The Northern Renaissance

While cities and societies rose, fell, and were found to exist on the other side of the world, the masters of Northern Renaissance art grew in their appreciation of nature in the midst of civil and religious turmoil. Smith (U. of Texas at Austin) traces the intellectual, social and spiritual contexts in which van Eyck, Holbein, Durer, and hundreds of lesser-known virtuosi sought subjects and patrons. He shows how artists used new conventions and techniques to explain how life in Germany, France, the Low Countries, Britain and Austria was changing irrevocably. This is a volume in the series Art & Ideas. Annotation 穢2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)