The artistic renaissance that shook Europe in the 16th century had strange repercussions in Germany. It wasn’t, as it was in Italy, a happy attempt to revive Classical art, nor had, as in France and Spain, a strong influence of Italian art, but rather an intense renewal of the Germanic spirit, in those times overexcited by the Reformation and by the eagerness of knowing, so intense throughout the world at that time. Dürer theorized, like Leonardo and Sangallo did before, about the art of fortification, about the dimensions and proportion of the human body, about geometry, architecture, and painting. “Nevertheless, others will come, I am sure of it,” said Dürer, “who will write about these subjects and paint better than I do, because I know the true value of my works and their faults. I ask God that I could see art and learn from the great masters of future generations. Oh, how often in my dreams have I seen great works of art and beautiful things, which have vanished when I woke up, even losing the sweet memory they left in me! Let no one be ashamed for wanted to learn, because a great work requires advice and study”.
For us, these lines are a revelation about the Germany of the time. Leonardo and Michelangelo would say something similar, but with a different sense than Dürer’s ‘confession’. They also studied, analyzed, criticized…, likewise they yearned for something, but their ideal of beauty was not a dream, but the reality of living things; their masters weren’t from the future, but from the past, those who carved the ancient marbles, still throbbing, that resurrected during the excavations made among the rubble of the ruins. As we have said, the only thing in which the great spirits of Italy and Germany coincided at this time was in the desire to learn, in a kind of critical emancipation that was a prelude to the scientific spirit of modern times. But in the field of art, in the countries of the Reformation the new ideal, like Dürer’s dreams of beauty, vanished before waking up without ever being specified. In the course of the coming essays we will be able to appreciate the works of several illustrious great painters, but we will only cite few interesting sculptors, and not one great architect of these times during the Reformation struggle. While in hated Papal Rome, in the apocalyptic Babylon of Dürer’s drawings, the colossal Saint Peter’s Cathedral and many other wonderful churches and palaces were being built, in Germany, agitated by political and religious struggles, only a few buildings like town halls, guild houses, and municipal palaces showed the forms of a new architecture.
And this happened not only because the Reformation in Germany was deliberately against the things of art. The great churches and Gothic cathedrals were preserved almost intact; Philip Melanchthon (a German Lutheran reformer, collaborator with Martin Luther) recommended keeping the stained glass windows as well, “because they were never the object of worship.” In many cities the Reformation took place gradually, and the same happened in people’s spirits. The results and significance of the Reformation did not become apparent until later. The break up with Rome would not have been complete if it had not been convenient for economic and political reasons. The Emperor Maximilian used to say that the Roman Curia drew twice as much in contributions from its States as he did. The lands of the empire were disintegrated into small nations and almost independent republics, and these, disregarding the serious reasons of conscience that some proclaimed, remained loyal or not to Rome according to what was convenient for their own policy at a given moment. This explains why half of Germany is still Catholic; that, in Switzerland, the canton of Fribourg changed of religion several times depending on the circumstances; that at the very gates of Geneva, the great Calvinist city, the whole of Savoy continues without the slightest infiltration of Protestantism.
This small introduction was to explain, in a way, how a movement with such great social consequences as the Reformation was almost sterile in the field of art. With the religious wars appeared the great men/women of the Reformation, but then these struggles prevented the presence of the calm of mind and spirit, of a time for contemplation and reflection, that requires the appearance of a new artistic school.
What is most singular is the small influence of Italian art which, however, was recognized as superior. Most of the German writers and artists of the 16th century traveled through Italy, and in turn Germany was full of Italian architects, whom seem to have been less influential than those who worked in France and Spain. The nomadic court of Maximilian and Charles V had its official residence in Augsburg, South Germany, and for this reason the Italian influence was more noticeable there. On the other hand, in the North the influence of the Netherlands was much stronger.
In Germany, the most notable monument of the 16th century is the castle of Heidelberg, now in ruins, burnt down by the French during the Revolutionary Wars and only partially restored years later. The location of the building is admirable, on the slope of a green hill that rises above the slow course of the Neckar River. The building has a square floor plan around a patio and includes several constructions from different periods. The wing built in the time of Elector Otto Henry during the mid-16th century (1556-1559), it is called Ottheinrichsbau and gives the castle its outer appearance. This wing was added to previous constructions and shows a marked Flemish style; sculptors from the Netherlands were hired to carve the statues of the façade. The wing, from the time of Elector Frederick IV and restored now, is an imitation of the wing we just discussed, but the Flemish influence is more noticeable; the façades end in a curvilinear silhouette, like the buildings of Flanders and Holland.
In Germany, this is basically the only surviving princely building of the period, but the great free cities still had splendid Town Halls in which something of the Renaissance style can be discernible. Some have lower loggias or porticos (in German Lauben), with a terrace or balcony on the first floor; on the upper floors, between large windows, were placed statues of kings and semi-mythological heroes. Among other Rathaus or Town Halls we must mention those of Schweinfurt, Leipzig, and Bremen.
Renaissance and one of the most important Renaissance buildings in southern Germany. It was built between 1570 and 1572 by architect Nickel Hoffmann. It has miraculously survived the centuries almost undamaged, including the bombings during
World War II.
The guild houses were sometimes of large dimensions and still showed more persistently the old Germanic character. The Italian decoration was applied only on the details; the floors overlapped without regard to classical proportion and ended in complicated gables (in German Giebel) full of sculptures and reliefs.
On the other hand, the private houses kept the elongated and high disposition of Gothic houses; only the decoration changed, with caryatids and complicated volutes; sometimes the upper floors were made of wood; others, the façade was covered with stucco with a naïve polychromy of more or less Classical taste. Also characteristic as German decorative motifs are the obelisks applied to finish off buttresses and pilasters.
Outside of Germany, in other Central European countries, the architecture of the Italian Renaissance left beautiful buildings in Prague and Kraków. In Prague, Ferdinand I still only king of Bohemia-Hungary before becoming Holy Roman Emperor, called on Paolo della Stella to build in 1536 the so-called Belvedere, a pavilion for recreation with a “loggia” reminiscent of Brunelleschi‘s style.
In Kraków, capital of the Polish kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty, Sigismund I (1506-1548) built an Italian chapel and a Tuscan-style court of honor inside the medieval Wawel complex, a Slavic citadel that –like the Kremlin– brings together the cathedral and the prince’s residence. Sigismund I was married to an Italian princess of the Sforza family, so it isn’t too surprising to find such Renaissance works in Poland, the home of Canon Copernicus, the first to formulate the modern concept of the solar system.
The Artistic Adventure of Mankind 