AP Euro - 1.3 - Northern Renaissance

How did the Renaissance spread?

Renaissance ideas spread north of the Italian alps into the European continent by the printing press.

Northern Renaissance

• Maintained the main ideas of the Renaissance

• While some Renaissance thinkers in Italy proposed individualism and secularism, thinkers in the Northern Renaissance retained a more religious (Christian) framework for their thought

Northern Renaissance Art

• Still naturalistic

• More human-centered, meaning it considered ordinary objects and people as appropriate subjects for art

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

From the Dutch and Flemish Renaissance

Painted “Netherlandish Proverbs,” which depicted peasants and animals who were the subjects of Netherlandish proverbs

• Not only were ordinary subjects depicted, but those on the bottom of the social ladder as well, mainly peasants

• It still had naturalism-the people and setting looked real

Painted “The Procession to Calvary,” which depicted Christ carrying his cross to the place of his execution

Rembrandt

From the Dutch Renaissance

Painted “Slaughtered Ox”

• NOT an elitist theme from the Italian Renaissance

• Rather, it was a scene from ordinary life

Painted “Return of the Prodigal Son,” a depiction of a parable spoken by Jesus in the New Testament

Christian Humanism

• Had a preoccupation with Greek and Roman classics

• Humanistic thought was synthesized with Christian traditions

  • This meant that Northern Renaissance thinkers also sought out early Christian writings, especially from Saint Augustine and Jerome

  • They found a Christianity that seemed far simpler and more pure, so they wanted to return to that simplicity

• Led to an impulse for reform in the Northern Renaissance since humans were considered to be much more capable than previously believed (with some religious enthusiasm)

Erasmus

• Wrote “In Praise of Folly,” a satire which was written to:

  • undermine political and social institutions

  • criticize the corrupt aspects of religious hierarchies

• Believed that education in the classics and the Bible was the first step in lasting societal reform

  • Such renewals should be based not on secular principles but on what he called the Philosophy of Christ

Philosophy of Christ

Emphasized individual morality and spirituality