Parsa considers the extent to which the decrees of the Council of Trent changed the subject matter, composition, and style of art in Europe in what has become known as Post-Tridentine art. He also reflects upon attempts to change and reform improper religious art during the Post-Tridentine era, as well as attempts to retroactively rectify issues in earlier prominent works of art.
On August 20, 1566, tens of thousands of Dutch Calvinists surrounded the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp, crying out “Vive les Gueux!” (“Long Live the Geuzen!”). “Les Gueux” were a group of Calvinist Dutch noblemen who rallied against the Spanish Catholic Hapsburg rule over the Netherlands. They swarmed into the cathedral and began destroying crucifixes and chalices, shattering stained glass, and stamping out altarpieces and altartables alike. One Welsh Protestant merchant who visited Antwerp claimed, "Coming into Our Lady church, it looked like a hell, where were above 10,000 torches burning, and such a noise as if heaven and earth had got together, with falling of images and beating down of costly works, such sort that the spoil was so great that a man could not well pass through the church” (Letter from Richard Clough to Thomas Gresham in August, 1566).
The 1566 Iconoclastic episode in Antwerp exemplifies the larger Protestant trend of separating and distancing art from faith and feeling a need to create this separation through the mass destruction of paintings, statues, and relics. By the mid-1500s, the Protestant Reformation was well underway, and Protestant leaders such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Huldrych Zwingli had established a name and theology for themselves. However, the Reformation was not just restricted to theology; it had great implications for the history of art. The concept of creating icons and artworks as an aid in prayers to the Lord had come under attack by certain Protestant leaders, especially Calvin. Adherents of Reformed Christianity, or Calvinists, were concerned that Catholics were unduly reliant on altarpieces and praying to the work of art itself instead of using the work to channel their prayers to God. Thus, in an attempt to cleanse and purify the Catholic Church of its supposed heretical worship of idols, the Calvinists began a campaign to destroy religious art throughout Europe, beginning with a destruction of altarpieces and progressing into the sheer devastation of the interiors and exteriors of churches and religious spaces. Known as Protestant Iconoclasm, this movement proved to be incredibly systematic and thorough in destroying works of art, especially in England and the Netherlands.
By the 1540s, the Catholic Church had come to realize the grave threat Protestantism posed to religious and political stability in Europe. Thus, in 1545, Catholic clergymen gathered together in an ecumenical council, which became known as the Council of Trent, and over the course of 25 sessions, developed a response to the Reformation. The clergymen rejected the Five Solas, the primary teachings of Protestant leaders: Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), Sola Fide (Faith alone), Sola Gratia (Grace alone), Solus Christus (Christ alone), and Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone). They also reaffirmed the existence of Purgatory; reaffirmed the belief in transubstantiation, the Catholic belief that the Eucharistic host and Sacramental wine (bread and wine) are transformed or “transubstantiated” into the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ at the liturgy of the Eucharist; reaffirmed the validity of both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition; and, in the last session, reaffirmed the acceptability and necessity of religious art.
During the Twenty-Fifth Session of the Council, the clergymen decided that “in…the sacred use of images…all filthy lucre be abolished; finally, all lasciviousness be avoided; in such wise that figures shall not be painted or adorned with a beauty exciting to lust” (On The Invocation, Veneration, And Relics, Of Saints, And on Sacred Images). In addition to calling for decorous and proper subject matter in art, they also called for a change in the composition of artworks. They stated, “there [should] be nothing seen [in sacred images] that is disorderly, or that is unbecomingly or confusedly arranged, nothing that is profane, nothing indecorous, seeing that holiness becometh the house of God” (On The Invocation). In other words, the clergymen at the Council called for art that could be clearly understood and not “confusedly arranged.” In all, the Council of Trent mandated two principles for art: that it should affirm its propriety as an aid in religious worship and be composed of acceptable subject matter and qualities.
