I think that our discussion on compassion was extremely interesting. The idea of suffering is prevalent in many forms in the pieces we have looked at. In many cases, there are many iterations of Jesus suffering on the cross or other figures who are going suffering through other tragedies. I think it is interesting to look into the intent of why the artist portrays these ideas. In many cases, the audience for these works can relate to the suffering that the subject of the art is going through. It validates their struggles and gives them a sense of security. It is also very human in nature to sympathize with people who are going through similar hardships, which makes Jesus seem all the more human

In Thursday’s class we began by discussing Tilman Riemenschneider’s Altar of the Holy Blood. This was the first altarpiece we have covered that included 3-dimensional sculptures, and this one was carved out of limewood, and the accompanying frame was carved by a carpenter. Professor Plesch told us that the artist and the carpenter were paid the same amount for their work (and that the carpenter actually ended up making more than the artist from tips he received for the work), which made me think a lot about how different our society’s perception of artists’ work and time has changed since this altarpiece was made—artists can make mind-blowing amounts of money from individual pieces nowadays, which was clearly not the case in Riemenschneider’s time. The Altar of the Holy Blood also contains a drop of the blood of Jesus Christ, a relic, that drew lots of tourists (on pilgrimage or out of fascination) to the town, which was good for the local economy. I wonder if this was part of the motivation behind the iconoclasm during the Reformation—if Martin Luther (and the Protestants that began to follow him) viewed the relics and physical (artistic) appreciations of God in Catholic churches as “indulgences” then that would all be considered extraneous to the achievement of salvation through faith alone.

In our final class sessions on altarpieces we discussed the inner workings of the Portinari and Isenheim altarpieces. Both stunning works include huge amounts of iconography, some unique to their pieces but some being regularly occurring motifs from other altarpieces we have seen throughout the class. The Portinari altarpiece contains a number of very interesting pieces, from the narrative add in of a pregnant virgin Mary and Joseph fleeing to safety on a donkey outside of the city, to a prominent featuring of the patron’s entire family. Of which we used to date the age of the children and confirm exactly which family they hailed from.

The Isenheim altarpiece was equally as exquisite, if not more, with all of its minute details and narrative flowings. It was made for the Antonite monastery, a monsatery of St. Anthony Abbot. The interesting throughline of the altarpiece was its deep connection to St. Anthony and the healing of those with ergotism. As Christ is featured with much of the same skin conditioning that many of the patients at the monastery were expected to have. It drove home the point, especially with the deeper panels revealing the perfection of Christ’s skin after His resurrection, that those who were lying sick and dying could not only relate with their savior in a deeply personal way, but they could live having hope that their condition would only afflict them for but a moment compared to eternity in perfect health.

These two class sessions were speaking on Jan Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece, Rogier van der Weyden’s Entombment, and the Seilern Triptych. These three were fantastic pieces on their own but they were especially crucial when thinking about northern altarpieces in the renaissance period. Some main takeaways from each of these altarpieces are the Arma Christi (or the arms of Christ), the different ranges of emotionality/a more pathetic approach in the details of the northern altarpieces, and mixture of the technology and iconography that were seen in many of these pieces. We saw that many of the works’ first panels included rather muted tones, with not much vibrant color and rather simple scenes. However as we open up the panels, we get revelations in both the artistic and religious aspects of the pieces.

In the class, we move on talking about the last opening of Matthias Grünewald’s Insenheim Altarpiece. The temptation of St. Anthony, where he was assault by various hybrid creatures, stood out to me. I like the parallel between assault by monsters and assault by illness. Since the audience was mostly the ergotism patients, the lines at the right bottom of the piece aimed to show these followers that the sense of abandon was what you would feel like when you are “assaulted” by illness, and thus you should get prepared for being tempted, as Demo will tempt you even at the last moment of your life. The so-called “the art of dying” that taught people how to die well so that they can go to heaven was new to me and very interesting.

Then we moved on to Tilman Riemenschneider’s Altar of the Holy Blood. That the carpenter, who made the shrine-like structure that housed Riemenschneider’s carvings, got even more money than the artist himself left me a great impression. This revealed the fact that the patrons’ key attention was in its function rather than its aesthetic value.

We also compared different art pieces of Entry into Jerusalem and got the idea that these pieces had the same iconography but distinctive styles and art forms.

Raphael’s The Entombment was discussed lastly and was compared to Pietro Perugino’s Lamentation over the Dead Christ, where the characters were more separated and statue-like. How the personal emotion, political standing, and religious believes were at the same time embedded in the same piece of art was fascinating, showing Raphael’s high skill in artworks.

This class we went over the Altar of the Holy Blood which introduced the importance of relics and at the end went over the Protestant Reformation. The Altar of the Holy Blood is very different than other altarpieces we have discussed so far as it is carved out of wood instead of being a painting. It began to be a popular way to display altarpieces in Germanic areas. This piece specifically was commissioned by the town council as to increase tourism because it was said to have a relic inside of it (drop of Christs blood I think?). This then draws tourists and can profit the town. Relics were very holy and decorated with rich color and detailed boxes to show their divinity. They were seen as a direct channel to God.

We also talked a bit about composition and the importance of how a painting is formatted and the overall color and position choices the artist made. As seen in The Entombment, there is a flow to the picture. The figures make almost a figure eight, which guides our eye throughout the picture, not just at the picture. The highlights and shadows also play a part in which areas stick out to us and which fall to the back, all premeditated ideas of the artist.

