Esteemed, Worthy, Honorable, Wise, and very provident Lords, my Lords, the Lord Niclaes Suyker, Bailiff, the Lords Burgomaster, as well as the City Fathers, and Governors of the widely renowned, noble City of Haarlem, my gracious and lofty Lords,
In view of the fact that I, most honorable Lords, have long found myself more willing than able to show you some measure of service or well-pleasing gratitude,2 with a palpable sign openly to display my sincere affection for the gracious, righteous, and praiseworthy government and protection which I, by God’s mercy a fellow citizen of this noble City [of] Haarlem, well-known for ages, have enjoyed and shared along with other native-born [citizens] and residents. As my Office is to support myself by binding and selling books, I have recently had printed a book, called the Book on Picturing, written by Carel van Mander, who has been a citizen of this City for about twenty Years. For this reason, a great predilection has impelled me to publish this [book] under your name: which also seemed to me not improper, considering that this praiseworthy City since ancient times has ever been gifted with very noble spirits in the art of Painting, as if Haarlem were a loving wetnurse of this Art and of her practitioners, and now continues so to be. While Emperors, Kings, and the highest Princes of the World, too, have appreciated this Art: thus, do I as well, hope and trust that my Worthy Lords, overlooking my insignificance, shall as lovers of all artful practices and noble arts, look with benevolent eyes upon my good favor and good will, and accept it with a willing heart in thanks. Therefore do I offer up and tender it to your lofty Honors, along with my desire humbly to obey my Honorable Lords. Praying the All-Powerful Lord to keep and preserve Your fortunate, praiseworthy, and blest government in long-lasting prosperity.
In Haarlem, on the first of December, 1604.
From your Honors’ humble and biddable servant,
Passchier van Westbusch3
To the very Worthy, Honorable, and Art-loving Lord Melchior Wijntgis: former councilor, and Master General of the Mints of the United Netherlands: now Master of the Mint of the Land and County of Zeeland, my special Lord and good friend.4
Given that in all Nature, amongst Persons, nothing is more useful, expedient, or better for sure, swift, collective well-being than mutually, kindly, and peaceably to maintain a sincere, honest friendship: and conversely, through the exercise of envious, bitter enmity, the World comes lamentably to fall into the most profound decline[: So] I find myself sufficiently, and willingly, driven by needful causes to affirm, and by deed to show and make public, according to my little capacity, my heart’s friendly disposition toward you, my good, gracious Lord and warm-hearted friend, in order at least to make small, grateful, friendly requital for previously received [tokens of] friendship in respect of which your Honor has far exceeded and overmatched me. Yet (as I think) have I at length met with no other means so fitting as this, namely, to offer up to your Honor, in full deference, my Book (teaching Youth the foundation of the noble, free art of Painting). Since before this I had indeed looked round, without consideration of any high estate, for someone worthy of selection, through right knowledge earnestly and lovingly devoted to our Art, as your Honor chiefly is in deed and every perfection: thus do I surely hope that my offering shall come to be well met and not seen askance: what’s more, in that it is a rhymed poem, and your Honor exercises himself in various languages and sometimes also in the literary Art of Poetry, knowledgeably and desirously, whenever his pressing affairs allow, may then the poverty of my Muse not be laughed or smiled at derisively, but favorably and in a friendly way in her presence, and afterward sweetly embraced and received, for that she with every diligence to the best of her ability brings forth, reveals, and places before the eyes the nature and character of his dear friend the noble Art of Painting, praiseworthy and honorable in all her parts. Already reassured by such good Faith, our Art of Painting is herself made joyfully and heartfully to rejoice, seeing herself so valued and well-wished, and this her Book go gratefully received into her lovers’ hands, on which account she does indeed have cause greatly to be glad: for had she no such noble lovers, she herself and her artful practitioners, without climbing high or being raised in honor, would be reckoned amongst other handiworks and manual laborers, and would perforce remain dishonored and contemned amongst ignorant folk who lack understanding. But good fortune or merciful Occasion commonly ordains in every Century and time that several worthy, upright lovers be attached to our Art and her artful practitioners. The ancient Greek Painter Bularchus had as an admirer the Lydian King Candaulus.5 The Theban Aristides had Mnason, the Tyrant or King of Elatea, and the Anatolian King Attalus.6 Protogenes, Painter of Caunus, had the Egyptian King Demetrius.7 Pamphilus and Melanthus had Aratus and Tholomeus.8 Apelles had Alexander,9 and Zeuxis the Agrigentians.10 Beyond these ancients, Jan van Eyck had Duke Philip of Charlois:11 Albrecht Dürer, Charles the Fifth:12 Hans Holbein, Henry the Eighth, King of England.13 Francesco Bonsignori had the Marquis of Mantua.14 Michelangelo and Raphael of Urbino, the Art-loving Popes:15 Sprangher and Hans von Aachen, the Emperor Rudolph,16 and we have Melchior, my Maecenas,17 or better said, Apollo, to whom I altogether dedicate and offer up my slipshod poem, in likeness a mere lambkin. Which may your Honor willingly accept, covering over or seeing through the imperfect gift to the good will of its giver, as if it were a hundredfold Hecatomb from the more capable hand[s] of excellent Poets. I pray, not wishing to detain your Honor any longer, nor to hinder him from his affairs, that the sole cause of all perfection and beauty give and bestow to my Lord and good friend his heart’s every good wish and desire. At Heemskerck, in the House of Sevenberghen, on the third of June, 1603.18
From your Honor’s well-wishing friend and servant,
Carel van Mander, Painter.
Preface on the foundation of the noble, free Art of Painting.
The very amiable, genius-begetting, noble art of Painting, the natural nursemaid of all virtuous Arts and sciences19 (as Scholars well-versed in letters amply know) was once held in high honor and estate by most Lords and men of the highest learning: indeed, so much esteemed by the ancient wise Greeks that in the time of the artful Painter Pamphilus they placed her in the same degree and on a par with the other liberal Arts. But whether in or through this association our exceptional art of Painting now bestows by dint of her worthy presence or company a greater honor upon the other Arts than she formerly received from association with them, what I feel about this I shall gladly keep quiet, that I not be chided by reproving eyes, or badly thanked, and in order not to foment many a dispute.20 However, it is not to be gainsaid that she is well worthy of the place from which no one has ever cast her out, and that by rights she may indeed be called liberal.
Many ancient, glorious memories and deeds likewise confirm her nobility and high worth. First, no other liberal Arts were anywhere held in such esteem that it was forbidden by law for common folk to learn them: as was the case with the art of painting which formerly none but the noble-born was allowed to learn.21 Besides this, as stands in the Law of the Roman Emperor Justinian, another person’s painted board or panel, once an artful Painter had painted on it, could be claimed by and devolve to him; but another’s Parchment or Paper was not required to pass to an artful Writer, even if he had written on it in golden Letters: then it remained the property of the original owner.22 It is also to be Observed what fine splendid trophies our Pictura has as her ornament. Here one readily sees the great Alexander’s worldly royal scepter conjoined with Apelles’s brush, hanging bound together: there the most beauteous Campaspe becomes the painter’s share.23 Elsewhere the gold of Candaulus, King of the Lydians, weighed against the Painting of Bularchus. Here the riches of Cities for the Panels of Apelles, Echion, Melanthus, and Nicomachus.24 There, for a four-colored piece by Apelles, a full hectoliter of gold:25 and there again, eighty Talents of gold laid out for a Medea and Ajax, painted by Timomachus.26 Further still, there lie a hundred Talents for a panel by the artful Aristides of Thebes, purchased at an auction:27 And again, there stands King Attalus, dejected because a painted Bacchus was refused and denied him for six thousand Sesterces.28 But what is even more admirable, behold, a rough canvas by Apelles and Protogenes, inscribed with just a few lines, is more esteemed than all the costly works in the Palace of Caesar.29 This, too, is glorious, to be prized: three Cities—Rhodes, Sicyon, and Syracuse—very reverently give thanks to our Art for having been spared from bloody despoilment by cruel Mars and raging Bellona.30
All these are excellent proofs. But for those who desire more recent ones, they have but to go to Prague (should the opportunity arise), to see in the imperial residence of the greatest lover of the art of Painting in the World today, that is, the [Holy] Roman Emperor Rudolph II, and elsewhere as well, in every Art cabinet belonging to the powerful Lovers [of Pictura], all the excellent, costly works, investigating, estimating, and reckoning the value and price of each, to observe what considerable sums he will find.31 I think that astonished he shall be compelled to acknowledge that the exercise of our art of Painting, being noble, excellent, majestic, virtuous, need yield to no other Natural or Liberal Art.
