The Influence Of Calvinism In Religious Art

The Catholics had a huge visual representation through their belief system from religious figures, dogma, churches would commission some form of imagery even in their homes they commissioned images for the purposes of worship.Then in the mid 15th century iconoclasts went on a destructive wave on both paintings and sculptures, Calvinists used this influence in order to complain on paintings and sculpted images. Instead Churches appreciated art in the Northern Netherlands by devoting attention to decorations. Saenredam’s Interior of the Church of St. Bavo in Haarlem was one of the first authorized decorations in a religious ritual. Contemporaries at the time focused on the recognizable human emotions that could be found in biblical scenes. This

Artist such as Terborch Frequently represented men and women either reading or writing a letter, sometimes even receiving a letter from some type of messenger. These depictions became known as the socially accepted form of a love letter. This form of expression was also used in biblical art encouraging people to read. The Calvinist took advantage of the new reformation of Church art with the use of pictures in a religious manner increased the pictorial production and they influenced people to read more of their bible and learn from the text. Books started to have pictures included with words in order to connect the imagery to the lesson that's being teached. A combined effort was starting between literature and art. This idea of matching lessons with pictures in order to teach sparked in the Church and was adapted by Universities. Schools began to fund new books with images in them. A new work system was formed with this new use of illustration requiring the readers and illustrators to make sure there was full comprehension with the picture-text. This encouraged craftsmen to develop a tool to make multiple copies of the

For examples poems would be written with an intrigue design around the borders of the poem. The images would reference to the context with romantic stories of classical gods and heroic mortals. I’m talking about Dutch mythological paintings being themed in a book to be read serving for academic purposes. The two art forms worked hand in hand diversifying the abilities of artists, painters started to write their own poems and painting the emblem for the poem creating a complete signature artwork of their own. The combination of text and illustrations didn’t just end there, plays, biblical pictures, and comics came from this mixture of words and pictures. The Dutch seem to have a huge sense of humor based from the readings for this chapter the cross-symbolism in a picture with classical gods mixed in melodramatic scenes. This form of joking was very relevant and popular for Dutch artist all throughout the Netherlands. The Dutch society really created a personal cultural admiration for there way of living and the lens that they saw the world