Essays on Rogier Van Der Weyden

“Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin and Child” and “The Rape of Europa” (henceforth “Saint Luke” and “Europa,” respectively) are two pieces by two very different artists: the former is a piece by the Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, while the latter is a piece by the High Renaissance artist Titian. To put these two paintings in the proper context for comparison, some information is needed about their respective artists. Titian was a Venetian artist during the period that is now known as the High Renaissance, and is widely acknowledged by art historians as the master painter of this era. “The Rape ...

The Northern Renaissance is an interesting period in the history of art and artists like Rogier Van der Weyden have produced works that are still admired today. One of his paintings, the Crucifixion, will be examined in this short essay. The painting was created with oil colors on oak panels and the technique of dendrochronology dates it to c. 1460. It consists of two rectangular panels joined together to form one entity. In the 1990’s it was reconstructed and X rays showed dowel holes that suggest that it was probably part of a bigger sculptural structure, perhaps an ...

The early Renaissance was a period of great artistic change and creation. The period of the individual artist, the person at the center of artistic creation, had just began, while art started becoming more and more realistic. Religious subjects were still dominant in the iconography of the Early Renaissance artists, but these were now endowed with a worldly quality. This was the result of intellectual achievement in other cultural fields which led to the creation of a new philosophy surrounding the arts. At the same time this was a period of great commercial activity among the European cities which led to the creation ...