast lie the lower Hyblaean Mountains,1,000 m. The mines of the Enna and Caltanissetta districts were part of a leading sulphur-producing area throughout the 19th century, Sicily and its surrounding small islands have some highly active volcanoes. Mount Etna is the largest active volcano in Europe and still casts black ash over the island with its ever-present eruptions and it currently stands 3,329 metres high, though this varies with summit eruptions, the mountain is 21 m lower now than it was in 1981. It is the highest mountain in Italy south of the Alps, Etna covers an area of 1,190 km2 with a basal circumference of 140 km. This makes it by far the largest of the three volcanoes in Italy, being about two and a half times the height of the next largest, Mount Vesuvius. In Greek Mythology, the deadly monster Typhon was trapped under the mountain by Zeus, Mount Etna is widely regarded as a cultural symbol and icon of Sicily. The Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, to the northeast of mainland Sicily form a volcanic complex, the three volcanoes of Vulcano, Vulcanello and Lipari are also currently active, although the latter is usually dormant
37.
Giulio Clovio
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Giorgio Giulio Clovio or Juraj Julije Klović was a Croatian-born illuminator, miniaturist, and painter born in the Kingdom of Croatia, who was mostly active in Renaissance Italy. He is considered the greatest illuminator of the Italian High Renaissance, Giulio Clovio was born in Grižane, a village near the town of Modruš in Kingdom of Croatia. He came from a Croatian family and it is not known where he had his early training, but he may have studied art with monks at Fiume of Novi Bazar when he was young. He moved to Italy at age 18 and entered the household of Cardinal Marino Grimani where he was trained as a painter, between 1516 and ca 1523 Clovio may have lived with Marino in the residence of the latter’s uncle Cardinal Domenico Grimani in Rome. Clovio studied under Giulio Romano during this early period and he also studied under Girolamo dai Libri. While a protégé of Cardinal Domenico Grimani Clovio engraved medals and seals for him, by 1524 Clovio was at Buda, at the Hungarian court of King Louis II, for whom he painted the Judgment of Paris and Lucretia. After Louis death in the Battle of Mohács, Clovio travelled to Rome where he continued his career, after 1527 he visited several monasteries of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine. In 1534 Clovio returned to the household of Cardinal Marino Grimani, Clovio likely returned to Rome by the end of 1538 when he is known to have met with the writer Francisco de Hollanda. Clovio later became a member of the household of Alessandro Farnese with whom he would be associated until his death and it was during his time with Farnese that Clovio created one of his masterpieces, the Farnese Hours. Other well-known works from this include the illustrations for the Towneley Lectionary. From 1551 to 1553 Clovio is known to have worked in Florence, during this time he painted a miniature of Eleanor of Toledo. Clovio was a friend of the much younger El Greco, the celebrated Greek artist from Crete, Greco painted two portraits of Clovio, one shows the four painters whom he considered as his masters, in this Clovio is side by side with Michelangelo, Titian and Raphael. Clovio was also known as Michelangelo of the miniature, books with his miniatures became famous primarily due to his skilled illustrations. He was persuasive in transferring the style of Italian high Renaissance painting into the miniature format, pieter Bruegel the Elder was a personal friend of Giulio Clovio, and stayed with Clovio in Rome during his Italian trip of 1553. Breugel executed a medallion depicting ships in a storm on a Clovio miniature of the Last Judgment. Clovio illuminated the Commentary of Marino Grimani on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans and this work is now in the Sir John Soane Museum in London. The commentary consists of 130 vellums, two large miniatures are included, as well as richly decorated borders. The miniatures depict the conversion of St Paul and his most famous work is the Farnese Hours, completed in 1546 for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, which was nine years in the making
38.
