Layered Narratives: The Northern Renaissance Gallery

The Northern Renaissance European Sculpture and Decorative Arts 1520–1630

Introduction

Works of art shaped the Renaissance, a rediscovery of antiquity that began in the fifteenth century. Traders and traveling artisans spread prints illustrating Greek and Roman art, architecture, and manuscripts across the Alps from Italy. In Northern Europe the Renaissance joined with the Reformation, which destabilized Catholic dominance and introduced new Protestant denominations. With the Bible and ancient philosophy as inspiration, humanist scholars reshaped discussions on art, religion, and society.

The Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) dominated northern lands and united hundreds of independent territories and imperial city-states. Conflicts between religious groups, peasant wars against oppressive aristocracy, and brutal clashes with neighboring nations kept these social and political boundaries in flux. Dealings with European colonial powers, who were exploiting people and land overseas, added to the region’s wealth as merchant networks aggressively extended their markets.

In this complex society, art expressed belonging and belief. Royals, competing fiercely to commission artists, understood that it instilled awe and projected power. Valued for their refinement, the marvels in this gallery were objects of encounter, knowledge, wonder, and personal meaning. Many were specially placed in Kunst-und-Wunderkammern, the art and science collections that were the first step toward today’s museums. Now they offer a window into the past.

Under the Empire’s Wing

The Holy Roman Empire was an unstable conglomerate of dispersed territories—small political and religious units with ever-changing borders, each under constant pressure of dissolution. Visual representations of this structure commonly show the shields of each territory shadowed under the protective wing of a double-headed eagle symbolizing the empire. Rulers belonged to privileged social ranks, from princes, bishops, and abbots to patricians and merchants in the free imperial cities. They answered only to the Holy Roman emperor, who was chosen by the territorial rulers of highest rank, the seven electors. After 1555, the head of a territory determined its religion—many choosing Lutheranism—and people had to convert or leave. Some Protestant leaders confiscated the wealth of Catholic institutions, melting down precious-metal artworks for coin. Between 1520 and 1630 the Holy Roman emperors were exclusively members of the Catholic Habsburg dynasty, such as Maximilian II, Charles V, and Rudolf II.

Collecting

Kunst-und-Wunderkammern, the cabinets of art and wonder that arose in the Northern Renaissance, were collections created as places of amusement, retreats for scientific investigation, and political showcases of magnificence. Rulers who possessed these precious, strange, and wondrous works of art and nature gained social capital that bolstered their reputations. Kunstkammern displayed objects both local and foreign as European colonization aggressively expanded trade networks for luxury goods. Colonial works represent European expansion, but they were also regarded as objects of knowledge, curiosity, and admiration. As observation of nature joined religious doctrine as a means to understand the world, intellectuals examined previously unknown natural materials promising new discoveries that might further reveal God’s design through nature.

Stained Glass and the Reformation

In the early sixteenth century, stained window glass was ubiquitous across Northern Europe. It adorned churches, cloisters, private chapels, guild halls, and even hospices. Glaziers, the artisans who specialized in this medium, translated designs into pieces of glass joined together by strips of a lead framework known as “came.” Thin layers of colored glass or enamel were applied over a colorless base and fused at a low temperature to create a rich palette. Widespread in its use, stained glass featured subject matter ranging from coats of arms to the Passion of Christ. Catholics worshipped images of the divine, but Protestant communities were divided: some accepted imagery taken from the Old Testament as useful didactics, while others believed images were harmful distractions. The production of religious subjects slowed when iconoclasts destroyed many church windows, but panels designed for civic or domestic settings remained popular.

Religious Symbolism

The production and ostentatious display of religious art was a contested aspect of Northern Renaissance culture after the Reformation. Catholic practice accepted art to encourage empathetic identification with the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. Artworks, incense, and candlelight were used strategically in celebrations of Mass. Many courts remained Catholic, and their patronage supported sculptors, painters, and goldsmiths. Even as iconoclasm—the practice of destroying religious imagery in public spaces—spread, Christian subjects dominated art production. Protestantism relocated much religious instruction to the home, where domestic furnishings could convey moral ideas as they were used. Certain materials also maintained Christian symbolism across denominational divides. While man-made representations could never fully convey divine infinity, when lit by flickering candlelight, luminous materials like ivory, alabaster, or rock crystal could come close to creating a sense of heavenly presence.

Labor and Craftsmanship

Protestants believed that commissioning artworks for the church could not help one’s soul ascend to heaven (as Catholic doctrine suggested), however some saw everyday work itself as an opportunity to serve God. Idleness was regarded as immoral, whereas those who labored for their living, no matter how poor, maintained respectability. At the same time, inequality was embedded in society and poverty was considered inevitable. Most wealthy landowners did not earn their own living but relied on their serfs’ toil. Different types of labor were restricted to certain groups divided along lines of gender, class, and geographic area. Artisans’ work was largely regulated by the guild system. Mundane activities of artisanal practice like preparing raw materials, usually done by apprentices or servants, were rarely recorded, and thus our understanding of artistic production is partial. Precious works by non-European artisans, such as decorated shells or mother-of-pearl, were appreciated and further embellished with mounts.

Ritual

Across courts, cities, and rural fortifications, works of decorative art were essential to daily practices in sixteenth-century Europe. Private rituals aided devotion or shaped family life, and public rituals established or confirmed the boundaries that defined an individual’s identity within their community. Rituals marked peoples’ movement from one social state to another or marked the passage of time. For Catholics, commissioning works of art for the church was thought to help the soul ascend to heaven. From vestments to censers, the apparatus of Catholic ritual were often made from precious material and lavishly decorated. Protestants discouraged devotion to the Virgin Mary but maintained rites of their own, and customs of mourning and marriage were marked with works of art. Most rituals had a religious dimension, but some were performed in predominantly political contexts by princely rulers, nobility, guild leaders, or civil councils to mark exchanges and maintain social structure.

