In this class, we first took a look at the city Antwerp and talked about the rise of the market there and how that influences artists’ creations. Without the commission by patrons, artists obtain more freedom in their works. But also because of the absence of commission, they need to compete to ensure their works have a market. The consequence is that variety of artworks appear, and artists are forced to find their own specialized niche. The name of the artist is more emphasized and recognizable as well. We then talked a lot about the works by the artists Pieter Bruegel. In his painting Fall of Icarus, there is a moral lesson from the depiction of the falling Icarus–being hubris, i.e., having too much ambition and pride, will let you fall down eventually. What’s amazing is that, in his Netherlandish Proverbs, Bruegel presents 126 proverbs in such a single artwork. For example, the guy in the lower right who hits his head towards walls represents foolishness and an “ambitious idiot”. Because his paintings are so popular, Bruegel himself, his workshop, his son, and other artist make copies of his works, which reveals that people at that time have no problem at all on copies and copyright issues. There’s also a humanistic feature embedded in his paintings, where harmony between nature and humans is depicted and humans look so small in proportion to nature.
The term genre painting refers to paintings that depict scenes of everyday life. The moral genre is those where a moral agenda is contained. Some examples include Quentin Massys (Metsys)’s The Money Changer and His Wife, which warns people that the growing business may distract people’s attention so that they may not value religion as they should. Johannes Vermeer’s Woman with a balance also makes an interesting comparison and juxtaposition between the weighting of jewels by the woman and the weighting of souls in Last Judgement in the background painting.
What’s stood out to me finally is the skulls in mirrors, an element that appears in several paintings such as Hans Baldung Grien’s Three Ages of Woman and Death, Baldung Grien’s Vanitas, and Lukas Furtenagel’s Hans Burgkmair and his wife. This shows the metaphor of mirror–self-reflection–as well as the metaphor that “no matter what’s your status in society you are going to die eventually.”