Blackletter
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Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century. It continued to be used for the Danish language until 1875, Fraktur is a notable script of this type, and sometimes the entire group of Blackletter faces is incorrectly referred to as Fraktur. Blackletter is sometimes called Old English, but it is not to be confused with the Old English language, despite the popular, though mistaken, belief that the language was written with blackletter. The Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, language predates blackletter by many centuries, Carolingian minuscule was the direct ancestor of blackletter. Blackletter developed from Carolingian as an increasingly literate 12th-century Europe required new books in different subjects. New universities were founded, each producing books for business, law, grammar, history and these books needed to be produced quickly to keep up with demand. Carolingian, though legible, was time-consuming and labour-intensive to produce and its large size consumed a lot of manuscript space in a time when writing materials were very costly. The term Gothic was first used to describe this script in 15th-century Italy, in the midst of the Renaissance, Gothic was a synonym for barbaric. Flavio Biondo, in Italia Illustrata thought it was invented by the Lombards after their invasion of Italy in the 6th century. Not only were black-letter forms called Gothic script, but any other seemingly barbarian script, such as Visigothic, Beneventan and this in contrast to Carolingian minuscule, a highly legible script which the Humanists called littera antiqua, wrongly believing that it was the script used by the Romans. It was in fact invented in the reign of Charlemagne, although only used significantly after that era, the black letter should not be confused either with the ancient alphabet of the Gothic language, nor with the sans-serif typefaces that are also sometimes called Gothic. Textualis, also known as textura or Gothic bookhand, was the most calligraphic form of black letter, johannes Gutenberg carved a textualis typeface – including a large number of ligatures and common abbreviations – when he printed his 42-line Bible. However, the textualis was rarely used for typefaces afterwards, according to Dutch scholar Gerard Lieftinck, the pinnacle of black-letter use occurred in the 14th and 15th centuries. For Lieftinck, the highest form of textualis was littera textualis formata, the usual form, simply littera textualis, was used for literary works and university texts. Lieftincks third form, littera textualis currens, was the form of black letter, extremely difficult to read and used for textual glosses. Textualis was most widely used in France, the Low Countries, England, some characteristics of the script are, tall, narrow letters, as compared to their Carolingian counterparts. Ascenders are vertical and often end in sharp finials when a letter with a bow is followed by letter with a bow, the bows overlap. A related characteristic is the r, the shape of r when attached to other letters with bows, only the bow and tail were written
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Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle
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He was also a notable art collector, the greatest private collector of his time, the friend and patron of Titian and Leoni and many other artists. He was born in the Free Imperial City of Ornans, now in France and he was ordained into the priesthood in 1540. In his episcopal capacity he attended several diets of the empire, as well as the meetings of the Council of Trent. The influence of his father, now chancellor, led to Granvelle being entrusted with many difficult, in the execution of these tasks he developed a talent for diplomacy, while at the same time acquiring an intimate acquaintance with most of the currents of European politics. In the following year he and Simon Renard, the ambassador of Charles V to the Queen Mary I of England, conducted the negotiations for the marriage of Mary and Philip II of Spain. It was to Philip in 1555, on the abdication of the emperor, that Granvelle transferred his services, and by whom he was employed in the Netherlands. After a visit to Rome in 1565, in November 1566 he was appointed as member of the Congregation of Principi, in the same year he became viceroy of Naples, a post of some difficulty and danger, which for five years he occupied with ability and success. He was summoned to Madrid in 1575 by Philip II to be president of the council for Italian affairs. In the same year he was archbishop of Besançon, but meanwhile he had been stricken with a lingering disease, he was never enthroned. His body was taken to Besançon Cathedral, where his father had been buried, brueghels friend, the sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck had a studio in Granvelles palace in Brussels. Whilst in the Netherlands, he discovered Antonis Mor and introduced him to the Madrid court, the arrangements were handled by Hans von Aachen. Though he was painted by Titian and Mor, more famous than any portrait of Granvelle himself is the portrait of his dwarf and his mastiff by Mor, which perhaps initiated the Spanish tradition of portraits of court dwarfs. The Flemish Renaissance humanist Justus Lipsius was Granvelles secretary for a period in Rome and he also corresponded with the composers Lassus and Adrian Willaert He had a magnificent library, some of which remains at Besançon. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
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Habsburg
