Chapter 13:

Northern Humanism,  Northern Renaisance,  Religious Reformations, and Late Mannerism

1500--1605

 

Columbus’ Face, painted by Alejo Fernández between 1505 and 1536

 

The great rise in Humanism, meaning self-confidence and faith in Humankind, along with the emergence of a wealthy, powerful middle class, brought a new focus to western culture.

 

Bruegel, “Wedding Dance,” 1566

 

            The common Man needed a place in culture.  Humankind wanted to be spoken to in clear, plain, ordinary language, not in fancy poetry, not in Latin which only a few scholars understood.

 

            And while we’re at it, how about religion?  If Man is created in the image of God, shouldn’t he be able to have a direct line, like Pat Robertson does, without having to go through a hierarchy of priests and saints to get the message through?

 

Albrecht Durer (1471—1528), Martin Luther (1483—1546), and William Shakespeare (1564?—1616) would contribute to this new focus.

 

Then, as today, the road to change is often paved by social satirists.

 

Francois Rabelais (1494-1553)

Marguerite of Navarre (1492-1549)

Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

 

            Your “readings” text includes selections from Rabelais’ The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel (p. 20), in which he satirizes church policies:

            “By the way,” said the monk, “if a woman is neither fair nor good, what can you do with her?”                                            “Make her a nun,” said Gargantua.                                        

 

            Gargantua sets up a monastery of his own in  which the inhabitants are beautiful people who are encouraged to be free, learn all the arts, and fall in love.

            Rabelais made fun of tedious religious rules and encouraged the joyful humanism of the Renaissance

 

            Marguerite of Navarre is credited with the authorship of The Heptameron, a collection of dirty stories, much like Boccaccio’s Decameron.

 

            These stories of rape, incest, and seduction, with clergymen as villains, stress the humanistic vision of the world, the celebration of living.

            One typical story tells of Bornet, who plans to share a serving girl with his friend one evening, only to discover later that they actually spent the night with Bornet’s wife!

 

In The Praise of Folly (1509), Erasmus pokes fun at just about everything, as you can see from the selection on page 24 of your “readings” text.

 

            Typical of his attacks is that on lawyers, who he claims deliberately make laws thoroughly complicated and unreadible in order to make their profession seem difficult and justify their exorbitant fees.  “What is actually tedious they consider brilliant.”

 

            These satirists inspired much of the influential work of Shakespeare, Durer, and Luther.

 

            Shakespeare’s greatest gift was the use of language.

 

From his friend, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), Shakespeare learned that English people speak in iambic pentameter.

 

            An iambic foot is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. (“Da Dum”)                             Meter is simply the number of feet per line.  (Pentameter = five feet.)                                           Iambic pentameter is pronounced “da dum da dum da dum da dum da dum.” 

 

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (xvii)

 

            While not every line in Shakespeare’s plays are in perfect iambic pentameter, he has managed to capture natural speech in poetry.  Witness the following famous speech from Macbeth.

 

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

 

            Hamlet starts on page 38.  Read it.  In order to help you out, let’s look at a few scenes together . . .

 

Hamlet sees his father’s ghost.

 

Upset about his father’s murder, Hamlet swears the guards to secrecy and explains that he may pretend to be crazy in order to learn the truth.

 

Confused, Hamlet considers suicide.

 

Polonius, certain of Hamlet’s insanity, tells her to break up with him, while he and Claudius listen in.  (At this point, Hamlet fears all women could be as treacherous as his mother.)

 

Hamlet stages a play that is very much like his father’s murder.

 

Hamlet talks to Gertrude, his mother, as Polonius listens, in Mel Gibson’s rather Freudian interpretation of this scene.

 

            Hamlet is sent away to England, supposedly to recover his sanity.  When he returns, he finds a gravedigger preparing a grave. Not knowing Ophelia has committed suicide, he muses on the death, expressing the very humanistic notion that, in death, we are all equal.

 

            Shakespeare lightens the mood with some puns (words with double meanings) before Hamlet gets serious again.

