Skip to main content
Home

Main navigation

  • Visit
  • Exhibitions & Events
  • Art & Design
  • Search

Visit Main Menu Block

  • Hours & Admission
  • Accessibility & Amenities
  • Tours & Group Visits
  • Visitor Guidelines

Exhibitions and Events Main Menu Block

  • Exhibitions
  • Events

Art and Design Main Menu Block

  • The Collection
  • Projects & Publications
  • Past Exhibitions

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Introduction

The Natural World, the Body, and the Divine

February 3 - April 16, 2006

A vigorous rediscovery of natural forms characterized Western art from the Renaissance through the 18th century. By the early 1400s, artists in Italy and Northern Europe had begun to abandon the flat, frontal, simplified forms that had characterized Gothic painting and sculpture, replacing this visual language with new ways of representing nature, the human body, and the concept of "the divine."

Over the next five centuries, classical forms related to ancient Greek and Roman sculpture would dominate representations of the human figure. Religious subjects depicting Old and New Testament characters were as likely to reveal physical aspects of the figure in motion as were narrative depictions based on legends of pagan gods. Landscape, which had not previously been valued as a subject in itself, took on greater importance as artists demonstrated the interdependence of man and his physical environment.

This selection from the Museum's permanent collection includes both frequently exhibited objects and works that are rarely on view. Together they suggest the variety of technical, compositional, and narrative solutions that "Old Master" artists used to represent nature in art during this long and fertile period.

Selected Objects

Possibly Netherlandish

Madonna and Child with Saint Barbara and Saint Catherine, ca. 1525

Michele Pace del Campidoglio

Still Life with Figure, ca. 1660

After Francesco Primaticcio

Andromache Learning of the Death of Hector, ca. 1570

Joachim Anthonisz Wtewael

The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis, 1610

Giuseppe Cesari, called Cavaliere d’Arpino

Perseus and Andromeda, ca. 1592

Attributed to Paul Bril

Self-Portrait, ca. 1595-1600

Nicolas Poussin

Venus and Adonis, ca. 1628

Giambologna

River God (The Virile Age; The Euphrates), ca. 1575

Francesco Foschi

Winter Landscape, ca. 1750

Francesco Bassano II

The Birth of the Virgin, ca. 1588

Salomon van Ruysdael

The Ferry Boat, 1645

Domenico Tintoretto

Sketch for a Battle Scene: Tancred and Clorinda, ca. 1586-1600

Jacob Jordaens the Younger

Return of the Holy Family from Egypt, ca. 1615-1616

School of Jacopo Tintoretto

Daniel in Judgment of the Elders, ca. 1575

Francisco Collantes

Hagar and Ishmael, ca. 1640

Domenico Gagini

Tabernacle, ca. 1460-1470

Adriaen van der Werff

The Expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael, ca. 1699

Domenico Fetti

Christ Ministered To by the Angels, ca. 1620

Bartolo di Fredi Cini

Madonna and Child, ca. 1380

Hendrick van Steenwyck the Elder

Interior of Aachen Cathedral, 1575

Karl Wilhelm de Hamilton

Forest Still Life, ca. 1735

More objects +

Exhibition Checklist

The Natural World, the Body, and the Divine

February 3 - April 16, 2006
View Checklist PDF

RISD Museum

  •  Facebook
  •  Twitter
  •  Instagram
  •  Vimeo
  •  Pinterest
  •  SoundCloud

Footer Main

  • Become a Member
  • Give
  • Who We Are
  • Opportunities
  • Rent the Museum

Footer Secondary

  • Image Request
  • Press Office
  • Rent the Museum
  • Terms of Use