Existing comment:
European Art -- Society Divided: Religion & Art in 17th-Century Northern Europe:
Before the 16th century, Christians in northern Europe were united in their belief that images were useful for devotion and the papacy was the seat of religious authority. But these two major beliefs were challenged by Reformation theologists such as Martin Luther and John Calvin, and civil wars eventually separated the Protestant north from the Catholic south. In 1579, the Protestant northern Netherlands (what we sometimes call Holland) declared their political and religious independence from Spain, which separated them from the Catholic south and led to the traumatic division of a country once united by culture and language.
One consequence of this division was a change in attitude toward the function of images. Whereas earlier European art was sometimes marked by differences of style and emphasis, religious images were now not only used in different ways, but made in different ways. Some northern artists like Hendrick van Loon and Matthias Stomer went to Italy, where they could continue to make religious altarpieces and seek commissions. Dutch artists active in Rome mostly chose to follow the naturalistic style of Caravaggio. In the Catholic southern Netherlands, where they were influenced by Counter-Reformation theology, Flemish artists such as Jan Breughel the Elder, Jacob Jardaens, and Peter Paul Rubens particularly served as a kind of official Counter-Reformation artist to the many Catholic courts of Baroque Europe.
In the northern Netherlands, the situation was even more complex. Although images for worship were prohibited, artists such as Pieter Lastman continued to produce them, if only for private devotion. Other Dutch artists sought to present moral messages overtly or covertly through their works by means of other subjects, even, some argue, with still lifes or genre painting. Many turned to the Old Testament for stories with moral meanings, as in the poignant Jan Steen in this gallery. The stark interior of the Dutch church by Anthonic Delorme tells the story very well -- it is not a religious image but an image for religion itself. |