 

Claudius and Laertes (Ophelia’s brother) plot to kill Hamlet with an unblunted weapon and two kinds of poison in a “friendly” duel.

 

While most versions of Hamlet use contemporary rapiers for the duel, the Mel Gibson version presents a duel as it might have been fought in Denmark in 1200 CE.

 

            In the 1500’s, oil was found in The Carpathian Mountains, and was burned in street lamps to provide light in the Polish town of Krosno.

 

            Northern Mannerist painters like Jan Van Eyck used oil paints to create strong, brilliantly colored works.

 

Among the best of these was Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)

Self-portrait at 22 (1493)

 

            Durer’s work, although often religiously themed, showed an interest in science and human beauty, as in Adam and Eve
1507

 

Christ Among the Doctors (1506)

 

            Durer’s most famous painting is this self-portrait at age 28 (1500), which depicts himself as a Christlike image, perhaps to remind us that talent is God given, or that he is striving to be Christlike.  (Notice the long, mannerist face and fingers.)

 

Matthias Grünewald, c.1475-1528, used the northern styles of light and color, but remained devoted to religious themes.

 

“The Mocking of Christ” (1503) uses physical distortion to portray agony and tragedy, with fleshy, Renaissance style figures.

 

Grunewald’s most famous work was the Isenheim Altarpiece (1515), a work originally attributed to Durer.  As the altar opens, it can be viewed as three separate works.

 

            Again, we see agony in distortion, as a very bloody crucifixion is portrayed.

 

Here we see the use of light and detail we’ve seen in other mannerist works.

 

Elements of the nativity are presented with mystical beauty.

 

The resurrection is portrayed as mystical and glorious.

 

Hieronymus Bosch, (c. 1450 –1516), a devotely religious Dutchman, painted grotesque scenes of people and monsters which George Lucas said influenced Star Wars aliens.  His work is said to have influenced the art form later to be known as surrealism.

 

Exterior of “The Garden of Earthly delights,” (1504) showing Eden, the corruption of Earth, and Hell.

 

You will have to get the analysis of this painting in class.

 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

(1525/30-1569) followed the other painters with a style that focused even further on the middle class.

 

            Although some of his works are rather vulgar, Bruegel’s works are full of detail and images of middle and lower class people enjoying life.

 

The Wedding Dance in the Open Air
1566

 

Childrens’ Games” (1559-60) showing 84 different games

 

Religion in the 16th century

 

Martin Luther was an ordained Catholic priest and a professor of Theology at Wittenberg University, the same school once attended by Hamlet.

 

Many aspects of the Catholic church at the time did not satisfy the needs of the rising middle class with its strong sense of humanism and pride.  The Mass, for instance, was understood by only a few, as it was sung in Latin.  Proud humanists wanted to pray to (and receive penance from) God directly, rather than indirectly, through priests and saints.  The Bible needed to be translated into common languages.

 

            Celibacy among Catholic priests (which had only been officially required in 1022 by Pope Benedict VIII) was considered unnecessary, as were certain mystical aspects of the Mass (transubstantiation, incense, kneeling in obeisance.)  Luther himself married a former nun.

 

On June 13, 1525, Luther married “Katy,” an escaped nun.  They had 6 children.

Portrait of Katharina von Bora, Wife of Martin Luther, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1526)

 

Furthermore, the Catholic church had become corrupt, selling tickets to Heaven via the sale of indulgences and highly questionable relics.

 

            On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther nailed his Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, known as the 95 Theses, on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. 

 

            Luther’s original intention was for his disputes to be made “in house,” but, instead this led to wars and controversy as rulers sought to usurp power originally granted to the church.

 

Henry VIII, as you know, established the Anglican Church (Episcopalian) so he could get divorced and marry Anne Bolyn.)

 

John Calvin (1509-1564) develops the rather dour Calvinism, with the doctrine of predestination in direct opposition to humanism.

 

            Calvin supported a Theocracy and many of his followers became Puritans.

 

Another Protestant leader was Menno Simons (1496–1561), whose original followers were Mennonites.

