Southern and High Northern Renaissance

¶ … Southern and High Northern Renaissance

From the end of the 14th through the 15th century, the Renaissance age flourished in first Italy, specifically, and then Northern Europe. By investigating the artists who were instrumental in this era, as well as the cultures of the regions, one begins to see the similarities and differences between the Early Southern Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. This paper will compare and contrast these two views by making reference to Shakespeare, Pico, Michaelangelo, and Durer.

Shakespeare's Hamlet's soliloquy that begins...What a piece of work is man... illustrates the conflicted nature not only of the character Hamlet himself, but of the Renaissance culture, in general, for both the Southern and Northern Renaissance.

Both regions enjoyed an explosion of artistic expression in art, writing, performance, and music, unlike anything experienced previously. The limits of this expression seemed infinite. Yet, despite all of this beauty being created, both Italy and Northern Europe were in political and religious turmoil. It is as if, through Hamlet, Shakespeare is saying, "What does all of this beauty and art matter with the struggles and the strife surrounding us?"

Shakespeare called for human dignity and reason above all else, even religion, and this was common of both the Southern and Northern Renaissance's dedication to humanism. and, notes the tendency for Northern Renaissance artists to express their doubt regarding the state of humanity.

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's change in life course echoes the Renaissance philosophy. Named as a papal protonotary at the age of 10, he studied canon law, but then renounced it following the death of his mother and began to study philosophy.

Pico theorized that God had created Man specifically to admire his work on Earth. In his thesis, Oration on the Dignity of Man, he states that God created Heaven and Earth and all its creatures, "but when this work was done, the Divine Artificer still longed for some creature which might comprehend the meaning of so vast an achievement, which might be moved with love at its beauty and smitten with awe at its grandeur" (Pico della Mirandola).

It was this quest for knowledge and appreciation that is the duty of mankind, and was embraced by both the Southern and Northern Renaissance.

In Italy, the Counter-Reformation had a great deal of effect on Renaissance works. As an example, Michelangelo's Cristo della Minerva in the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, in Rome, fell victim to these actions. Just as the bonfires of the vanities saw artwork in various forms destroyed by fire, Michelangelo's sculpture was not safe from harm. The nakedness of Christ was seen as obscene, and as such, a girdle was added to the sculpture to cover his genitals ("Cristo della Minerva"). This is in contrast to Renaissance works in Northern Europe that although they experienced the troubles of religious division with the Reformation, Counter-Reformation and events such as the formation of the Church of England..

German Renaissance artist, Albrecht Durer, also is instrumental in illustrating the differences between the Southern and Northern Renaissances. Durer captures his views of the 'condition of man' eloquently in his print Melencolia I.

Many believe it to be a depiction of humanist writer Cornelius Agrippa's definition of melancholy, Melencholia Imaginativa, in which imagination prevails over reason ("Melencolia I"). Like Shakespeare, Durer demonstrates his belief that without the pursuit of reason mankind's accomplishments, such as mathematics as pictured in his print, are for naught.