Laurens Kleine Deters. 'Paintings that can give great joy to the lovers of art': Marcus van Vaernewijck's notes about art and artists (1568)

 
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Laurens Kleine Deters
‘Paintings that can give great joy to the lovers of art’:
Marcus van Vaernewijck's notes about art and artists (1568) 

Published in 

Simiolus
Netherlands quarterly for the history of art
Volume 42 2020 Number 1-2 pp. 89-145 

Review by Giovanni Mazzaferro

 

Pieter de Hode the Elder, Portrait of Marcus van Vaernewijck, about 1619 
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marcus_van_Vaernewijck.png

On volume 37 of 2013-14, the journal Simiolus published Isabel Zinman's essay, From Ausonia to Batavia: the artists of Hadrianus Junius reconsidered, dedicated to Hadrianus Junius' Batavia, written in Latin between 1566 and 1575. I have already written on that essay in this blog and the first thing to say is that many of the aspects introduced at the time by Ms Zinman can now be recalled for Den Spieghel der Nederlandscher audtheyt (The Mirror of Dutch Antiquities), by Marcus van Vaernewijck (1518-1569) published in Ghent in 1568. Laurens Kleine Deters published Van Vaernewijck’s essay in the double issue of the Dutch magazine inaugurating volume 42 of 2020, with a large appendix that presented the most significant passages of the text in the original language and in English translation, with relative annotations. His work has made more easily accessible to scholars of art literature a text that has been considered a source of information for Karel van Mander's Schilder-boek; even Schlosser, who cannot be said to be particularly attentive to Northern European sources, briefly described Den Spieghel in his Kunstliteratur as "a very important writing by a diligent historian of Ghent" (p. 356). Probably he came to those conclusions having in mind the pages dedicated by van Vaernewijck to the Polyptych of the Mystic Lamb of Ghent, described by the author in the Spieghel, but the reality is that the artistic writings of van Vaernewijck were, as a whole, forgotten and only now is it possible to return to evaluate them in their entirety.

 
Between chorography, laudatory poems and biographies

Den Spieghel was published in Ghent in 1568. According to the indications of the same author, a first version of the work was ready in March 1561 and then revised between March and April 1566. Marcus van Vaernewijck worked in the civic administration of Ghent, and had a humanistic culture as rhetorician and writer. Den Spieghel is divided into four books. The first three of them reflect in many ways a rather antiquated approach, starting from the Genesis to get to the first Gallic kings (book I), continuing with the myths of the Greek and Roman presence in Flanders and Brabant, without missing an ancient kingdom of Trojan derivation (books II and III) - there is no need to be surprised: what should we say  about the myths about the origins of Rome? -; in the fourth there is the 'modern' part of the narrative with chorographic and historical descriptions above all about Ghent and the surrounding cities. The artistic notes, albeit in a confused and unsystematic way, found their place in book IV. The attention, as just mentioned, revolved around Ghent and its surroundings. This explains why the author dedicated only a couple of lines to cities like Antwerp; obviously, he aimed at describing the merits of Ghent, Flanders and (marginally) Zeeland, while Antwerp was in Brabant and, therefore, outside the interests of Van Vaernewijck.

It is immediately evident that the Flemish scholar's writing derives from a long tradition of a chorographic nature inaugurated in Italy by Flavio Biondo with L'Italia illustrata, published posthumously in 1474, and implemented in Northern Europe starting from the beginning of the sixteenth century thanks to humanistic circles. For further information see also the paragraph The chorographic genre in the review of the Batavia by Hadrianus Junius, with some clarifications: Batavia succeeded chronologically Den Spieghel, both as to the years of editing (between 1566 and 1575 for Junius, between 1561 and 1566 for Van Vaernewijck) as well as with reference to the publication (1585 and 1568 respectively). It also concerned a different region, which is located in present-day Holland, while Ghent and Flanders today are in Belgium; it was then written in Latin, while Van Vaernewijck has already switched to the use of the vernacular.

However, Laurens Kleine Deters points out that Spieghel's immediate precedents cannot be limited to the chorographic tradition alone, but must also be extended to the genre of laudatory poems and the influence of the biographical genre of Vasari's type. As for the former, I would like to recall at least Jean Lemaire de Belges (c. 1473-c. 1525) who in a poem composed for the death of Louis of Luxembourg (1467-1503), published in 1509, included among the great artists imitators of nature Jan van Eyck, Jean Fouquet (c. 1420-c. 1480), Giovanni Bellini (1430-1516), Pietro Perugino (1446-1523) and Leonardo (1452-1519) [1]. For our purposes, it is also necessary to underline the importance of the figure of Lucas d'Heere (1534-1584), poet, painter and writer (as well as teacher of Karel van Mander) who was linked to Van Vaernewijck by deep friendship [2] (in 1565 D'Heere dedicated a poem to Van Vaernewijck). D'Heere was the author, for example, of an Ode to the Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb, probably composed around 1559 (printed in 1565), which Van Vaernewijck certainly had as a reference in his description, even if he diverged in part from it, for example in identifying the portraits of the Van Eyck brothers. But D’Heere is also remembered for a sonnet dedicated to Hugo van der Goes and, above all, for the (remained unfinished) attempt to compose the lives of Flemish painters in rhyme, mentioned by Van Mander. For the sake of brevity, I cannot go further here, but I limit myself to remembering that the genre of laudatory poems had its apex with the famous Portraits of Flemish painters by Domenicus Lampsonius (1532-1599), published in 1572, but previously a particularly useful source for Vasari’s second edition of the Lives (1568); moreover, as to Lampsonius, I feel necessary to remember his Life of Lambert Lombard (1565), considered the first artist biography of the Netherlands.

