European Art History From 1400

European Art History From 1400 to the Present

One of the most important aspects that Reformation brought about was the rejection of icons and religious images into its practice. This meant that Reformed art tended to have no paintings or sculptures of saints, no images of Christ and none of the imagery that had dominated Christian art to that point, especially in Italy during the period from the 13th to the 16th century (Early Renaissance artists, such as Cimabue or Giotti, painted almost solely representations of Christ or images from the lives of saints, notably from the life of St. Francis, as painted by Giotto).

The fact that the new religion no longer acknowledged the presence of Christ in imagery meant that the artists and painters needed to turn to a different subject of inspiration. This was generally everyday life. There are usually two such situations. The first one revolved around commissions for individual or family portraits. Such examples provided a potentially large demand for painters, given the rising economic importance of middle class families. The other was the simple village scenery, best portrayed in some of Pieter Bruegel's paintings. One such painting is the Peasant Wedding Feast.

The remarkable thing about this painting is that it manages to surprise in a relatively small space and without a remarkable action going on (the participants are all dining), a vast array of characters, individual figures and perceptions, gestures and isolated actions etc. Bruegel manages to inspire himself from everyday life and create icon figures that have nothing to do with the saintly vision and imagery that had been in practice until them. From this point-of-view, on Protestant art, the effect of Reformation is a releasing effect, with the former conceptualization into iconic figures of saints and Christ being transformed in the more relaxed imagery of peasants simply enjoying their time together.

On the other hand, Reformation had a different impact on Catholic art. Especially through its Counter-Reformation process, the Catholic Church wanted to impose a continuance of tradition even in terms of culture and art. This obviously meant, among others, a preservation and exacerbation of icon and religious imagery use in everyday paintings.

One good example of this is a painting of the lamentation by Scipione Pulzone. A traditional image in Catholic art, the act seems greatly increased in intensity in Pulzone's case. Despite the portrayal of a town in the background (as was the tradition during the 14th to 16th centuries), this remains not only lost in the background, but almost entirely conveyed in black, so as not to take away one's attention from the front of the painting.