The Transformative Art and Culture of 16th Century Europe

Europe in the 16^th century (High Renaissance) was an age of social, intellectual, and religious ferment that transformed European culture. The spirit of discovery, travel, and exploration fostered self-confident humanism, stability, order, and admiration of classical forms. An explosion of information aided by book printing allowed artists to become more mobile, with styles becoming less regional. Rome grew in importance, especially under Julius II (Pope from 1503-1513), with a population of 100,000 people, making it only smaller than London and Paris. In 1494, the expulsion of the Medici from Florence marked a significant political shift.

Continual armed conflict was triggered by the expansionist ambitions of warring rulers.

Humanism in the 14th and 15th centuries had its medieval roots and was often an uncritical acceptance of the authority of classical texts. In the 16th century, it slowly developed into a critical exploration of new ideas, the natural world, and distant lands.

This period began to acknowledge the Earth’s curvature and the degrees of distance, giving Europeans a more accurate understanding of their place within the world.

The printing press led to larger book productions, spreading information through the translation and publication of ancient and contemporary texts, broadening the horizons of educated Europeans and encouraging the development of literacy.

Travel became more common, and artists and their work became mobile, creating a more international community.

In the early 16th century, England, France, and Portugal were nation-states under strong monarchs. German-speaking central Europe was divided into dozens of principalities, counties, free cities, and small territories. Even states as powerful as Saxony and Bavaria acknowledged the supremacy of the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire, which was theoretically the greatest power in Europe.

Charles V, elected emperor in 1519, also inherited Spain, the Netherlands, and vast territories in the Americas. Italy, which was divided into numerous small states, became a diplomatic and military battlefield where, for much of the century, the Italian city-states, Habsburg Spain, France, and the papacy fought each other in shifting alliances.

Popes behaved like secular princes, using diplomacy and military force to regain control over central Italy and, in some cases, to establish family members as hereditary rulers.

Popes’ demands for money to finance the rebuilding of St. Peter’s and their art projects and luxurious lifestyles aggravated the religious dissent that had long been developing.

Early in the century, religious reformers within the established Church challenged its beliefs and practices, especially Julius II’s sale of indulgences, which promised forgiveness of sins and assurance of salvation in exchange for a financial contribution to the Church. Because they protested, these northern European reformers came to be called Protestants; their demand for reform gave rise to a movement called the Reformation.

Sack of Rome - The political maneuvering of Pope Clement VII led to a direct clash with Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. In 1527, Charles’s troops attacked Rome, beginning a six-month orgy of killing, looting, and burning. This event shook the sense of stability and humanistic confidence that had characterized the Renaissance until then, sending many artists fleeing from the ruined city.

Charles became the leader of the Catholic forces and was the sole Catholic ally Clement had at the time.

In 1530, Clement VI crowned Charles emperor in Bologna. 16th-century patrons valued artists highly and rewarded them well, not only with generous commissions but sometimes even with high social status.

Giorgio Vasari began to report on the lives of artists, documenting their physical appearance and assessing their individual reputations. In 1550, he wrote the first survey of Italian art history, Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors. It was organized as a series of critical biographies, but at its core was a work of critical judgment. He was a Florentine artist, art historian, and biographer of the Renaissance.

During this period, the 15th-century humanists’ notion of painting, sculpture, and architecture as not merely manual arts but as liberal (intellectual) arts, requiring education in the classics and mathematics as well as in the techniques of the craft, became a topic of intense interest.

Few artists of either sex had access to the humanist education required by the often esoteric subject matter used in paintings (usually devised by someone other than the artists). Women were also denied the studio practice necessary to study and draw from nude models.

High Renaissance - Italian art between 1485 and 1520 saw Rome become the most important center (due to Pope Julius II from 1503-1513). Oil became the most dominant medium of painting, characterized by unified design and poetic beauty. This period ended with the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517, the sack of Rome, and the deaths of Leonardo, Giorgione, Raphael, and Bramante. There was an emphasis on poetry and imagination versus the rationality and intellect of the early Renaissance.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) moved to Florence at 12, apprenticed to Verrocchio, and became court artist in Milan to Ludovico Sforza (Duke of Milan) from 1482 (at the age of 30) to 1500. He considered himself primarily a painter with a scientific mind; his aim was to discover, not recover.

