Northern Renaissance artists were famous for imbuing their paintings with religious and philosophical symbolism. Grounded in the medieval belief in the world as the book of God, this approach remained central to the visual culture of the Lowlands throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, especially in the wake of the Protestant Reformation.
Art historian Aneta Georgievska-Shine highlights these “painted treatises,” and explores their deeper symbolic content in a range of genres, from beautifully appointed domestic interiors to market scenes and images of children’s games.
9:30 to 10:45 a.m. Jan van Eyck to Hugo van der Goes
The art of description as a spiritual meditation.
11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Albrecht Durer to Hans Holbein the Younger
Religious images in the wake of the Reformation.
12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Lunch (participants provide their own)
1:15 to 2:30 p.m. Hieronymus Bosch to Peter Aertsen
The play of genres in 16th-century painting
2:45 to 4 p.m. Peter Brueghel the Elder and His Legacy
Accepting paradox as a way of life.
Georgievska-Shine teaches Renaissance and Baroque art at the University of Maryland. Her work as an author includes Rubens and the Archaeology of Myth (1610–1620), and a forthcoming book on Rubens and Velazquez.
Other Connections
Take a close look at how artists of the Northern Renaissance embedded deeper symbolic messages in works like Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Wedding.
To listen to samples of Renaissance and Baroque music for Brass Quintet, click here>>
