HUM-2020 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Ghent Altarpiece, Jan Van Eyck, Giovanni Arnolfini
Document Summary
North was much more pessimistic, more mercantile class, having money is the big thing, not necessarily being an aristocrat, more secular paintings, art market starts in north because of ports in. Florence, the greater time it takes the renaissance to reach you. One of the greatest painters who defines the northern renaissance through ghent altarpiece. Has been taken down and hidden during the rise of protestantism. Late gothic and first great work of northern renaissance. People are paying money to buy art as d cor for their homes. Lot of mystery surrounding painting; we don"t know why he commissioned it but he signed it. Exemplfies pessimistic nature of the north with his painting descent from the cross. Characters in painting are given very real emotion. Martin luther- made the characters of his paintings really weird, almost as if they were sets off a chain reaction that he will have a hard time containing after it happens demons.
