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The events and artwork that you will be learning about today spans from 1512 to 1551. Note the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 as a reference point. Geographically, this lesson focuses on Wittenberge, Germany.
Although 1517 traditionally marks the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, it was an event many years in the making. Martin Luther was a very devout Augustinian monk, but the Catholic Church’s sale of indulgences—which are essentially accumulated merit—finally compelled him to take action. Martin Luther’s belief was that the justification of faith alone was enough to warrant God’s forgiveness of sins. The selling of indulgences was looked at by Luther as a way for the Catholic Church to essentially profit from the salvation of its people.
He wrote a response to the Church’s action in a writing called Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, more commonly known as The 95 Theses, and nailed it, supposedly, to the door of the local All Saints’ Church. This action is widely considered to be the impetus for the Protestant Reformation.
This movement was monumental and resulted in the eventual schism of the Western Catholic Church into the Catholic, or traditional, Church—which eventually came to be called the Roman Catholic Church—and the reformed, or Protestant Church.
If you look at the “family tree” of Christianity, below, it begins with Judaism and then moves into Christianity after Christ. Christianity was essentially an offshoot of Judaism. There occurred what is called the Great Schism, which was the church essentially breaking into two groups: the Western or Catholic or Latin, Church, based in Rome, and the Eastern Orthodox Church.
After Martin Luther and the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church was again essentially broken into two groups: Roman Catholic and Protestant. The Protestant sect was further broken into other areas as they emerged, based on different variations of the basic tenets of the reformed church: Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, the Methodist Church, and the Calvinist Church—all variants of Protestantism.
Now, while this isn’t the definitive family tree of Christianity, it at least gives you a good idea of how the different religions, or the different churches, play against each other.
Matthias Grünewald, an artist known for painting and drawing, originated from the Holy Roman Empire, or what is now modern-day Germany. Here is his self-portrait:
One of his most well-known works of art—of those that survive—is the “Isenheim Altarpiece.” He collaborated with another artist who completed the carvings, which are not shown. The image below is of the altarpiece closed.
The subject matter is that of the crucifixion, in which an emaciated and rather ghastly figure of Christ is shown having already expired. He’s rendered in grisly detail and appears to have been dead for some time. The colors of the body suggest that the process of decay has probably already begun, and his fingers are rigid, which is an indication of rigor mortis.
His mother, the Virgin Mary, is shown in white being cradled by Saint John. Mary Magdalene is shown on her knees, and Saint John the Baptist appears to orate on the right about Jesus’ prophesied rise from the dead. The predella, which is the space below the upper portion of the altarpiece, depicts the lamentation of Christ, in which his mother and friends prepare his body for entombment.
The painter Lucas Cranach’s professional name is derived from his birthplace of Kronach in modern-day Germany. Cranach, shown below in his self-portrait, was a very close friend of Martin Luther’s, and his work is closely associated with the Reformation.
His painting of the “Allegory of Law and Grace” was completed in 1530, well after the initial onset of the Protestant Reformation in 1517. It is the first example of artwork that’s post-Reformation, with the exception of the piece shown below, the portrait of Martin Luther that was painted by Cranach.
The “Allegory of Law and Grace,” shown below, is a pictorial representation of the different ideologies between the churches regarding salvation.
On the left is the traditional view based on the Old Testament law of being judged based on good works. It depicts a person who apparently attempted to live a good life being judged and damned by Christ—shown on a cloud in the sky—and subsequently chased by a demon skeleton into what you can assume to be the fiery chasm of hell. On the right is the Protestant view of an individual being saved by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, or by the grace of God.
Calvinism was an offshoot of the church of the Protestant Reformation, but like the Reformation, it was the eventuality of the work from previous reformists, not just the work of one man. However, John Calvin helped in establishing what is referred to as the “five points of Calvinism,” which takes a different, and perhaps more exclusive, approach to the reformist view of eternal salvation.
To paraphrase the five points:
Pieter Aertsen was a painter originally from Amsterdam. He grew up and worked at a time in which the Reformation was taking form. One of his paintings is shown below, though it is not an image of the artist himself.
Calvinism is believed to have had a strong influence on the Aertsen painting called the “Butcher's Stall,” or more familiarly, the “Meat Still Life.” The painting appears to be a typical genre painting from a Northern Renaissance painter. However, religious imagery and symbolism can be seen if you look carefully.
Aertsen displays a wealth of meat and food items in the foreground, but if you look carefully you can see, in the very back, Joseph on foot leading a donkey carrying Mary, who is shown donating to the poor. In the foreground, fish, pretzels, and wine—all associated in their own way with religious symbolism—are juxtaposed with oysters, meats, and other foods considered gluttonous or lustful.
Source: This work is adapted from Sophia author Ian McConnell.