"Art of Northern Renaissance"

I spend a lot of time working on the ships, in fact far more than being on the ground.
Since I am doing this job for a decade already, it has ceased to be exciting or new - I do feel good when walking around some sunny street in Spain but to be honest it seems that as the years pass by these moments are rarer since job overload grows bigger and bigger, not to mention that I am somehow getting more and more tired of everything, I just want to use every free moment to sleep and rest.Sometimes - just sometimes - there is a "movie hunting" where I ask people around do they have any movies and mostly they carry around newest action movies with cars overturning, explosions and what not - so I go back to my black-and-white classics or documentaries. This time I had actually met somebody who had nice collection of documentaries, lo and behold I got my hands on excellent lectures about art and for the last two days I sit here mesmerised, watching and soaking everything in.

"Art of Northern Renaissance" is narrated by Professor Catherine B. Scallen from Princeton University  and she is sweet,mousy lady that looks like librarian (one of those absent minded ladies you see wearing something wrong or necklace hanging wrong) - but what she has to say makes a very interesting lecture and I can easily imagine having a wonderful after dinner conversation with her. What is the most fascinating here is that this is the lecture for artists, students of art and such but I found myself completely immersed in her world and even questioned myself was History of Art perhaps my real calling - after all, for years I have been browsing museums and galleries with greatest interest, though never really cared for religious paintings. This lecture changed all of this, because it points at so many fascinating stories behind it that I never was even aware of.

First, what it actually means "Northern Renaissance" - it is a reflection of Italian Renaissance as seen in the North of Europe, a brilliant combination of two worlds where artists were often travelling back and forth, admiring each other's work, copying and in turn creating something new and unique. For example, Flemish painter would travel to Italy,Spain and Portugal and bring home ideas about something, than Michelangelo wold later see this painting and impressed with colours and composition, would do his own thing inspired by it. Fascinating. Lecture also explains about many different, now almost forgotten ways art was created back than - Book of Hours, for example, which was lavishly illustrated book of prayers created for rich aristocracy , each of this books was of course unique and only one made exactly the same, the prettiest of them all used to be created by famous Limbourg brothers who all died probably during the plague epidemics. Having this Book of Hours was equivalent of having the biggest masterpiece created and designed just for yourself, with not only beautifully handwritten prayers but also stunning binding and precious illustrations like this one that represents February.

What I have seen for many years but somehow not recognised were all those little details and symbols hidden in religious paintings of the time - carving in the furniture that points at Biblical story, what it means to have that particular fly exactly there, what was painted and than changed later, how can we tell which saint this actually is and who were these real people (mostly wealthy donors) included in the painting. Honestly, I would pass by Ghent Altarpiece without a glance earlier maybe recognising a character or two, but now I am so intrigued that I even think about visiting Ghent myself and seeing it in reality. Not to mention that after almost every single lecture (that lasts for 30 minutes and covers different painters) I am so fascinated that I browse Wikipedia like a madman and making my own notes and research. I have finally learnt about the background of all these old masters, who they were and how can one tell one from another, who inspired who and what was probably lost forever in time. And I haven't even came to the stories of people like Hieronymus Bosch who I admired and loved for many years, not really understanding what's going on there but actually hardly anybody knows today. Yes it is a pity and embarrassing to realise I saw some of this paintings earlier and was so ignorant that I just passed by, but that is why this documentary is so exciting because in the future I actually might see them with different eyes.