I, then, (as far as it goes) a practitioner and follower of so praiseworthy an Art as this, whereof (as worthy as it is) I hope not to be unworthy, present to the clever, dear Youth following after her, her foundation, character, form, and nature, seeing as I with a ready will am so inclined.32 All the more, I have neither seen nor heard anyone in our time take in hand a subject as excellent and delightful as this for the utility of Art-loving Youth. Likewise, herein a bold desire enticed me to follow the formerly great and very illustrious Apelles, Antigonus, Xenocrates, and our other ancient forefathers, who (as shall be heard) compiled in Books, and (based on their learning) set in writing before the eyes of young Painters and made known every secret of Art.33 Someone more eloquent could have brought this to pass more fluently and with greater art: yet would it be a matter of concern that he himself, being no Painter, might often go astray as regards our affairs and their [peculiar] properties: as occurred in days gone by with regard to the Peripatetic philosopher Phormion who at Ephesus, through the power of eloquence, wished to portray every virtuous branch of knowledge and every science that an excellent Ruler ought to possess; whose reasons did but cause the great military man Hannibal to laugh at the arrogance and ignorance he understood to exist in that man.34 Consequently, seeing that no desire or eagerness to write was engendered in anyone, and without waiting in vain for another, over several years I made it my pastime and recreation and began to set the foundation of the art of Painting in Flemish Verse, it being the case that the Young are oftentimes drawn to poetry, and also retain it better by heart and memorize it.
Having begun, I had no true understanding of French prosody, but also little liking for our commonplace, old-fashioned, halting manner [of verse]. I say halting because we do not apply the rules according to a uniform measure.35 Therefore, I followed the [metrical] length of the Italian Octave:36 but having overlaid it upon our manner [of verse].37 I have used no mono-syllabic rhyme-words, or those that sound the rhyme on the last syllable, which the French call Masculine, and I [call] Flemish standing rhyme-words: but overall, I have seized upon those that sound the rhyme on the second to last [syllable], which I call falling, and the French [call] Feminine.38 I have also avoided those that sound the rhyme on the next before the penultimate syllable, which I call tripping in the Italian manner, which they name sliding (sdruccioli).39 I have refrained from using a like rhyme within one hundred lines, though additions [i.e., prefixes and suffixes] can infringe well [upon this rule]. I have not avoided foreign words altogether, since the particulars of our art are sometimes thusly named and can only otherwise be uttered poorly.
‘Twould perhaps better please a person knowledgeable of poetry, had I allowed my poem to step forward with French feet: but it would then have been more cumbersome for me, and for the Young more obscure. I readily admit that in the Gallic manner, using Alexandrian meter, one can produce quite a good effect: then must much attention and time be expended to produce something full and fine in substance, and flowing; and I also find it very good, and truly melodious always to have the second syllable hard or long, the first short, as first came into common use in our speech through the great Poet, the Lord Jan van Hout, Pensionary of the city of Leiden, who as a youth, having observed such [usage] in Petrarch, Ronsard, and others, followed them.40 And now, having begun to discourse on the art of Poetry, I shall (as if it here conduced) very briefly say something about my feelings and good intentions, that is, with respect to the emergent French manner and meter coming into fashion amongst us, and put forward some examples of good and bad rules.41 First, in Common verse of ten or eleven syllables, this line of eleven, with its feminine or falling rhyme, I consider good:
Good since it comprises a fully-formed notion within its fourth-syllable caesura, and grace-words beside its substantive word, which the Latins designate an Adjective beside the Substantive. Also because the continuation of the line contains a fully-formed notion without having to borrow from what follows. This [line of] ten syllables, as follows, with a standing rhyme, is not so good:
For its caesura, coming as it does on wel, must borrow from what follows. Now, concerning Alexandrines of six feet, with twelve or thirteen syllables, and the caesura on the sixth, I consider good this line of thirteen:
For within the caesura and as a whole, it comprises a complete notion. This other of twelve, quite bad or poor.
Because it must borrow from outside the caesura, noch lijdtsaem wesen: also, because as a whole it is neither rounded off nor makes sense: and since want must borrow from the consecutive line: consequently, neither want nor maer, or other such words belong before the cesure or caesura, nor as rhymes at the end of the line, if one would fashion something judicious. Furthermore, this last line, the word lijdtsaem excepted, is nothing more than quotidian jejune household speech, whereto the Alexandrine, if it is not properly disciplined by reason, very much inclines due to its length: but the previous [example] of thirteen is full of fine substantives, as well as grace-words, and divorced from every trace of household speech. I deem these examples and few words sufficient to make my views known.
Now, there are several additional things in use amongst our Netherlandish Poets that displease me, and nor can [such things] be justified: that they, paying no attention to the elision of vowels, bring a word that ends in a single vowel together with another word that begins with a single vowel, as one ascertains from the lines’ syllables, respecting which they pay no attention to elision, especially if it suits them not to do so: as when one says, de achste (the eighth), de elfste (the eleventh), de ander (the other), geacht (esteemed), and such; then, as one says te eer (in honor), de eerste (the first), te hebben (to have), and such, where a single vowel comes up against a double, in which cases I find by necessity that no elision must take place, also considering that the fricative h, when placed adjacent to a vowel, has the force of a vowel.43 Now, I was yet pleased to see a common agreement of gender, number, and other such things, as in the usage of the French and other peoples: for they say Seigneur and Signor, but we say Heer (Lord) and elsewhere Heere, Siel (Soul) and elsewhere Siele, Eer (Honor) and elsewhere Eere, and en (and) and ende, and we make such changes whenever we find it convenient for syllabicating or rhyming.44 Herein and in more, provisions shall slowly be made: for I find many faults (whereof I do not boast to be free) that require improvement: which I leave and commend to those who understand such things, and whose work it is.
And I turn myself toward the young Painters whom I have undertaken to teach to paint, and not to versify. Therefore do I state that capable or intelligent young spirits45 or vessels46 are now to be found, eager and happy to learn our art of Painting, into whose Souls climbing down from the highest heights, the heavenly constellations and lights, couriers of genius, were diffused at the opportune moment when [those Souls], along with animate life, were annexed to bodies, or who, when they enjoyed their first Breath, suckled at such good stars, or ingested the whole of their inclination to become proficient in our art of Painting—to speak in a Philosophical way; may they gratefully accept this my willing service, and consider attentively with a ready wit the instructive subdivisions of this my foundation to the arts of Painting, or of my entire Schilder-boeck, which I place or carry before their eyes.47 I hope that they will share in no small advantage or use from it. Herewith would I fain address a willing heart, furnishing it with courage. As Roman Leaders were formerly wont to do, who through artful exhortation could discern from the shaking of their soldier’s spears how their courage had been awakened and brought to life, so I adjure them to step forth intrepidly and take hold at first of the most special part of the Arts, namely, that they learn how to dispose a Human figure, and finally, that they also embrace all the concomitant parts [of the Arts], or otherwise, if Nature and Spirit are unwilling to permit, some special part, in order to become excellent at it: for it does not happen daily that a single person is empowered to learn, grasp, comprehend everything, or become proficient in all things.
