Northern Renaissance Art
Rebirth of Painting in Holland, Flanders & Germany, Fifteenth Century.
Visual Arts Guide

Northern Renaissance (c.1430-1580)

While the Renaissance was emerging in Italy, a similar phenomenon was occurring in the Low Countries of Flanders and Holland, and Germany. Unlike Italian artists, northern painters were not looking to rediscover the spirit of ancient Greece. Instead, they were determined to exploit the full potential of oil painting, and master linear perspective. As in Italy, religious subjects dominated the art of the period, but in more subtle ways and always with an earthy edge. If Italian Renaissance art is dreamy and idealized, Northern art is practical, down-to-earth and dispassionate. This affected the popularity of the painting genres, and we see history painting gradually giving way to portrait art, genre-painting, and still life, especially after the Reformation (c.1520) when the Church in Rome ceased to be a major patron of the arts in Northern Europe.

Artists Of The Northern Renaissance

The greatest artists of the Northern Renaissance were: the Dutchman Jan Van Eyck (joint creator with his brother Hubert of the awesomely realistic Ghent altarpiece, and the first supreme master of portraits in oils, known for his luminous colours and fine detail in works like Man in a Red Turban); the German Albrecht Durer (the finest painter and printmaker of the Northern Renaissance, known for his outstanding draftsmanship, self-portraits, oils, watercolours, woodcuts and engravings); Robert Campin (an elusive but brilliant painter and portrait artist who was a key founder of the Dutch School); the Belgian Roger van der Weyden (the most influential religious and narrative painter of his day, famous for compositions like The Deposition, St Luke Drawing the Virgin, and Descent from the Cross); and the Netherlands artist Hieronymus Bosch (famous for his complex fantasy paintings illustrating the sins of Man).

Adam and Eve (1491-3)
Limewood Sculpture by Tilman
Riemenschneider, the greatest
wood sculptor of the age.

For details of painting and sculpture
south of the Alps, see:

Renaissance Art in Florence
Renaissance Art in Rome
Renaissance Art in Venice

Other Old Masters of the Northern Renaissance include: the German limewood sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider (renowned for his realistic reliefs, busts and freestanding wood sculptures); Lucas Cranach the Elder (one of the foremost figures in the German Renaissance, known for his unusual portraits); the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder (who painted acute observations of ordinary people as well as outstanding landscapes like Hunters in the Snow); Giuseppe Arcimboldo (known for his fantastic facial compositions in vegetables, fish and fruits); the German Hans Holbein the Younger (one of the foremost portraitists of the entire Renaissance period), and the German Mathis Grunewald (the religious extremist and creator of The Isenheim Altarpiece, whose non-realistic dramatic style of art influenced later schools of Expressionism). Curiously, aside from wood-carving, sculpture was never as popular with Northern Renaissance artists, as it was in Italy, although printmaking was more prevalent. The latter was closely connected to German interest in the printing process, which culminated in the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1450s.

• For other art movements and periods, see: History of Art.
• For styles of painting and sculpture in Ireland, see: Irish Art

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