The Moneylender and His Wife (1514)-Paper 3

The piece of art I chose to analyze for this assignment is the Flemish painting The Moneylender and His Wife created by Quentin Matsys, in 1514, during the heart of the Northern Renaissance.  This piece of art depicts a man counting his money and his jewels while sitting with his clearly distracted wife.  The proportions in the painting are accurate.  Nothing is oversized or undersized.  The painting has darker shaded colors, giving a realistic feel.  The shadows and the mirror create contrast in the painting.  The mirror allows the viewer to realize that the light source is the sun.  The proportions, color and contrast clearly give a Renaissance feel.  The three-dimensional balance of the artwork is a result of the historical background in the Renaissance.

There are two large indicators that this is a piece of Renaissance art.  First, is the use of three- dimensions.  During the Middle Ages, art was two dimensional.  There was three dimensional art before the fall of Rome, but the knowledge and understanding of geometry was lost as a result of the fall of Rome.  But this is clearly not a Classical Era artwork as you can tell by the clothing of the individuals.  The second indicator that this is a Renaissance piece of art is the usage of religion.  The apple directly above the man’s head is probably a symbol of Original Sin.  This specific symbolization of Original Sin was common in Renaissance art.  The second piece of religion in the painting is the book.  The book depicts a painting of the Virgin Mary and Jesus.  It is through this book, that this painting depicts concerns about money.

The painting depicts a man counting his money and jewels sitting with his clearly distracted wife.  She is distracted from studying religion.  This is the biggest concern the Matsys tried to depict in his artwork.  Money has the potential to engulf people’s lives.  The woman, in the painting, is clearly more interested in the pearls than she is in her religious studies.  You could probably replace that book of religion with any book of knowledge and she’d still be focusing on the pearls.  Money is beginning to take over her life as it has her husband’s.