Art and The Reformation at The Courtauld Institute of Art

A look at the reformation, which ran in parallel with the renaissance in 16th and 17th-century Europe, each exerting a profound effect on the visual arts. Often caricaturing the protestant reformation as purely destructive, art history has usually downplayed or overlooked the ways in which it shaped and re-directed the arts. Cranach collaborated with Luther to reinvent religious art so that it avoided medieval ‘superstition’, and other German artists, including Dürer and Holbein, took different approaches in adapting to the changing climate. Bruegel and others developed new, less controversial subjects such as landscapes, still life, and genre scenes. A new protestant sensibility can be detected in the art of Rembrandt whose down-to-earth realism contrasts so dramatically with the grandiose works of Rubens, a representative of the Catholic counter-reformation. Moreover, the reformation forced a re-evaluation of the purpose of the visual image, shifting from a religious icon to a work of art, admired for its beauty.