Leonardo: The Last Supper, Tempera and oil on plaster, Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, 1465-98.

Painted at the request of Duke Ludovico Sforza, this work was created in the dining hall. The coffered ceiling and the four pairs of tapestries seen to extend the refectory into another room. Jesus and his disciples are seated at a long table parallel to the picture plane, with a stage-like space receding from the table to three windows on the back wall, where the vanishing point of the one-point linear perspective lies behind Jesus’s head. A stable, pyramidal Jesus at the center is flanked by his twelve disciples, grouped in four interlocking sets of three. This composition captures the individual reactions of the apostles to Jesus’s announcement that one of them will betray him, symbolically evoking Jesus’s coming sacrifice for the salvation of humankind. Judas (the traitor) clutches his money bags, while young John (the evangelist) and elderly Peter are depicted. The careful geometry, the convergence of its perspective lines, the stability of its pyramidal forms, and Jesus’s calm demeanor at the mathematical center of all the commotion work together to reinforce the sense of gravity, balance, and order. The clarity and stability of this painting epitomize the High Renaissance style.

Leonardo: Mona Lisa, c. 1503-06, Oil on wood panel.

This painting represents a departure from tradition; the young woman is portrayed without jewelry. The solid pyramidal form of her half-length figure is another departure from traditional portraiture, which was limited to the upper torso. She is silhouetted against distant hazy mountains, giving the painting a sense of mystery reminiscent of The Virgin of the Rocks. The expressive complexity of the smile and the sense of psychological presence it gives the human face, especially in the context of the mask-like detachment that was more characteristic of Renaissance portraiture, is notable. The setting is during Leonardo's favorite time, which is twilight.

Sfumato – smoky haze, subtle gradations of color (fine shading) which eliminates lines or borders.

Chiaroscuro: Modeling in light and dark; contours implied. Chiaroscuro implies stronger contrasts of light and shadow than modeling, resulting in more solid forms (volume).

Oil Painting - Pigments mixed with oils. The use originates in Flanders and migrates south. This slow-drying medium produces a wide variety of effects (rich colors, blended tones, luminosity, texture) and allows for experimentation.

Gioconda pose: (contrapposto in ¾ portrait [head and hands frontal but body slightly sideways] = movement/naturalism)

Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520), born in Urbino, studied with Perugino in Florence, was an artist of synthesis, noted for his idealism, grace, beauty, and clarity of vision.

Raphael: School of Athens, Vatican, c. 1501-11, fresco.

In Rome, for Pope Julius II, Raphael decorated the rooms in the papal apartment, painting the four branches of knowledge (Religion, Philosophy, Poetry, and Law). The School of Athens represents philosophy and summarizes the ideals of the Renaissance papacy in a grand conception of harmoniously arranged forms in rational space. Center stage are the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle (placed on the right and left of the vanishing point), silhouetted against the sky and framed under the three barrel vaults. Surrounding Plato and Aristotle are mathematicians, naturalists, astronomers, geographers, and other philosophers debating and demonstrating their theories with onlookers. The background shows the new design of St. Peter's. The sweeping arcs of the composition are activated by the variety and energy of their poses and gestures, creating a dynamic unity that is a prime characteristic of High Renaissance art.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) grew up in Florence, joined the household of Lorenzo de Medici at 14, and worked in Rome for Julius II. A Neoplatonist and a solitary man, he was described as il divino and terribilita. He was a poet, painter, architect, but primarily a sculptor.

He came in contact with Neoplatonism at the Medici household and the family’s distinguished sculpture collection.

Neo-Platonism: A philosophical movement inaugurated by Plotinus (AD 204/5 - 270), which reinterpreted the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It argued that the world we experience is only a copy of an ideal reality that lies beyond the material world.

Michelangelo: David, 1501-04. Marble, Height 17’.

This Florentine commission for a statue of the biblical hero David was to be placed high atop a buttress of the cathedral. The city council admired it so much that they placed it at the principal city square, next to the Palazzo della Signoria (the seat of the Florence government). It stood as a reminder of Florence’s republican status, which was briefly reinstated after the expulsion of the powerful Medici oligarchy in 1494. The muscular nudity embodies the antique ideal of the athletic male nude. The emotional power of its expression and its concentrated gaze are entirely new. David knits his brow and stares into space, seemingly preparing himself psychologically for the danger ahead, a mere youth confronting a gigantic, experienced warrior. This statue stands for the supremacy of right over might, a perfect emblem for the Florentines, who had recently fought the forces of Milan, Siena, and Pisa and still faced political and military pressure.