Thus one finds our Art to have proceeded since olden days or Ancient times: that one in one thing, and another in another thing has been an abler and better Master, as one will find in their lives. For Apollodorus applied himself especially to beauty.48 Zeuxis made heads too large, but was a good painter of Fruit.49 Eumarus accustomed himself to do everything after the life.50 Protogenes could at first paint only little ships.51 Apelles was graceful in all things.52 Parrhasius, good at outline.53 Demon, full of invention.54 Timanthes, clever: in his work there was always some hidden sense of meaning.55 Pamphilus was learned.56 Nicomachus, facile.57 Athenion, profound.58 Nicophanes, meticulous and precise.59 Amulius, fine at coloring.60 Pausias, deft at children, and flowers.61 Asclepiodorus, good at measurement, or proportion.62 Amphyon, at ordering.63 Serapio, skilled at large things.64 Pyreicus, at small ones.65 Antiphilus, in both small and large.66 Dionisius could only paint human figures.67 Euphranor, everything.68 Nicias, beasts, especially Dogs.69 Nicophanes [was good at] copying, and was precise in his work.70 Mechopanes, too harsh in his colors.71 Nealces, fine at portrayal.72 Aristides, at affects.73 Clesides, after the life, also from memory.74 And Ludius, at Landscape.75 One will also find the same varieties (verscheydenheden) amongst contemporary Italians and Netherlanders, here too many to recount: whereby the Young shall be taught to persevere in the Art, to seize that which Nature offers most readily. If not perfection in figures and Histories,76 so may it be Animals, Kitchens, Fruits, Flowers, Landscapes, Buildings, Perspectives, Cartouches, Grotesques, Night Scenes, Fires, Portraits after the life, Sea Pieces, and Ships, or to paint something else in this wise.77 But above all, every person must strive with the utmost diligence and zeal to acquire and achieve a singular mastery in our Arts, which he will attain without any danger, battle, or shedding of blood, if earnestly, with constant effort, he but avail himself of magnanimous Nature.78
And now, in the first place, desiring with a hearty, cheerful, rousing admonition to urge my dear Young Painters therewith to do their best, at the same time I advise them by no means to depart from nor become a stranger to any virtue, honor, friendship, and courtesy, those constant, faithful, and congenial companions of the Art, which ought to be in every noble, fine spirit. Fare thee well.
To Carel van Mander, most ingenious poet and painter,
most well-deserving of his generation.79
Ode, on the Book of Picturing by Carel van Mander, Rich in Art83
A.V.M.88
[…]
Workshop-Song, for Young Painters, after the wise: “A pretty Venus maid, Has me in her Power, etc.”89
Deught verwint (Virtue triumphs). P.C. Ketel.91
Workshop-Song for Young Painters, after the wise: “The Lovely May, etc.”92
Deught verwint (Virtue triumphs). P.C. Ketel.
Landscape Painter’s Song, after the wise: “Beautiful dear, you alone are worthy of the prize”98
Deught verwint (Love triumphs). P.C. Ketel.
New Year’s Song, to be sung by six personages—Order, Art, Time, Advantage, Pictura, and Reason. After the wise: “Rejoice / in virtue / you Rhetorical Youth.”109
P.C. Ketel. Wilt Reden niet verachten (Be pleased to offer Reason no scorn). Deught verwint (Love triumphs).
Sonnet to Youth112
Reyn liefde croont (Pure love bestows the crown).114
To the Person Quick to Cavil and Defame115
Een is noodigh (One thing only is necessary). [Carel van Mander]
In addition to Paschier van Westbusch’s dedication of the Schilder-Boeck to the government of Haarlem and Van Mander’s dedication of the Grondt to Melchior Wijntgis, I have translated eight of the twenty-nine occasional poems that antecede the Grondt, selecting a sonnet, an ode, and a group of workshop-songs that directly pertain to it, along with a poem by Van Mander gainsaying his detractors.
The term “V.E.,” i.e., “Uwe Edelheid,” signifies “You,” rather than the more formal honorific “Your Honor.”
On Paschier van Westbusch, bookseller and publisher at the Sign of the Bible Held Aloft (In de beslaghen Bybel), see H. Miedema, trans. and ed., Karel van Mander, Den grondt der edel vry schilder-const, 2 vols. (Utrecht: 1973), 2:317.
On Melchior Wijntgis, whom Van Mander goes on to laud as a latter-day Maecenas, i.e., an incomparably generous and discerning patron of the visual arts, see H. Hymans, “Melchior Wyntgis,” De Dietsche warande N.R. 2 (1889): 152–158, 268–277; Miedema, ed., Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:324; and H. Miedema, ed., Karel van Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, trans. D. Cook-Radmore, 6 vols. (Doornspijk: 1995), 2:75–76. Due to his patronage and extensive collection of paintings, Wijntgis makes numerous appearances in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, the Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and High German Painters; see fols. 209v, 317r, 219r–v, 225v, 227r, 232r, 242r, 246r, 261v, 264v, 268r, 293r, 295r, 297r. He is also mentioned in “ ’t Geslacht, de geboort, plaets, tydt, leven, ende wercken van Karel van Mander, Schilder, en Poeet” (Lineage, Birth, Place, Time, Life, and Works of Karel van Mander, Painter, and Poet), the posthumous biography appended to the second edition of the Schilder-Boeck (Amsterdam: Jacob Pietersz. Wachter, 1618), fols. Ri recto–Siij verso, esp. fol. Sij recto. Known as the Levensbericht, the “Life of Van Mander” was possibly co-authored by his brother Adam and son Karel van Mander II, on whom, see Miedema, ed., Karel van Mander, Lives, 2:12–14. The printer was Paulus van Ravesteyn, who produced it between 1616 and 1618 for the co-publishers Wachter and Cornelis Lodewijcksz. Van der Plasse, although starting in 1618, Wachter alone is credited on the engraved title page; see ibid., 1:3.
On Bularchus and Candaulus, see “On Bularchus, Painter,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, Het leven der oude Antijcke doorluchtighe Schilders (Lives of the Ancient Illustrious Painters), fol. 64r.
On Aristides, Mnason, and Attalus, see “On Aristides, Painter of Thebes,” in ibid., fol. 71v.
On Protogenes and Demetrius, see “On Protogenes, of Caunus, Painter,” in ibid. 83r.
On Pamphilus and Melanthus, see “On Pamphilus, Painter of Macedonia,” in ibid., fol. 71r–v; and “On Melanthus, Painter,” in ibid., fols. 75v–76v, with specific reference to the patronage of Aratus and Tholomeus (Ptolemy).
On Apelles and Alexander, see “On Apelles, Prince of Painters,” in ibid., fols. 78v–79r.
On Zeuxis and the Agrigentians, see “On Zeuxis of Herclea, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 67r.
On Jan van Eyck and Philip of Charlois, see “Life of Jan and Hubert van Eyck, Brothers, and Painters of Maseyck,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, fol. 200r.
On Dürer and Charles V, see “Life of Albrecht Dürer, excellent Painter, Engraver, and Architect, of Nuremberg,” in ibid., fol. 208v.
On Holbein and Henry VIII, see “Life of Hans Holbein, excellent Painter,” in ibid., fol. 221v–222r.
On Bonsignori and the Marquis of Mantua, see “Life of Francesco Monsignori, Painter of Verona,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book II, Het leven der Moderne, oft dees-tijtsche doorluchtighe Italiaensche Schilders (Lives of the Modern, or Contemporary Illustrious Italian Painters), fol. 135v.
On Michelangelo and Popes Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII, Paul III, and Julius III, see “Life of Michelangelo Buonarotti, Florentine, Painter, Sculptor, and Architect,” in ibid., fol. 172v. On Raphael and Pope Julius II and Leo X, see G. Vasari, Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori, ed. G. Milanesi, 9 vols. (Florence: 1878–1885; reprint ed., Florence: 1906), 4:385.
On Sprangher and the Emperor Rudolf II, whose growing affection for the visual arts runs parallel to his burgeoning appreciation of Sprangher’s art and technical accomplishments, see “Life of Bartholomeus Sprangher, excellent Painter of Antwerp,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, fols. 271v–273v. Whereas their relationship is modeled on Pliny’s account, in Naturalis historia XXXV.xxxvi.85–87, of the friendly relations between Alexander and Apelles, the connection between Rudolf and another of his court painters, Hans von Aachen, is more patronal than personal, with little or no allusion to this artist as a latter-day Apelles; see “Life of Hans von Aachen, excellent Painter of Cologne,” in ibid., fol. 290r–v. On Van Mander’s very different portrayals of Sprangher and Von Aachen, the former of whom is implicitly characterized as the teacher who instills in Rudolf his love of art, see J. Müller, Concordia Pragensis: Karel van Manders Kunsttheorie im Schilder-Boeck. Ein Beitrag zur Rhetorisierung von Kunst und Leven am Beispiel der rudolfinischen Hofkünstler, Veröffentlichungen des Collegium Carolinum 77(Munich: 1993), 178–179, 182–183. On Haarlem as an outpost of Rudolfine culture and Van Mander’s role in propagating local interest in Prague, see ibid., 111–224; and N. Mout, “Hendrick Goltzius und die Hofkultur Kaiser Rudolfs II. (1576–1612),” in N. Michels, ed., Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617): Mythos, Macht und Menschichkeit aus den Dessauer Beständen [exh. cat., Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie Dessau; Maximiliansmuseum Augsburg; Galerie in der Reithalle, Schloss Neuhaus] (Dessau: 2017), 54–61.
On Gaius Clinius Maecenas, legendary for his patronage of the arts, see Horace, Ode I: Dedication to Maecenas, in Odes and Epodes, trans. and ed. N. Rudd (Cambridge, MA: 2004), 22–25.
On the House of Zevenberghen in Heemskerck, where Van Mander went to write the bulk of the Schilder-Boeck, see Levensbericht, fol. Siij recto; and Miedema, Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:328–339. Citing P.A.F. van Veen, De soeticheydt des buyten-levens, vergheselchapt met de boucken: Het hofdicht als tak van een georgische litteratuur (The Hauge: 1960), 140–160, 207–215, Miedema comments that in retiring to a country house to compose his magnum opus, Van Mander was emulating such poets as Virgil and Horace, who claimed to have withdrawn to the countryside to write their pastoral poems. Heemskerck is relatively close to Alkmaar, where the printer of the Schilder-Boeck, Jacob de Meester (city printer of Alkmaar) was based.
Cf. Grondt, chapter 2, stanza 2 infra.
Van Mander demurs to engage in the disputatio artium (paragone of the arts), on which reluctance see section 5, “Ekphrastic Usage in the Schilder-Boeck,” my introductory essay supra.
Cf. “On Pamphilus,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book II, fol. 72r.
As Miedema points out, Van Mander refers to Justinian, Institutiones III.i.33–34; see Corporis Iustinianei pars IIII. seu ult. quam vulgo parvum volume vocant […], ed. Petrus ab Area Bavdoza Cestii I.C. (Leiden: Gabriel Carterius, 1593), col. 128, l. 21–27: “Quia pictura pretiosior est, quam scriptura, secundum Ioan.” (Why a picture is more precious than a manuscript; alternatively, why something painted is more precious than something written.)
On Apelles, Alexander, and Alexander’s paramour Campaspe, whom he awards to the painter, see “On Apelles,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book II, fol. 79r.
On Apelles, Echion (Aetion), and Nicomachus, whose works in four colors were valued above the treasuries of cities, see “On Melanthus,” in ibid., fol. 75v. On Melanthus’s Allegory of the Victorious Tyrant Aristratus, a painting so highly esteemed that Aristratus’s mortal enemy Aratus considered saving it from destruction, see “On Melanthus,” in ibid., fols. 75v–76r.
On Apelles’s priceless Portrait of Alexander Brandishing a Thunderbolt, purchased for the equivalent in gold of a full measure of corn, see “On Apelles,” in ibid., fol. 79v.
On the Medea and Ajax of Timomachus, purchased for eighty talents of gold, see “On Timomachus, Painter of Byzantium,” in ibid., fol. 87r.
On the painting by Aristides, purchased by Attalus for a hundred talents, see “On Aristides,” in ibid., fol. 71v.
On this anecdote, see ibid.
On the contest waged by Apelles and Protogenes to paint the finest line, see “On Apelles,” in ibid., fols. 77v–78r.
On these three cities rescued from despoilment because they housed treasured paintings, see “On Protogenes,” in ibid., fols. 82v–83r.
On the doctrine of translatio imperii that underlies Van Mander praise of Rudolf, and later, in Books III and IV, lead him to distinguish between Michelangelo and Raphael as papal protégés and Bartholomeus Sprangher and Hans von Aachen as imperial ones, see Müller, Concordia Pragensis, 78–80.
The term voordraghe, though it commonly signifies “put forward, set before,” so as to make evident, can also specifically refer to the action of setting something before the eyes, i.e., “voor oogen stellen,” on which, see J. Verdam, ed., Middelnederlandsch handwoordenboek (The Hague: 1979), 735.
The reference to Apelles, Antigonus, and Xenocrates derives from Pliny, Naturalis historia XXXV.xxxvi.68 and 79, by way of Gualtherus Rivius, Der furnembsten, notwendigsten, der gantzen Architectur anghörigen Künst (Nuremberg: Iohan Petreius, 1547), fol. aaa2r; and Leon Battista Alberti, On Painting: A New Translation and Critical Edition, trans. R. Sinisgalli (Cambridge et al.: 2011), 46. Also see “On Parrhasius, Excellent Painter of Ephesus,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book II, fol. 69r; and “On Apelles,” in ibid., fol. 77r.
On the presumption of Phormion and the insouciance and discernment of Hannibal, see Vasari, “Proemio,” in Vite, ed. Milanesi, 1:103; Vasari’s source was Cicero, De oratore II.xviii.75.
Another possible reading of this line would be: “I say defective because we do not apply a uniform meter to the lines.” The regular French meter to which Van Mander refers generally consists of a fixed number of syllables, with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables and mandatory caesurae; the rhyme scheme fluctuates between standing (male) and running (female). The alexandrine is a line of verse with twelve syllables and six iambic feet, with major stresses on the sixth and last syllables, and minor stresses at the midpoint of each half-line. The older Flemish meter, which Van Mander deprecates, consisted of irregular lines with two or more accents per line. The newer verse patterns were codified by Matthijs de Castelein, in De const van Rhetoriken, allen ancommers ende beminders der zelver, een zonderlijngh exemplaer ende leerende voorbeeld (Ghent: Ian Cauweel, 1555): lines varying amongst 9, 12, and 15 syllables; or a more regular meter, known as “reghels mate” (measure of lines), in which every line has the same number of syllables. As Miedema notes, in Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:337, Van Mander first used alexandrines in his translation of Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics: see P. Vergilius Maro, Bucolica en Georgica, dat is, Ossen-stal en Landt-werck. Nu eerst in rijm-dicht vertaelt, door K.V. Mander (Haarlem: Gillis Rooman, 1597).
