When the wheel of time entered the 16th century, China and Europe invariably ushered in a round of great changes in their own ideas.
In the East, Wang Shouren (号阳明), who was born in 1472, had long passed the green years of "Shouren Ge Bamboo", and he came to Longchang, Guizhou in 1506, where he had a new understanding of traditional Confucianism, known in history as "Dragon Field Enlightenment".
After that, Wang Yangming put forward the philosophical proposition "To Conscience" and the methodology of practice - "the unity of knowledge and action", thus constructing his own Yangming school. Wang Yangming's thought is also regarded by later generations as the earliest philosophical enlightenment in the late period of Chinese feudal society.
At the same time, a european generation of Vincent Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466-1536) was beginning to conduct a comprehensive introspection and critique of religious institutions and ideas since the Middle Ages.
A print by Tsurus for Erasmus, whom he revered, 1526
In the previous article, I had already introduced his masterpiece Ode to the Fool, which was ahead of its time.
This "diligent scholar like a worker bee" believed that it was necessary to clarify the original doctrine by combining humanistic education with the ancient texts of Christianity, so he took the risk of retranslating the Latin version of the Bible translated by Saint Jerom and editing and publishing the Greek New Testament collation.
Like Jan. With the continuous efforts of scholars such as Huss and Erasmus, coupled with the invention of printing, more ordinary people could read the Bible directly, and the church's exclusive monopoly on the interpretation and dissemination of Christianity began to waver.
"Ode to the Fools, stripped of its carnival mask, was one of the most dangerous books of its time. To us, it seems like a witty firework, but it is actually a bomb that opens the way to the German Reformation," the modern Austrian writer Zweig commented.
According to Zweig, Erasmus made the bomb, and the person who set out to light the bomb was Martin. Martin Luther (1483–1546).
A painter who leaves a portrait of the master
In addition to the fact that erasmus and other humanists began to reflect and criticize the religious system of the time, artists also involuntarily joined this trend.
In my previous article, in introducing Erasmus, I used a 1526 print by a German painter named Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Dürer's self-portrait at the age of 13
Dürer, who is four years older than Michelangelo, was born in Nuremberg. As a representative of the Northern Renaissance, he has too many auras on him. Dürer was the first German artist to cross the Alps and become famous in Europe.
He is also a man with Da. Finch was a similar encyclopedic figure, not only a copper plate sculptor, statuer, and architect, but also an alchemist, mathematician, mechanic, art theorist, philosopher, mystic, and anatomist. I will tell you more about how he lived his whole life into eight lifetimes of others, and his creative career.
Like many people of his time, Hele benefited from a new way of communication—the development of the paper industry and the invention and popularity of printing. His godfather, Anton Koberger (1445–1513), was a printer and publisher, and Dürer was exposed to copper plate paintings at an early age.
The year 1494 meant a year of maturity for Tuller, the year in which he completed his marriage and went to Italy for the first time to study. When he returned to Nuremberg in 1495, he opened his own independent woodblock studio.
Soon after, he received an important task of creating a panel of woodcuts for the last part of the New Testament of the Bible, the Book of Revelation. In this set of revelations published in 1498, Tsuru was not only the creator of prints but also the publisher of books.
One of Dürer's woodcuts of the Book of Revelation
The series of Southern painters introduced earlier, from Giotto to Titian, their popularity often depends on the artistic patrons, especially the thighs of giants such as the Medici family or the popes and emperors, compared with the first success of Tsuru and their routines, although he later became the royal painter of Charles V, but his reputation came more from the mass production of paper and the emergence of printing, and many readers became his fans.
His hometown of Nuremberg has excellent resources in this regard. It was the center of papermaking in Germany in the 15th century, and by the early 1470s, Anton Koeberg had founded a printing workshop, which soon became one of the largest printing plants in Europe at that time. By 1480, Koeberg's printing plant had overtaken the Schaefer workshop in Mainz and became the largest printing plant in Germany.
Today, this set of "cradle books" (incunabula specifically refers to the cradle period of the European printing industry around 1450-1500, the books printed during this period are called "cradle books", which are the first printed books, pamphlets and even indulgences in Europe with metal movable type) The Nuremberg Chronicle was published in this period, and it was during this period that it was The Enlightenment Teacher Michelle. A masterpiece by Michael Wohlgemut in collaboration with Koenberg.
The Cradle Edition of the Nuremberg Chronicles from the National Library of China
Inner page of the Nuremberg Chronicle
The original work of the book was by another German humanist, physician and bibliophile, Hartmann. Hartmann Schedel, who divides world history into seven periods according to the Year of the Holy Prophet, recounts the history from the "Book of Genesis" to the era of Tsula.
The Nuremberg Chronicle, produced by the Koberg Printing House, was published in December 1493, with illustrations in the Latin and German editions by Michel. Wolgemut and his son finished. The collection of this collection in the National Library of the Mainland is a Latin edition published in 1493.