Non finito: Deliberately non-finished sculpture; sense of time (being born).

Michelangelo: Creation of Adam, 1511-12, Fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 9’2” x 18’8”.

Julius II wanted a trompe l’oeil stucco coffered ceiling. He also wanted 12 apostles placed within the spandrels.

Pope Julius II - head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1503 to his death in February 1513, established a new and remarkably powerful style in Renaissance painting.

Between the pilasters are figures of prophets and sibyls (female seers from the Classical world) who were believed to have foretold Jesus’s birth. Seated on the fictive cornice are heroic figures of nude young men called ignudi (singular, ignudo), holding sashes attached to large gold medallions. Rising behind the ignudi, shallow bands of fictive stone span the center of the ceiling and divide it into nine compartments containing successive scenes from Genesis recounting the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, beginning over the altar and ending near the chapel entrance. God’s earliest acts of creation are therefore closest to the altar, with the Creation of Eve at the center of the ceiling, followed by the imperfect actions of humanity: Temptation, Fall, Expulsion from Paradise, and God’s eventual destruction of all people except Noah and his family by the Flood. The eight triangular spandrels over the windows, as well as the lunettes crowning them, contain paintings of the ancestors of Jesus.

Creation of Adam: This scene captures the moment when God charges the languorous Adam in a pose adapted from the Roman river god type with the spark of life. As if to echo the biblical text, Adam’s heroic body, outstretched arm, and profile almost mirror those of God, in whose image he has been created. Emerging under God’s other arm and looking across him in the direction of her future mate is the robust and energetic figure of Eve before her creation. This work is noted for its emphasis on oil painting as a medium, focus on color, and rise of subjects of the landscape and reclining nude.

Disegno-Colorito Controversy: This controversy begins in the Renaissance and continues to the 19^th century over which was the most important element of art: Disegno (drawing, composition, the intellectual/Florence) or Colorito (color, emotion, sensuality/Venice)?

Giorgione (1478-1510), a Venetian painter known for his poetic painting, introduced the subject of reclining nude and the landscape.

Giorgione: The Tempest, c. 1506? (1509-10?). Oil on canvas. 32” x 28”.

A woman is seated on the ground, nude except for the end of a long white cloth thrown over her shoulders. Her nudity seems maternal; her sensuality is generative rather than erotic, as she nurses the baby protectively and lovingly embraced at her side. Across the dark, rocky edge of her elevated perch stands a mysterious man, variously interpreted as a German mercenary soldier and as an urban dandy wandering in the country. His shadowed head turns in the direction of the woman, but he only appears to have paused for a moment before turning back toward the viewer or resuming his journey along the path. Attention seems focused as much on the landscape and the unruly elements of nature as on the figures posed within it. Some interpreters have seen references to the Classical elements of water, earth, air, and fire in the lake, the verdant ground, the billowing clouds, and the lightning bolt.

Titian (1488-1576), a Venetian painter and student of Giorgione, was a sought-after portrait painter known for his fine ground pigments and his use of color.

Titian (or Giorgione): The Pastoral Concert, c. 1510, oil on canvas, 41” x 54”.

This idyllic landscape, bathed in golden, hazy, late-afternoon sunlight, seems to be one of the main subjects of the painting. Two men, an aristocratic musician in rich red silks and a barefoot, singing peasant in homespun cloth, turn toward each other, unaware of the two naked women in front of them. One woman plays a pipe and the other pours water into a well; the white drapery sliding to the ground enhances rather than hides their nudity. They are the musicians’ muses. Behind the figures, the sunlight illuminates another shepherd and his animals near lush woodland. This painting evokes a golden age of love and innocence, recalled in ancient Roman and Italian Renaissance pastoral poetry. The painting is now interpreted as an allegory on the invention of poetry. Both artists were renowned for painting sensuous female nudes whose bodies seem to glow with an incandescent light, inspired by flesh and blood as much as any source from poetry or art.

