#northern renaissance

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger is one of those paintings that we know so well we tend to forget to look closer. It’s like the Mona...

Joanna Kaszubowska 14 October 2023

WTF Art History

6 Creatures by Hieronymus Bosch That Could Be Pokémon

Did you ever think where the ideas for Pokémon could be coming from? Here are six examples proving that in the 16th century, Hieronymus Bosch caught...

Zuzanna Stańska 4 October 2023

WTF Art History

Listen to the Butt Music on Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights is a three-part altarpiece showing the Garden of Eden on the left and a vision of hell on the right.

Zuzanna Stańska 15 September 2023

Masterpiece Stories

Masterpiece Story: Self-Portrait at 28 by Albrecht Dürer

Albrecht Dürer loved self-portraits. In the first half of his life, he made a series of them. The earliest is from 1484, when the artist was a...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 September 2023

Animals

7 Images of Dürer’s Animals That Are Better Than Trip to a Zoo

Albrecht Dürer’s keen interest in nature was a typical manifestation of Renaissance curiosity. Animals were not generally considered to be...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 September 2023

Dürer Magic Square Bizarre

The Mystery of Dürer’s Magic Square

Many strange symbols appear in Albrecht Dürer’s famous engraving Melencolia I. Among them is a magic constant 34, a well-known and enigmatic...

Zuzanna Stańska 14 September 2023

Jan van Eyck, Ghent Altarpiece, 1432 Art History 101

10 Things You Need To Know About Jan van Eyck

Flemish painter Jan van Eyck (1390 – 1441) was one of the key artists of the Early Northern Renaissance. His technical brilliance and mastery...

Zuzanna Stańska 21 July 2023

Museum Stories

Vase of Flowers: The WWII Theft of a Dutch Still Life

What happens to artworks and cultural treasures as a nation prepares for war? In the case of Jan van Huysum’s Vase of Flowers, the Dutch still...

Natalia Iacobelli 17 April 2023

Animals

The World of Animals Created by Hans Hoffmann

Hans Hoffmann was a 16th-century German painter and draftsman. He was an artist in the court of Rudolph II (the one who loved arts and was probably...

Zuzanna Stańska 19 January 2023

Renaissance

Most Famous Winter in Art History: Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel

In the Bruegel Room in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, 12 paintings hang in the space. They cover the final ten year period of the life of Pieter...

Wendy Gray 21 December 2022

Theater & Cinema

Iconic Pieter Bruegel’s Hunters in the Snow in Movies

The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder belongs to the magnificent collection of Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Discover its story...

Zuzanna Stańska 11 December 2022

Women Artists

Meet Catharina van Hemessen: The Female Renaissance Artist You Haven’t Heard About

Do you know which artist created the very first self-portrait depicting themselves at work? Let me introduce you to Catharina van Hemessen. She was...

Anna Ingram 28 September 2022