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While earlier religious painting had successfully merged real and symbolic worlds, there developed a tension between the sacred and the secular in the art of the first half of the sixteenth century. Some artists worked in a deeply entrenched traditional mode, following standard formulas for devotional paintings. Others adopted new strategies, based on mannered style, for expressing the increasingly powerful devotional fervor of contemporary mystical movements and devotions, among them those dedicated to the Virgin of the Rosary and the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin. In their attempts to enliven their representations of age-old themes, Netherlandish artists turned to inspiration from abroad, and many traveled to Italy to absorb the lessons of Italian art firsthand. Moreover, writings, prints, and drawings by and after Leonardo da Vinci circulated in Antwerp, and Raphael’s designs for a set of tapestries for the Sistine Chapel were woven in Brussels, making Italian art accessible even to those who did not venture south. A new sense of grace and movement, as well as a love of Renaissance decorative detail, thus pervaded Netherlandish art. At the same time painters showed growing interest in secular elements—landscape, still life, and themes from daily experience—which began to compete with the religious imagery in their work, thus setting the stage for what would become familiar genre subjects in the seventeenth century. (Click on details for more information.)
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