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The House of Habsburg, also called House of Hapsburg, or House of Austria, was one of the most influential royal houses of Europe. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs between 1438 and 1740, from the sixteenth century, following the reign of Charles V, the dynasty was split between its Austrian and Spanish branches. Although they ruled distinct territories, they maintained close relations. The House takes its name from Habsburg Castle, a built in the 1020s in present-day Switzerland, in the canton of Aargau, by Count Radbot of Klettgau. His grandson Otto II was the first to take the name as his own. The House of Habsburg gathered dynastic momentum through the 11th, 12th, by 1276, Count Radbots seventh generation descendant Rudolph of Habsburg had moved the familys power base from Habsburg Castle to the Duchy of Austria. Rudolph had become King of Germany in 1273, and the dynasty of the House of Habsburg was truly entrenched in 1276 when Rudolph became ruler of Austria, which the Habsburgs ruled until 1918. A series of dynastic marriages enabled the family to expand its domains to include Burgundy, Spain and its colonial empire, Bohemia, Hungary. In the 16th century, the separated into the senior Habsburg Spain and the junior Habsburg Monarchy branches. The House of Habsburg became extinct in the 18th century, the senior Spanish branch ended upon the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and was replaced by the House of Bourbon. It was succeeded by the Vaudemont branch of the House of Lorraine, the new successor house styled itself formally as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, although it was often referred to as simply the House of Habsburg. His grandson Radbot, Count of Habsburg founded the Habsburg Castle, the origins of the castles name, located in what is now the Swiss canton of Aargau, are uncertain. There is disagreement on whether the name is derived from the High German Habichtsburg, or from the Middle High German word hab/hap meaning ford, the first documented use of the name by the dynasty itself has been traced to the year 1108. The Habsburg Castle was the seat in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. The Habsburgs expanded their influence through arranged marriages and by gaining political privileges, in the 13th century, the house aimed its marriage policy at families in Upper Alsace and Swabia. They were also able to high positions in the church hierarchy for their members. Territorially, they often profited from the extinction of other families such as the House of Kyburg. By the second half of the 13th century, count Rudolph IV had become one of the most influential territorial lords in the area between the Vosges Mountains and Lake Constance
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Jan Brueghel the Elder
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Jan Brueghel the Elder was a Flemish painter and draughtsman. He was the son of the eminent Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel the Elder, a close friend of, and regular collaborator with, Rubens, the two artists were the leading Flemish painters in the first three decades of the 17th century. He was an important innovator who created new types of such as flower garland paintings, paradise landscapes. He further created genre paintings that were imitations, pastiches and reworkings of his fathers works and he was court painter of the Archduke and Duchess Albrecht and Isabella, the governors of the Southern Netherlands. The artist was nicknamed Velvet Brueghel, Flower Brueghel, and Paradise Brueghel, the first is believed to have been given him because of his mastery in the rendering of fabrics. The second nickname is a reference to his specialization in flower still lifes and these paintings have now been reattributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder. Jan Brueghel the Elder was born in Brussels as the son of Pieter Brueghel the Elder and his mother was the daughter of prominent Flemish Renaissance artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Mayken Verhulst. His father died about a year after Jans birth in 1569, Mayken Verhulst was an artist in her own right. The early Flemish biographer Karel van Mander wrote in his Schilder-boeck published in 1604 that Mayken was the first art teacher of her two grandsons and she taught them drawing and watercolor painting of miniatures. Jan and his brother may also have trained with local artists in Brussels who were active as tapestry designers, Jan and his brother Pieter were then sent to Antwerp to study oil painting. According to Karel van Mander he studied under Peter Goetkint, an important dealer with a collection of paintings in his shop. Goetkint died on 15 July 1583 not very long after Jan had started his training and it is possible that Jan continued his studies in this shop, which was taken over by Goetkints widow as no other master is recorded. It was common for Flemish painters of that time to travel to Italy to complete their studies, Jan Brueghel left for Italy, first traveling to Cologne where his sister Marie and her family lived. He later visited Frankenthal, an important cultural centre where a number of Flemish landscape artists were active and he then went to Naples after probably spending time in Venice. In Naples he produced after June 1590 a number of drawings and he worked for Don Francesco Caracciolo, a prominent nobleman and priest and founder of the Clerics Regular Minor. Jan produced small-scale decorative work for Don Francesco, Brueghel left Naples for Rome where he resided from 1592 to 1594. Paul Bril was a landscape specialist from Antwerp who had moved to Rome at the end of the 16th century, together with his brother Mathijs Bril, he created atmospheric landscapes for many Roman residences. Brueghel took inspiration from Brils lively drawings and small-scale landscapes of the mid-1590s, during his time in Rome Jan Brueghel became acquainted with Hans Rottenhammer, a German painter of small highly finished cabinet paintings on copper
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Chapel Church
