Romanism (painting)

Upon their return home, these Northern artists (referred to as ‘Romanists’) created a Renaissance style, which assimilated Italian formal language.

[1] By drawing on mythological subject matter, the Romanists introduced new themes in Northern art that corresponded with the interests and tastes of their patrons with a humanist education.

[2] The Romanists painted mainly religious and mythological works, often using complex compositions and depicting naked human bodies in an anatomically correct way but with contrived poses.

[1] The term Romanist was coined by 19th-century art historians such as Alfred Michiels and Eugène Fromentin who had noticed a significant shift in the style of Northern painting in the 16th century.

Bernard van Orley is often also included in this group even though he likely never visited Italy and only familiarized himself with the Italian style from prints and Raphael’s cartoons for the papal tapestries, which were woven in Brussels.

Jan Gossaert was one of the first Netherlandish artists to make the Rome trip in 1508/9 and after his return to the northern Netherlands, he mainly painted mythological scenes.

[1][6] A second group of Northern artists who travelled to Rome in the second half of the 16th century included Dirck Barendsz, Adriaen de Weerdt, Hans Speckaert en Bartholomäus Spranger.