Allegory: In a work of art, a combination of objects, figures, or images that illustrate a concept or idea by analogy. Often it exists as a second narrative, a figurative rather than literal narrative.

The Pastoral: An idealized shepherd’s life in art and literature, evoking a golden age of love and innocence.

Titian: “Venus of Urbino”, c. 1538, oil on canvas.

This painting was delivered to Guidobaldo della Rovere, duke of Urbino, depicting a beautiful Venetian courtesan with deliberately provocative gestures, stretching languidly on her couch in a spacious palace. Her glowing flesh and golden hair are set off by white sheets and pillows, suggesting more about marriage than mythology or seductiveness. The multiple matrimonial references in this work include the pair of cassoni, servants removing or storing the woman’s clothing in the background, the bridal symbolism of the myrtle and roses she holds in her hand, and even the spaniel snoozing at her feet, a traditional symbol of fidelity and domesticity, especially when sleeping so peacefully. This painting likely represents the duke's marriage, a bride welcoming her husband to their marriage bed.

Reclining Nude: Established during the Renaissance, this theme emphasizes the beauty and honesty of the nude human form and occasionally suggests the sensuality of the nude.

Palladio (1508-80) was the chief architect of the Venetian Republic, writing “Four Books of Architecture” in 1570, a classicist.

Palladio: Villa Rotonda, Vicenza, c. 1560s.

Palladio started his most famous and influential villa just outside Vicenza. Although villas were working farms, Palladio designed this one in part as a retreat, literally a party house. To maximize vistas of the countryside, he placed a porch elevated at the top of a wide staircase on each face of the building. The main living quarters are on this second level, while the lower level is reserved for the kitchen, storage, and other utility rooms. Upon its completion in 1569, the building was dubbed the Villa Rotonda because it had been inspired by another round building, the Roman Pantheon.

Palladio: Plan of the Villa Rotonda, Vicenza, Italy, begun 1560s.

The geometric clarity of Palladio’s conception features a circle inscribed in a small square inside a larger square, with symmetrical rectangular compartments and identical rectangular projections from each of its faces. The use of a central dome on a domestic building was a daring innovation that effectively secularized the dome and initiated what was to become a long tradition of domed country houses.

Protestant Reformation: This movement began in 1517 with the 95 theses of Martin Luther, who “protested” against the power and abuses of the Church, such as the selling of indulgences. It focused on the word of God (Bibles were being produced in great numbers by printing presses and in native languages) and salvation through faith alone, opposing the hierarchy of the Church. This movement was prominent in the northern countries (Germany, Holland, England).

The Sack of Rome (1527) marked the end of the Roman Renaissance.

16^th century art in Northern Europe and Spain: The Renaissance flowed north around 1500, showcasing a variety of styles but with humanism as a central interest. The Protestant Reformation began (1517) with two reformers from Northern Europe, Erasmus of Rotterdam (Holland) and Martin Luther (Germany). With the loss of patronage of religious art, many artists turned to portraiture and other secular subjects.

In the Netherlands, there was a split between Protestant North and Catholic South, known for genre pictures and portraits.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (“Peasant Bruegel”) (1525-1569), a Flemish painter from Antwerp, was probably Protestant and known for Genre Pictures (scenes of everyday life).

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: Return of the Hunters, 1565. Oil on wood panel.

This painting represents December and January, capturing the bleak atmosphere of early winter nightfall with a freshness that recalls the much earlier paintings of his compatriots, the Limbourgs. Hunters are returning home at dusk with meager results: a fox slung over the largest man’s shoulder. However, the landscape, rather than the figures, seems to be the principal subject. On the left, a receding row of trees, consistently diminishing in scale, draws our attention into the space of the painting along the same orthogonal descent as the hillside of houses. The elevated viewpoint resembles that of one of the birds that perch in the trees or glide across the snow-covered fantasy of an alpine background.

In England, with Henry VIII, England split from the Catholic Church (1534).

Hans Holbein (1497-1543), born in Germany but court painter to England’s King Henry VIII.

Hans Holbein the Younger: The French Ambassadors, 1533. Oil on wood.