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The Church of Our Lady of the Chapel, or the Chapel Church is a Roman Catholic church situated in the Marolles district of Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 1134 by Godfrey I of Leuven near what were then the town ramparts, part of the structure was damaged by the French during the bombardment of Brussels in 1695 as part of the War of the Grand Alliance. It was restored in 1866 and again in 1989 and it contains work by Jerôme Duquesnoy and Lucas Faydherbe. Pieter Bruegel the Elder was buried in this church, the funeral monument erected by his sons in his honour is still in place. Part of the relics of Saint Boniface of Brussels, Bishop of Lausanne, are buried here. List of churches in Brussels Brussels-Chapel railway station, a station which takes its name from the church
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The Procession to Calvary (Bruegel)
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The Procession to Calvary is an oil-on-panel by Flemish renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder of Christ carrying the Cross set in a large landscape, painted in 1564. It is in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and this is the second-largest known painting by Bruegel. It is one of sixteen paintings by him which are listed in the inventory of the wealthy Antwerp collector, Niclaes Jonghelinck and it was Jonghelinck who commissioned the Months from Bruegel and he may also have commissioned this work. Jonghelincks Bruegels passed into the possession of the city of Antwerp in the year in which the inventory was made. In 1604 it was recorded in the Prague collections of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, then transferred to Vienna, for Bruegel the composition is unusually traditional. Perhaps because he was treating such a religious event, he adopted a well-known scheme, used previously by the Brunswick Monogrammist and Bruegels Antwerp contemporary. Bruegels treatment of landscape evolves in the course of his career from the birds-eye views, impossibly sheer outcrops of rock like this one at left characterize the landscape tradition of the Antwerp school founded by Joachim Patinir. Patinirs followers - in particular Herri met de Bles, Matthys Cock and Cornelis Matsys - had turned his style into a popular, the sequence of Bruegels landscape drawings and of the landscape in his paintings shows the gradual abandonment of this formula. In this case, however, his desire to convey the rocky, in a detail such as this at right, Bruegels painting possesses a vividness which would seem to come from his observation of contemporary life. Public executions were a feature of 16th century life, especially in troubled Flanders. Here Bruegel shows the two thieves who were to hang on either side of Christ being trundled to the place of execution, anachronistically, both clutch crucifixes and are making their final confessions to the cowled priests beside them. The thieves, their confessors and the spectators who surround the cart are all in contemporary dress. In Bruegels day public executions were well attended occasions which had the air of festivals or carnivals, here Bruegel shows the absolute indifference of the gawping crowds to the fear and misery of the condemned men. It is noteworthy that Bruegel makes no distinction between the two thieves, one of whom Christ was to bless. The sacred figures - the fainting Virgin assisted by Saint John and they act out their own, apparently independent, drama, largely unnoticed by the figures behind them. Larger than the figures and isolated from them, are the Virgin. Michael Francis Gibson wrote a book entitled The Mill and the Cross, which served as the basis for the 2011 film The Mill. The film sets into their historical context in sixteenth-century Flanders the characters in the painting, the films stars Rutger Hauer as Bruegel and Michael York as his patron Niclaes Jonghelinck
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Michelangelo
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime, he has since described as one of the greatest artists of all time. A number of Michelangelos works of painting, sculpture, and architecture rank among the most famous in existence and he sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. As an architect, Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian Library, at the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peters Basilica. Michelangelo transformed the plan so that the end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification. Michelangelo was unique as the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive, in his lifetime he was often called Il Divino. One of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his terribilità, the attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelos impassioned and highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, at the time of Michelangelos birth, his father was the Judicial administrator of the small town of Caprese and local administrator of Chiusi. Michelangelos mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, the Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa, this claim remains unproven, but Michelangelo himself believed it. Several months after Michelangelos birth, the returned to Florence. There Michelangelo gained his love for marble, as Giorgio Vasari quotes him, If there is good in me. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, as a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches, the city of Florence was at that time the greatest centre of the arts and learning in Italy. Art was sponsored by the Signoria, by the merchant guilds and by patrons such as the Medici. The Renaissance, a renewal of Classical scholarship and the arts, had its first flowering in Florence, the sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti had laboured for fifty years to create the bronze doors of the Baptistry, which Michelangelo was to describe as The Gates of Paradise. The exterior niches of the Church of Orsanmichele contained a gallery of works by the most acclaimed sculptors of Florence – Donatello, Ghiberti, Andrea del Verrocchio, and Nanni di Banco. The interiors of the churches were covered with frescos, begun by Giotto. During Michelangelos childhood, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican, among them was Domenico Ghirlandaio, a master in fresco painting, perspective, figure drawing, and portraiture who had the largest workshop in Florence at that period