The Council of Trent’s concerns about the style of art were not unexpected considering the art movement that immediately preceded the ecumenical council: Mannerism. Mannerist art was characterized by an ostentatious flaunting of artistic skill, distorted figural representation, and mysterious and lascivious subject matter. A notable example is Agnolo Bronzino’s 1545 Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time. The painting depicts the Ancient Roman Goddess of Love, Venus, in an intimate embrace with her son Cupid, who caresses his mother’s breast. The incestuous lovers are caught in a kiss, with Venus opening her mouth slightly, revealing her tongue. On the right hand side, a small boy representing Folly throws rose petals on the couple. At the upper right hand corner, the old man symbolizing Time seems to be trying to hold up the curtain being pulled down by the woman across from him, suggesting that he is attempting to prevent the salacious event from being seen. Father Time’s attempts to hide the scandalous scene are fruitless, however; positioned in front of the curtain, the viewer can already see everything. Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time opposes the ideas espoused by nearly all of the artistic decrees of the Council of Trent. For instance, the scene of Cupid grabbing his mother’s breast goes against the decree that “all lasciviousness be avoided.” Additionally, the composition lacks a clear focal point and features an irregularly scattered arrangement of figures who interact with each other in ways that are ambiguous and perplexing, which clearly violates the Council of Trent’s decree that art should not be “unbecomingly or confusedly arranged.” In this manner, Bronzino’s painting is emblematic of everything the Council of Trent sought to change and reform in the artistic sphere.
While the characterization of Post-Tridentine art has posed a challenge for many art historians, Post-Tridentine art can generally be defined as an art movement lasting from 1560-1600 that adhered to the artistic decrees of the Council of Trent. To truly understand the impact of the Council, we can compare one work of religious art from before its occurrence with another sacred work after it came to a close.
In 1552, a few years before he created Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, Bronzino painted the Descent of Christ into Limbo for the Basilica of Santa Croce, the primary Franciscan church of Florence, where it was placed adjacent to the church’s main doors. Its subject matter, the “Harrowing of Hell,” is common in art history and is based on the First Epistle of Peter, where St. Peter writes, “For this cause [divine judgment], was the gospel preached also to the dead” (1 Peter 4:6 Douay-Rheims). This idea is further attested to thereafter in the Petrine Epistle, when St. Peter states, “In which also coming he [Jesus Christ] preached to those spirits that were in prison” (1 Peter 3:19 Douay-Rheims). The idea of “spirits that were in prison” became interpreted to mean an intermediate state of souls, souls who were not in Heaven because Heaven cannot be feasibly considered a “prison” and not in Hell because damnation is eternal and Christ had no reason to preach to those who had no way to redeem themselves. Thus, the phrase of “spirits that were in prison” became interpreted to be either Limbo or “Hades” (ᾅδης), the concept of an abode or resting place of the deceased, further attested to in the Parable of Lazarus and Dives from the Gospel of Luke. While there is still debate about the exact location of Christ’s descent, the primary interpretation of the subject matter is that Christ descended into Limbo to rescue and set free the unbaptized, righteous souls who had died prior to Christ’s descent into Limbo, such as the Old Testament Patriarchs and Prophets.
Bronzino’s painting is an exemplar of Mannerist art, exhibiting many of its controversial artistic features. The composition is cluttered and filled with figures, creating a sense of confusion, ambiguity, and disorientation that is typical of Mannerist art. Yet, although clearly visually packed, it exhibits slightly more clarity in subject matter than some other notable Mannerist works (like Pontormo’s famous Deposition from the Cross, for instance). In Bronzino’s painting, Christ strides forward confidently in the center of the composition with a faint halo above his head, indicating that he is the central focal point of the painting. He holds a flag with a white background and red cross, an apparent anachronistic representation of the Cross of St. George, which was used during the Crusades to invoke the aid of St. George in battle. Giorgio Vasari also writes that Bronzino used portraits of some of his contemporaries in his representation of the figures in the painting, and one can even see a portrait of Pontormo himself.
When Bronzino first exhibited the painting in Santa Croce in 1552, the work was heavily praised by the public for its sophistication. However, as the Council of Trent continued and conceptions of art began to change, the public reception to the work changed. By the 1580s, Bronzino’s painting faced a great deal of criticism and backlash from the public, who were offended by the overwhelming nudity of the figures of the women, which seemed to fly in the face of the Council of Trent’s stipulation that “all lasciviousness be avoided” in art. Thus, though Bronzino’s Descent of Christ into Limbo is certainly not as overwhelmingly improper and indecent as his Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time, the painting still exhibits features that were objectionable to a Post-Tridentine audience.
By the 1570s and 1580s, the news of the decrees of the Council of Trent had spread from Italy to countries throughout Europe, including Spain, where, in 1577, the artist El Greco painted the Holy Trinity, a work of art that encapsulates the Post-Tridentine spirit by synchronizing an appropriate subject matter and proper composition. The oil on canvas work was made for the Church of Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo, Spain. The painting portrays the Holy Trinity, the Christian concept that God exists as a triune, a singular entity composed of three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Unlike many other works from the Mannerist period, El Greco strips the painting of all unnecessary content and leaves the viewer with just the central subject matter. The painting depicts the triune pair held up by angels on a cloud, with God the Father holding the crucified body of Christ with the Holy Spirit flying out from a burst of light above the Father and Son. The figures are not “painted or adorned with a beauty exciting to lust;” rather, the body of Christ is relatively well-covered by a white linen cloth and resembles the positioning of the deceased Christ on Michelangelo’s Pietá. Similarly, the painting is not “confusedly arranged;” instead, the three figures form a stable and balanced pyramidal composition, frequently used during the High Renaissance, that frames and centers the subject matter.
