Culturally, the development of northern European art was not unlike that of Italy, particularly when powerful princes created individual states based on wealth and leisure which encouraged the growth of the arts based on commerce and on the patronage of the rich merchants who controlled these states. This new and versatile artistic medium was exactly right for the formal intentions of the northern painters who wished to create sharp-focused, hard-edged and sparkling clarity of detail in the representation of objects and figures. While the Italian artists were interested primarily in the structure behind the appearances, being perspective, composition, anatomy, the mechanics of bodily motion and proportion, the northern painters were intent on creating appearances themselves, being the bright, colored surfaces of objects and figures touched by natural light.

For example, in Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks (ca. 1485) reflects all of the artistic integrity and beauty of the High Renaissance via its dimensional approach, the use of linear lines, undulating contours and crisp edges, not to mention da Vinci's startling use of light and dark contrasts which gives the effect that the figures in this painting are in true physical movement. This was accomplished by utilizing what is known as chiaroscuro, being the subtle play of lightness and darkness...

For instance, his Man in a Red Turban, a possible self-portrait painted in 1433, the figure of a rather wealthy-looking man looks directly at the viewer and presents the illusion that no matter from what angle a person observes it, the eyes remain fixed. Also, van Eyck has created in this painting a very dark background as contrasted with the brightness of the man's face as if sunlight was shining through a window in the invisible foreground. Certainly, this painting demonstrates the power of natural light and provides a glimpse into the cultural world of the artist, much like da Vinci's The Virgin of the Rocks which although influenced to a high degree by religious iconography, serves as a kind of metaphor on the life of the wealthy, dressed and living in opulence while those in the lower classes remain anonymous and "out of the picture" so to speak.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

de la Croix, Horst and Richard D. Tansey. (1990). Gardner's Art Through the Ages. 6th ed.

New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc.