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249 Boekbespreking/Book Review Reindert L. Falkenburg

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249 Boekbespreking/Book Review Reindert L. Falkenburg 249 Boekbespreking/Book review Reindert L. Falkenburg, Joachim Patinir. Landscape as an devotes almost half of his book. '1 here are no immediate Image of the Pilgrimage od Life, Translated from the Dutch by precedents for this subject in fifteenth-century art. Rather Michael Hoyle. (Oculi. Studies in the Arts of the Low it developed out of earlicr ?l ndachtshildet?,or devotional im- Countries, Volume 2). Amsterdam and Philadelphia, John ages, such as the Madonna of Humility, or the Madonna Benjamins Publishing Company, 1988. VII + 226 pp., 50 and Child in a hortus conclu.su,s,an enclosed garden whose black and white illustrations. many plants symbolize the virtues of the Madonna and the future Passion of Christ, It is the tradition of the Joachim Patinir is generally recognized as the founder of the clusu.s,furthermore, that accounts for the complex program Flemish school of landscape painting that flourished in the of botanical symbols that the author discerns in the land- sixteenth century. Ever since T,uclwi? von Baldass's pio- scape of the Prado Rest ott the Flight, among them the Tree of neering article of 191r 8 on Patinir and his followers, we have Knowledge and the Tree of Life. been told that it was Patinir who liberated landscape from Patinir, however, enriches the original iconic image of the the subordinate role it had occupied in earlier altarpieces Madonna and Child with subsidiary scenes of the Massacre and devotional panels. Under his the sacred stories of the Innocents, the Miracle of the iN."li<,a<it<.>ld;,and the became merely a pretext for depicting the natural world. Fall of the Idols near lIcliopolis. This transformation of The only spiritual function, if any, that Patinir's landscapes `icon into narrative' can also be observed in pictures of the possessed was the opportunity they offered the more devout t Rest on the Flight by Gerard David andjoos van Cleve, and viewer to worship the invisible Creator through His visible shows the same develolmnent that Sixten Ringbom has world. demonstrated for other devotional images of the period. Although a few scholars in the last few decades, most no- The use ofsuborclinate scenes, moreover, can be traced back tably Robert Koch and A.1'. de .:\1irimonde, have proposed through Mcmling to the Miraflores and 67. John altarpicccs that some of these pictures contain religious symbolism, of Rogier van der Wevden. In 1'atinir's Rest on the most scholars have assumed that Patinir's landscapes were such narrative scenes function as `mnemograrns,' to use Fal- simply the manifestations new interest in the world and kenburg's term, that aid the viewer in his meditation on this a growing appreciation of natural beauty. particular episode in the life of Christ. All this, however, has been challenged by Reindert Falken- Thus, no less tham the devotional irnages of the previous important new book, a translation of his doctoral century, the Rest on the night was created to satisfy tlue desire dissertation completed in io8j for the University ofAmster- of the devout to see and participate imaginatively in the dam. Falkenburg decisively rejects the prevailing view of sacred stories and to share the pain and sorrow experienced 1'atinir's landscapes; it is, he says, an anachronism, a projec- by the holy personages. 'This empathic identification on the tion of essentially modern secular attitudes onto the past. part of the viewer or the reader had been encouraged in the Going considerably further than Die Mirimonde and Koch, fourtecnth century by the anonymous Meditations on the Life Falkcnburg claims that these paintings were not only deeply and Ludolphus of Saxony's Christi, and 1>ythe rooted in the religious thought ofPatinir's day, but in fact many spiritual treatises that were widely read well into Pati- 'arc directly related to late medieval devotional art' (p.8). nir's time. In this literature, the account of the Flight to This provocative thesis is developed through a detailed Egypt occupies a significant place. The misery and poverty analysis of four major works by Patinir, three of which are of the Holy Family is described at great length, and the in the Prado, Madrid, the Rest on the Flight into Charon reader is exhorted to pity these unfortunate fugitives, to Crossing tiaeRiver Sfyx, and Sl. ?e??o?nein 6laeWilderness, as welll accompany them irl their exile, and to assist them in any as a second in the Louvre, Paris. 'All four,' he tells way possible. us, `can he regarded as visual aids for meditation on the Patinir introduced similar narrative elements into some of pilgrimage of life' ; this other paintings, including the <S'i.,?et?ome scenes in Falkenburg begins with the Rest the Flight, to which he Madrid and Paris, but his landscapes were not simply vast 250 stages designed to accommodate these 'mnemograms.' In- allegorical landscape did not die with Patinir. The pictures stead, they possess a profound significance in their own of the next generation of Flemish landscapists, including his right, a subject discussed in the second half of Falkciiburg's most famous follower Heri-I met de I3les (more properly cal- study. Because they show deep panoramas crowded with a led Herri Bles), were to continue this landscape tradition great diversity of topographical features, Patinir's land- 'centered around the metaphor of the pilgrimage of life and scapes have been described by German scholars as life's two paths' (p. i i i ) . der, literally 'world pictures,' first used in this context by Even from this brief summary, it will bc cvident that Fal- Von Baldass in z g r 8,and usually translated as 'world land- kenl>urg's interpretation of Patinir owes something to the scapes.' 1 his term is apt, Falkenburg assures us, not so much work of W. Wiegand and Hans-Joachim Raupp, both of because these pictures show the manifold beauty of the whom are, in fact, cited by the author. These two scholars world, as Von Baldass claimed, but because they symbolize have interpreted paintings hy Jacob Ruisdael and other a world that 'has surrendered to sin' (p. 66). scventccnth-ccntur-y Dutch landscapists as basically moral But if I'atinir's landscapes symbolize the sinful world, they allegories in which natural and man-made elements have also represent the pilgrimage of life. This idea is developed been endowed by the artist with specific symbolic meanings. in an extended discussion of the (/haron, which Falkenburg Raupp, in fact, has suggested that some of these landscapes sees not as a straightforward illustration of the classical illustrate the journey of life. Similar interpretations have myth, but as an allegory of the progress of the Christian soul been advanced by Josua Bruyn in an essay in the catalogue through life. The river Styx is the `sea of this world,' running of the exhibition Masters o/? r?lh-Cenlury Dutch Lan(lc(ipe between Paradise and 'Purgatory.' It bears the ship of Paiyttings, shown at Amsterdam, P?oston and Philadelphia in man's soul that has arrived at the end of its voyage. Charon 988. personifies Death who is about to land the soul at one of the For Falkcnburg, this approach appears at its most successful two destinations facing him. With references to such vener- in his analysis of the Rest on the Flight. His interpretation of able allegories as Hercules at the Crossroads, the Pythago- the picture as a devotional image is plausible, and much of r-ean two ways of' life, and the 'I abul? Cebeli.s, Falkenburg this plausibility derives from his judicious use of literary and concludes that the Charon shows the two paths of life open to visual parallels and sources. Especially interesting is his ac- every man, the paths of virtue and vice, that end in either count of the Vita Chri.stiliterature of the later Middle Ages; it eternal bliss or eternal torment. can be recommended as a most useful introduction to the The two 67. Jerome landscapes arc interpreted along similar subject. Moreover, when Falkenburg cites a text, he is at lines. In the dramatic contrast between the desolate moun- pains to demonstrate that it was in circulation during the tain ranges and the fruitful inhabited plains lying far below, artist's lifetime. I should add that this same care is exercised Patinir represents the ways of virtue and vice respectively. throughout the book. This is very much as these two paths were depicted in con- Nevertheless, the other sections ol his study raise several temporary illustrations of Hercules at the Crossroads, in issues that should be discussed here at greater length. One which Virtue beckons from the top of a steep rock, difficult concerns his explication of the Charon. Falkcnburg can be ofascent, while Vice dwells in a pleasant valley. St. Jerome, commended for his brave attempt to interpret this rather of course, is the very exemplar of the man who has chosen enigmatic picture. According to Greek myth, as is well the path of virtue, and Falkcnburg cites Jerome's well- known, Charon was the ferryrrran who transported the dead known preference for the solitary lifc in the rocky wilderness across the Styx, the river encircling Hades. Patinir, how- and his aversion to cities with their sinful allurements. ever, has located the Styx between a very Boschian paradise In the Paris St. _7eroinethe saint is surrounded by animals, landscape and an equally Boschian netherworld replete plants, and other details symbolic ofsiin or salvation. In both with monsters and burning buildings. These circumstances versions of the .St,jerome, too, scenes from Jerome's life have would indeed seem to invite a Christian interpretation of been inserted into the surrounding landscape: the extrac- this picture.
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