Points to Ponder, Late Gothic & Renaissance Art in N. Europe Gallery

Wainscot panels

      Phillips, the Art Museum's architect, installed these originally  blue and gold wainscot panels in Gallery 3, which was installed as the Italian Renaissance gallery.
      These gilt wood panels were acquired from the Stanford White estate. The historic wainscot panels were originally cabinet doors in the library of the historic Villa Palmieri near Florence on one of the many occasions when the building was remodeled. Its most famous tenant, Boccaccio wrote his Decamerone there.
      The blue color of the panels was changed to turquoise when the room was reinstalled as a North European Renaissance art gallery.
      Some think that the wainscoting might have been OK for an Italian renaissance room, but is too gaudy and dominant for this more delicate North European gallery, and takes away from the beautiful paintings, displayed here.
 

 

 

 Madonna of the Cherries

Quentin Masseys made for 4 copies of this painting. We don't know who has the original. All copies hang in well-known museums.
 


  		Head Reliquary 15th century

Mitchel Merling. Curator, mentioned in a walk-through in December 2000:

It is copper-gilt. It dates probably from the 14th century.

The semi-precious stones were added much later.

  		Virgin and Child in an Apse c. 1539

Artist: Follower of Robert Campin, who was also called the Master of Flemalle
(Campin was Flemish, c. 1375/79-1444, active in Tournai)

Docent class 1/25/2000:
This is a copy painted in ca. 1535. There were over a hundred copies painted at that time. The original was painted in 1425 by the Master of Flemalle (town in Southern Belgium), who is now believed to be Robert Campin.

The original painting does not exist anymore.
click to enlarge

Although internal literature mentions that Lucas Cranach (the Elder) disliked Cardinal Albrecht, it seems that Cranach painted several paintings of him.
Above, on the left is from the Ringling Museum, the second painting is very similar and is in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, Germany. In the 2 paintings on the right he is called Archbishop of Mainz. It is exactly the same pose as in the other paintings, but now he is still an archbishop (Museum: Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Gem ldegalerie, Berlin, 1527).

Protestantism:
Suppose that if there was a new law today that e.g. Creationism was now the accepted law, would you object and change religion and place of worship? Of course you wouldn't.
Do you think that the people in Northern Europe in the mid 1500s were any different? Nah, their main concerns were the health of their family and having a full belly.
There were new church taxes imposed for this new cathedral in Rome being built (now the famous St Peter's church), plus the 10% tax dictated by Phillips II to pay for his war against France. The poor peasant in Northern Europe were starving and they rebelled. They protested, and the protesters became the protestants. Nothing to do with religion. Just with survival.
Many noblemen in the Netherlands (and Northern Germany) became protestants, just to spite Phillips II. It grew from there.

Other:
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