Entertainment

Games were integral to social life for princes and peasants alike, and people amused themselves in similar ways across social strata. More than just fun, drinking rituals served social functions such as proving personal honor and strength through competition or celebrating important life events. Toasts could mark greetings or farewells and were indispensable as legitimate legal transactions. Although authors often cited religion to condemn drunkenness and vanity, religious scenes were common subjects for domestic drinking. Protestant households likely used serving vessels for moral instruction. While games of chance were largely considered sinful vices, games like chess were valuable tools for the instruction of potential rulers because they helped develop the strategic skills necessary on the battlefield or at the negotiating table. Game boards for playing chess, backgammon, and trictrac (an early French variant of backgammon), were common diplomatic gifts and display objects in Kunstkammern, or cabinets of art and wonder.

Personal Adornment

Like today, clothing and jewelry during the Renaissance visualized gender, class, and cultural difference. Apparel distinguished commoners from the merchant class and the clergy and nobility, who were often exempt from taxes. Sumptuary laws prescribed the materials people at different levels of the social hierarchy could wear. Despite regulation, cloth and jewels became more ambiguous markers of social difference as merchants, bankers, and even some artisans became wealthier during the sixteenth century. Jewels could identify their owners as members of special groups: a knight of the Hohenzollern dynasty’s Order of the Swan may have worn a swan pin like the one in this case. Precious stones were thought to have protective or medicinal properties, described in books called lapidaries. Often imported from India, their incorporation into jewelry could guard wearers from physical or spiritual harm. Some pendants functioned as displays of wealth and taste and as protective amulets or medicines.

Mobility

Global trade surged during the sixteenth century, forging new connections between different cultures and allowing art and ideas to travel. Europeans established colonial outposts in the Caribbean, North America, and Southeast Asia at great human cost. The artworks, materials, patterns, and motifs that they took home transformed the world of goods available in Northern Europe. As merchants travelled, the commodities they brought back prompted the development of new object types and activities not seen previously in Europe. Within Europe artisans circulated among the courts, sometimes escaping from jealous patrons or religious persecution. They brought with them their technical knowledge and in some cases essential raw materials. Easily transportable artworks travelled with rulers across the patchwork quilt of the Holy Roman Empire, safely stored in chests or collectors’ cabinets decorated with woods and shells brought from great distances overseas.

Encounter

Many works of art from the 1500s and 1600s reflect the increasingly frequent encounters between Europeans and the broader world. In the sixteenth century, members of the Habsburg family ruled in the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, and Portugal, and their courts remained closely linked. Though the loose political structure of the Holy Roman Empire could not support imperial colonization, individuals within it still participated in and benefited from violent efforts to conquer other continents. Materials like silver, wood, and shell from the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and North America circulated widely in Northern Europe, as did racialized representations of people from these regions. Despite the presence of both free and enslaved Black Africans in Europe—especially at courts and in the Netherlandish port cities—most Europeans assumed the supremacy of their own civilization and increasingly allegorized the other continents as bountiful regions available for Western exploitation.

Virtuosity

As pursuits such as turning ivory, practicing alchemy, or goldsmithing were legitimized as ways of studying natural forces, they also became leisure activities fit for the princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Technical knowledge was tied to political authority, morality, and wisdom. Aristocrats who honed wide-ranging skills were believed to have the fundamental traits of a good ruler, such as self-mastery and practical wisdom. Some skilled crafts were part of a courtly education, and many princes competed to acquire the most innovative tools and earn renown for their abilities. Many of the marvels they made ushered in significant advancements with a lasting influence on technology and even international politics. Outside the courts, virtuosic artisans were also honored for their practice. Masterpieces, the culmination of a journeyman’s skill required for admission to a guild, are some of the most refined and valued works of art from this period.

Study

The intellectual culture of the courts and cities of the Holy Roman Empire embraced Christian humanism, which combined the interest in ancient Greek and Roman myths with stories from the Old and New Testament that served religious progress. Rulers recruited Italian artists to work at court and collected works by northern artists who had traveled to Italy and explored the styles and subjects made popular there. Ancient history, mythology, and religious parables were all common subjects for artists working in the north who experimented with the idealized bodies depicted in ancient sculpture. Northern art also embraced naturalism as the observation of nature and its variety became more accepted in humanist circles as a legitimate way of understanding the world. Fascinated by accounts of heroism, virtue, and wonder, courtiers and patricians from across the north collected works of art that embodied their sophisticated knowledge of the world.

Technology

As the many courts of the Holy Roman Empire competed, powerful rulers supported technological and mechanical developments to advance visionary products and processes. Works made with rapidly advancing technologies such as steam power, glassmaking, and clockwork were highly prized and displayed in princely Kunst-und-Wunderkammern, or cabinets of art and wonder, to spark discussion among a ruler’s worthy guests. As much display pieces as timekeepers, the most valued clocks demonstrated the advanced character of their interior mechanisms through splendidly decorated cases and complex dials. Clocks were also understood as allegories of rulership: a disciplined society ran with the regularity of a clock, and the devices had been associated with wisdom, temperance, and prudence since the fifteenth century. Some theorists described God as the greatest of all clockmakers, setting the vast mechanism of the cosmos in motion. Tempus fugit—time flies, and even the most marvelous creations will eventually fall to ruin.