CONTEXT AND COMPARISON OF
In reaction to the decadence and corruption so pervasive in the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation sought to introduce an asceticism into the artistic world of its followers. Martin Luther, as well as others who followed him, advocated the destruction of art in churches, particularly images of saints, muted color schemes for the artwork that remained, and an emphasis on images either of Jesus or of contemporary leaders and heroes of the movement. Joseph Koerner’s book The Reformation of the Image (2004) compellingly shows how visual art became indispensable to a religious movement built on words. In a time ...