Objectives

As Philip the Good enters Ghent, we enter the Renaissance in Europe. This is a world with deep connections to the Medieval world that preceded it, but also a world with emerging new concerns, ways of living, worshiping, and making art. Just as Philip was amazed by what he saw in Ghent, we should be prepared to be impressed with not only the changes in life and art, but also with the speed of those changes. Many would argue that the modern world begins in the Renaissance; one of the arguments in favor of this assertion is the sudden acceleration of change.

If the single greatest idea propelling the Renaissance was Humanism, the idea did not appear in only one place. The Renaissance began in several places around the turn of the fifteenth century. With this in mind, the goals for this chapter are as follows:

Goals for this chapter include:

• Become familiar with fundamental developments in France, Flanders, Spain and Portugal, and Germany.

• Be able to describe the new kind of portraiture that emerges during the early Renaissance.

• Contrast the developments in sculpture and architecture in Italy and in Northern Europe.

• Be able to describe new techniques in painting and printmaking that become important during the Renaissance.