16th century European artists shifted their focus from power to peasants [video]
aeon.co
aeon.co
https://www.wikiart.org/en/pieter-bruegel-the-elder/ice-skat...
EDIT: Little ice age. See darkclouds's comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37031308
But also: something changed in the 16th century: do you contend that the monarchs suddenly got uglier to the point that artists didn't want to paint them anymore?
If you focus on the Habsburgs then arguably yes, it did got very bad in that regard. They still managed to find willing painters (even if they possible had to pay them a bit more to soften some of the most visible flaws).
The youtube video opens with the fact the Bruegel in the opening scene was the first reproducible print.
The reproducible print is mentioned again at 76seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC-cyrIq-qI&t=76s
Other contributory factors include the rise of the mercantile middle class, and a push back against religions and royalty as they typically controlled the wealth and kept people in servitude in various ways.
Something not mentioned was this period was also the little ice age [1], when Maunder[2] and Dalton[3] first started observing the sun, noticing a decline in sunspots over the usual 11 year solar cycle[4], a year without summer[5] due to a volcanic explosion that threw so much ash into the atmosphere, it partially obscured the sun, causing crops and wild plants to die back around the world causing massive famines and death in some parts of the less developed world.
The extent of the artic ice reach was so great inuits could walk across the ice and then kayak across the north sea to Scotland[6]. Cod stocks require 7 DegC waters moved south in the North Sea making fishing harder and with todays higher sea temperatures, forcing fish north, which brings to mind was this a factor for Brexit?
The rise of the Mercantile middle class was due to the traders sailing off discovering the world, bringing back exotic crops, picking up new methods to grow crops and improve yields, they helped to stave off hunger and famine when royalty and religion were failing the general population by not providing any solution.
The Catholic church was losing power, as noted with the Avignon papacy when the Catholic church was based in Avignon in France not Vatican city like today[7], The French Revolution, again the peasants were not being looked after due to the poor conditions and so starved and hungry, they revolted killing the French King.
Thats why there were lots of snow and ice depictions, just like frost fairs on the river Thames [8], arguably one of the first offshore tax havens to exist, mainly because the river when it froze provided an area in which to trade which was unregulated by the laws of the land.
A unique trading situation caused by ice.
And so this situation was exploited like a hack to make money.
So did the monarchs get uglier?
Keeping the wealth inside the wider family and peers of similar or same stature, has always caused genetical mutations and reduced genetic variation, inbreeding if you will, but there was much more to paint than just a few wealthy individuals helped along by the printing press.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalton_Minimum
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
[6] https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news-europe-news-mys...
> The Catholic church was losing power
I've been reading exactly about that... and it's mind blowing that the divide between Catholics and Protestants was what initiated the Eighty Years' War[1] (as mentioned in the video). That War was followed by an even bigger one later, the Thirty Years' War[2] (from 1618 to 1648), the biggest conflict in Europe up until that time (it was huge, parts of today Germany lost 50% of their population). That war started with the infamous Defenestration of Prague [3] in which the representatives of Ferdinand (a Habsburg) the new, fervently catholic King of Bohemia (which was a stronghold of Protestantism), were thrown out of the window of the Prague castle (that's how they used to show their strong discontent diplomatically back then)!
I was recently in Prague and made a point to visit that window :D. Quite amazing to think the places where such events took place are still there and anyone can visit it.
Anyway, after the 30 Years' War, the Habsburgs (which controlled a huge chunk of Europe, from Spain to Flanders, Bohemia to Hungary), lost a lot of power, with France and their ally, Sweden, becoming the dominant powers (can you imagine that the Swedes sieged Prague in 1648!??)... which in turn led to many wars later, including wars between Sweden, the Lithuanian Empire, and the Russian Empire which I find fascinating... all of them had big victories at some point, (e.g. Swedes kicked Russian's asses in 1700 in the Battle of Narva[4] -see also this amazing video by HistoryMarche [5] - but got completely destroyed by the Russians in Poltava [6], current-day Ukraine) but at the end of the wars in 1795 [7], Lithuania and its union buddy Poland basically ceased to exist as an independent entity (after hundreds of years of existence, extending from Kyiv to Villnius, Minsk and as far into Russia as Smolensk!), the Swedes losing almost all of their possessions in mainland Europe (like Estonia) and also Finland to the Russians, and France becoming the main power in Western Europe just in time for Napoleon to rise.
And the story goes on, of course, to this day.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%27_War
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Years%27_War
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague#The_...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Narva_(1700)
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JG0W2o8ULs
Yes more recently Nato's creep towards Russia and the Ukraine war.
Recent examples being the coup to seize the Bosphorus Bridge in 2016[1], a stealth attack to control the waterways to Russia's Black Sea Naval ports located in Crimea.
Fast forward to today and you can see why with the Ukraine War.
However wars should never been seen in a totally negative light, because they force rapid regeneration of infrastructure and cultural change. Ukraine was a very very poor country by European standards, still quite peasant like in the rural locations, so some would argue that wars today are more todo with bringing areas of the planet up to date, despite the rhetoric put out by the media.