Tsuru for his teacher Michelle. Portrait by Wolfmuth, 1516
2. Revelation
When Dürer first established his family, new printing techniques and communication methods had begun to spread among the public, which gave him a broader space for development in the field of printmaking, and his painting style and audience were completely different from the traditions followed by Southern painters.
In the first chapter of Revelation, the author refers to himself as John, traditionally believed to have been written by St. John of the Twelve Apostles of Christ. It was written around the 90s AD, at the end of the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian (24 October 51 – 18 September 96 AD), preceded by his elder brother Titus (39–81 AD).
Before he ascended the throne, Titus made a military contribution to quelling the Jewish war - in 70 AD, he led an army to capture Jerusalem, and his troops sacked the holy city, bringing back to Rome the seven candlesticks in Herod's temple, the ark of the covenant and other holy relics. (See the fifty-eighth article "Laocoön", which was accused of being forged, and Michelangelo continued to write the "Encyclopedia of the Human Body".)
After Domitian himself ascended the throne, he placed more emphasis on his authoritarianism and despotism, and in the Christian view of history, he was regarded as the first Roman emperor to persecute Christians. St. John was exiled to the island of Patmos during this period, and during his captivity he received a vision to write it down, which is the main content of the book of Revelation.
Dürer's Book of Revelation woodcuts No. 2
Like Michelangelo's Book of Genesis 10 years later, this group of prints has an extraordinary significance for believers for the prints depicted in the last volume of the Bible.
The book of Revelation has 404 verses, 278 of which quote verses from the Old Testament, so if you are not familiar with the Old Testament, you cannot understand the book of Revelation; without the book of Revelation, the Old Testament would lose its value. It can be said that without the chapter of Revelation, the whole book would not be complete.
Dürer's Book of Revelation woodcuts No. 3
Dürer's Book of Revelation woodcuts No. 4
Dürer's Book of Revelation woodcuts No. 5
Dürer's Book of Revelation woodcuts No. 6
This group of engravings by Tsula consists of fifteen woodcuts. "God has sinned on earth, and the pace of destruction has begun. The sun and the moon are dark, the stars are falling, and all things are destroyed, whether high or low, or not"—the illusion that Tuller gave to St. John gives meaning to reality, depicting the dark scenes of the Final Judgment, combining the realities of Germany under habsburg rule at that time:
Endless wars, plagues and hunger, filled with accusations of social darkness and fear of death, touched the reader's heart, and Tulla became a hit.
For example, in the Painting of the Four Horsemen, four knights representing "war," "plague," "poverty," and "death" descend from the sky, sinners, including a bishop, are judged, and his head is being devoured by the dragons of hell.
The Four Horsemen in Dürer's Book of Revelation
Rhinoceros and Leo X
The first european understanding of the rhinoceros was through the roman writer Pliny the Elder in his natural history, and it was not until 1515 that they first saw living creatures.
On May 20 of that year, an Indian rhino was transported to Lisbon by the Governor of the Portuguese colony. King Manuel I of Portugal at the time had given the large pet to Pope Leo X, but unfortunately the rhino died in a shipwreck in early 1516 during transport.
Based on a drawing from a letter from a painter's hope for Nuremberg, he made this Rhino print, and the rhinoceros in his engraving had an extra medieval knight's armor and a small horn on his neck, and although the shape of the rhinoceros was not accurate, its majestic appearance quickly spread throughout the European continent with the prints.
Le's engraving Rhinoceros, 1515
Leo X may have been saddened by the death of the animal that Tuller described as "agile, active, and cute", but his pets already included elephants, so he quickly adjusted his mood and threw himself into his own serious work: raising funds to continue building St. Peter's Basilica.
When his predecessor Julius II died in February 1513, the grand building designed by Bramante had barely begun, and within two years of the extravagant Leo X came to power, he had spent all the savings left by three previous popes.
In order to continue this great work, he had to adopt the business model created by his predecessor: the issuance of indulgences in large quantities.
In 1517, one of his envoys, John Tetzel, went across Germany to peddle indulgences to amass wealth, which finally angered a monk named Martin Luther (1483-1546).
Martin. Luther was born in 1483, the same age as Raphael. He entered the University of Leipzig in 1501 and received a master's degree in 1505. He then entered a convent and became a monk, and two years later received the priesthood. In 1512, Martin. After receiving his doctorate in theology from the University of Wittenburg, Luther gave permanent lectures on biblical studies at the university and worked in charge of the church.
On 31 October 1517, Martin. The Ninety-Five Theses are posted on the gates of the Ludwidenberg Castle Cathedral.
If we look at the original title of this document, "The Debate on the Effectiveness of Indulgences," it is easier to understand what kind of fire Martin Luther lit.
For details, we'll break it down next time. (To be continued)
————————————————