Both D'Heere as well as Van Vaernewijck and Lampsonius knew Vasari's Lives, naturally in their Torrentiniana edition (1550) and, above all, they all knew each other. Mr Kleine Deters wondered to what extent their writings can be interpreted as an attempt by an intellectual circle to propose a new canon "of Northern Europe" over the Italian one which was rapidly becoming hegemonic. If I may, it occurs to me that the mechanism would, in this case, be very similar to that reported by Thijs Weststeijn in relation to Franciscus Junius' De Pictura Veterum (1637-1641) in his Art and Antiquity in the Netherlands and Britain. The Vernacular Arcadia of Franciscus Junius (1591-1677) (where a North European vision of antiquity would be proposed). Mr Kleine Dieters pointed out, however, that in Den Spieghel the author denoted a much greater propensity for describing works than for writing biographies of artists. In fact, biographical notations were substantially absent, except in the case of the van Eycks, for whom Van Vaernewijck corrected Vasari (who wrote on both of them as born in Bruges) clarifying (correctly) that they were originally from the small village of Maaseik; the biographical notes extended to Lucas d’Heere and, marginally, to his father Jean. The author was seemingly more anchored in the chorographic tradition than in the 'new' biographical genre.

Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Polyptych of the Mystic Lamb (open), Ghent, St. Bavo's Cathedral
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lamgods_open.jpg

 

Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Polyptych of the Mystic Lamb (detail) Ghent, St. Bavo's Cathedral 
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hubert_van_Eyck_004.jpg?uselang=it

Hubert and Jan van Eyck, Polyptych of the Mystic Lamb (closed), Ghent, St. Bavo's Cathedral
Source: https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polittico_dell%27Agnello_Mistico#/media/File:Lamgods_closed.jpg

The 'iconoclastic fury'

Having clarified all this, the real challenge is to try to understand how the work fits within the episodes of iconoclasm that occurred repeatedly in the Low Countries in those years, then giving way to the so-called Eighty Years' War (we had the opportunity to talk on this concerning Franciscus Junius' Batavia). If it is true that Van Vaernewijck's work was born in the context of a chorographic project to describe the main works of art in a territory, it is very likely that, between 1561 and 1566, the period in which the scholar placed the drafting, the Protestants’ attempt to destroy the images became more and more pressings. The expression 'iconoclastic fury' (in Dutch Beldeenstorm - storm of images -) indicates a series of episodes of destruction of churches, sculptures, paintings that were an expression of religious fanaticism on the one hand and of social unease on the other one. The most serious of these occurred in Ghent in August 1566. 

Dirck van Delen, The Iconoclastic Fury in a Church, 1630, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
Source: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/SK-A-4992

Van Vaernewijck, a Catholic, was directly involved in the repression of revolutionary uprisings; in August 1566 and July 1568 he was commissioned to recruit and command a city militia to defend the religious buildings (p. 100). Possibly, the turbulence of those years may explain the time elapsed between the end of the drafting of the Spieghel (1566) and its publication (1568). The fact is that, when it came out, the work took on a different meaning, a testimony of works that had in the meantime been lost; this was particularly true for the sculptural heritage, which suffered most from iconoclastic violence. If, in short, the work was originated as a chorographic attempt to enhance the heritage and culture of Flanders, when it was released - as the author wrote -“His [Van Vaernevick's] Spieghel contains an important catalogue of religious art in the Low Countries, compiled at a time when the validity of those works had become disputed” (p. 103). It is certainly no coincidence, for example, that the author indicated the practice of bourgeois families of adorning family chapels and commissioning expensive reliquaries in which the bodies of the saints were kept, arguing that the same “are the Lord's friends and very powerful in the heavenly realm” (p. 121). That said – Mr Kleine Lemers continued – “Van Vaernewijck recorded the vast riches of the Church not only on account of their religious function, but also, and primarily, because of their artistic value and importance. And although the construction of or even the contribution to an “artistic canon” was not an explicit aim of his text, Van Vaernewijck' still helped to emancipate a number of local artists” (p. 103).

All these elements, as you can see, encourage to carefully reads Van Vaernewijck's artistic notes, now that they are finally available in English.

NOTES

[1] In 1509 the three Italians were still alive, testifying to an updated knowledge on Italian art that is not so obvious. Lemaire was in Italy at least three times between 1506 and 1508 (in Turin, Venice and Rome). It should be noted that the Italian artistic canon indicated by the poet was so precocious that it did not include Michelangelo and Raphael.

[2] Kleine Deters writes 'D’Heere' and not 'De Heere', because this last version of the surname, with which the artist is known today, was only later introduced by Karel van Mander. In Den Spieghel the spelling 'D’Heere' is used.