I understand Monsanto have been trying to get into Ukraine since the early 00's because the soil there is particularly suited to GM crops, so that has benefits for increasing the food available on the global markets. Obviously there are disputes over what is the best way to achieve change and some countries are highly resistant to GM crops due to the chemical load on the land including wildlife and human health.
So if history doesn't repeat, it certainly rhymes.
Ya of course! War is great, it pushed also industrial output and plenty of investments in researches. Plus it gets rid of the weak too! (This paragraph is sarcastic, I've to write it because many probably won't understand)
You should have a word or two with the families of those that lost their relatives in the plenty wars that lacerated this planet recently
or maybe finance yourself a trip to Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria to see how well established these countries are.
> some would argue that wars today are more todo with bringing areas of the planet up to date
Nobody argues that you're the only one. Also because it's clearly a false statement and a total misinterpretation of the war.
Have you ever had a look at other wars or you're taking Ukraine as example only because is the only one that you know about?
Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Congo, Libya. They're just a small list of countries that have been victim of wars recently. None of them is an example of how to rebuild things (or bringing them "up to date", also because they don't benefit the plenty billions of dollars that the US is sending to Ukraine.
but if your theory is really correct, why don't you move to Afghanistan and enjoy the western style of living that was brought there thanks to 20 years of war?
The Avignon papacy lasted from 1309-1376. The “Year without a summer” was 1816. The French Revolution was 1789.
Your source on Inuits landing in Scotland seems to conclude that it either didn’t happen or was possibly the result of European kidnapping.
I guess I’m not sure what your point is.
Harsh environmental conditions where its generally colder, like a mini ice age, is going to up root people, force migration, lower crop yields, more hunger, more violence, more lawlessness.
Its one of the reasons why the Stradivarius violins were sought after, the colder climate resulted in less tree growth, tighter tree rings and it altered the sound of musical instruments of the day[1]
There were also alot of extreme weather events during this little ice age.
IF you read this book https://www.google.com/search?q=little+ice+age+brian+fagan in it, Fagan asserts there was an earthquake down in Avignon which people took to be a sign of god, which forced the catholic church to relocate with its tail between its legs. I dont know how true that is, there is nothing online I can find, perhaps an example of an entity managing its online reputation.
In that book, he also asserts an innuit paddled up one of the rivers of one of the city's in Scotland, he claims to have got this data from reading old newspapers of the time.
Just like he got information on crop yields from old monasteries, country estate owners and others who kept records, any record made back in that time. I got the impression it took him a long time to compile the data, to arrive at the narrative he espouses.
Its an interesting read, and you'll see how weather can destabilise any country very quickly, especially with todays level of communication and stuff going viral around the world, but also how these events build and build over time, changing culture. Even today the French dont take 'non' for an answer, when you see farmers blockading the ports and Eurotunnel, or rioting on the streets over the pension age.
If you dont know the history, you wont realise the significance of the events you watch unfolding on the news today.
So my point is, the artistry is a depiction of the time, its meta data, especially if you know some of the winter scene pictures were painted in June or Sept!
Does that point shock you?
Yes, because for centuries they were having children with their relatives.
If you studied basic biology you would know that by doing that the gene pool become too small and many physical problems arise (and appearance is only one of them).
Incest, according to many sources, was the cause of collapse of the Egyptian empire. The latest pharaoh had all sort of problems (and mental problem was one of then too)
This simply isn't true. Am an artist, and I care a lot about having food and a roof over my head.
And in general, artists of yesteryear were either already rich - rich enough so they had the leisure time to make art and the money to afford the supplies - or you were painting because a person with more riches than you have paid you to paint (and you probably weren't poor to begin with).
Folks weren't really painting monarchs out of love for the monarch, they did it because monarchs and other rich folks paid, sometimes handsomely. And you were paid to paint them in the best light possible while still knowing it was them: The Habsburgs had portraits that were likely much prettier than their actual likenesses - comparable to photoshop and other touch-ups today.
And just to drive this in: Painters of yesteryear often had ready-made backgrounds and bodies waiting for a head/likeness and other details. Nothing says "I care more about beauty than money" like prefab portrait blanks, I guess.
Our modern reality makes it truly hard to imagine how these people thought because we are so used to photographs and images being cheaply reproducible and widely available on screens. A painting used to be something that was located somewhere and you had to travel to get to see it. If you owned a painting, you had this unique privilege of being able to show it to people in your own context. Works of art were incredibly powerful status objects, capable of sending the right messages about your pedigree, about your wealth and power.
What you describe with the prefabs I think gradually came along later, as painting became a more common trade and even the middle-classes started being able to afford to have them made as objects of status.
You're one, you're not "all artists"
> And in general, artists of yesteryear were either already rich
Very much a false statement, I can make a never ending list of artists that were born, lived and died as poor man. Van Gogh is one of them (just to make an example)
> or you were painting because a person with more riches than you have paid you to paint
there were plenty of painters that didn't focus on doing portrait of rich people or, for that matter, they weren't painting humans at all.
I don't understand your point, probably you never actually enjoyed art or entered a museum to make this empty arguments.
Or maybe, more likely, you're like many HN commentators that like to write a long empty message for the sake of arguing because you like doing that rather than understanding the comment.
unless you've data that demonstrate what you just said, is simply not true. Just because you have a few anecdotal evidence doesn't prove anything.