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Leonardo da Vinci
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He has been variously called the father of palaeontology, ichnology, and architecture, and is widely considered one of the greatest painters of all time. Sometimes credited with the inventions of the parachute, helicopter and tank, many historians and scholars regard Leonardo as the prime exemplar of the Universal Genius or Renaissance Man, an individual of unquenchable curiosity and feverishly inventive imagination. Much of his working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded to him by Francis I of France, Leonardo was, and is, renowned primarily as a painter. Among his works, the Mona Lisa is the most famous and most parodied portrait, Leonardos drawing of the Vitruvian Man is also regarded as a cultural icon, being reproduced on items as varied as the euro coin, textbooks, and T-shirts. Perhaps fifteen of his paintings have survived, Leonardo is revered for his technological ingenuity. He conceptualised flying machines, a type of armoured fighting vehicle, concentrated power, an adding machine. Some of his inventions, however, such as an automated bobbin winder. A number of Leonardos most practical inventions are nowadays displayed as working models at the Museum of Vinci. He made substantial discoveries in anatomy, civil engineering, geology, optics, and hydrodynamics, today, Leonardo is widely considered one of the most diversely talented individuals ever to have lived. Leonardo was born on 15 April 1452 at the hour of the night in the Tuscan hill town of Vinci. He was the son of the wealthy Messer Piero Fruosino di Antonio da Vinci, a Florentine legal notary, and Caterina. Leonardo had no surname in the modern sense – da Vinci simply meaning of Vinci, his birth name was Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci, meaning Leonardo. The inclusion of the title ser indicated that Leonardos father was a gentleman, little is known about Leonardos early life. He spent his first five years in the hamlet of Anchiano in the home of his mother and his father had married a sixteen-year-old girl named Albiera Amadori, who loved Leonardo but died young in 1465 without children. When Leonardo was sixteen, his father married again to twenty-year-old Francesca Lanfredini, pieros legitimate heirs were born from his third wife Margherita di Guglielmo and his fourth and final wife, Lucrezia Cortigiani. Leonardo received an education in Latin, geometry and mathematics. In later life, Leonardo recorded only two childhood incidents, one, which he regarded as an omen, was when a kite dropped from the sky and hovered over his cradle, its tail feathers brushing his face
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Martin Luther
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Martin Luther, O. S. A. was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation. Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church and he strongly disputed the Catholic view on indulgences as he understood it to be, that freedom from Gods punishment for sin could be purchased with money. Luther proposed a discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. His translation of the Bible into the vernacular made it accessible to the laity. It fostered the development of a version of the German language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced the writing of an English translation. His hymns influenced the development of singing in Protestant churches and his marriage to Katharina von Bora, a former nun, set a model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant clergy to marry. In two of his works, Luther expressed antagonistic views towards Jews, writing that Jewish homes and synagogues should be destroyed, their money confiscated. Condemned by virtually every Lutheran denomination, these statements and their influence on antisemitism have contributed to his controversial status, Martin Luther was born to Hans Luder and his wife Margarethe on 10 November 1483 in Eisleben, Saxony, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. He was baptized as a Catholic the next morning on the feast day of St. Martin of Tours and his family moved to Mansfeld in 1484, where his father was a leaseholder of copper mines and smelters and served as one of four citizen representatives on the local council. He had several brothers and sisters, and is known to have close to one of them. Hans Luther was ambitious for himself and his family, and he was determined to see Martin, his eldest son, become a lawyer. He sent Martin to Latin schools in Mansfeld, then Magdeburg in 1497, where he attended a school operated by a lay group called the Brethren of the Common Life, the three schools focused on the so-called trivium, grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Luther later compared his education there to purgatory and hell, in 1501, at the age of 19, he entered the University of Erfurt, which he later described as a beerhouse and whorehouse. He was made to wake at four every morning for what has been described as a day of rote learning and he received his masters degree in 1505. In accordance with his fathers wishes, Luther enrolled in law school at the university that year but dropped out almost immediately. Luther sought assurances about life and was drawn to theology and philosophy, expressing particular interest in Aristotle, William of Ockham, philosophy proved to be unsatisfying, offering assurance about the use of reason but none about loving God, which to Luther was more important. Reason could not lead men to God, he felt, for Luther, reason could be used to question men and institutions, but not God. Human beings could learn about God only through divine revelation, he believed and he later attributed his decision to an event, on 2 July 1505, he was returning to university on horseback after a trip home
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