AHIS 120g 1st Edition Lecture 16Current LectureRenaissance painting in Northern Europe- As the 14th century came to an end, the medieval agrarian economy was giving away to aneconomy based on manufacturing and trade, activities that took place in urban centers.- A social shift accompanied this economic change.o Most city dwellers belonged to the middle classes, whose upper ranks enjoyedliterature, leisure and disposable income.- Two of the most far-reaching changes concerned increased literacy and changed in religiousexpression. - A new style of visual art that stressed naturalism accompanied social and political changes.o New ranks of society—bureaucrats and merchants—also became art patrons.o Using oil paints, artists in the Netherlands made paintings with a closeapproximation to optical reality.o By the midcentury, this strongly naturalistic style became the dominant visuallanguage of northern Europe, attracting patrons from all classes and many countries.Courtly art: the International Gothic- The French court prized expensive, custom-made illuminated manuscripts similar to thosefrom the Medieval Ages.- Tres Riches Heures is one of the most famous examples of the Limbourg Brothers, and aprime example of the International Gothic Style.o The most famous pages in the book are dedicated to the calendar and depict humanactivities and the cycle of nature. Such image cycles, originally consisting of 12 single figures each performingan appropriate seasonal activity, were an established tradition in medievalart.o In this manuscript, the calendar pages depict aristocrats and peasants in detailedand elegant images in activities appropriate to the month represented.  The calendar page for July notes the passage of time in several ways: asemicircular section at the top marks the days numerically and includes theastrological signs for the month. Below this, the labor of the month is performed, as peasants harvest wheatand shear sheep in fields. The page depicts the orderly harvesting of a fruitful earth by the peacefulpeasantry for the eyes of the man who owns the castle. This idealized view of the social order of feudalism is achieved by combiningthe portrait of the castle and naturalistic details of the sheep with artificialspace that rises up the picture plane rather than receding into depth.Urban centers and the new art: Flanders- An early pioneer of the naturalistic revolution is Robert Campin from Belgium. o Catered to the tastes of fellow citizens, such as the two donors shown kneelingoutside the Virgin’s chamber. - Mérode Altarpiece (1425)o The name derives from an early owner of the painting, but the subject of the centralpanel is the Annunciation.o Traditionally, earlier representations of the Annunciation set the event in anecclesiastical building or other sacred space but Campin places the Virgin and theangel in the main room of a bourgeois, well-furnished house. Figures are furthermore rendered as real people, with mass and weight. The drapery of their garments falls in deep folds, anchoring the figures to thefloor.o The whole effect is of time frozen: something important is about to happen.o Details are rendered in such a way as to make every object appear possible in itsshape, size, color and texture. o Two uses of light. One is of a diffused kind that creates soft shadows and delicate gradations ofbrightness. The other is more direct and enters through the two round windows, castingshadows on the wall.o The color scheme, with its muted tonality, unifies all three panels; his bright colorshave richness and depth, and he achieves smooth transitions from lights into darks,possible by the use of