This painting depicts Jean de Dinteville, French ambassador to England, and his friend Georges de Selve, bishop of Lavaur and ambassador to the Holy See. It evokes the political accomplishments of these two men. References in these objects to the conflicts between European states and within the Catholic Church itself imply that these confident young ambassadors will apply their diplomatic skills to finding a resolution. Two shelves reflect the Quadrivium: four mathematical sciences: Geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music; with Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric), they make up the seven liberal arts of classical study. An anamorphic skull (in skewed perspective) also serves as a memento mori (reminder of the inevitability of death).

In the 17^th century, Europe experienced religious wars: the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) in the Holy Roman Empire and the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) between Spain and the Low Countries. This period saw the political restructuring of Europe, with both wars ending with the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which formally recognized national sovereignty and religious freedom. The worldwide market saw the first multinational corporation, the Dutch East India Company, with wealth evident in the first banks and stock exchange. Growing secularization in the political realm allowed for the advancement of new science, laying the groundwork for the Enlightenment. The Counter-Reformation (Catholic reform and revival) dates from the Council of Trent (1545-63) to the Treaty of Westphalia (1648).

This period is normally referred to as the Baroque period, a style known for its sense of the grand, the turbulent, and the dynamic. This turbulence perhaps reflects the turmoil of the age. Art historian Heinrich Wolfflin saw it as a style opposite to that of the Renaissance: painterly, open in form, etc. (1915). It was perhaps an attempt to reengage the public in art (“to instruct, to move, to delight”) and strengthen Catholic faith. Baroque art often exhibits dramatic light and emotionalism, with styles varying by geography (e.g., Italian Baroque).

In Italy, which was staunchly Catholic, the visual arts were used in response to the Protestant Reformation and as part of the strategy of the Counter-Reformation (beginning with the Council of Trent 1545-63) “to instruct, to move, to delight” the faithful.

Bernini: David, 1623. Marble. 5’7”.

This sculpture was made for a nephew of Pope Paul V in 1623 and introduced a new type of three-dimensional composition that intrudes forcefully into the viewer’s space. The young hero bends at the waist and twists far to one side, ready to launch the lethal rock at Goliath. This more mature David, with his sinewy body, tightly clenched mouth, and straining muscles, is all tension, action, and determination. By creating a twisting figure caught in movement, Bernini incorporates the surrounding space within his composition, implying the presence of an unseen adversary somewhere behind the viewer. Thus, the viewer becomes part of the action, rather than a displaced and dispassionate observer.

Bernini: St. Teresa of Avila in Ecstasy, 1645-52. Marble (bronze rays).

This sculpture represents an eroticized vision described by the Spanish mystic in which an angel pierced her body repeatedly with an arrow, transporting her to a state of indescribable pain, religious ecstasy, and a sense of oneness with God. St. Teresa and the angel, who seem to float upward, are cut from a heavy mass of solid marble supported on a seemingly drifting pedestal that was fastened by hidden metal bars to the chapel wall. The angel’s gauzy, clinging draperies seem silken in contrast with Teresa’s heavy woolen monastic robe. Bernini effectively used the configuration of the garment’s folds to convey the saint’s swooning, sensuous body beneath, even though only Teresa’s face, hands, and bare feet are actually visible.

Borromini: San Carlo Alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, 1638-67 - Significant Baroque architect known for his work in Rome.

This church stands on a narrow piece of land with one corner cut off to accommodate one of the fountains that give the church its name. Executed more than two decades later, it was as innovative as Borromini's planning of the interior. He turned the building’s front into an undulating, sculpture-filled screen punctuated with large columns and deep concave and convex niches that create dramatic effects of light and shadow. He also gave his façade a strong vertical thrust in the center by placing over the tall doorway a statue-filled niche, then a windowed niche covered with a canopy, forward-leaning cartouche held up by angels carved in such high relief that they appear to hover in front of the wall. The entire composition is crowned with a balustrade broken by the sharply pointed frame of the cartouche. As with the design of the building itself, Borromini’s façade was enthusiastically imitated in northern Italy and especially in northern and eastern Europe.

Caravaggio (1571-1610) is noted for his frank realism and theatrical lighting (tenebrism).

Tenebrism: This technique uses dramatic spotlighting to allow forms to emerge from a dark background. Note that chiaroscuro emphasizes volume, while tenebrism emphasizes drama.

Caravaggio: The Calling of St. Matthew, Oil on Canvas, c. 1599-1600.

