Icons of the 16th Century

The present volume brings together some of the most important paintings of the 16th century. They offer insights into long-gone worlds, into the sphere of the rich and powerful and into the daily lives of peasants and craftsmen. They uncover the stories and myths which preoccupied them, and their religious and material desires. Thus Raphael speaks in a vast fresco of the political miracles which people hoped for from the Pope; Holbein portrays the lavishness of the diplomatic lifestyle; Hans Baldung Grien shows the misery of growing old; the Swiss artist Niklaus Manuel celebrates Confederate mercenaries; Pieter Bruegel the Elder gives us a wedding feast in a barn; El Greco demonstrates, in THE BURIAL OF COUNT ORGAZ, that the kingdom of heaven is just as real as the earthly realm. No less rooted in the earthly sphere were the highly personal motives which lay behind the commissioning of these masterpieces of European art. The authors discuss each picture not just as a work of art, but as a document of its day. The present volime represents a selection of articles originally published under the title "What Great Paintings Say" in ART magazine.