The Northern Renaissance (review)

Jeffrey Chipps Smith presents a wealth of information crisply and in compact form, thus making the Northern Renaissance accessible to broad audiences through this latest volume in the Arts and Ideas series published by Phaidon. The handsomely produced paperback integrates high quality photographs, most of them in color, within a lively and instructive narrative. Aside from one minor flaw in its layout — the fact that the central portions of several double-page illustrations vanish into the gutter of this tightly bound volume — the book is both attractive and user-friendly in its design.

Unlike most concise period surveys of its kind this volume organizes its subject matter neither by medium, topography, chronology, nor artist, but rather according to contextual and somewhat arbitrary themes that reflect the new directions in art historical scholarship of the last decades. In "Art, Artists and the Marketplace," Smith introduces artists' changing strategies for marketing their production. In the chapter on "Court Art and the Ars Nova," he peruses manuscripts, panel paintings, tapestries, sculpture, and works of precious metal fashioned by artists retained in the courts of powerful patrons. In "Art and the Cities," Smith looks toward public art produced for the great cities of Germany, France, and the Low Countries. "Early Portraits and Domestic Art," scrutinizes selected (self-)portraits from among the best known of the period by Jan van Eyck, the Master of Flémalle, Petrus Christus, and Albrecht Dürer, as well as table decorations and cabinet panels in stained glass for domestic windows. In "Private Devotional Art," the objects studied range from books of hours and other illuminated devotional texts, to tiny carved rosary beads and figurines of the infant Christ. "The Materialization of Faith" presents famous churches and their furnishings, including altarpieces, painted and sculpted. "The Art of Dying Well" investigates the period's preoccupation with death and dying, including funerary monuments and other memorials. "Prints and Printmaking" explains printmaking techniques, explores the uses of prints, and traces the history of these new forms. In "The Knowledgeable Artist" attention is focused on humanism and communication between artists. "Art of Nature and Human Nature" surveys genre scenes, depictions of wild men and witches, and landscapes as well as panorama paintings, including Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. In "Art and theReformation" discussions center on the changes in art and attitudes toward art wrought by Protestant reformers. "Courts, Cities and Collectors" concludes the book with an overview of later sixteenth-century collecting. An epilogue provides glimpses of the afterlife of the period including copies, romanticizations, and popular viewpoints. A glossary of terms, brief artists' biographies, two parallel timelines of art historical and non-art-historical dates, and a map provide handy reference tools; a bibliography suggests further reading; and an index facilitates quick access to specific people, places, and events.

A particularly laudable aspect of the book is the choice of works and breadth of media considered. The inclusion of no-longer-extant house facade murals, portrait medals, table centerpieces, maps, or even a marginal illustration in a printed book lends surprising richness to the volume. The selections likewise reflect the attention that some works have only recently gained in the English-speaking world. Since the objects themselves remain at the center of the discussions, art never loses its agency to become the pawn of overarching historical movements or the mere manifestation of currents of style. The text is extremely readable since the narrative is allowed to build with frequent references to works that have been introduced in previous chapters. Works are often used and reused to demonstrate historical contexts, for example, art represented within art. Most enjoyable is the manner in which certain stories are developed at some length, for example that of the Beautiful Mary of Regensburg. All too often such texts are reduced to formulaic accounts that recite the same kinds of information for every work. Some discussions of specific works are also permitted...