Today’s class marked the end of our discussion of the High Renaissance in Italy. We ended by discussing the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The first piece we looked at was his blind leading the blind piece, representative of Brugel’s style of poking fun at people to show a lesson. Bruegel, initially from the Netherlands, traveled to Italy and was fascinated by the mountainous landscape in comparison to the flat land he came from so the landscape was often an important part of his artwork. This painting in particular depicts a group of blind men falling in a ditch. It represents the idea of an unsure leader and what can happen if people follow one who also does not know what they are doing. The background is a countryside scene with a church. The scene also could be representative of a statement from Christ speaking about the blind. However, Christ’s word was about spiritual blindness, not human blindness. Bruegel knew this, so the meaning of his painting could be making a statement about the church as an institution.
We then began discussing the Baroque period, defined by emotion and the counter-reformation movement. The Catholic Church was “losing business.” As a result, the Catholic Church underwent the Council of Trent from 1545 to 1563. The goal of these meetings was to fight against the advancements of Protestantism. One of the strategies developed was to use images and art to convince people to be Catholic instead of Protestant.