 

            The broader term for Simon’s followers is Anabaptists, a group that believes in adult baptism, among other things. Today the descendants of the 16th century European movement include Baptists, Amish, Hutterites, Mennonites, and Brethren in Christ

 

The Catholic Church reacts in two ways, when Pope Paul III (1534–49) calls The Council of Trent in 1545: It cleans up the corruption; then it attacks the Protestants.

 

Gian Pietro Cardinal Carafa (later to become Pope Paul IV) was among the leaders of the Roman Inquisition (1542).

 

            Although not as horrible as The Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834), originally established by Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, The Roman Inquisition was established to punish heretics and witches, and to solidify the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

 

            Among the most famous decisions of the Roman Inquisition, was putting De revolutionibus orbium coelestium on the list of banned books because it suggested that the planets revolved around the sun and the Earth was not the center of the universe.

 

            In 1633, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was imprisoned by the Roman Inquisition for proving the Copernican theory with his telescope.

 

            These conflicting religious ideas led to many wars, and to the formation of European states partially based on religion.  Eventually, the rise of humanism would lead to completely new governments, but for that, America will lead the way.

 

Moving west to Spain, we have important contributions to art in many areas.  One is El Greco (1541-1614)

 

“El Greco” means “The Greek.”  His real name was Doménicos Theotocópoulos.  Born in Crete and educated in Venice, he moved to Toledo in 1577, at 36.

 

“The Burial of the Count of Orgaz     (1586-88)  Its fame rested on the 'life-like portrayal of the notable men of Toledo of the time'.

 

“A View of Toledo” (1597-99) one of the earliest independent landscapes in Western art and one of the most dramatic and individual landscapes ever painted. It is not just a ‘View of Toledo',  but a spiritual portrait of the town.

 

El Greco’s “Portrait of Cardinal Guevara” (1596-1600) is not only a masterpiece of Mannerism, with its lush colors and elongated style, but it captures . . .

. . . the face and personality of the Grand Inquisitor of the infamous Spanish Inquisition.

 

The “water torture,”     similar to “waterboarding

 

In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented a printing press process that, with refinements and increased mechanization, remained the principal means of printing until the late 20th century.

 

By 1499,15 million books had been press printed, representing thirty thousand book titles.  This made reading accessible to more of the middle class, and led to the development of the novel, natural outgrowth of the poems, tales, and stories that had been passed on orally for centuries.

 

The most popular subject matter were stories of chivalry and romance, centering around Charlemagne and Roland, Alexander the Great, or King Arthur and his noble knights.

 

The most popular of these is Le Morte D’Arthur by Thomas Malory, published in 1485.

 

            Later in the 16th century, with the continued expansion of the power of the middle class, people got less interested in mythology and romance of the past, and more interested in the real world of the present.  Picaresque novels become popular, in which rogue heroes challenged the authority of those in power.

 

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes (1605, 1616), the first truly modern novel, falls into that category.

 

Long after the age of knighthood, a crazy old man decides to become a knight-errant and sally forth in search of his nemesis, The Great Enchanter.

 

Cervantes’ theme is clearly expressed in Man of La Mancha

 

Music, too, was affected by the rise of the middle class.

 

A Madrigal was a secular composition for two or more voices which became popular with English, French, German, and Spanish composers. The word madrigal is thought to have been derived from mandriali (a short pastoral poem) or from matricale (a rustic song or poem in the mother tongue).

 

The 16th-century madrigal was conceived not as a piece for chorus alone but as vocal chamber music, and it was sometimes based on a text of high literary quality. Outstanding composers of madrigals in this stage were the Dutch Jakob Arcadelt and the Flemish Philippe Verdelot.

 

Later madrigalists were particularly ingenious with passages in which the music assigned to a particular word expresses its meaning, for example, setting riso (smile) to a passage of quick, running notes which imitate laughter, or sospiro (sigh) to a note which falls to the note below. This technique is also known as "word-painting" and can be found not only in madrigals but in other vocal music of the period.