Northern Renaissance

The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that happened in Europe north of the Alps. It started later than the Italian Renaissance and began in the late 1400s. It looked different in different countries.

Early Netherlandish painting is often part of the Northern Renaissance. In cities like Bruges and Antwerp, rich merchants helped artists. This led to more sharing of culture with Italy. But, Gothic styles stayed in art and buildings until Baroque styles came.

In France, King Francis I brought in Italian artists like Leonardo da Vinci to build big palaces. In England, kings and important people such as Henry VII of England, Henry VIII, and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey brought in Renaissance styles.

Universities and printed books helped spread Renaissance ideas across France, the Low Countries, the Holy Roman Empire, Scandinavia, and Britain. Writers like Rabelais, Pierre de Ronsard, Desiderius Erasmus, William Shakespeare, and Christopher Marlowe wrote important works. The Northern Renaissance was also linked to the Protestant Reformation.

Overview

As the Renaissance began, feudalism was losing its strength. This happened for several reasons: life after the Plague, the use of money instead of land for trading, more people becoming free, nations forming with kings who wanted less power for feudal lords, new weapons making old armies less useful, and better farming methods producing more food. These changes helped create the Renaissance in Europe.

The printing press was very important in spreading the Renaissance across Europe. It made it easier to share information, help science, and spread political ideas. Books in everyday languages and ancient texts in Greek and Latin became more common. The Bible was also translated and shared widely, which helped the Protestant Reformation grow.

Age of Discovery

Main article: Age of Discovery

During the Renaissance, a new kind of ship called the caravel was made. This ship mixed ideas from Europe and North Africa, allowing long trips across the Atlantic for the first time. Italian explorers such as Giovanni Caboto, Giovanni da Verrazzano, and Columbus used these ships at first. Later, countries like Portugal, Spain, France, England, and the Netherlands grew strong by trading with Africa, Asia, and starting settlements in the Americas. This time of exploration is known as the Age of Discovery. Soon, European influence spread around the world.

Painting and sculpture

See also: Early Netherlandish painting, Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, and Northern Mannerism

Early Netherlandish painting often had deep meanings, and experts talk about "hidden messages" in works by artists like Hubert and Jan van Eyck.

The very detailed realism in Early Netherlandish painting, led by Robert Campin and Jan van Eyck in the 1420s and 1430s, is now seen as the start of the early Northern Renaissance in painting. This style was admired in Italy, but Italian styles didn’t really affect the North until the late 1400s. Even though ideas were shared, the Antwerp Mannerists (1500–1530) were some of the first artists in the Low Countries to show Italian influences.

Around this time, Albrecht Dürer traveled to Italy twice, where people loved his prints. Dürer was inspired by what he saw and is considered one of the first painters of the Northern High Renaissance. Other famous northern painters such as Hans Holbein the Elder and Jean Fouquet kept older styles, while artists like Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder created their own unique styles. In the late 1500s, northern painters often visited Rome and became known as the Romanists. The famous works of Michelangelo and Raphael, along with new styles from Italy, greatly influenced them.

While Italian painters often focused on stories from ancient Greece and Rome, northern painters often painted religious scenes. But in the 1500s, both groups began to paint more similar subjects, like mythological stories and scenes from history. Northern Renaissance painters also began to paint new topics, such as landscapes and everyday life scenes called genre painting.

As Renaissance art spread through northern Europe, it changed to fit local traditions. In England and the northern Netherlands, changes in religious ideas almost stopped religious painting. Even though England had many talented artists of the Tudor Court, portrait painting took a long time to become popular beyond royalty. In France, the School of Fontainebleau began with Italian artists like Rosso Fiorentino and created its own lasting style. By the late 1500s, artists such as Karel van Mander and Hendrik Goltzius gathered in Haarlem during a short but strong period of Northern Mannerism that also reached Flanders.