Italian ottava rima consists of stanzas of eight lines, each line eleven syllables long. Throughout the Grondt, Van Mander observes the Italian “reghels mate,” which incorporates no caesurae; see Miedema, Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:337.
Instead of using the alternating rhyme scheme of ottava rima, namely ab ab ab cc, Van Mander rhymes ab aa bb cc, a version of the scheme known as the “ghemeene baladen van achten” (common ballads of eight: ab ab bc bc). On the common ballad of eight, see Castelein, Const van Rhetoriken, lines 71–75, 77–100; and Miedema, Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:337.
In favoring running rhyme, Van Mander closely follows the rules of Italian prosody, which eschews standing rhyme.
Sdrucciolare is the technical term for Italian slipping or tripping rhyme, which Van Mander for the most part avoids.
Jan van Hout promoted French alexandrines by using them in his Dutch translation of George Buchanan’s Franciscanus (1576), on which, see J. Koppenol, “ ‘In mate volget mi’: Jan van Hout als voorman van de Renaissance,” Spektator 20 (1991): 55–85; and C.L. Heesakkers, “Lipsius, Dousa, and Jan van Hout: Latin and the Vernacular in Leiden in the 1570s and 1580s,” in K. Enenkel and Heesakkers, eds., Lipsius in Leiden: Studies in the Life and Works of a Great Humanist on the Occasion of his 450th Anniversary (Voorthuizen: 1997), 93–120.
The precepts and examples that follow come mainly from Pierre de Ronsard, Abbregé de l’art poëtique François (Paris: Gabriel Buon, 1565), with a few exceptions such as the specimen of enjambment.
This line opens K. van Mander, “Verhael van ‘tleven des Menschen, afsterven, ende ghevolgh,” in Van Mander and Jacques van der Schuere, De Nederduytschen Helicon, eygentlijck wesende der Maet-dicht beminders Lust-tooneel (Alkmaar: Jacob de Meester for Passchier van Westbusch, 1610), 150–155.
In advising against elision and acknowledging aspiration of the letter h, Van Mander takes account of Dutch and Flemish usage.
The reference to agreement with respect to gender, as Miedema indicates in Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:340, appears neither in French nor Italian treatises.
Throughout the Schilder-Boeck, Van Mander refers to gheest (spirit) as the repository of native ability; see C. Kiliaan, Etymologicum Teutonicae linguae, sive Dictionarium Teutonico-Latinum (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana, apud Ioannem Moretum, 1599), 148, which defines gheest as spiritus (spirit), anima (soul), genius (genius), and ingenium (talent, innate ability). Ingenium, along with doctrina / ars (rational doctrine, theory) and exercitatio / imitatio (practice, imitation), is one of the three key topics covered by Cicero in De oratore.
Cf. the similar though ironic reference to young painters as vessels in “Life of Hendrick Goltzius, excellent Painter, Engraver, and Glass-Painter of Muhlbracht,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, fol. 286v: responding to a recalcitrant student, Goltzius says, “Your cup runneth over, you are rich enough: and he turned to someone else, in whom there was better space for the infusion [of knowledge], who accepted the instruction gratefully and gladly.”
On Van Mander’s conception of the heaven-sent diffusion of life and soul that animates the otherwise inert human body and instills a person’s proclivities and natural inclinations, see Miedema, ed., Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:341. In “Van de Musae, oft Sangh-Godinnen” (On the Muses, or Goddesses of Song), in Schilder-Boeck, Book V, Wtlegghingh op den Metamorphosis Pub. Ovidij Nasonis (Commentary on the Metamorphosis of Publius Ovidius Nasonis), fols. 44v–45r, Van Mander equates these God-given proclivities with the Muses who, as he further conjectures, personified for the Ancients the influence of the heavenly spheres; citing Pythagorean doctrine, he states: “The Pythagoreans likewise opine that just as the propensities of the Muses are disparate, so too from the said Heavens or Heavenly spheres they descend disparately upon persons.” Throughout the Ancient, Italian, and Netherlandish “Lives,” Van Mander conflates this process of enlivenment with the conferral of native ability by Nature, from which arises the aspiring painter’s predilection for schilderconst; see, for example, the treatment of schilderconst as a natural birthright (“natuerlijck als erfgenaem toe zijn gheboren”) and an “heavenly infusion” (“Hemelsche instortinghe”) in the exordium to the “Life of Bartholomeus Sprangher,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, fol. 268r–v. On Natuer (Nature) as the fountainhead of native ability, see the entry on ingenium in Dictionarium tetraglotton, seu voce Latinae omnes, et Graecae eis repondentes, cum Gallica et Teutonica (quam passim Flandricam vocant) earum interpretatione (Antwerp: Ex officina Christophori Plantini [et] sumptib. haeredum Arnoldi Bierckmanni, 1562), 158: “La nature qu’un chacun a. Esprit et entendement qu’on a de nature. De nature die een iegelick heeft. Gheest ende verstant datmen van nature heeft.” Also see the entry on ingenitus, in ibid.: “Engendré dedans, et donné de nature. Ingeboren, Vander nature gegeven.”
See “On Apollodorus, Painter and Sculptor of Athens,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book II, fol. 66v.
See “On Zeuxis of Heraclea, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 67r–v.
See “On Eumarus,” in ibid., fol. 64r.
See “On Protogenes,” in ibid., 82r. Here and in the “Life of Hendrick Vroom, Painter of Haarlem,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, fols. 287r–288r, Van Mander develops an implicit analogy between Protogenes and Vroom, both of whom achieve fame for their paintings of waterborne vessels.
See “On Apelles,” in ibid., fol. 77r.
See “On Parrhasius,” in ibid., fol. 69r.
See “On Demon, Painter of Athens,” in ibid., fol. 69r–v; also see Grondt, chapter 4, stanza 33, 5 stanza 86, and 6 stanza 39.
See “On Timanthes, the very artful Painter,” in ibid., fol. 70r.
See “On Pamphilus,” in ibid., fol. 72r.
See “On Nicomachus, artful Painter,” in ibid., fol. 70v.
See “On Athenion, Painter of Maronaea,” in ibid., fol. 75r.
See “On Nicophanes, Painter” in ibid., fol. 83v.
See “On Amulius, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 88r.
See “On Pausias, Painter of Sicyon” in ibid., fol. 73r.
See “On Asclepiodorus, Painter, and Sculptor,” in ibid., fol. 83v.
On Amphyon, see “On Apelles,” in ibid., fol. 77v.
See “On Serapio, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 84v.
See “On Pyreicus, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 84r.
See “On Antiphilus, Painter of Egypt,” in ibid., fol. 84v.
See “On Dionisius, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 84v. Whereas Van Mander insists above (fol. * v verso) that the “most special part of the Arts” is knowing “how to dispose a Human figure,” here he uses Dionisius to emphasize that painters need to “embrace all the concomitant parts [of the Arts].” The ancient painters he is in the process of listing, and the contemporary specialties he is about to endorse, both Italian and Netherlandish, allow him to specify what these parts are, and to underscore their ancient lineage. Historie (history painting), as he argues in Grondt, chapter 5, is the subject category that encompasses all these deelen (parts), which Van Mander dubs, just below, with reference to present-day masters, the verscheydenheden (varieties). Byvoechselen (adjuncts, additions, appurtenances) is the term that Van Mander uses for verscheydenheden in chapter 5, where they are seen to function as crucial complements to historie, which they enrich and adorn.
See “On Euphranor of Isthmus, Painter, Sculptor, [Bronze-]Caster, and Engraver,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book II, fol. 73v.
See “On Nicias, Painter of Athens,” in ibid., fol. 74v.
See “On Nicophanes, Painter” in ibid., fols. 83v–84r.
See “On Mechopanes, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 85v.
See “On Nealces, Painter,” in ibid., fol. 84r; also see Grondt, chapter 5, stanzas 69–71.
See “On Aristides,” in ibid., fol. 71r.
See “On Clesides, Painter,” in ibid., fol, 86r–v.
See “On Ludius, Landscape Painter,” in ibid., fols. 87v–88r.
In listing the subject categories or, better, specialties at which the painter can legitimately excel, Van Mander begins with “beelden en historien” (figures and histories), which he uses here to mean two distinct (but related) things: on one hand, the phrase refers to one such deel or verscheydenheyt, excellence at figure painting; on the other, it refers to historie as the first, in the sense of the primary, subject—the one that comprises not only beelden but all the others as well.
Van Mander was himself expert at most if not all of these subject categories, as his paintings and print designs make clear: for histories richly embellished with distant landscapes and other byvoechselen (amplifying ornaments), see The Confusion of Tongues (ca. 1598), engraved by Zacharias Dolendo, and The Country Whose King Is a Child and The Country Whose King Is the Son of Nobles (1588), both engraved by Jacques de Gheyn II, in M. Leesberg, comp., The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings, and Woodcuts, 1450–1700: Karel van Mander, ed. H. Leeflang and C. Schuckman (Rotterdam and Amsterdam: 1999), 2–3, no. 2, and 26–27 nos. 32–33; for animals, see The Fall of Man, engraved by Bartholomeus Dolendo, in ibid., 1, no. 1, and the livestock in Moses and Jethro (ca. 1590) and Peasant Kermis (1593), respectively engraved by the workshop of Jacques de Gheyn II (?) and Nicolaes Jansz. Clock, in ibid. 12–13, no. 18 and 132–133, no. 118; for fruits and flowers, see Allegory on the Broad and Narrow Way (ca. 1600) and Allegory of Life (ca. 1599), both engraved by Gillis van Breen, and Allegory of the Transitoriness of Life (1599) and New Year’s Print of the Young Haarlem Chamber of Rhetoric De wijngaardranken (1600), both engraved by Jacob Matham, in ibid. 90–91, no. 11 and 102–103, no. 94, 100–101, no. 93 and 185–186, no. 162; for landscapes, see Rebecca and Abraham’s Servant (ca. 1592), engraved by Jan Saenredam, Parable of the Mote and the Beam and of the Blind Leading the Blind (ca. 1594), engraved by Nicolaes Clock, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (1596–1598), engraved by Zacharias Dolendo, and The Rape of Europa (ca. 1592) and Perseus Freeing Andromeda (1588), respectively engraved by Zacharias Dolendo and Jacques de Gheyn II, in ibid., 5–6, no. 4, 52, no. 50, 61, no. 58, 63, and 166–167 nos. 146–147; for buildings, see Judgment of Solomon (1597) and Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, both engraved by Hendrick Hondius, in ibid., 22–23, no. 29 and 48–49, no. 48; for perspectives, see Adoration of the Shepherds (ca. 1598), engraved by Jan Saenredam, and Marriage of Tobias and Sara (ca. 1590), engraved by Jacques de Gheyn II (?), in ibid., 42–46, no. 46 and 36, no. 42, 38; for cartouches, see Schole Christi (1599) and Commandment to Love One Another (ca. 1599), both engraved by Gillis van Breen, Title-Plate to the Passion Series: Christ in the Winepress (1596–1598), engraved by Jacques de Gheyn II, and Blazon of the Flemish Chamber of Rhetoric De witte angieren (1602), and Title-Plate to Jan van den Velde, Spieghel der schrijfkonste (1605), both engraved by Jacob Matham, in ibid., 94–95, no. 90, 96–97, no. 91, 60, no. 56, 63, 185, no. 163, 187, and 196, no. 169; for grotesques, see Foolish Discord in the World (ca. 1593), engraved by Jacques de Gheyn II, Title-Plate to Den Bybel, dat is, de Boecken der heyligher Schriftuer, (1598), engraved by Lambert Cornelis, and the Vignette to De gulden harpe, in ibid., 137, no. 121, 188–189, no. 164, and 194, no. 167; for night scenes, see Adoration of the Shepherds Surrounded by Moses and Five Prophets (1588), engraved by Jacob Matham (?), Arrest of Christ (1596–1598), engraved by Zacharias Dolendo, and Night (ca. 1601), engraved by Jacob Matham, in ibid., 40–42, no. 45, 61, no. 59, 63, 179. no. 159, 181, and 179, no. 159, 181; for fires, see Lot and His Daughters (ca. 1597), engraved by Hendrick Hondius I and Fire (ca. 1589), engraved by Jacques de Gheyn II, in ibid., 4, no. 3 and 176, no. 155, 178; for portraits after the life, see Petrus Hogerbetius (ca. 1600), engraved by Jan Saenredam, in ibid., 182–183, no. 160; and for sea pieces and ships, see Allegory of Christian Patience (1587), engraved by Harmen Muller, in ibid., 98–99, no. 92, although Van Mander states in “Life of Hendrick Vroom,” fol. 288r, that he once declined a commission from François Spierincx to design tapestries for the Lord High Admiral Charles Howard, and instead referred him to Vroom, more expert than he at seafaring subjects. As he explains, “it was not my practice to draw ships” (“also ‘t mijn doen niet en was schepen teyckenden”); on his demurral, see Miedema, ed., Karel van Mander, Lives, 2:80. For good measure, Van Mander initiated the Dutch revival of interest in Bruegel’s peasant imagery; his Pair of Drunken Peasants, drawn in 1588 and shortly thereafter engraved by the workshop of Harmen Muller, may be the earliest such genre scene produced in the northern Netherlands, on which, see ibid., xxvi–xxvii, 134–135, no. 119. Along with Hendrick Goltzius, he was one of the first print designers to produce genre scenes of young courting couples, and concomitantly, he also composed songs on love and marriage for popular songbooks such as the Nieuwen Lust-hof (Amsterdam: Hans Mathysz., 1602); on these prints, engraved and published by Gillis van Breen, see ibid., xxxvi, 122–129, nos. 108–115. Further evidence of Van Mander’s versatility appears in the Levensbericht, fol. R3 verso, which describes him as well versed in landscapes and grotesques, fol. R4 recto, which praises the animals, trees, foliage, flowers, and distant vista in an Adam and Eve, and fol. S2v, which extols the “light and airy” landscape in his last painting, Israelites Bearing the Ark across the Jordan, and the fabrics and folds and distant effects of recession in another late work, Israelites Dally with the Moabite Women, and Dance around the Golden Calf. Finally, as M. Leesberg speculates in “Karel van Mander as a Painter,” Simiolus 22.1/2 (1993–1994): 5–57, esp. 43, his Judgment of Midas of 1588, co-painted with Gillis van Coninxloo, and Judgment of Midas with Minerva and the Muses of 1589, engraved by Nicholas Clock and published by Hendrick Goltzius, likely spurred the exponential growth of interest in Ovid’s Metamorphoses amongst Dutch draughtsmen, printmakers, and painters around this time.
