Protestant Reformation
This shift in patronage, prompted by the rise of Protestantism, led Northern European artists to focus more on portraits, landscapes, and still lifes instead of large church commissions.
What is the decline of religious art commissions due to iconoclasm and Protestant theology?
This powerful banking family used art patronage to present themselves as enlightened civic leaders in 15th-century Florence.
Who are the Medici?
In this monumental fresco in the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo’s compressed space and muscular, twisting figures signal a shift away from classical balance.
What is the Last Judgment?
This famous High Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo, housed in St. Peter's Basilica, depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Christ after the Crucifixion.
What is the Pieta?
This country’s Protestant regions saw artists turning away from religious imagery, while its southern Catholic areas continued to support Counter-Reformation art.
What is the Netherlands (the Dutch Republic vs. Flanders)?
This sculptor’s bronze David—commissioned by the Medici—was one way the family aligned themselves with civic heroism and classical ideals.
Who is Donatello?
This late architectural project by Michelangelo features intentionally awkward stair forms and unconventional proportions, reflecting Mannerist experimentation.
What is the Laurentian Library (or describe it)?
This Florentine fresco from the 1420s by Masaccio is celebrated as the first painting to use systematic linear perspective to create a realistic, recessed chapel.
What is the Holy Trinity?
This major theological figure’s rejection of religious images influenced artistic production in Germany and the Low Countries.
Who is Martin Luther?
This architect was backed by the Medici in projects that helped define Florentine civic identity, including the dome of the cathedral.
Who is Filippo Brunelleschi?
Michelangelo’s later work emphasized emotional intensity, dynamic poses, and expressive distortion—qualities associated with this emerging style.
What is Mannerism?
This early 16th-century German altarpiece, created by Matthias Grünewald for a hospital, is known for its intensely graphic and emotional depiction of Christ's suffering, designed to provide comfort to patients with diseases like ergotism, or "St. Anthony's Fire".
What is the Isenheim Altarpiece?
Artists in Protestant regions often favored this print-based medium, which allowed for wide circulation of moralizing or satirical subjects.
What is engraving or woodcut printmaking?
This Medici-supported artist created works for both private chapels and public squares, strengthening the family’s political image.
Who is Michelangelo?
The crowded compositions and dramatic anatomical exaggeration in Michelangelo’s late fresco work contrast with the clarity and harmony of this earlier artistic period.
What is the High Renaissance?
This masterpiece by El Greco, painted for the Church of Santo Tomé in Toledo, depicts a 14th-century local legend in which two saints miraculously appear to bury the count.
What is The Burial of the Count of Orgaz?
Unlike Catholic art used for persuasion and devotion, Protestant art often emphasized these two themes tied to moral behavior and daily living.
What are genre scenes and moralizing imagery?
Medici patronage helped shape the image of this artist, whose later work in the family chapel reinforced their religious authority and prestige.
Who is Michelangelo?
Michelangelo’s unconventional handling of the human form in his late works influenced these later 16th-century painters who embraced elongated bodies and complex spatial tensions.
Who are the Mannerists (e.g., Pontormo, Rosso Fiorentino, Parmigianino, Bronzino)?
This 1533 Northern Renaissance painting by Hans Holbein the Younger features an array of scientific instruments, a broken lute string, and a hidden crucifix, alluding to the religious discord of the Reformation.
What is The French Ambassadors?