[bright string music]
- Rick Steves: The Northern Renaissance wasn't a renaissance
in the literal or Italian sense,
like the rebirth of classical culture in Florence.
It was a cultural boom funded by an economic boom.
While in the south,
it was art for kings, nobility, and the church,
here in the north, it was more the art
of merchants and businessmen.
Europe's north was humming with commercial hubs like Brussels.
Its magnificent main square and towering city hall
proclaimed the wealth of the new merchant class.
These ornate buildings were the headquarters
for the different professional guilds:
bakers, brewers, tanners, and so on.
The nearby city of Bruges was another economic
and cultural powerhouse.
Its soaring bell tower announced that it was
a self-ruling city of the prosperous region of Flanders.
That's the Dutch
or Flemish-speaking northern half of Belgium.
This church, also with a skyscraping tower of bricks,
the most practical local building material,
was filled with cultural treasures,
from its powerful pipe organ to its elaborate tombs.
The appetite of the market shaped the art.
Here in the north, where patrons were mostly merchants,
they didn't want to be preached at.
They wanted art that celebrated their values
and their hard work.
Art that was feel-good and affordable.
It was no-nonsense portraits of themselves and their families,
happy scenes of everyday life.
Flemish painters were great storytellers.
Rather than just Madonnas and saints,
it was also peasants, landscapes, and food.
Northern paintings were filled with symbolism
and extremely realistic, with astonishing detail.
This Flemish power couple hired a famous painter
to portray with lots of symbolism their wealth,
loyalty, piety, and fertility.
Their rich belongings,
from fancy clothing to their stylish headwear,
are proudly on display.
The dog at their feet-- loyalty.
You can practically count the hairs on its head.
Rosary beads on the wall, that meant a strong faith.
While the woman may look pregnant,
she's most likely not, just gathering together
her fine cloth to show it off, or creating the impression
that she's fertile, or maybe she's just boasting
the belly of a well-fed, upper-class woman.
Perhaps the first famous canvas to use oil-based paint,
the detail is groundbreaking--
the reflection of the couple from behind in the mirror,
and even the artist himself.
The masterful treatment of light and shadow.