Van Mander introduces one of the key themes of the Schilder-Boeck: mastery of art is eirenic rather than combative, in contrast to mastery of war, which is parlous, bloody, and fraught with uncertainty. His conviction that schilderconst has the power to pacify and conciliate arose from his strict Mennonite beliefs, on which see Grondt, chapter 12, stanza 37, note 59 infra. Corollary to these principles is his notable reluctance to underwrite the disputatio artium, on which, see section 5, “Ekphrastic Usage in the Schilder-Boeck,” the introductory essay and note 18 supra. The necessity of cultivating gheest (natura, ingenium) through constant practice is another theme that surfaces frequently in the Schilder-Boeck; see, for example, “Life of Cornelis Ketel, excellent Painter of Gouda,” in Book IV, fol. 274v: “There are also those who, trusting too much in their nature or goodly spirit, and not availing themselves of diligent effort (neersticheyt), fail to achieve a praiseworthy end.” In the Levensbericht, fol. S iij recto, the author recounts that Van Mander, during his stay at the House of Zevenberghen where he wrote much of the Schilder-Boeck, staged a play for invited guests who entered through an archway festooned with devices alluding to the antithesis between the arms of peace (namely, the painter’s utensils) and the arms of war; see Miedema, ed., Karel van Mander, Lives, 30: “The outside of the gate and the entrance were hung with green plants interwoven with wreaths: there were also palettes, brushes, maulsticks, and other painter’s implements inserted in them as festoons, and further Italian antiquities decorated with fireworks and artillery, very strange to behold for those who had never traveled abroad.”
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fol. * 6r.
Worthy, that is, of Van Mander’s translation of Virgil’s Eclogues and Georgics, the Bucolica en Georgica, dat is, Ossen-stal en Landtwerck P. Virgilii Maronis, Prince der Poëten (Amsterdam: Gillis Rooman, 1597).
The gerundive conspiciendus (fit to be seen, beheld) carries with it the implication that the object is being seen admiringly.
On Petrus Scriverius, see Miedema, Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:318; and H. van de Venne, “Zu den Kupferstichen von Hendrick Goltzius met Epigrammen von Cornelius Schonaeus,” in Michels, ed., Goltzius: Mythos, Macht und Menschichkeit, 103–107, esp. 105–106. The initial H. refers to Haarlemensis (of Haarlem).
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fols. * 6v-* 7r.
The term beeldt (image) can also mean figure, and I translate it as such six lines down.
Pliny, in Natural History XXXV.56, identifies Dinias and Charmadas as two of the earliest painters in monochrome.
Pliny, in Natural History XXXV.147–148, mentions, in addition to four other female painters, Olimpias, teacher of Autobulus, and Irene, who painted the Maiden at Eleusis, a Calypso, and portraits of the juggler Theodorus and the dancer Alcisthenes. Boccaccio, in De mulieribus claris, expands upon Pliny’s account of the accomplishments of Irene.
Lala is A.V.M.’s spelling of Iaia, a female painter of Rome, who painted, according to Pliny in Natural History XXXV.147, portraits of women, including a large panel of an Old Woman at Naples and a Self-Portrait done with a looking glass. He adds that no contemporary could match her speed of hand as a portraitist.
On Adam van Mander, schoolmaster in Amsterdam and brother of Karel, see E. Rombauts, “Een onbekende 16de-eeuwse uitgave van Roemer Visscher’s ‘Brabbeling,’ ” in Vooys voor De Vooys: Huldenummer van De nieuwe taalgids ter gelegenheid van de 80ste verjaardag van Prof. Dr. C.G.N. de Vooys op 26 mei 1953, De nieuwe taalgids 46 (1953), 98–106; Miedema, Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:319; H. Duits, “Het leven van Karel van Mander: Kunstenaarsleven of schrijvers-biografie?” De zeventiende eeuw 9 (1993): 117–136; and Miedema, Karel van Mander, Lives, 2:12–14, esp. note 13.
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fol. ** 5v.
Haer (her) refers back to Schilder-const (Art of Painting), which speaks to Ieught (Youth) in the stanza that immediately follows.
On Cornelis Ketel, see Van Mander, “Life Cornelis Ketel, excellent Painter, of Gouda,” in Schilder-Boeck, Book IV, fols. 274v–280r; J. Schouten, “Cornelis Ketel en Gouda,” Oud-Holland 79 (1964): 122–132; Miedema, Karel van Mander, Grondt, 2:323; B.A. Heezen-Stoll, ‘Cornelis Ketel, uytnemende schilder, van der Goude’: een iconografische studie van zijn ‘historiën (Delft: 1987); Miedema, Karel van Mander, Lives, 5:116–160; T. Schutting, “Cornelis Ketel en zijn familie: een revisie,” Oud-Holland 108 (1994): 171–207; and N. Galley, “Cornelis Ketel: A Painter without a Brush,” Artibus et historiae 25 (2004): 87–100.
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fol. ** 6r–v.
In sin verwert (confused in mind) can also mean “confused in sense.” Ketel has Longing Heart avow that his mind / sense can barely comprehend / apprehend the degree to which he burns with longing for the fruits of Art. In the following line, since nut signifies “fruit, profit, benefit, advantage,” I have translated it with the periphrasis “fruitful profit.” The profit Ketel invokes is both tangible and intangible, monetary and spiritual.
Ketel signifies that the longing heart is like an agreeable pleasure garden waiting to be visited by all whom it entices to enter: the chief visitor he envisages is Van Mander or, rather, the instruction he brings with him in the form of the Grondt. This ground is presumably to substitute for or supplement the garden’s already fertile ground.
In this context, sin (sense) may also mean “mind, thought, or heart.”
As oeffenings (of practice) denotes exercise of the picturer’s skills, so Ervarentheyts (of Experience) connotes skill gained through practiced exercise.
By “Hier … is beschreven,” Ketel refers to the many remarks about ancient painters that punctuate the Grondt, and also to Book II of the Schilder-Boeck, Het leven der oude Antijcke doorluctighe Schilders (Lives of the Ancient Illustrious Painters).
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fols. ** 6v-** 7r.
Ketel emulates in miniature the form and argument of Grondt, chapter 8 and the gist of the section on byvoechsels from chapter 5, on which see section 6, “Landschap and byvoechsel,” of the introductory essay supra. Like Van Mander, he opens his nine-stanza poem by urging the aspiring painter to go out of doors, observe the dawn and rising sun, and consider how its light makes all things visible and thereby representable:
T’al siende oogh, groot Hemel-teecken,
Des Weerelts licht, dat elcx ghesicht
Hier openbaert, t’gheen is op d’Aerdt.
Neemt kool en krijt, pen, inckt, pampiere,
Om teeck’nen dat ghy siet, oft u de lust ghebiedt,
Hebt acht altijt, op t’ooghs bestiere.
Centrum (center) signifies a vanishing point: hence my translation, “Center point.” Having allowed his eyes to guide him, to speed toward the vanishing point then circle back to the foreground (“hoe t’gheen van veers verschiet, al tot een Centrum vliedt, wat ghy van bys bespiedt”), the painter must then set himself down in a pleasant spot, like Virgil’s Tityrus, who, seated at ease in the shade of a spreading beech, opens Eclogue 1 by singing about his native woods and pleasant fields. Ketel enjoins his reader to do the same, to paint in praise of his local trees, fields, and flora as did Tityrus of his woodland muse:
Leer-lustigh’ Ieught, zijt neer gheseten
By Tityr in het woudt, en daer u nut aenschout,
Het gheen u deught, can doen te weten,
De dinghen menichfout, van veers naeby ghebout.
