Discuss the effect of the Reformation on religious images and the resulting shift in subject matter for Northern European artists

What will be an ideal response?

Protestant reforms included an attitude toward religious images that ranged from wariness to hostility. In their view, the Church in Rome encouraged the belief that images of saints and other figures possessed sacred powers. The walls of the Protestant churches were bare and artists had to look to new patrons. Northern European artists turned to the everyday world for subject matter, and the landscape was the most fruitful subject.