Art of the Northern Renaissance ─ Courts, Commerce, and Devotion

In this lucid account, Stephanie Porras charts the fascinating story of art in northern Europe during the Renaissance period (c.1400–1570). She explains how artists and patrons from the regions north of the Alps – the Low Countries, France, England, Germany – responded to an era of rapid political, social, economic and religious change, while redefining the status of art.

Porras discusses not only paintings by artists from Jan van Eyck to Pieter Bruegel, but also sculpture, architecture, prints, metalwork, embroidery, tapestry and armour. Each chapter presents works from a roughly twenty-year period and is also focused on a broad thematic issue, such as the flourishing of the print industry or the mobility of Northern artists and art works. The author traces the influence of aristocratic courts as centres of artistic production and the rise of an urban merchant class leading to the creation of new consumers and new art products.

This book offers a richly illustrated narrative that allows readers to understand the progression, variety and key conceptual developments of Northern Renaissance Art.

Stephanie Porras is Assistant Professor of Art History at Tulane University. She has published widely on the art of the northern Renaissance and is the author of a forthcoming book on Pieter Bruegel's Historical Imagination.