The Northern Renaissance: 1500s

While the Renaissance was happening in Italy, great artistic and social changes occurred in Germany and the Low Countries. A bias in favor of Italian art among earlier generalizations of scholars made Italy the focus of artistic invention and the Northern Renaissance was seen as a less sophisticated imitation of the real thing. One might debate whether the North experienced a Renaissance, but the artistic, institutional, and intellectual changes are evident. Discover Grünewald, Bosch, Dürer, Bruegel, Holbein and other extraordinary artists from this period.

A pendant triptych in boxwood and feathers reveals the dynamic global interactions between Europe and the Americas in the 1500s

A Renaissance miniature in wood and feathers

schongauer grid — The portability and affordability of prints contributed to the exchange of information and ideas between cultures.

Printmaking in Europe, c. 1400−1800

Queen Elizabeth grid — Queen Elizabeth I rarely commissioned portraits of herself, but her courtiers certainly did of the Virgin Queen

Portraits of Elizabeth I: Fashioning the Virgin ...

Snakes, frogs, and lizards, oh my!

Follower of Bernard Palissy, rustic platter

From seductive centerfolds to noble savages, images of the naked human body played a complex and sometimes troubling role in European culture.

Confronting power and violence in the renaissance ...

In the late sixteenth century, European publications about the Americas had few illustrations, so printmakers felt free to invent imagery about the peoples and lands across the Atlantic.

Johannes Stradanus and Theodoor Galle, “The Discovery ...

Left: Apollo Belvedere, c. 150 C.E., Roman copy of a original bronze statue of 330-320 B.C.E. (Vatican Museums); right: detail. Theodor de Bry, Christopher Columbus arrives in America, 1594, etching and text in letterpress, 18.6 c 19.6 cm (Rijksmuseum) — De Bry's images of the Americas affirm and assert a sense of European superiority.

Inventing “America” for Europe: Theodore de Bry

Albrecht Dürer, Melencolia I, 1514, engraving, 24.45 x 19.37 cm (Minneapolis Institute of Art) — Explore Dürer's masterful "psychological self-portrait" and the hidden meanings of the various objects in it.

Decoding art: Dürer’s Melencolia I

Was Dürer Melancholic? At times, yes.

What is Melencolia?

Angel, Albrecht Dürer, The Four Horsemen, from The Apocalypse,1498, woodcut, 38.7 x 27.9 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) — Dürer combined the corporeality of Italian art with the detail and emotive narration of northern European art.

Who was Albrecht Dürer?

Himmel , Adoration of the Magi, stained glass detail — Flashed or stained? Discover the historical techniques required to produce—and restore—this vibrant glass painting.

The conservator’s eye: a stained glass Adoration ...

Hans Holbein Dance of Death — Care to waltz? In Holbein’s time, death was a visible part of life—the dance partner from which no one could hide.

About Hans Holbein the Younger

Albrecht Dürer and others, The Triumphal Arch, c. 1515, woodcut printed from 192 individual blocks, 357 x 295 cm, Germany © Trustees of the British Museum. — Emperor Maximilian I employed Dürer to create a Triumphal Arch. It remains one of the largest prints ever produced.

Albrecht Dürer, The Triumphal Arch

Bernard van Orley and Pieter de Pannemaker, The Last Supper, ca. 1524–46 (design), ca. 1525–28 (woven), wool, silk, silver-gilt thread, 131 7/8 x 137 13/16" / 335 x 350 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) — Faded though it is, this tapestry retains its breathtaking illusionism: veins pop, wine flows, and hair curls.

Bernard van Orley and Pieter de Pannemaker, ...

Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve, 1504, engraving (fourth state), 25.1 x 20 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)-detail — What detail! Dürer studied the human body obsessively and spent four years working on this print. It shows.

Albrecht Dürer, Adam and Eve

Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait, Study of a Hand and a Pillow (recto); Six Studies of Pillows (verso), 1493, pen and brown ink, 10 15/16 x 7 15/16" / 27.8 x 20.2 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)-detail — It takes talent to turn an ordinary object into a work of art, but Dürer’s hand was up to the task.

Albrecht Dürer, Self-portrait, Study of a Hand ...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (Winter) (detail) — Join the birds and soar through this frozen landscape. On the pond below, playful scenes warm the air.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the ...

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peasant Wedding (detail), oil on canvas, 114 x 164 cm (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) — Bruegel offers up a slice of peasant life. Despite our historical distance, this is a wedding party we can attend.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peasant Wedding

Albrecht Dürer's woodcuts and engravings — Have print, will travel. New technologies of mechanical reproduction allowed Dürer to circulate his artistic ideas.

Albrecht Dürer’s woodcuts and engravings

Jan Gossaert, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna, c. 1515-25 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) — Without historical sources, what gives an artist authority to depict the divine? Gossaert channels St. Luke.

Jan Gossaert, Saint Luke Painting the Madonna