Northern Renaissance Questions

1. Describe thee differences between Renaissance painting of Northern Europe and that of Italy.
The Northern Renaissance painters had many differences from the Italian Renaissance painters, but the most obvious was the use of everyday objects in their paintings instead of the religious subject matter that many painters of the Italian Renaissance used. The Northern Renaissance painters often used everyday objects because they were not influenced by the Greeks and Roman as the Italian artists were, but were influenced by their own traditions and history. The Northern Renaissance painters, mostly those in the Low Countries, used oil paint as their main medium, allowing for better realism of the objects that they painted, showing truer color and light.

3. Discuss how the paintings of Bruegel and Bosch are alike.
Bruegel’s The Tower of Babel and Bosch’s Garden of Delights do not look very similar at first glance; while Bosch has painted a whimsical world of deceiving delight, Bruegel has painted a gloomy world devoid of hope. These two paintings are similar in subject matter, however, as both demonstrate what can happen when people become too greedy. The paintings are also similar because they both consist of many miniscule people who are over shadowed by much larger objects in the painting, such as the giant animals and eggs in Bosch’s and the overwhelming Tower of Babel in Bruegel’s.

3. Compare El Escorial with an Italian Renaissance building you have studied.
Although Phillip II set out to create a large complex much different from those of the Italian Renaissance, he did not completely succeed. The layout of El Escorial is very similar to that of the Sistine Chapel, both are anchored by majestic domes near the center of each complex and both are surrounded by immense walls. Both complexes are also well-known symbols of Catholicism, although El Escorial was built originally as a symbol of power and wealth and the Sistine Chapel was always meant as a religious sanctuary. The main difference of the two structures is the weight; the Sistine Chapel was built with the weightlessness of the Renaissance in mind while El Escorial was built to contradict the Renaissance, leaving it with a weighty and bulky appearance. Phillip II also wanted to limit the number of paintings in the complex and it only contains a royal coat of arms and statue of St. Lawrence while the Sistine Chapel has some of the greatest artwork in the world.