The Annunciation by Joos van Cleve

Joos van Cleve - The Annunciation - ca. 1525 - Oil on panel, 86 x 80 cm - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (click photo for larger image)Netherlandish painter Joos van Cleve (ca. 1480-1540) is known for his portraits of royalty and his religious paintings. He is now often identified with the “Master of the Death of the Virgin” although that isn’t our particular theme for the period of Advent (a season observed in many Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus). Joos’ work is facile, eclectic and conservative, and he generally altered his style only to agree with the changes in fashion. Nevertheless, he was a fine painter and a successful one. He entered the Antwerp guild as a master painter, and in 1520 he was appointed its dean. He received a number of commissions from Cologne, where he influenced the local school of painting.  

Joos’ painting of the Annunciation takes place in a fully furnished, sixteenth century bedchamber. There is a bed, a prie-dieu, a chair, a dresser, a sconce, a pewter dish and jug, a stone vase, a cloth, and a chandelier. Netherlandish painters had a remarkable ability to render works in extraordinary detail, without making the overall scene appear cluttered or overdone.

Here is the Met’s description of this exquisite painting:

Gabriel and Mary are presented within an elaborately furnished interior that would have been familiar to sixteenth-century viewers. However, most of the objects, arranged unobtrusively within the room, carry symbolic meaning. The altarpiece and the woodcut on the wall, for example, show Old Testament prophets as prefigurations of New Testament themes. Influenced by Italian art, Joos appropriated a new canon of beauty, a new repertory of rhetorical gesture, and a striking grace of movement in his figures.

A Nativity by Juan de Flandes

Juan de Flandes - The Nativity - c. 1508-19 - Oil on panel, 111 x 79 cm - National Gallery of Art, Washington (click photo for larger image)The Web Gallery of Art tells us that “[t]he name by which Spanish documents refer to Juan de Flandes simply means John or Jan of Flanders. Juan is first recorded as working for Queen Isabel in 1496; two years later he is mentioned as her court artist.

Juan de Flandes (ca. 1465 - 1519) demonstrated a preference for clearly articulated space and refined color schemes. Characteristic of paintings from the city of Ghent, charming narrative vignettes frequently enlivened the backgrounds of Juan's pictures.

The Nativity is one of the six surviving panels of an altarpiece from the main chapel in the Church of San Lázaro, Palencia, in northern Castile.

Juan's Nativity, as with many religious scenes, amplifies a biblical episode with theological references. The Gospel of Luke writes that the baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Here, however, the child is naked and lies on his mother's robe upon the ground, implying that the son of god was poorer than the humblest son of man. The ox and ass, eating from the straw-filled manger, are not mentioned together in Luke. The Book of Isaiah, however, states that these beasts knew their master and his crib. Since a grain storage crib relates directly to Luke's feeding manger, early Christian scholars believed that Isaiah's prophesy was fulfilled when even the livestock would recognize Jesus as their master.

Meanwhile, illuminating the starry night, concentric rings of divine light emanate from the angel appearing to the shepherds on the distant hilltop. Perched on the ruined stable, an owl may refer to the nocturnal darkness dispelled by the coming of Christ.”

Albrech Altdorfer: Steps Toward a Landscape Genre

Albrecht Altdorfer - The Battle of Alexander at Issos - 1529 - Oil tempera on wood, 158 x 120 cm - Alte Pinakothek, Munich (click photo for larger image)German painter and printmaker Albrecht Altdorfer (c. 1480-1538) studied in Austria, where he came into contact with engravings by both Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) and Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431-1506). Altdorfer settled and spent the rest of his career in Regensburg, specializing in religious and historical subjects. 

Like some other artists of the Reformation era, Altdorfer’s emphasis was less on the religious aspects of his work than on the landscape. He became one of the most important representatives of the Danube School of Painting, which was dominated by an interest in landscape. 

His most important work is The Battle of Alexander at Issos, featured here. Its subject is the victory of the young Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. over the Persian army of King Darius. The painting suggests a sense of infinity through its use of panoramic landscape and thousands of minute figures. This represented a new development in battle painting. The landscape is more significant than the figures in this work, yet another step along the way to the actual development of a true landscape genre (sans people).

“The Adoration of the Magi”

Pieter Bruegel the Younger - “Adoration of the Magi” - 1600 - Oil on panel, 38 x 56 cm - Museo Correr, Venice (click photo for larger image)Pieter Bruegel the Elder - “Adoration of the Kings in the Snow” - 1567 - Tempera on panel, 35 x 55 cm - Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur (click photo for larger image)

The son of the great Pieter Bruegel the Elder, (1525/30-1569), Pieter Bruegel the Younger, (1564-1638) produced rather superficial but invariably charming paintings based on his father's celebrated works. After a lapse of decades he revived these tender and moving scenes of peasant life, with their deep humanity and pragmatic realism. In Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s earlier interpretation of the same scene, the artist has presented it as a “natural event and the life of the people in a village in wintertime.” His (the Elder's) may well be the first painting in the history of European art to depict falling snow. Both of these paintings bring the Birth of Christ to the Netherlands.

Netherlandish painting; Northern Renaissance

Pieter Aertsen - Cook in Front of the Stove - 1559 - Oil on wood, 172,5 x 82 cm - Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (click photo for larger image)Even though he never painted a picture not containing a human figure, Netherlandish painter Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575) played an essential role in the emergence of the still-life by granting a dominating place to objects and to victuals, which he represents in all their triviality. While it’s very apparent that every element was keenly observed by the artist—the image has nonetheless been recomposed in the studio. “What cook would place small fowls and a heavy leg of lamb on the same spit?” It’s also worth noting that this artist was also an early contributor to what would become genre painting—scenes of everyday people leading everyday lives.

IMAGE 473 AERTSEN: Pieter Aertsen - Cook in Front of the Stove - 1559 - Oil on wood, 172,5 x 82 cm - Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels

Netherlandish painting; Northern Renaissance