Cf. Virgil, Eclogues, Georgics, Aeneid 1–6, ed. G.P. Gould—trans. H.R. Fairclough (Cambridge, MA: 1916), 2–3
Ketel uses the term ghebout (built, erected, constructed) to imply that nature has fabricated her constituent parts, as if she herself is an artist.
I have translated herdt (hard) as “sharply defined,” to render Van Mander’s sense of a firmly delineated form.
Paus (Pamphilus) refers to Pamphilius Mauritanus’s (or Maurilianus’s) twelfth- or early thirteenth-century pseudo-Ovidian poetic drama De arte amandi (The Art of Loving), which tells the intertwined tales of two pairs of lovers, Pamphilus and Galathea, and Aurelius and Dorigen. On Pamphilus and De arte amandi, written in the twelfth century and still popular in rhetorical circles when Ketel wrote his poem, see T.J. Garbaty, “Pamphilus, de Amore: An Introduction and Translation”, Chaucer Review 2 (1967): 108–139.
Conterfeyt (counterfeit) derives from the postclassical Latin verb contrafacere (portray) and signifies the action of replicating someone or something so closely and factually that the image can stand proxy for the person himself or thing itself. On this usage, see P. Parshall, “Imago contrefacta: Images and Facts in the Northern Renaissance,” Art History 16 (1993): 554–579.
Grondt, fol. ** vii recto:
Al t’gheen u greyt, in Paus warande,
T’zy bosch, t’zy bergh, oft Grot, waer t’oogh op werpt het lot,
Nae conterfeyt, maer met verstande,
Hier Stadt, Casteel, en Slot, daer Boer-huys, hut, oft cot,
Gins weghen, brugghen, tot, geen overschot.
Ketel calls upon the reader to paint, too, the land’s other features, both natural and man-made—its cities and villages, rivers and streams, its farmlands and laboring peasants. Whereas previously he had alluded to Virgil’s Eclogues, he now invokes Pamphilus Mauritianus’s popular pseudo-Ovidian drama, De arte amandi (On the Art of Loving).
Ketel refers back to the sketchbook whose leaves are mentioned in lines 11–12 of the poem, where he calls upon the fledgling painter to use coal, chalk, pen, ink, and paper to draw all that he sees in nature.
Ketel completes his thought by interpolating the parenthetical remark “(In schijn)” (in appearance), thereby emphasizing the importance of lifelikeness as a pictorial effect. This notion complements the earlier emphasis on contrafacture—the counterfeiting of nature’s sights. Whereas Ketel places the parenthetical at the start of the following line, which ends by invoking Fame, I have inserted it before “life,” in order more fully to convey what I take to be his meaning.
Grondt, fol. ** vii recto:
‘T’geen ghy in’t Boeck beschreeft, sulcx lantschaps doen aencleeft,
Met verwen die ghy wreeft, maeckt dat het leeft
(In schijn), soo sweeft, de Fame,
En brengt u werck, een groote name,
Door t’goet opmerck, bevrijdt van blame,
Liefhebbers veel, der Consten eel
Crijght ghy haer gheldt, daer voor ghetelt.
Ketel closes by counseling the painter, once returned home, to bring to completion the things drawn out of doors, enlivening them with colors, so that his reputation as a landscape painter of note is enhanced.
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fols. ** 7v-** 8r.
Ketel here alludes to the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14–30. The unprofitable servant of the Lord who does nothing to spread the treasure of the Word, burying the Lord’s gift of a single talen, is ultimately expelled from the kingdom. The reference to the painter’s “book” (‘in’t Boeck beschreeft’) has a dual purchase: on one hand, the artist’s sketchbook; on the other, the books cited in the poem—Virgil’s Eclogues and Pamphilus’s De arte amandi—through which he views his native landscape. Conversely, his experience of landscape, both as observer and draughtsman-painter, provides a frame for his reading of these poems: the imagery of “Pamphilus’s pleasure ground” is filtered through his drawings after “city, castle, manor-house” (“Hier Stadt, Casteel, en Slot”), “streams and fountains” (“beecxkens meldt, fonteynkens cieren”), “grassy fields and four-footed beasts” (“op’t grasigh veldt, viervoete dieren”), “milkmaids loudly singing” (“boerinnekens soos’, haer Koeykens melcken, al singhend’ overluydt”), “hunters abroad with their hounds” (“ ‘Iaghers loos met honden telcken”), “rustic couples, he’s and she’s, sailing on little lakes, and kissing lustily” (“t’samen paren, een hy en sy, in’t meerken varen, en hoe met lust, d’een d’ander kust”), all of which he has remarked and portrayed after the life (“slaet dit al gae, en bootst het nae”). Likewise, the other things he has diligently seen and drawn—the multifarious woodland trees with their distinctive foliage, sharply defined when seen close up, and the flowers, their colors softened by distance—filter his reading of Eclogue 1:
Hoe t’veerst van t’naest verstout, dat ghy onthoudt
Des voorgrondts stout, voorcomen:
Siet op’t hardt loof, der voorster bomen,
En merckt hoe doof, van veers de blomen
Vertoonen haer, ghy wordt ghewaer,
Wat herdt oft soet, men schildren moet.
His boeck, in other words, is twofold, comprising both his tekenboek (book of drawings) and his duodecimos (his pocket editions of Virgil and Pamphilus). Of course, a third inflection of boeck would also apply—the book of memory stocked by things seen and drawn, and by things visualized on the basis of texts read. To see and draw after nature, on this account, is a way of reading Virgil and Pamphilus, and reading them redounds upon how nature is seen and recorded, which is tantamount to insisting once again on the status of landscape as a hermeneutic that calls forth processes of viewing and picturing that imbricate image and text. On the trope of memory as book or codex, see Y. Plumley, G. di Bacco, and S.G. Jossa, Citation, Intertextuality, and Memory in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, 2 vols. (Exeter: 2011).
Ketel implies that Van Mander’s Grondt will compensate for the paucity of learning shown by the “Consten leerlings veel” (many students of art) addressed in the opening stanza of this poem; but a good result will be contingent, he further suggests, on their attending to Van Mander’s text not negligently but diligently.
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fol. ** 8r–v.
Vermander (one who spurs, urges on, admonishes, exhorts, advises, counsels) puns on Van Mander, ascribing to his Grondt all these functions comprised by the nominative form of the verb vermanen. In the Thesaurus theutonicae linguae (Thesaurus of the Teutonic Language) (Antwerp: Christopher Plantin, 1573), a vermaender is defined as admonesteur in French, as “monitor, admonitor, hortator, adhortator, exhortator” in Latin.
Motto of J. Targier, possibly identical with the preacher of this name in Brouwershaven; see A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, bevattende levensbeschrijvingen van zoodanige personen, die zich op eenigerlei wijze in ons vaderland hebben vermaard gemaakt, 20 vols. + supplement (Haarlem: 1852–1878), 18:19.
Schilder-Boeck, Book I, fol. ** 8v.
On Momus, son of the goddess Nyx (Night), whom Lucian in Hermotimus XX calls the god of complaint and scornful mockery, and whose scathing judgment of Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena features in Aesop’s 518th fable, see I.M. Veldman, “Maarten van Heemskerck and Hadrianus Junius: The Relationship between a Painter and a Humanist,” Simiolus 7 (1974): 35–54.
According to Vitruvius, De architectura (On Architecture) VII.8–9, Zoilus, known colloquially as Homeromastix (scourge of Homer), was a Cynic philosopher crucified (or stoned or burnt alive) by Ptolemy Philadelphus for his unbridled criticism of the king. True to his sobriquet, Zoilus had also criticized Homer maliciously.