Panchronia

Northern Renaissance

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c. 1430 – 1580 · Europe · painting · origin: Ghent, Flanders

Oil paint and a magnifying eye: the world as an endless sum of exact, symbol-laden things

Northern Renaissance
Pieter Brueghel the Younger · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

How to recognise it

Why it emerged

The rich trading towns of Flanders and the Burgundian court commissioned altarpieces and portraits, and the oil technique perfected by van Eyck could capture sheen and texture. Later, printmaking and the Reformation shifted attention from altars to portraits, landscape and daily life.

Examples

Ghent Altarpiece1432 · Hubert and Jan van EyckA manifesto of oil painting: 24 panels of unheard-of detail; the most stolen artwork everArnolfini Portrait1434 · Jan van EyckOne of the first full-length double portraits in a room; the painter appears in the convex mirrorThe Garden of Earthly Delightsc. 1500 · Hieronymus BoschA fantastical triptych from Eden to Hell; the Surrealists hailed Bosch as a forerunnerThe Ambassadors1533 · Hans Holbein the YoungerAn anamorphic skull legible only from the side: painting's most famous optical puzzleThe Hunters in the Snow1565 · Pieter Bruegel the ElderFrom the Seasons cycle: peasant winter as a full subject; quoted in Tarkovsky's Solaris

More in this style

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