Protestant aesthetics achieved a highpoint during the Dutch Baroque era (c.1600-80). This period, known as the Golden Age of Dutch art, witnessed the ultimate development of the realist style adopted earlier by Flemish painters. Although portraits and landscapes were also popular, the period is best known as the high point of Dutch Realist genre painting, and what is known as still life painting (arranged tableaux). Leading genre painters of the Protestant Reformation came from a variety of schools. Adriaen van Ostade and the Catholic artist Jan Steen represented the Haarlem school; Jan Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch represented the Delft school; Hendrik Terbrugghen and Gerrit van Honthorst belonged to the Utrecht school; Gerrit Dou represented the Leiden school; Samuel van Hoogstraten and Nicolaes Maes were members of the Dordrecht school; and Carel Fabritius, Gerard Terborch, and Gabriel Metsu belonged to the Amsterdam school.
Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. What is desired in a man is steadfast love, and a poor man is better than a liar. The fear of the Lord leads to life, and whoever has it rests satisfied; he will not be visited by harm. The sluggard buries his hand in the dish and will not even bring it back to his mouth. Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove a man of understanding, and he will gain knowledge. ... Share Your Faith Products
And King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. He was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze. And he was full of wisdom, understanding, and skill for making any work in bronze. He came to King Solomon and did all his work. He cast two pillars of bronze. Eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of twelve cubits measured its circumference. It was hollow, and its thickness was four fingers. The second pillar was the same. He also made two capitals of cast bronze to set on the tops of the pillars. The height of the one capital was five cubits, and the height of the other capital was five cubits. There were lattices of checker work with wreaths of chain work for the capitals on the tops of the pillars, a lattice for the one capital and a lattice for the other capital. ... Christian Wall Art
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. Christian Gifts
Only one major innovative example of Christian church architecture was built in Europe during the 19th century - the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona (1883), designed in a highly decorative neo-Gothic style by Antoni Gaudi. Celebrating the Holy Family and the mysteries of the Catholic faith, this extraordinary church with its tree-like formation of vaulted structures includes five towers and twelve campaniles. Made of stone and concrete, the building is embellished in parts with ceramic tiles, pompom finials and numerous sculptures, but is still not completely finished. Gaudi himself was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement and was associated with the Catalan Modernista school. Christian Gifts
In 1517, Luther, a Dutch priest - no doubt influenced by the earlier revolt of Savonarola (1452-98) in Florence - began a religious revolt against the corrupt practices of the Church of Rome, that led to a split in the Christian movement. The protesters became known as Protestants, while those who continued to follow the traditional Church called themselves Roman Catholics. Protestantism (which divided into four types: Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican and Anabaptist) took root in Northern European countries like Holland, Germany (except Bavaria) and Britain, while Southern European countries like France, Italy and Spain (along with the Spanish colony of Flanders), remained Catholic.
Early Christian art survives from dates near the origins of Christianity. The oldest Christian sculptures are from sarcophagi, dating to the beginning of the 2nd century. The largest groups of Early Christian paintings come from the tombs in the Catacombs of Rome, and show the evolution of the depiction of Jesus, a process not complete until the 6th century, since when the conventional appearance of Jesus in art has remained remarkably consistent. Christian Wall Art
Now King Solomon sent and brought Hiram from Tyre. He was a widow's son from the tribe of Naphtali, and his father was a man of Tyre, a worker in bronze; and he was filled with wisdom and understanding and skill for doing any work in bronze So he came to King Solomon and performed all his work. He fashioned the two pillars of bronze; eighteen cubits was the height of one pillar, and a line of twelve cubits measured the circumference of both.read more. Christian Gifts
In short, the sole purpose of Counter-Reformation art was to glorify God and Catholic traditions, and promote the sacraments and the saints. Thus Michelangelo's Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel was heavily criticized for its nudity, for showing Jesus without a beard, and for including the pagan character of Charon. Paolo Veronese's painting The Last Supper was (not unreasonably) attacked for including extravagant costumes, drunken Germans and dwarfs along with a huge crowd of people. In fact, Veronese simply side-stepped the issue by renaming the picture Feast in the House of Levi.