While it is true that the Holy Trinity partially departs from established Mannerist traditions by drawing inspiration from Renaissance masters, El Greco still implements the Mannerist technique of elongated proportions, which can be seen in the body of Christ. However, as opposed to elongating proportions to attain a sense of highly stylized elegance like in other Mannerist works, and El Greco’s use of distorting anatomical accuracy looks a lot more like a tortuous elongation, recalling Christ’s suffering; in this manner, El Greco uses certain Mannerist techniques towards a Counter-Reformation mission of strengthening the faith as recommended by the Council of Trent. In fact, even El Greco’s philosophy for his art and his intentions in making art evoke the decrees of the Council of Trent. Despite drawing inspiration from his work, El Greco was notable for being a critic of Michelangelo. According to a letter from a physician to Pope Urban VIII, El Greco “ventured to say that, should the work [Michelangelo’s Last Judgment] be destroyed, he would take it upon himself to do it all over again with propriety and seemliness.” Though he may have been the only one suggesting for it to be completely removed and repainted by himself, El Greco was not the only one concerned about the property of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. Overall, El Greco’s Holy Trinity serves as a representation of how art changed after the Council of Trent and how Post-Tridentine art departed from the composition and subject matter of Mannerist art, while at times retaining the artistic techniques employed by Mannerist artists.
Despite being held up as one of the most eminent and influential works of art today, Michelangelo’s 1534-1541 fresco of the Last Judgement on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel faced one of the greatest Post-Tridentine scandals and controversies. There were a few issues people took with Michelangelo’s depiction of the Last Judgment, including the complex and confusing poses, crowded composition, Jesus’s lack of a beard, and the fact that nearly all of the figures, including Jesus and the saints, were completely nude. Pietro Arentino, an Italian author wrote to Michelangelo in a 1545 letter, “as a baptized Christian, I blush before the license, so forbidden to man's intellect, which you have used in expressing ideas connected with the highest aims and final ends to which our faith aspire… Your art would be at home in some voluptuous bagnio [public bathhouse or brothel], certainly not in the highest chapel of the world.” In a similar tone, the Pope’s Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, allegedly said, “it was disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully.” Michelangelo was apparently not pleased with da Cesena’s statements given that he used da Cesena’s portrait in the donkey-eared figure of Minos in the fresco. The furor and uproar over Michelangelo’s Last Judgement was so profound that the artist Daniele da Volterra was contracted to paint clothing over many of the nude figures in Michelangelo’s fresco, which is how the figures remain today. Overall, the indignation and reforms to Michelangelo’s Last Judgement show the reach of the artistic decrees of the Council of Trent and how Post-Tridentine art applied not only to new art being created after 1563 but also was a movement that retroactively looked back to previous prominent works of art and amended them to more closely align with the public sentiment after 1563.
What happened to the artists who did not conform to the style stipulated by the Council of Trent? This question can best be answered by looking at the Late Venetian Renaissance artist Veronese’s monumental 18 by 43 foot painting, Feast in the House of Levi, originally intended to be a scene of the Last Supper. In the late 1500s, Veronese was commissioned for the refectory, or dining room, within the Dominican church of the Basilica di Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Paintings of the Last Supper were commonly placed in refectories, as they allowed friars and religious sisters to contemplate the spiritual nourishment of Christ’s body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist when consuming gastronomic sustenance. A world-famous example is da Vinci’s High Renaissance Last Supper, placed in the Dominican refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Veronese’s Last Supper painting is one of his most famous works and also his most infamous, due to the controversy that the work spurred in Venice. Last Supper scenes typically show both or either of two scenes: Christ’s announcement that one of his apostles will betray him or the Institution of the Eucharist. However, Veronese’s account of the biblical event looks much more like a standard 17th century banquet as opposed to a typical scene of the Institution of the Eucharist. The painting’s backdrop displays 17th century Venetian Renaissance architecture based on Palladian principles with rounded arches, relief carvings in the spandrels, and classical balustrades. The central controversy of the painting, however, was the casual treatment of the holy subject matter: Veronese chose to paint figures drinking heavily, lively conversing with each other, greeting other people, serving food to others, and entertaining other groups of people. The painting was so insulting to Venetian clergymen that the Holy Inquisition of Venice summoned Veronese to a tribunal accusing him of a serious lapse of judgement with a potential verdict of heresy awaiting the artist.