In the class we analyzed and discussed Matthias Grunewald’s Insenheim Altarpiece. Here again the importance of context within the renaissance art is raised again. This altarpiece is commissioned for a monastery where monks take care of people with ergotism, a skin disease. Another thing a modern viewer must be aware is that Matthias was not interested in Italian renaissance, but profoundly Germanic. The altarpiece is dedicated to St. Anthony Abbot, as the monks were of Anthonite order (btw Ergotism was known as St. Anthony’s fire in these times).

Grunewald’s expressionist style is what astonished me the most and had the biggest impact on me. The way that he used St. Anthony’s temptations (Saints who the incurable sick people were praying to) to strengthen the faith of the patients, by using expressionist and extremely illicit figures talks a lot about artist’s creativity and ability to identify the crucial elements of the story he is trying to tell and the perfect technique used to do so. Grunewald distorted images with purpose to convey emotion, something frequent in Germanic art, but extremely innovative for the era. Grunewald tried to teach the patients how to die, by using inspiration against pride, as Christians believed devil would come to tempt one right before death so there is no time for remorse.

In the central panel of the second view the contrast of New and Old Testimony was done so effortlessly and without poking one’s eye, but also noticeable. The artist even managed to demonstrate the bias and negative thoughts one should have towards the Jewish part (via dirty vessel). These, on the first sight irrelevant details, are what makes the renaissance artwork special to me, apart from aesthetic side of it. So many layers with so many different meanings all working toward the same direction and doctrine.

Portinari altarpiece is a triptych portraying the Adoration of Shepards, commissioned for Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. The symbolism and attention to detail that created numerous layers of this altarpiece made it stand out to me. In one of the rare cases we have Christ almost defenseless in the center of the painting in the central panel. He is laid down on a sheaf of wheat, which is literally the meaning of the word Bethlehem, the town where Jesus was born.The cow and a donkey used in the first panel are brought in the central one as well, not only to continue the story, but so the viewer through the contrast in their behavior (one is eating the second is looking up) shows the difference between Christians and Jewish people, who failed to recognize the importance of the moment and Christ as Son of God. The piece uses so much detail and symbolism that even the flowers and vases in the bottom of the central panel have a deeper meaning. Blue iris represents royalty, white iris purity of Virgin Mary and red lilies the passion of Christ (foreshadowing). Even the vase is decorated with grapes representing the blood of Christ. The glass containing flowers is transparent, promoting Churches’ theory that if light can go through a glass and not shatter it, so can Virgin Mary give birth ti Christ and remain a virgin. Finally, almost an invisible detail was added by Hugo. Behind a colon and above the cow, devil is painted lurking in the darkness.

It is interesting to see that priests are not in the painting itself, either suggesting that the priest should be standing in front of it, including the piece into the mass itself or that baby Jesus represents a priest. I find it extremely impressive that artists being limited with the technology of those times, managed to add details that were invisible to human eye until modern days. They also had such knowledge of composition as well as religion to seemingly with such ease incorporate so many different symbols and meanings while all of them working together to form a complete painting, whose meaning, just as a painting itself, is composed out of all of these parts.

In this week we started exploring the Northern renaissance and its altars. We talked about the way Norther renaissance artists used Arma Christi to show the passion of Christ and recreate the scene where the specific objects were used in order to evoke emotion. The difference in perspective and artistic expression influenced through religious beliefs can also be seen in the way artists showed Christ’s tomb. In Northern art, Jesus is put in sarcofagus, which metaphorically represented the altar itself. On the other hand, in Esaster Christianity rock covering the cave was usually used to depict Christ’s tomb.

One of the altarpieces we focused on was Van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece. Widely considered a masterpiece, this altarpiece followed the Northern tradition of being able to open and close. As the altarpieces were opened only on special occasion, the inner panels are much more vibrant in color contrasting the panels in the closed view. This made the event when the piece was opened even more sacred and special to viewer. Also, it was impressive to me how the artist managed to vertically include the central classical Deesis arrangement of God, across panels in different sections, metaphorically showing Christ’s sacrifice by painting Agnus Dei. The piece had me thinking about the effect a layered and creative piece could have in religious purposes as well, showing that art was done for a different purpose than for the sake of art itself.

Usually mentioned as one of the most underrated altarpieces of Norther art is van der Weyden’s Entombment. What makes it special is the way it shows suffering (passion) with the goal of waking compassion in the viewer, an extremely important concept in Christianity. Compassion was considered a relationship between two equals, thus, through compassion of Virgin Mary towards Christ and a viewer towards Virgin Mary, one felt closer to God Himself.

In this class, we discussed Hugo van der Goess’ Portinari altarpiece. It is interesting how he included a portrait of the commissioner and his kids. In this painting, we get to see how detail-oriented Florence artists are, and how much they love puns. Goes is able to be very detail-oriented due because he was using oil painting. For example, we are able to see that the flowers the artist chose have meaning, and the amount of petals/flowers he chose for each different type of flower. We see that in these types of altarpieces, they diss other religions. for example, the donkey is eating, not paying attention while the ox is paying attention. The donkey is in a way meant to represent the jews. Something really cool, even to this day, is that behind the ox, the devil is lurking. As I try to make the figure out, I can’t really make it figure out but it goes into play of a greater plan. The devil mustn’t know about Jesus and that he is meant to die for our sin, making him a victim of God’s plan. it is interesting how humans are always blaming the devil for their bad actions and temptations, when it’s all human thought and our deep thoughts. Christ’s nativity is his coming to the world in order for him to die for our sins, making it all God’s plan and the Devil just has to go with it. Matthias Grunewald, Insenheim altarpiece is truly an amazing piece. It opens up two times and each shows a different panel and story. Its purpose is to serve as salvation for sickly people who were being taken care of at the church. Again there is a lot of description and meaning behind the choices of items, like the toilet tin, the glass “kettle”, the bed, and the bath “tub”.