Protestant Reformation

     The protestant reformation was a tense time in Europe and split the people and artists of the time. It was a time when the focus may have shifted from God or the divine to man or morality. It was not a loss, or less focus on religion, for most artists and art observers it was shift from one holy and perfect subject of the church and Christ to another discovered, humans and the everyday. Still assured with perfection and divine, the everyday scenarios were held in high esteem and began to show power in the subtle acts of Christ rather than Christ himself. This was a very dramatic change from what has been seen in Europe before this time and while many tried to hold on to the perfect and humanist approach, many others shifted gears and opened an entire new era in art.

      So where does the subject matter go when religion is not an obligated one any longer? Well, this question freed artists during the time, to paint what ever they saw as a strong composition. Many artists turned to landscapes or other media like engravings or sculpture. It is interesting how one of the main changes the reformation had in Europe was the down spiral of religiose paintings but that may not have been the way many artists saw it. While the paintings may have been taking on more subtle forms and subject matter it does not say the painters or viewers of the art saw anything less then God and the divine in the art. While a landscape may not shout with holy matter it could present it in a different way, something that takes a little more thought to discovery then the former blunt and in your face religious subject matter.

     Peasant wedding
c. 1568 (150 Kb); Oil on wood, 114 x 164 cm (45 x 64 1/2 in); Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
        Peter Bruegel is one of these Artists who’s work was focused more on the everyday living and environment rather then religion in a literal and confronting sense. While a lot of his work did consciously depict religious characters and symbols, they were always surrounded by a vast landscape or other everyday scenario's that camoflaged the religious forms in and blended the subjects together. Bruegel paved the way for many other landscape artists and painters that also produced work that were void of the humanistic, religious and classical components and yet still brought a new and deeply connecting subject matter to the people. No longer was it one religious figure confronting the viewer after the other. Instead, it was the discovery in every new painting, print and sculpture of how these everyday and presumably subtle scenarios in art can be connected between our own morality and Gods divine creation of it all.