According to the trial transcript, Veronese’s response to the Holy Inquisition’s concerns about the painting was that “painters take the same poetic license that poets and madmen take.” The Holy Inquisition was not pleased with Veronese’s statement that the creative license of the painter is comparable to the madman. However, Veronese was ultimately able to assuage the artistic anxieties of the Inquisition in regard to the painting by changing the painting’s name from the Last Supper to the Feast in the House of Levi, a biblical scene from the Gospel of Luke. One can see an inscription on the right side of the marble railing in the foreground, reading “Luca Cap. V,” referring to Luke, Chapter 5, the chapter where the scene of the Feast in the House of Levi occurs in the Gospel. Overall, Veronese’s artistic imbroglio before the Holy Inquisition of Venice shows the reach of Post-Tridentine art and the pressing importance of the style of art to the European public, and especially clergymen, at the time.
The Post-Tridentine Exception of Privately-Commissioned Art
It is worth noting that there were some works of art created between 1563 and 1600 that eluded the Post-Tridentine art campaign to reform art—these exceptions were, primarily, privately commissioned works. While works of art painted for churches, such as Michelangelo’s Last Judgement and Veronese’s Feast in the House of Levi faced backlash from clerical leaders who sought to implement the decrees of the Council of Trent into the art around them, privately-commissioned art in palaces and residences slipped through the cracks of the Post-Tridentine spirit. A great example of this is Annibale Caracci’s fresco cycle of The Loves of the Gods, made for the palazzo, or palatial residence, of Cardinal Farnese in Rome. Caracci painted the fresco cycle on the vaulted ceiling of the palazzo, primarily depicting narrative scenes of the different lovers of the Ancient Greek Gods. There are also stories of tragedy and abduction interspersed in medallions—one narrative scene portrays a moment during the affair between Venus and Anchises, the father of Aeneas, as Anchises attempts to slip Venus’s sandals back onto her foot after presumably having relations with the goddess. Aside from that particular narrative scene, many of the other narrative scenes portray figures who are either nude or semi-nude, which seems to defy the stipulation that art should be free from “all lasciviousness.” In fact, the Loves of the Gods is more or less the antithesis of everything espoused by the moralizing artistic decrees during the Council of Trent, including the idea that art should not be “profane” or “indecorous” or “perverted into revellings and drunkenness.” Thomas Hoving, an art historian and former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, further attests to this and calls Carracci’s Loves of the Gods, “an entertaining celebration of a bunch of randy Olympians hitting on each other.” The fresco cycle certainly did not befit any person, much less a cardinal, living in Rome or anywhere else in Italy during the Post-Tridentine period. Overall, works of art in villas, loggias, palazzos, or any other private area held a certain exemption from the strong force of Post-Tridentine art which changed the course of art in many public areas.
In the immediate conclusion of the Council of Trent and the decades following it, European art underwent changes so profound that formerly esteemed masterpieces were denounced and lampooned and new works of art were objected to and altered. Despite the fact that art was only discussed in the last session of the Council of Trent in only a few short paragraphs, those decrees about art forever changed the path of art history, simultaneously attempting to amend Mannerist art preceding it and setting the stage for Baroque art which followed. While traditionally not thought of as its own art movement, public European art from 1560 to 1600 was so drastically different from both what preceded it and followed it that it may be worth considering the Post-Tridentine spirit and atmosphere next time you see a work of Renaissance art from the latter half of the 16th century.
(Cover Image: Federico Barocci’s 1575-1579 Madonna del Popolo for the Confraternity of Santa Maria della Misericordia in Arezzo via the Uffizi Gallery; The painting is a quintessential work of Post-Tridentine art and depicts a group of faithful lay people in the foreground performing good works and acts of mercy, such as almsgiving and burying the dead, while Christ blesses them and the Blessed Virgin Mary intercedes on their behalf.)
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Parsa considers the extent to which the decrees of the Council of Trent changed the subject matter, composition, and style of art in Europe in what has become known as Post-Tridentine art. He also reflects upon attempts to change and reform improper religious art during the Post-Tridentine era, as well as attempts to retroactively rectify issues in earlier prominent works of art.