Protestantism taught a low-key, personal form of worship that focused on the direct relationship between God and man, without making a fuss about go-betweens like Popes, Bishops and other church employees. It also placed little or no importance on decorative or ceremonial aspects of religion. Because of all this, Protestant art favoured low-key moralistic depictions of ordinary day-to-day life, or simple narrative scenes from the Bible, rather than dramatic theological scenes involving the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ. Other acceptable scenes included depictions of sinners forgiven by Christ, in line with the Protestant view that salvation is only possible through the grace of God. Protestant art also tended to be smaller-scale than Catholic art, reflecting a more modest, personal approach to religion. For the same reason, book illustration and prints became more popular, while Catholic paintings and sculptures became the object of physical iconclastic attacks, as exemplified by the beeldenstorm, an episode of mob destruction which broke out in 1556. But Protestant church authorities were equally aware of the power of art to educate and influence worshippers. As a result they made maximum use of various forms of printmaking, which allowed images to be made widely available to the public at a very low cost.
Architectural sculpture was another important feature. Column statues and reliefs of figures from the Old Testament, as well as depictions of Christ and other members of the Holy Family, were commonplace. Gothic sculpture developed in a series of small creative steps. First came an increased realism, visibly different from the rather wooden look of the Romanesque idiom; then we see more graceful figures with soft drapery; then figures with a solid, upright appearance, with more restrained gestures. Finally came figures with dainty postures and thick drapery hanging in long V-shaped folds. Among the greatest sculptors were Nicola Pisano (c.1206-1278) and Arnolfo di Cambio (c.1240–1310). Christian Canvas Art
The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father was a man of Tyre. He is trained to work in gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, and in purple, blue, and crimson fabrics and fine linen, and to do all sorts of engraving and execute any design that may be assigned him, with your craftsmen, the craftsmen of my lord, David your father. Christian Canvas Art
Of David. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. ... Share Your Faith Products
“Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whom the Lord has put skill and intelligence to know how to do any work in the construction of the sanctuary shall work in accordance with all that the Lord has commanded.” And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work. And they received from Moses all the contribution that the people of Israel had brought for doing the work on the sanctuary. They still kept bringing him freewill offerings every morning, so that all the craftsmen who were doing every sort of task on the sanctuary came, each from the task that he was doing, and said to Moses, “The people bring much more than enough for doing the work that the Lord has commanded us to do.” ... Share Your Faith Products
Heavily influenced by sculpture, Gothic painters were also busy creating works of religious art, but not inside churches, where enormous stained glass windows now provided the colour and Biblical illustration that previously had been provided by murals: see, for instance, the translucent stained glass art inside Chartres Cathedral (c.1194-1250). Instead Gothic painters focused on illuminated manuscripts, such as the French Bibles Moralisees (c.1230-40), Le Somme le Roi (1290), the Manesse Codex (1310), Heures de Jeanne d'Evreux (1328), Psaltar of Bonne of Luxembourg (1349), the English Amesbury Psalter (1240), Queen Mary Psalter (1330) and the Arundel and Luttrell Psalters (1340). These are just a few of the many Books of Hours, Missals, Psalters, Apocalypses, Bibles and other illuminated gospel texts that emanated from monastic scriptoria of the period. See, in particular, works by Jean Pucelle (1290-1334). For more, see: History of Illustrated Manuscripts (600-1200).
Only in the New World were significant numbers of new churches erected. The type of architecture chosen was generally revivalist: see, for instance, the neoclassical-style Baltimore Basilica (1806-21), the first Roman Catholic Cathedral in the United States, designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe; the decorated Gothic-style St Patrick's Cathedral, New York (1858-79), designed by James Renwick; Richard Upjohn's Trinity Church, New York (1841-6), another masterpiece of Gothic revivalism; and Trinity Church, Boston (1872-77), designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in a revivalist Romanesque style.
Moses assembled all the congregation of the people of Israel and said to them, “These are the things that the Lord has commanded you to do. Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.” Moses said to all the congregation of the people of Israel, “This is the thing that the Lord has commanded. Take from among you a contribution to the Lord. Whoever is of a generous heart, let him bring the Lord's contribution: gold, silver, and bronze; ... Christian Canvas Art
The spiritual intensity achieved by Spanish painters was also seen in the works of Spanish sculptors, such as Alonso Berruguete (c.1486-1561) the greatest of all Renaissance sculptors in Spain, whose masterpieces include: the altarpiece for the monastery of La Mejorada Valladolid (1526), and the choir stalls in Toledo Cathedral (1539-43); Juan de Juni (1507-1577), noted for his emotive expressiveness, as in his two groups of the Entombment of Christ (1544 and 1571). Juan Martinez Montanes (the "God of Wood"), famous for his wooden crucifixes and religious figures, like The Merciful Christ (1603) and the Santiponce Altarpiece (1613); and Alonso Cano (the "Spanish Michelangelo"), whose masterwork is The Immaculate Conception (1655). Christian Wall Art