In this painting, God's light cannot be seen; it is obscured by the figures too busy with money.

Gentileschi: Judith Beheading Holofernes, c. 1616-20, oil on canvas.

The subject is drawn from the biblical book of Judith, which recounts the story of the destructive invasion of Judah by the Assyrian general Holofernes, when the brave Jewish widow Judith risked her life to save her people. Using her charm to gain Holofernes’s trust, Judith enters his tent with her maidservant while he is drunk and beheads him with his own sword. Gentileschi emphasizes the grisly facts of this heroic act, as the women struggle to subdue Holofernes while blood spurts from the severing of his jugular. Dramatic spotlighting and a convergence of compositional diagonals rivet our attention on the most sensational aspects of the scene, which have been pushed toward us in the foreground.

Rubens: The Raising of the Cross, 1610. Oil on panel - Flemish.

Rubens extended the central action and the landscape through all three panels. At the center, Herculean figures strain to haul upright the wooden cross with Jesus already stretched upon it. On the left, the followers of Jesus join in mourning, and on the right, soldiers supervise the execution. The drama and intense emotion of Caravaggio are merged here with the virtuoso technique of Annibale Carracci, but transformed and reinterpreted according to Rubens’s own unique ideal of thematic and formal unity. The heroic nude figures, dramatic lighting effects, dynamic diagonal composition, and intense emotions show his debt to Italian art, but the rich colors and careful description of surface textures reflect his native Flemish tradition.

Rembrandt: The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632. Oil on canvas.

Rembrandt combined his scientific and humanistic interests in this charged moment from a life story. Dr. Tulp, head of the surgeons’ guild from 1628 to 1653, sits right of center, while a group of fellow physicians gathers around to observe the cadaver and learn from the famed anatomist. He built his composition on a sharp diagonal that pierces space from right to left, uniting the cadaver on the table, the calculated arrangement of speaker and listeners, and the open book into a dramatic narrative event. Rembrandt makes effective use of Caravaggio’s tenebrist technique, as the figures emerge from a dark and undefined ambience, their attentive faces framed by brilliant white ruffs. Light streams down to spotlight the ghostly flesh of the cadaver, drawing our attention to the extended arms of Dr. Tulp, who flexes his own left hand to demonstrate the action of the cadaver’s arm muscles that he lifts up with silver forceps. Andreas Vesalius’ book on anatomy, with the first accurate anatomical illustrations, was put into print.

Camera Obscura: Light shining through a small hole in a box with a lens casts an upside-down image on the back of the box.

Vermeer: Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664. Oil on canvas.

This painting studied equilibrium, creating a monumental composition and a moment of supreme stillness. The woman contemplates the balance in her right hand, drawing our attention to the act of weighing and judging. Her hand and the scale are central, but directly behind her head is a painting of the Last Judgment, highlighting the figure of Christ the Judge in a gold oval above her head. The juxtaposition seems to turn Vermeer’s genre scene into a metaphor for eternal judgment, a sobering religious reference that may reflect the artist’s own position as a Catholic living in a Protestant country.

Vanitas: Objects such as jewelry, makeup, mirrors, etc., symbolize the transience of earthly life.

Pieter Claesz: Still Life with Tazza, 1636, oil on panel.

Still Life: A painting focused on the subject of inanimate objects, usually on a table. This genre was liked by the rising merchant class.

Claesz seems to give life to inanimate objects. He organizes dishes in diagonal positions to give a strong sense of space, here reinforced by the spiraling strip of lemon peel, foreshortened with the plate into the foreground and reaching toward the viewer’s own space. He renders the maximum contrast of textures within a subtle palette of yellows, browns, greens, and silvery whites. The tilted silver tazza contrasts with the half-filled glass, which becomes a monumental presence and permits Claesz to display his skill with transparencies and reflections. Such paintings suggest the prosperity of Claesz’s patrons. The food might be simple, but a silver ornamental cup like this would have graced the tables of only the wealthy.

Velazquez: Las Meninas (The Maids of Honor), 1656. Oil on canvas. 10’5” x 9’.

This painting draws viewers directly into the scene. In one interpretation, the viewer stands in the very space occupied by King Philip and his queen, whose reflections can be seen in the large mirror on the back wall, perhaps a clever reference to Jan van Eyck’s Double Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife.