The Genre of Calendar Illustrations from Origins to Lucas and Maarten Van Valckenborch

Home , Abel Grimmer, Bruegel (crater), Februarius, Gerard Horenbout, Hans Bol, Jacob Grimmer

GHENT UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND PHILOSOPHY

THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR: THE GENRE OF CALENDAR ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINS TO LUCAS AND MAARTEN VAN VALCKENBORCH.

VOLUME I.

A Thesis Submitted in 00902394 Partial Fulfillment of the Master in Art Science Requirements for the Degree Academic Year 2009- 2010. Of Master of Arts in Art Science at Ghent University Promoter: Prof. Dr. M. Martens By Nadya Lobkova

Promoter: Prof. Dr. M. Martens

CONTENTS VOLUME I: TEXT

INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I: EMERGENCE AND FORMATION OF THE CALENDAR ICONOGRAPHY. 1. The vision of time and the year cycle in the medieval and Early Modern world picture. 2. Seasons and months in visual arts in antiquity: from allegory to the new concept. 3. Calendar illustrations in Early and High Middle Ages: 3.1. Early Middle Ages: formation of the iconography; 3.2. Moths in the High Middle Ages: regional variations; 3.3. The concept of labour in the Middle Ages. CHAPTER II: TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE GENRE BETWEEN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES AND PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER. 1. Calendar illustrations in Très Riches Heurs du Duc de Berry of the brothers Limbourg. 2. Calendar illustrations in XV-XVI centuries: 2.1. Page lay-out. 2.2. Iconography. 2.3. Nature and city. 3. Genre mass-produced: transition into new media. 4. Bruegel‘s Twelve Months: the crossbreeding of calendar and landscape: 5.1. The genre of landscape in the first half of the 16th century. 5.2. Bruegel‘s cycle Twelve Months: the problems of iconography. 5.3. Composition of the cycle. 5.4. Bruegel‘s drawings Spring and Summer. 5. 5. Bruegel‘s genre synthesis and its significance. CHAPTER III: LUCAS AND MAARTEN VAN VALCKENBORCH. 1. Biography: 2

1.1. The family and the beginning of the brothers‘ professional career. 1.2. Lucas van Valckenborgh: biography after 1566.

2.2. Marten van Valckenborch: biography after 1566. 2. Lucas van Valckenborch: experiments in genre cross-breeding. 2.1. Professional milieu. 2.2. The cycle Twelve Months: the kaleidoscope of genres:

2.2.1. Spring landscape (March or April).

2.2.2. Summer landscape with corn harvest (July or August).

2.2.3. Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (September).

2.2.4. Autumn landscape with grape harvest (October).

2.2.5. The return of the herd and the cattle sale (November).

2.2.6. Winter landscape (January or February).

2.2.7. Spring landscape with the Palace in Brussels (May).

2.3. Seasons and markets: an urban fantasy.

2.3.1. The genre of the market scene in Flemish art of the 16th century.

2.3.2. Historical and biographical context.

2.3.3. Market scenes and allegories of seasons.

2.3.3.1. Type I: market scenes proper.

2.3.3.2. Type II: allegorical representations.

3. Maarten van Valckenborch: 3.1. A love for pastoral: the early cycle of the months.

3.2. The Biblical cycle in Vienna: calendar inversion.

CONCLUSION.

VOLUME II: ILLUSTRATIONS, TABLES AND DOCUMENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Man has a need to impose an order onto the mass of indiscrete reality around him. One of the categories that always fascinated the imagination of people is time. Time is an inherent aspect of things, as invisible as ubiquitous. In expressions like ―Time flies‖ or ―De tijd loopt als zand door je handen‖ the language fixes the natural disposition of the human mind to translate the unseen into the categories of space that are directly visible to the eye and therefore more comprehensible. The ways by which this processes happens reflects the world model of a given culture and reveals its underlying patterns and mechanisms. That is why studying the genre of calendar illustrations as one of such forms of ―translation‖ can bring the world(s) that produced it into a sharper focus.

This paper focuses on the development of the visualization of seasons and months in plastic arts. (―Calendar illustrations‖ is perhaps an unfortunate name because the functions of these images vary throughout historical periods, regions and media, therefore it is rather a provisional name used for the simplicity of usage). The historical scope of the study is very broad, from Ancient Greek and Roman representations of seasons and months to the end of the sixteenth century. The overview is alternated with a closer look at some the art works that mark the peaks or turning points in the evolution of the genre. The brothers van Valckenborch are chosen as a border of the period in focus because their art reflects the beginning process of the dissolution of the genre, its splitting into different directions and their absorption by other genres.

For the purpose of the research a lot of visual material was collected and analysed. The results are to be found in Volume II: Appendices. The most valuable material in terms of the iconography of the genre is in Appendix IV, divided into months followed by the table with the data on the frequency of occurrence of the motifs for the given month.

The first chapter deals with the origins and the formation of the genre. To understand its specificity it is necessary to get an insight into the network of notions spinning around the category of time. The world picture stemming from the antiquity maintained a strong continuity throughout the Middle Ages and to a big extent in the Early Modern period, so the model that I outline in the first part is more or less relevant for the whole period in question. Because the world picture is a web of notions, gestalts, beliefs and the like, pulling on one thread always extracts unexpected results, at first glance having nothing in common with one‘s initial intention. Therefore I sometimes make digressions to elucidate a concept that gets involved onto the orbit of the calendar genre, for example, the concept of labour, the attitude to nature, the tensions between the Christian and pagan world pictures and later the conflict between Christian values and the forming market economy. Chapter two is devoted to the period when the calendar genre endured great changes in terms of involving natural and social environment into its pictorial field, transgression of the traditional media and getting appropriated by other genres. A substantial part of the study is devoted to the analysis of the revision of the genre in the cycle of Twelve months by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The brothers van Valckenborch, whose contribution to the genre is analyzed in chapter three, were the heirs of a very old tradition and its very recent transformations. Their cycles of months and seasons are considered not only in the light of the old genre but also within the context of the new forms and genres that were in the process of their formation appropriated the elements of the traditional forms. 4

Speaking about this or that genre, it makes sense to define what is understood by this technical term. Here immediately springs the difficulty because genre is an elusive phenomenon resisting a strict definition. The word itself in translation from French means ―kind‖ and is derived from Latin genus (origin, genesis) (cognate with Ancient Greek γένος, race). The etymology of the word thus suggests ―family resemblance‖ transferred genetically from a certain model.

According to the Van Dale Groot Woordenbook van de Nederlandse Taal, genre is :

1. soort, t.w. van voorwerpen, voortbrenselen of stijlen van kunst of kunstnijverheid <...>;

2. (schild.) genrekunst, schilderkunst die zich bezighoudt met de voorstelling van (in het atelier gecomponeerde) taferelen uit het dagelijks leven .

Thus the linguistic usage fixes the empiric nature of the genre, which is subject to historical change. The immediate linguistic association with ―genre painting‖ on the principle pars pro toto is as misleading as enlightening. It reveals that in popular usage genres in visual arts are defined by the object of depiction: scenes of everyday life (genre painting), nature (landscape), a vase with flowers or displayed fruit (still life), a human image (portrait), etc. In a certain sense it is true. But it is not the whole truth.

If we, for example, depict a vase from a bird‘s eye view, it will be no still life. A person depicted from the back is not a portrait. A piece of nature depicted very close up does not make a landscape. It means that the genre is connected with a specific point of view, the position of the viewer. As is mentioned before, spatial categories render temporal categories – the mechanism exemplified by the genre of calendar illustrations par excellence. For this fixed time-space relation Mikhail Bakhtin introduced the term ―chronotopos‖ which he laid at a basis of his study of Early Modern genres.1 Dissolved in later epochs older genres can echo in new ones through the use of their elements (a point of view, a certain image, etc) that serve as bearers of the ―memory of the genre‖.2 This ―memory‖ becomes an active element of enhancing the meaning of the text (let it be literary or visual) that makes use of it.

A genre is also defined by its function. A face of a saint in an altar-piece, even if painted from a live model, is no portrait. A piece of land depicted on a chart to define property rights is no landscape. A flower depicted in a botanical treatise is not a still life. Functions are, however, unstable notions. They are born from the social demand and the communal view of a certain thing and its role in social life. The views change over time. That is why it would be a gross anachronism to ascribe our modern understanding of ―landscape‖ to a painting of, say, Patinir. Moreover, it would not even help us to understand what we see, because the category of genre pertains to the audience‘s perception to the same extent as to the method of engendering a work of art. The perception is based on a certain expectation, which in its turn is formed by the former visual experience. The audience come to associate a certain subject matter with a certain mode of rendition, which helps them decode the message of the piece of art as well as it helps the artist to encode the message. It is a kind of language, and any language is characterized by stability. Like

1 Bakhtin 1975.

2 The term is introduced in: Bakhtin 1972.

in a language, where a word must have a fixed meaning to be able to be used, literally or figuratively, the same form-subject combination must be recurring in order to be recognized as a genre in visual arts, too. It is a product of repeated interaction, based on the agreement that a given subject has a stable relation with a particular form. Thus, genres are formed by conventions, a set of mutually agreed upon rules, which can be played around and even broken. Depending on the degree of the breach of rules, it can lead to the default in communication, which is why the biggest pioneers often remain misunderstood and undervalued by their contemporaries. In the epochs where continuity is valued above the breakthrough, as it was in the Middle Ages and to a big extent in the Early Modern period, the progression from one convention to another3 happens more gradually and less radically than it has become common, or even obligatory, since the Romanticism.

Yet, even in the earlier periods genres do not remain rigid. New historical circumstances form new concepts that outgrow the old forms, which in its turn engenders a need for innovation. The dynamics of the genre makes it impossible to formulate a fixed set of criteria for defining what a genre is. For the purposes of this research we will put forth such a working definition of genre as a historically formed and frequently reiterated association by the contemporary audience between a given content (subject matter, set of themes and motifs) and certain formal features (perspective, mode of representation, etc.). Splitting this association, by, for example, separating the motifs from their conventional surrounding or changing genre‘s formal features, can enrich the genre as well as lead to its erasure and death in the long run, depending on the degree of the transformation and the importance of the elements that are being changed. Every genre has its own elasticity, the ability to adjust to and adopt changes. Besides, being engendered by a certain social need and fulfilling a certain social function the genre dies out as the social need falls away and the function cannot be fulfilled anymore. Reiteration as the factor of stability of the genre can turn against it when the relation between the form and the content has become too automatic, too trite to be informative, enjoyable, challenging the imaginations – in a word having the surplus to the pure function that is valuable for the given time.

In this brief sketch of the genre‘s history I will try to figure out its specific features as they are formed by a given period of time and consider its further transformation in terms of the border transgressing which begins to destroy or at least change it beyond recognition. We shall try to see if there are elements of the genre that are more immune to change and even being separated from genre are able to keep its ―memory‖ and radiate it into the context of the new genre where they are used.

I will try to consider the problem of the genre in the light of the ―horizon of expectations‖, a term originally proposed by the German school of ―receptive aesthetics‖ (Jauss, Iser) in literary criticism. Any text appeals to the background knowledge and cultural experience of the audience, any text leaves more or less hidden clues how to approach its interpretation. Detecting these clues and defining the ―horizon of expectations‖, according to Reihardt

3 I use this word in the meaning of historical sequence to avoid the terms ―progress‖ or ―evolution‖ because of the implied idea of the superiority of the later forms with respect to the earlier. Every new gain happens at the expense of a certain loss.

Falkenburg, can guarantee the adequacy of interpretation, or ―contraleerbaarheid‖.4 It must be pointed out though that adequacy of interpretation does not mean one single ultimate explanation which excludes other interpretations. Following Juri Lotman I see an artistic text as a complex multi-coded construction, as ―a paradigm of codes‖. 5 An artistic text is a point of intersection of a multitude of codes and cannot be reduced to only one of them. That is why an interpretation from the point of view of, for example, sociology does not exclude symbolical interpretation and vice versa. Dealing with a particular work of art we must distinguish between what Erwin Panofsky called the opposition between the subject matter and the content, i.e. the intention of the artist and all the layers of meaning that are present in the text regardless of his or her intention or even in spite of it – ―the basic attitude of the nation, a period, a class, a religious or philosophical persuasion‖ and, I will add, the genre.6 In my study I concentrate more on the generic characteristics and to a lesser extent on interpretation of an individual work of art. In some cases though I consider individual cycles that mark significant transformations of the genre.

4 Falkenburg, 1989, p. 12.

5 Lotman.

6 Panofsky, p. 38.

I. EMERGENCE AND FORMATION OF THE CALENDAR ICONOGRAPHY.

I. 1. The vision of time and the year cycle in the medieval and Early Modern world picture.

Months and seasons belong to the temporal aspect of the model of the world a given culture is based on. Time, being a more abstract category than space immediately given to man in his sense perception, has to be ―translated‖ into spatial categories. A modern man sees time as a line, a linear progression from one point to another, from the past to the future. The development itself is never neutral in quality: it is positive (evolution) or negative (regress), but it is more the quantitative characteristics that matter: we mostly have ―too little time‖, deadlines give us stress, we struggle with time by accelerating means of transport, inventing machines that save us time, we try to ―cheat‖ death and ageing by sporting, leading healthy life, medicine and cosmetic technology. And yet, we all feel that time is irretrievable, irrevocable exactly because it is mono-directional. In certain spheres there is still room for the cyclical perception of time: education is organized in academic years, agriculture is inevitably (due to the technology less and less so!) dependant on the natural cycle, financial year is closed by annual account. We celebrate birthdays, family reunions, commemorate certain events yearly – in a word, conventionally and symbolically repeatedly return to the past. Philosophical thought proposes now and then cyclical theories: Spenglerean cyclical concept of history or Freudian psychoanalysis, based on the idea that we repeat programmed patterns hence the therapy consists in returning to the initial traumatic experience – and thus breaking the vicious circle. Thus, two concepts of time coexist, however in hierarchical relationship: one is predominant and the other subordinate. ―The combination of linear time with cyclic time <…>, - as Aaron Gurevich observes, - can be found in various forms throughout the history; the question is, how are these two different ways of perceiving the flow of time correlated?‖7

Whereas the vectorial time dominates modern vision it played little part in the Classical world. For the ancient Greeks the categories of change and development were essentially alien. The world was perceived as orbiting in a great circle of the Pythagorean era; everything that happened was not unique, it was reiteration of what had happened before and what was bound to happen in succeeding epochs. Space and time did not yet become abstract categories, the world was seen as a complete plastically fashioned whole, it was ―a material, sensual and living cosmos, an eternal rotation of matter, now arising from amorphous chaos to generate its harmony, symmetry, rhythmic organization, its still and noble majesty, now collapsing in ruins, dissipating its structural harmony and once again transforming itself into chaos‖.8 Although the Roman historiography did introduce a certain linearity in the concept of history ―yet, in spite of this enormous development in philosophical thought, the ancient world did not develop a philosophy of history going beyond the confines of general historical pessimism: the ancients did not apprehend history as a drama – as a field of action in which man‘s freedom of will could be exercised‖.9

7 Gurevich, p. 30.

8 Losev, p. 55.

9 Gurevich, p. 32.

Correlative to this wholeness of the cosmos is the antique representation of the body in plastic arts: complete in itself and not subject to change. This correlation was made possible by a basic principle of thinking that was engendered by Antiquity but continued to dominate the best part of the Middle Ages: the principle of analogy between the human being (micro-cosmos) and the universe (macro-cosmos). In combination with the static-cyclic world-view it could not but result in personification as a principle of representing things, in particular, seasons.

The first glimpses of the real contemporary world that we observed in late Roman art are testimonies of the emerging new world picture, brought about by Christianity, with a new perception of time as unique and unrepeatable. However, the transition took ages and was never absolute. Since the cosmology was largely inherited by the Middle Ages from the Antiquity, the concept of time built into it resisted transformations.

To see how much the medieval structure of the world is comparable with the Ptolemaic universe it is enough to turn to Bonaventura‘s Breviloquium10. The universe is imagined as geocentric: the earth, stable and motionless, is surrounded by three perfectly round heavens, the first (caelum stellatum or firmamentum) being divided into seven spheres held by the seven planets (Saturnus, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercurius, the sun and the moon) and also carrying stars which have a great influence on birth and death and on everything that happens on the earth. Above the planets exist caelum cristallinum (crystal heaven) and caelum empyreum (empyrean). The function of the crystal heaven is to bind caelum empyrium and caelum stellanum. According to Bonaventura, this heaven consists of water although of another sort than the earthly one.

The conclusion about this constituent element of this heaven was based t principle of the on the principle of isomorphism, or the analogy of all things, mentioned above. Microcosm, according to this logic, repeats macrocosm in its structure, therefore its structure gives an idea what the macrocosm must consist of. On the basis of the four elements (water, fire, earth and air), that constitute all material things, or corpora mixta (minerals, plants, animals, man), Bonaventura draws a parallel between the human body and the structure of heaven: The heart is warm and fiery by nature (calidum et naturae igneae), the brains are cool and wet (frigidum et naturae aque), therefore, in Bonaventura‘s typically medieval logic, the heaven must be constructed the same way, that is, above the sphere of sun and other celestial bodies producing warmth, there must be water.

The idea of ubiquitous analogies goes back to the teaching of the four elements developed by the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles (ca. 490–430 BC). Earth (cold and dry), water (cold and damp), air (warm and damp) and fire (warm and dry) form the basic elements of micro- and macrocosm whose qualities bind everything with an elaborate system of connections. The elementary properties of the planets can exercise a positive or a negative influence on the human body depending on the sex, male or female, which is also associated with elementary characteristics, dry and damp respectively. The Moon is for example considered warm and damp, its basic element is water, it is female therefore is benevolent to women whereas Saturn is cold and dry, earth is its element and it has a negative influence on men.

10 For the detailed discussion of the medieval world picture and philosophical thought about the structure the universe see: Wieldiers.

The concept of the ―elementary‖ nature of the universe gave rise to the doctrine of the four humours, or temperaments, that laid the basis for the ancient and medieval medical theory. First applied to medicine by Hippocrates and having gained influence through the writings of Galen, the idea retained popularity until the mid 19th century when it was decisively disproved by Rudolf Virchow. The theory of temperaments held that the human body is filled with four basic substances: blood, yellow bile, black bile and phlegm. The dominance of one of them defined a temperament: sanguine, choleric, melancholic en phlegmatic respectively. Ideally the saps must be in balance, the excess or deficit of one or more of them causes misbalance and results in a certain disease or disorder. Humours, temperaments and traits of character, human organs, food and drink favourable for each of the temperaments, seasons, elements and their qualities were all built into the sophisticated system of correspondences. This system was consistent with the movement of planets along the zodiac signs, the twelve star constellations forming a circle along which the sun, the moon and the planets rotate, whereby the position of the sun in relation to the zodiac signs determines the months and seasons.11

This complex world picture of ubiquitous analogies is illustrated by the so called ―Zodiacal Man‖ (homo signorum) in the Très riches Heures of Duke of Berry (Appendix I, fig.1). The picture visualizes the relationships between the human body and the signs of zodiac. The signs are distributed throughout the body according to their influence on this or that member from the point of view of the astrological medicine. Unique as it was, the figure of the Zodiacal Man crowning the calendar in the Très Riches Heures is no random whim of a learned patron. It consummates the long tradition that had to struggle to win its place within the Christian world. Having heathen flavour astrology was frequently frowned upon by the church fathers as inconsistent with the true faith until the Venerable Bede rehabilitated it due to its role in calculating the Easter and other movable feasts. By the fifteenth century the Zodiacal Man became the epitome of science, culminating centuries of medical practice which went hand in hand with astronomy, astrology and the computistic science.

The figure of the Zodiac Man is found is numerous medical treatises and was one of the instruments of medieval medicine (examples see: Appendix I, fig. 2,3). Diagnosis and treatment ―depended on the humoral constitutions of the patient, the day of the moon at the commencement of the malady, and the relation of that ―planet‖ to the sign of the ailing member‖.12 The knowledge of which sign governs which organ was closely coupled with the astronomy: the time when the moon was in a given sign was most unfavourable (often even forbidden by statues!13) for treating a corresponding organ by blood letting and other therapies such as purgery, bathing, medication and surgery. Therefore, a medieval practitioner was obliged to have at his disposal special instruments (tables and a quadrant, a tool of high precision similar to those of astronomer or navigator) (Appendix I, fig. 4) to be able to calculate the timing of the prescribed treatment correctly. The Zodiacal Man of the Très riches Heures, according to Bober, combining in an ingenious way medical diagrams in other sources found apart, as well as

11 Bober, pp. 1-34.

12 Ibid, P. 12

13 A law of 1400, in Carcassonne, permits the phlebotomy only in a favourable moon. Ordonnances des Rois de France de la Troisième Race, ed.Secousse, Paris. 1750, VIII. Pp. 399-405.

alluding to the Microcosmic Man, reiterated the idea of universal analogies, the integrity of the cosmos and embeddedness of the human being within the universal make-up. Its presence in the context of the calendar emphasized the universal connections binding stars, planets, the annual cycle and the human body.

Having assimilated the structure of the universe from the Antiquity, Christian theology had to adapt it to make it compatible with its key concepts. The problem with such tightly intertwined and over-determined cosmos was that it left little place for the free will. Therefore Bonaventura emphasized that the celestial bodies are only ―de werktuigen, de cause secundae, waarvan God zich bedient om alle stoffelijke verschijnselen te voorschijn te roepen‖ and that ―die intrumentale causaliteit van de hemelslichamen zich beperkt tot de stoffelijke wezens‖.14 Since the human being is endowed with free will and reason to distinguish between good and evil the influence of the planets if not entirely irrelevant but limited to the influence on the body. The spirit and soul of man are directly subordinated to God, therefore the theology frowns at the astrological practice of predicting the future, which is the result of the free choices of the multitude of individual wills.

In the material world however the role of the planets is hard to overestimate. It is worth mentioning that the principle of analogy is complemented in the medieval way of thinking with the principle of teleology: every element of the universe fulfils a function within the whole. The function of the planets is not only to ensure the connection between different spheres, but also (more importantly for us) to introduce time. Their circulation marks days, months, years. ―Vervolgens oefenen zij [planets] invloed uit op het ontstaan en vergaan van alle samengestellde lichamen – corpora mixta – op aarde, nl. de mineralen, de planten, de dieren, en het lichaam der mensen. Bij het ontstaan en vergaan – generatio et corruptio – van alle aardse wezens hebben ze een doorslaggevend aandeel. Zonder hun invloed zou er geen geboorte en geen dood zijn. Wanneer dus, aan het einde der tijden, alle bewegingen van planetten stilvalt, heeft dit niet alleen tot gevolg dat er geen dagen, maanden en jaren meer zullen zijn (my italics – N.L.), maar ook dat er geen nieuwe wezens meer geboren kunnen wordenen geen enkel levend wezen nog kan sterven‖15. With the italics I would like to shift the emphasis, which for our purpose must be laid on the link between circularity of time and the movement of planets. When the movement of the planets comes to a standstill there will be no time anymore, as well as no days, months and seasons. There is therefore a causal relation between the movement of the planets and the seasonal cycle.

Curiously enough, this vision is at odds with the very first verses of Genesis, according to which the light and darkness, as well as Day and Night (hence their cyclical circulation) were created before the planets and stars: ―And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day‖ (Genesis. 1: 5). After the ―evening and the morning‖ of the first, second and the third day (the cycle well established!), God creates celestial bodies (first sun and moon and then the stars) to differentiate between temporal periods such as days, months, seasons and years: ―And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of

14 Wieldiers, p. 60.

15 Ibid.

the heaven to divide the day from night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years‖ (Genesis 1: 14).

The ambiguity persists throughout the Middle Ages into the Early Modern Period, moreover, the cyclical change of seasons is considered rather as a post-lapsarian phenomenon. ―Here feel we not the penalty of Adam, /the seasons‘ difference…‖ exclaims the exalted Duke in Shakespeare‘s ―As You Like It‖( II.i.5-6), from which we can deduce that seasonal change was perceived as a punishment for the Fall of Man. Despite the fact that it is clearly said in Genesis that the sun and the moon were created ―for signs, and for seasons and for days, and years‖ hence the seasonal cycle is a part of the primal design of creation, in the popular imagination the Paradise is associated with the eternal spring. In his essay devoted to Milton‘s controversial attitude to the subject Viswanathan remarks, ―Yet there undoubtedly was current in medieval and Renaissance times a notion, owing to the influence of classical, pagan myths of the Golden Age and Paradise, and of the topos of the Garden common in literature, that in such Paradises, and also, by tacit analogical transference, in Adam‘s Paradise, there was eternal spring‖.16 According to this notion the corruption of man entailed the corruption of nature in the form of cyclical repetitions, which will ultimately be restored in the expected Heavenly Jerusalem: ―And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof‖ (Rev 21:23). The metaphor of the fruit of the twelve months suggests the timeless perspective, in which all the moments separated in temporality are compressed to simultaneous co-existence in eternity: ―In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month no night there‖ (Rev 22:2)

This seeming inconsistency indicates however the point of intersection of the two visions of time – the more archaic cyclical time and the newer Christian, linear eschatological time, that is bound to stop at the end of Times. Convergence of the two concepts of time characterizes the medieval world picture, which despite the conscious efforts of philosophers to systematize it, to reduce it to the common denominator, remains heterogeneous and keeps the latent memory of the pagan worldview, which in its turn emerged in an agrarian society.

It is only logical that in a society dependant on agriculture natural cycles influence the temporal perception. The agricultural calendar reflected the change of seasons in terms of typical works done by peasants, which was fixed by the names of the months in many old Germanic languages and dialects. Among the Old English names of months, recorded by the Venerable Bede, Thrimilchi (May) was associated with milking (―was called so because that month the cattle were milked three times‖), Weodmonath (August) was ―the month of tares‖, the summer months with the same name Litha (June and Juli) were the navigation months (―they were wont to sail upon the smooth sea‖), and Blodmonath (November) was the month when the cattle were slaughtered for immolations17. In Old High German July was called Hewi-mánód or Hou-mánód - the hay month, August bore the name Aran- mánód, which means the month of harvest, and October, Windume-mánód, was the month of vintage. The names varied depending on the region and climate. In Old Norse, for example, the Harvest month was September – Haust-mánuðr. It is

16 Viswanathan, p.128

17 The Venerable Bede, pp. 53-54

also worth mentioning that the Dutch word ―oogst‖ (harvest) is derived from the Latin ―Augustus‖; the Middle Dutch variant ―Oest‖ (oust, ogest, hoest, hougst) was used to refer to both, the third summer month and the harvest.18

Temporal concepts are also etymologically connected with husbandry. The words ―tid‖, ―timi‖ did not denote the precise time but rather seasons or periods of indefinite length and only rarely ―an hour‖. The year was measured by the harvest, as we can deduce from the etymology: ―ar‖ meant ―year‖ as well as ―harvest‖, ―abundance‖. 19

The fact that the time was regulated by the natural cycles defined the specific concept of time in the world picture. Aaron Gurevich points out that, ―In nature there is no development, or at least it was not obvious to the people of this [agrarian] society. What they saw in nature was a regular repetition, rhythmic and circular, which they were in no position to control; and this eternal return was bound to take a central place in the minds of men, both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages‖. 20

The transition to Christianity entailed significant changes in the structure of the temporal notions in the medieval Europe. Having inherited the Jewish eschatological view of history, Christianity introduced a new – linear and irreversible– concept of time. The time acquired a vector: the history came to be seen as unfolding from the moment of creation to the Day of Judgment; it got the beginning, the culmination and the end. Qualitatively the history is divided into two periods: before and after the coming of Christ, which gave meaning and direction to the whole history not only in the sense of anticipation of the Second Advent in the future but also projecting the meaning backwards: the Old Testament History was seen as preparation, anticipation, prognostication and prototypical modeling of the coming of the Messiah. The past and the future thus became the key moments that in Gurevich‘ idiom ―straighten out‖, or ―stretch‖ the time, ―this presence engenders a tension field between the ages, proclaiming – in the shape of history – the immanent and harmonious grand design which will bring about the resolution of tensions‖.21

Nevertheless, despite the establishment of Christianity the archaic vision of time was not uprooted but rather displaced, forced out to the ―collective sub-consciousness‖. Moreover, it continued to structure certain aspects of Christian temporal vision: ―for all its insistence on the linear nature of time, Christianity did not entirely jettison the cyclic concept; fundamentally, all that happened was that the cyclic concept was construed in different fashion. In fact, in so far as time was separated from eternity, it appeared to man, when he contemplated the ages of earthly history, as a linear sequence; but this same earthly history, taken as a whole, in the framework

18 Middelnederlansch Handwoordenboek, headword ―Oest‖. See also: De Vries, A., p.133.

19 Gurevich, p. 95

20 Ibid, p. 98

21 Ibid, p. 111

formed by the creation and the end of the world, also appears as a complete cycle: man and his world return to the Creator, time returns to eternity‖.22

Thus the pagan calendar was adapted to the needs of Christian liturgy: the pagan festivals were replaced with the Christian ones, many of them easily traceable to the dates marking the solstices, equinoxes and other turning points of the year. Thus, Christmas was timed to Roman winter solstice according to Julian Calendar and incorporated some rites of the Roman Saturnalia. The church New Year celebrated on the 1st of January is ―the natal day‖ of Rome‖ and the 1st March, which began the secular new year in the Middle Ages coincided with the Roman holiday Natalis Martis. The cult of Attis shared the idea of salvation for eternity with Christian mysteries could be easily associated with Christian Easter festivities. A lot of other pagan holidays outlived their time in the form of saints‘ days and popular medieval festivities.23

Medieval calendars visualized the circular concept of time. At the same time they were usually built into Psalters, Breviaries and other devotional books, thus into inherently Christian context. Paradoxically, calendars combined information about the number of days in the month, saints‘ days and other holidays, the date of Easter alongside with images of agricultural activities, astrological information and health advice. Thus they were the manifestation of the complex world picture, where pagan and Christian elements were essentially intertwined. One of its significant features was that the man felt an integral part of nature and did not see it as an object. Calendars were closely associated with the concept of the human body not separated from the surrounding world, the cosmic body or, to use Bakhtin‘s term, the grotesque body, a brilliant example of which completes the calendar of Très riches Heures. That is why studying calendar illustrations can allow us to reconstruct the model of the world of the past.

I. 2. Seasons and months in visual arts in antiquity: from allegory to the new concept.

The primeval man did not separate himself from nature, he drew no border between the human the natural and the supernatural worlds. This undifferentiated relationship manifests itself in the numerous examples of heteromorphous creatures: half-human, half-animal or half vegetative. These images recur throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages: on Greek stoneware, murals, in medieval manuscript decorations and find their perhaps most complete expressions in the works of Bosch. Likewise, there is no watershed between the natural (human included) and the supernatural: they are all represented with the same degree of clarity and precision. No wonder that the natural phenomena are imagined in supernatural terms and represented in anthropological forms.

Like many other things the seasons were imagined as gods or spirits. In the Minoan and the Mycenaean civilizations the year was divided into three seasons – winter, spring and summer – that were worshiped as the spirits of vegetation and were associated with death, revival and growth. However we do not know what they looked like because no images of them survived.

22 Ibid, p. 112

23 Salzman, pp. 168-169, 235-246.

The first known representations of seasons are traced back to the Archaic Greek period (600-480 BC). 24

In the literary sources they appear in female gestalts, the so called Horae (Ὧραι, Hōrai) which meant ―hour‖ as well as ―season‖. The Horae combined two aspects: they were spirits that caused rain, budding and ripening, at the same time the three Horae (discipline, justice and peace) were goddesses of order that maintained stability in the society. 25 In Iliad and Odyssey they fulfill the function of guarding the gates of the heaven.26 Later on in the Greek poetry the three Horae are described as beautiful young women and associated with wind, rain, fertility and spring and accompany the god of wine-making Dionysus and the goddess of agriculture Demeter, who is called the ―bringer of seasons and giver of good gifts‖.27

The seasons determine the schedule of works, as we read for example in Hesiod, ―Then remember to hew your timber: it is the season for that work‖.28 It is worth mentioning also that Greek literature abounds in sharp observations of the season-related behavior of birds, insects and animals that signal to man what sort of work must be started. Again Hesiod recommends, ―Mark, when you hear the voice of the crane who cries year by year from the clouds above, for she gives the signal for ploughing and shows the season of rainy winter‖.29 From Aristophanes‘ Birds we learn that man noticed the regularity in birds‘ habits and ascribed it to the affinity with gods, often considering them oracles or even deifying birds themselves, ―The appearance of the kite in Greece betokened the return of springtime; it was therefore worshipped as a symbol of that season‖ and that ―The cuckoo was king of Egypt and of the whole of Phoenicia. When he called out "cuckoo," all the Phoenicians hurried to the fields to reap their wheat and their barley…Hence no doubt the proverb, "Cuckoo! cuckoo! go to the fields, ye circumcised" 30. Consequently human activity must be subordinated to the signs birds give.

In visual arts the earliest depiction of seasons in the form of Horae appears on the black- figure crater, the so called Francois vase (around 560 BC, Museo Archeologico, Florence). They are represented as women in the suite of Dionysus but their significance can only be deduced from the inscriptions. The specific attributes emerge later. Thus, on the black-figure pyxis (around 540 BC, Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Antikengalerie, Berlin) they are already portrayed as female figures who have the respective attributes of spring, winter and summer - a flower, a warm cloak covering the head and a twig (vine?).

24 De Vier Jaargetijden, 2002.

25 Grimal, headword ―Horae‖; Myths of the peoples of the world.

26 Homer, II. V 749-751; VIII 432-435.

27 Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, ll. 54-58.

28 Hesiod, Works and Days, ll. 414-447.

29 Ibid, ll. 448-457.

30 Aristophanes, Birds, p. 22.

The chronological system of four seasons and twelve months based on the astronomical sun cycles was introduced in the 5-4 centuries BC. 31As a result there appeared four Horae that personified the seasons. They were widely treated in literature, the emphasis lying on their abstract, intellectual qualities and association with the contemporary astronomy, astrology and philosophy.

In plastic arts, however, the seasons did not enjoy such popularity until the Hellenistic period (300-100 BC) when they became a means to express the abstract ideas in a form accessible for common people. These images exemplified and elucidated the complicated world picture in which the aspects of astronomy, astrology, agronomy and medicine were closely interwoven.32 An early example is the frieze of the church Panagia Gorgopiko in Athens dated the second or the first century BC. What makes it rare is that the months and the seasons are depicted together, the personification of the season leading the respective group of months. The months are represented both by male and female figures that are busy with specific festivities (dance or sacrificial offerings) associated with this particular month. They are accompanied by the zodiac signs. Apparantly, as Anne de Snoo notes in her contrubution to the joint monography on the subject, ―Het concept van deze voorstelling weerspiegelt de behoefte om het karakter van het jaar te verduidelijken door het in verband te brengen met de astronomische kalender, de Tekens van de Dierenriem, de wisselingen van de Jaargetijden en met kenmerkende menselijke activiteiten‖.33 Among these activities however the labours of the months that will become the conventional iconography of the months in the Middle Ages are not yet present, they still have ritual or religious character.

This example remains quite unique because representations of months and seasons develop separately and along different lines. Whereas seasons remained a popular subject in Hellenistic literature and visual arts, illustrations of the months were rather confined to astrological treatises and agrarian calendars, which contained recommendations on agriculture and information about the agricultural festivals.

In the depicting of the seasons the emphasis was laid on the personification. Gradually, the images evolved to more dynamic representations (e.g. dancing a ritual dance) and acquired more attributes and specific features. The Spring Hora, sometimes accompanied by animals, carried a flower, or a basket of flowers, or a floral garland or wreath on her head. Ears of corn and minimum clothing (or absolute nakedness) characterized the Summer. The most typical motifs for Autumn were connected with fruit harvest and vintage: vines, grapes, grape gathering and wine-making. Winter was associated with hunting, hence the depictions of hares and pigs. The figures personifying Winter were clothed in thicker, sometimes hooded cloaks, covering the head. The attributes were the only features that differentiate the Horae, identical otherwise.

The real upswing of the theme of the seasons comes in the late Hellenistic period and early Roman time, again lead by the literature. Varro, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and Ovid

31 Gundel, pp. 488-490.

32 Hanfmann, p. 275

33 De Vier Jaargetijden, p. 14.

employed the images of seasons for their esthetical and philosophical imagery. Ovid for example brought the four seasons in connection with the four ages of mankind, a concept of history going back to Hesiod and holding that the human condition degrades over time hence the names of the Ages after the metals of decreasing value (Golden – Silver – Bronze – Iron Age). The eternal spring of the Golden Age was replaced with change of seasons with their inherent whims of weather.

In book XV Ovid draws the analogy between the seasons and the ages of man, a motif, which will recur throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period:

…―Note you not the year ―In four succeeding seasons passing on? ―A lively image of our mortal life. ―Tender and milky, like young infancy ―Is the new spring: then gaily shine the plants, ―Tumid with juice, but helpless; and delight ―With hope the planter: blooming all appears, ―And smiles in varied flowers the feeding earth; ―But delicate and pow'rless are the leaves. ―Robuster now the year, to spring succeeds ―The summer, and a sturdy youth becomes: ―No age is stronger, none more fertile yields ―Its stores, and none with heat more fervid glows. ―Next autumn follows, all the fire of youth “Allay'd, mature in mildness, just between ―Old age and youth a medium temper holds; ―Some silvery tresses o'er his temples strew'd. ―Then aged winter, frightful object! comes ―With tottering step, and bald appears his head; ―Or snowy white the few remaining hairs. ―Our bodies too themselves submit to change ―Without remission…34

Virgil in his Georgics, a poem far more complex than the name suggests (the Greek words ―geōrgein‖ means ―to farm‖) set the tradition of rural poetry and drew the direct parallel between the farmer‘s labours and the year cycle, ―Round on the labourer spins the wheel of toil,/ As on its own track rolls the circling year...‖ (Georgic II). The toil of a peasant is given a deep significance. The important verse “labor omnia vincit / improbus (Georgic I.145-146), due to the enjambment laying the stress on the ―improbus‖ (―hard‖, ―persistent‖) that is sometimes translated as "shameful‖, suggests hard work as the destiny of mankind echoing the Old Testament‘s punishment of Adam.

34 Ovid, pp. 310-311.

In Horace‘s Carmen Saeculare the personal emotional experience of the seasons and weather (―Through the autumn we dread the south wind that bring suffering to our bodies‖35) is integrated into the philosophical concept of transience of earthly existence. The steady succession of seasons is contrasted with the fate of the human mortal individual, who is irrevocably reduced to ashes and dust by death.

In the intellectual life of that time the seasons acquired a wide scope of associations and analogies related to various spheres of knowledge, ranging from astrology to medicine. ―Men kon ze [seasons] bijvoorbeeld relateren aan de vier zones van de wereld en de vier windrichtingen. Dat resulteerde in het inrichten van vier eetkamers die volgens de Vier Jaargetijden georienteerd waren en dit viel samen met de ideen over licht en warmte, die nodig zijn voor een goede gezondheid in de verschillende jaargetijden.‖36 Thus the seasons were built into the comprehensive semiotic system of the classical world picture.

In visual arts seasons also enjoyed a widening of iconographical themes variating in accordance with the function of the object on which they were depicted: grave stones, vases, gems, coins, mosaics in interiors and gardens, triumphal arches, sarcophagi. There appeared new attributes such as animals, for example, a hunting dog accompanying Winter and a lam on the shoulders of Spring. Some scholars consider the latter a forerunner of the Christian iconography of the Good Shepherd. 37 A logical source of the animal imagery is the zodiac. For instance, a lion is associated with the summer (Leo/Juli).38 Thus, on Garland sarcophagus (140-150 AD), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Summer is depicted as putti driving a chariot with harnessed lions. The diversity and complexity of the seasonal imagery variating from period to period keeps the scholars in controversy. Some suggest that the depiction of the seasonal cycles can possibly be allegories for the soul‘s trails in life and the pleasures it will enjoy in the afterlife.39 Others have interpreted the seasons as ―quasi-Christian, romantic referrals to changes in the calendar, agricultural markers, reflections of sports in the Roman circus or New Year‘s games, representations of a region‘s climate. The Seasons are also believed to be ―teleological proof of divine providence‖. The Seasons are held to be a part of laws of the world. Humankind is thus the subject to the same laws that govern the schematic order of nature‖.40

The expansion and sophistication of the meanings of the seasons entails the development of their imagery. In the first centuries after Christ traditional images of young women personifying seasons are gradually superseded by male figures, female or male busts and putti. A characteristic example is the so called Dumbarton Oaks Season Sarcophagus (early 4th century AD). The marble carved front of the sarcophagus depicts Seasons as winged male

35 Carmen Saeculare, 2.14,15.

36 De Vier Jaargetijden, p. 16.

37 Hanfmann, 1951, pp. 133-134.

38 De Vier Jaargetijden, p. 219.

39 McCann, p.28.

40 Jorgensen, p.4.

figures that flank the central medallion with the busts of the deceased couple encircled by the rim with the signs of the zodiac. Putti engaged in the vintage cover the space below. Winter is represented clad in a remarkable garment with trousers and sleeves but opening his body. Spring is wearing a wreath of flowers on his head. At his feet sits a little shepherd milking a goat. Summer is crowned with corn ears and accompanied by a little figure of a corn harvester. Autumn‘s head is decorated with characteristic vine tendrils. What makes this sarcophagus special is that representations of the seasons usually reserved for the margins and secondary motifs form here the main pictorial theme. The symbolism of the seasonal representations is apparently connected with the function of the sarcophagus, ―In de heidense Romeinse grafkunst illustreerden zij het tijdelijk karakter van het menselijk bestaan en waren dus symbolen voor de vergankelijkheid. Mogelijk illustreerden zij tevens de cyclus van bloei en verval van de levensloop van de mens‖.41 On one of the tombs of an earlier, Antonine, period (138-180 AD) there is an inscription, ―Time passes. You too will die; enjoy life‖.42 Thus, the representation of the seasons on the sarcophagi can be related to ―the acceptance of the human relationship to the natural order to which seasons play a part and the relationship of an individual‘s singular life cycle in contradistinction to the overall continuation of the cycles of life in general‖.43

Among the various media that carried the iconography of the seasons were mosaics that were used to decorate the floors in interiors and yards of Roman villas including those in Northern Europe.44 The depictions of the allegorically represented Seasons were usually placed in the corners of rectangular compositions, usually having weak or no relation whatsoever to the main theme depicted in the central medallion. Anne de Snoo considers these late Roman popular images ―vervlakking en uitholling van de iconografie‖ of the seasons.45 Keeping the connection with zodiac signs and the conventional Bacchic subject matter the Seasons function more and more as a decorative element, ―the motives underlying the choice of subjects in Roman interior decoration were undoubtedly often of the most banal nature, and we must return to the truism that the Seasons, being four in number, were ideally suited to the corners of a pavement design‖.46 With all its alleged banality, the Seasons reiterated a very stable and ordered picture of the world full of correspondences between the macro- en microcosms. A circle seems to be an indispensable element of the seasonal representations conveying the symbolism of the wholeness of the universe. Likewise, the numerical symbolism (however scholarly) plays an important role in the underlying idea of comprehensive isomorphism. ―According to this cosmic allegory, the shape of the circus represents the annual cycle, the 12 starting-gates (carceres), the months or the signs of the zodiac, the four chariots taking part in the race of the Seasons or the four elements,

41 De Vier Jaargetijden, 2002, p.17

42 Hanfmann, p 232.

43 Jorgensen, p.6

44 Examples of the Northern mosaics containing the iconography of the seasons are discussed in detail in: Ling, R., The Seasons in Romano-British Mosaic Pavements.

45 De Vier Jaargetijden, 2002, p.17

46 Ling, p.19. 19

the turning-posts (metae) the poles, the seven circuits of the race the days of the weeks or the seven planets, and the normal race-card of 24 heats the hours of the day‖47.

In contrast with the Seasons that were a wide-spread and popular subject, the motif of the Months remained long restricted to the astrological science and was quite a high-brow matter. The Greek Antiquity counts few examples of the representations of Months in visual arts. The earliest of extant examples is the Hellenistic frieze mentioned above, at present a part of the façade on the church of Hagios Eleutherios in Athens (second or first century BC). It is a sequence of 12 Greek months (one piece, for month Anthestherion (18 February – 17 March), destroyed), coinciding with zodiac signs.48 Each figure personifying a Month is accompanied by a relevant zodiac sign and every group of three months is preceded by a personification of the season. The reference to the zodiacal signs is the primary but not the only basis for the identification of each month. The figures are dressed differently according to the season thus indicating the weather fluctuations in the course of the year. There are also references to human activities typical for this or that month. However the figures are shown passively standing and the activity is alluded to in an indirect way: by the depiction of the characteristic features of a religious ritual connected with this month, for example, opening of the plowing season instead of a peasant engaged in plowing. This, perhaps tradition-setting, frieze ―shows the desire to mark out the year by relating it to the astronomical bases of chronology in the zodiacal signs, to relate it furthermore to the course of nature on earth in the indication of temperature throughout the year […], and finally to relate it to the characteristic human activity of the people which produced it‖.49

A far wider application the Months found in Roman art, presumably owing to the introduction and spreading of the calendar. Although the historical fact of the appearance of the calendar as such is obscured by the ages, it is telling that the fact belongs to the ―urban myth‖ of Rome: its invention is attributed to king Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome or to King Numa, the alleged author of the Roman religion.50 Moreover, the public access to the calendar became a significant social achievement in the Roman society: ―The public posting of the calendar in the Forum is explained by Livy as a patrician response to the plebeian demand for access to this vital information, which until that time the aristocratic priests and magistrates had jealously guarded. As Rome had grown, the complexities of daily life increased the value of this information. The denial of free access to the calendar was one of many battles that the plebeians fought in order to gain greater political and economical freedom‖.51 Burghers took the calendar over from the elite as a desk book containing everyday useful information: important events that happened in the city that year, pagan holidays, imperial anniversaries, historical commemorations, astrological phenomena, etc.52 The calendar also had a didactic value, learning

47 Ibid, p. 18.

48 For detailed description and attribution see: Webster.

49 Webster, p. 13

50 Salzman, pp. 5-6.

51 Ibid, p. 6.

52 Ibid, p. 3 20

about the calendar was a part of schooling on the Roman times, which continued well into the 5th century AD. Education being the distinction of higher social strata, possession and knowledge of calendar could also be a means of irradiating status.

It was the calendar, which came to play an important role in the accelerated life-style of the urban Roman society, that stimulated the development of the visual representations of the Months. The Months visualized in the calendar conformed to the iconography of the respective season: grapes in September, corn in August and cold in December. Other attributes sprang from the festivities of the month devoted to the deities: January (Ianuarius) was depicted as two-faced Janus, March (Martius) as the god of war Mars, which signified the beginning of the war season for the Roman army (the iconographical element that will survive into the Middle Ages in the form of a horn blower or a soldier). 53 In May the Romans celebrated Rosalia, a holiday of roses timed to the rose harvest for perfume-making, hence an image of a man with roses. These festivities varied throughout the empire therefore the activities represented in the calendar reflected the local traditions and varied accordingly.

One of the most important landmarks in the tradition of the depictions of the Months and activities associated with them is the so called Roman Codex-calendar of 354, or the Chronograph of 354, known only from later copies of the 9th-century copy of it (Appendix II). It was owned by a Roman Christian Valentinus Symmachus and contained full-page illustrations of the Months. The calendar in the codex form being the first in its kind, the author presumably enjoyed a relative freedom in his design. However, the comparison with the forerunners in the form the roll-calendars and mural calendars indicates a certain continuity. Salzman demonstrates that the transition to the new medium does not exclude ―the transference of certain characteristics of inscribed Roman wall calendars‖.54 As far as it has been established by the scholarship, the illustrations are based on the festivities (November, December, January, April), seasonal activities (June, August, February, October) and combinations of those (May, July, September, March). The iconography is distributed the following way:

January: a figure of a man richly and warmly dressed, holding a trefoil-flower, and throwing incense to flames, interpreted as reference to ludi Compitales, an agrarian holiday of the New Year, which were combined with consul‘s formal announcement of vows on behalf of the well-being of the state;

February: a woman dressed in a long robe holding a goose (duck?) surrounded by aquatic animals – fish, seashells, octopi, squid (?), as well as a stork (?) and an overturned urn with water flowing out of it;

March: a shepherd dressed in skin pointing to a bird sitting in a sort frame (cage?), a goat raised in its hind legs, baskets and a large bird with outspread wings. These elements are accounted for as sacrifices for Mars, the father of Romulus, the founder of Rome;

53 De Vier Jargetijden, p.18

54 Salzman, M.R. P.11

April: a dancer with castanets before a cult statuette, on the festival of Megalesia, or the Magna Mater, games in honour of Cybele;

May: a young man accompanied by a peacock and carrying a basket of roses, a participant of the Festival of the Roses;

June: a sun dial, a torch and a sickle refer to the summer solstice, dies lampadarun (―day of torches‖) that marled the beginning of the harvest season;

July: a male nude is grasping a sack closed with drawstrings, on the ground is an open sack with coins (a symbol of abundance and wealth), the man is holding a shallow basket with plants. The attributes have been interpreted as references to the harvest and ludi Apollinares, the solemn games in honour of god Apollo;

August: the heat of the summer is expressed by a figure of a naked drinking man;

September: A nude man holding a jar with skewers bearing fruit (?) in one hand and a string with a lizard in the other – attributes associated with the vintage festivities in honour of Liber, the Roman Dionysus;

October is represented as a hunter with pictorial elements illustrating sorts of hunting: fowling and hare hunting;

November: a special rattle (sistrum), leaves, snake, pomegranates and a sacrificial goose refer to the rites at Isis festivals;

December: a figure in winter clothes engaged in the game of dice, which alludes to Saturnalia.55

Thus, as we see, although both the maker and the owner must have been Christian, the calendar illustrations, the iconography is still pagan. It indicates, as Salzman emphasizes, the fading of the cultic significance of the festivities represented in the calendar. They were rather redefined as a part of cultural heritage which many newly converted aristocratic Romans did not feel compelled to give up entirely. ―The pagan festivals and holidays, so unequivocally outlawed in 396, nevertheless continued to be celebrated – in some cases into the fifth and sixth centuries […] Many of the festivals, moreover, did not actually die out; rather, their traditional pagan meaning was transformed over time, with the commemoration of these holidays becoming a matter of popular custom, not of religious belief‖56. A lot of Christian holidays incorporated elements of the pagan forerunners dissociating them from their original cultic meaning. For instance, Christmas assimilated certain customs associated with Saturnalia; a sacred ship of the Isidis navigium, a popular festival to Isis celebrated in March, was retained in the festival of Carnavale, held in conjunction with Easter. Calendars like the Codex-Calendar of 354 reflected the process of assimilation and adaptation, and certain continuity rather then break between the Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

55 Salzman.

56 Ibid, pp. 239-240.

Another significant feature of the Chronograph is its departure from the tradition of personification of the Months. Although some Months are indeed personifications in the strict sense, some figures, namely the ones that illustrate January, April and November, ―must certainly have appeared to the artist and his patrons as representations, not of the months, but of religious celebrants‖ which considerably loosens the term ―personification‖.57 The illustration of December (Appendix II, December), identified by Webster as a slave playing at dice, an activity associated with the tradition of Saturnalia when slaves enjoyed liberties with their masters, indicates the transformation of the personification into the representation of the Roman slave. Webster points to the transitional character of the illustrations of the Months in the Codex- Calendar of 354: on the one hand, ―The form of the illustrations seems to be derived from that of personifications, for the artist holds to a single figure; the slave‘s master does not appear […]‖ , on the other hand, some of the figures have ceased to be personifications, in particular December, that ―becomes an anonymous contemporary figure referring to a particular activity or even selected as characteristic of the month‖.58

Perhaps we must take into account that Salzman disagrees to identify the figure of December as a slave on the grounds of the omission of other iconographic elements of his servile status and the peculiarities of his attire (short fringed wool cloak and heavy leggings), which she sees as more fitting with a hunter and a country dweller.59 If Salzman is right, does it contradict Webster‘s conclusion? Winter clothes, as Salzman notes herself, can be just the reference to the season. Moreover, does the identification of the figure as a hunter or a country dweller contradict his status of a slave? He could be a rustic slave-hunter. It is hard to judge by the copies of a copy but a more sophisticated outfit of the figure in the late fifteenth century copy (Austrian National Library) could suggest the master engaged in the same activity. In my opinion, a figure recognizable as a social type, be it a slave, a master, a hunter or a country dweller, or combinations of those, more apparent to a contemporary, is concrete enough to undermine personification.

Whether this subtle ―revolution‖ was obvious to the artist himself and his audience is another question. Depicting months and seasons in an active way does seem to answer the contemporary taste. Webster points to the examples of the murals in the Catacomb of Pretestato, containing four scenes, apparently showing seasons where putti are shown actively at work: making garlands in Spring, harvesting in Summer, busy with vintage in Autumn, gathering olives in Winter. Another example of the active conception is to be found in the mosaic from St. Romain-en-Gal (early 3d century AD). The seasons are represented by four genii riding animals: Spring, carrying flowers, upon a bull; Summer, holding a sickle, upon a lion; Autumn wearing a garland, on a tiger; and Winter, heavily cloaked, on a boar. What is more interesting is that each of the seasons is accompanied by seven occupations ―which discard the passive form and depict actual human activity, as sowing beans, picking grapes, baking, etc.‖60 Thus the mosaic of St.

57 Webster, p. 15.

58 Ibid, 16.

59 Salzman, pp. 75 -76.

60 Webster, p. 33

Romain-en-Gal possessed a rich iconographic source for later depictions of the occupations of seasons as well as months. This or a similar repertory must have provided for the decorations one of the vaults of the Roman Arch at Reims (3d century AD). The seven remaining fragments show animated scenes of reaping, mowing, shearing sheep, gathering fruit, threshing, hunting, breeding horses. They are not arranged in the due order, which makes Webster think that their function was merely decorative. In any case, the most significant step is made – the figures are actively engaged in the month-bound activity.

Thus it can be concluded that antique art left a rich legacy of the illustrations of the months. For the most part they are still rather static and consist in personifications. However, within this tradition there emerge impulses breaking free from this conception. In late Roman art a certain trend in the illustrations of the months and seasonal activities begins to lay the basis for the later iconography. Still, the inertia of the tradition remains quite strong for centuries and reveals itself primarily in the formal composition: a single figure is usually enclosed within an abstract or architectural form and is often depicted as rather passive. Such representations persist well into the Middle Ages as late as the 9th century fettering the new concept of the depiction of occupations of the months as dynamic activities.

I. 3. Calendar illustrations in Early and High Middle Ages.

I. 3.1. Early Middle Ages: formation of the iconography.

Still, the active conception does make its way. According to Webster, the earliest extant examples of more or less consistent depiction of ―the labours of the moths‖ as such come from the Salzburg school of manuscript illumination. Since the illustrations in both manuscripts, one with astronomical texts (818) (Appendix IV, Jan.-Dec.) and the other Bede‘s De Rerum Natura (830), are almost identical, all months being illustrated on one page and arranged in four registers, Webster assumes that they were both copied from a common model from Northern France, which means that the trend had emerged even earlier and had time to spread over Europe. A lot of scenes already foreshadow the later tradition:

January: warming - a man is squatting to warm his hands at a fire;

February: hunting with a falcon (?) – a man is standing with a big bird sitting on his hand;

March: - a man holding a bird in his right hand and a snake in the left;

April: pruning (?) - a man with a bundle in his arm standing a t a tree;

May: flower bearer – a man with a flower in one hand and a string with onions (?) in the other;

June: ploughing – a man with a whip driving two oxen hitched in a plough;

July: mowing – a man standing with a scythe, some grass is already cut and some is not yet (or lying in sheaves at his feet?);

August: reaping – a man stooping to cut a bundle of wheat with a sickle;

September: sowing – a man swinging his arm to cast seed into the ploughed ground; 24

October: vintage – two stages are combined in one figure, simultaneously plucking grapes and filling casks with wine;

November: killing hogs – a man is stabbing a hog with a spear;

December: killing hogs – a man is swinging a sword (?) to cut a ham from a hog.

Peculiarly enough the two months are combined here, the hog being flanked by the figures referring to November and December.

The iconography is not entirely free from the impact of the classical heritage. The features of personification can be observed in the figure if March, ―which is explainable only by the verse of the Carmina Salzburgiana, ―Martius educit serpents, alite gaudet‖61 (March extracts snakes [from hibernation], birds rejoice). July‘s occupation is rather suggested (by the scythe and mown grass) than actually depicted, the mower as standing with the scythe resting on his shoulders. The symbolic, conventional character of the images is betrayed by the montage of the two activities in one and the same figure of October.

The struggle with the antique conception is vividly visible in miniatures of the 12 Months illuminating Wandalbert‘s Martyrology, executed in Rhineland in late 9th century. In terms of the composition they are strongly reminiscent of the Chronograph of 354: a single figure enclosed in an architectural frame. Most of the figures are depicted in a rather static way, gracefully posing, the signs of zodiac and sometimes a schematic attribute distinguishing the months – a recognizable formula. But quite strikingly the month of July breaks through the scheme – quite literally! Unlike 9 other scenes July is represented not by an abstract figure in antique attire, but a mower dressed in more contemporary clothes and so vigorously swinging his scythe that it appears far beyond the frame (Appendix IV, July,fig.2). ―The effect is not calculated and controlled, as in the case of the same device in Baroque art, but appears as a miscarriage of form incidental to the effort of a bold but naïve man to attain his new objective on the basis of a borrowed form‖.62 Towards the following miniature the artist must have analyzed his mistake/achievement (?) and tried to balance it in less extravagant way. The August again sets forth a rural occupation: reaping. The figure is stooping, holding a bunch of wheat in his left hand ready to cut it with the sickle he is holding in the right. Bound sheaf lying on the ground looks more like a descriptive detail than an attribute.

To grasp the essence of this transformation, Webster proposes to compare these miniatures with June of Chronograph of 354: ―In both cases the occupation which is indicated in the scene is that of reaping, but in the antique illustration the emphasis is entirely different: the principal element of the scene is a human figure which exists somewhat in its own right, for its own beauty <…> the least important element is the indication of the occupation of reaping by the sickle, which is merely placed beside the figure, as if in afterthought <…> the reference to the occupation is made in a purely symbolic manner by means of attribute included in the scene. In contras to this, the mediaeval usage <…> presents the actual accomplishment of the task: the figure no longer appeals on its own account, but exists merely to take its part in the action which is depicted; it is active and contemporary; clothing, implements, and work are described to us in so far as they are essential for the simple task, and in this sense the scene is realistic, not symbolic or ideal‖.63

It is not clear whether the illuminator himself fully realized the breakthrough he happened to make because in the following months he lapses again into the antique idiom. He may have been following models originating from antique sources like Chronograph that were circulated in

61 Ibidem. P. 37

62 Webster, J.C. P. 44.

63 Ibidem. P. 45

the Middle Ages and used as craft manuals. Missing two scenes he might have tried to fill the gap with his own skill, perhaps even having a real haymaker in mind, which resulted in this accidental (?) innovation. At any rate, this example illustrates the difficulty with which the new concept was hatching through the shell of the inherited tradition.

In the course of the 10th and 11th centuries the impulse that drove the hand of the Carolingian illuminator slowly but steadily took over. Occasional scenes of occupations regardless the season, that are scattered throughout various manuscripts (e.g. The Utrecht Psalter, Gospel-book of Soissons), provided enough material easily compatible with the theme of the months. Iconography of the Months is being worked out: it is more stable for certain months and less so for the other, it also depends on the region and climate (some activities are traditionally done earlier in Italy and a month or even two later in England). In terms of ―passive vs. active‖ depiction it is still in transition but showing clear tendency towards the latter. On the basis of analyzing of the iconography of the months in 10 West European manuscripts (Appendix III) of this period the following picture can be given, the iconographical motifs appearing in descending order of occurrence.

January: Personification/Janus-figure (3/10) – warming by the fire (3/10) – killing hogs (2/10) - ploughing and sowing (2/10);

February: pruning (5/10) – warming by the fire (2/10) – personification (warm clothes) (2/10) - fishing (1/10).

March: warrior/rider (2/10) – digging, raking, sowing (2/10) - catching birds or snakes (1/10) – extracting thorns (1/10) – pruning (2/10) – shepherd (1/10) – personification (1/10).

April: flower/twigs bearer (8/10) – feasting (2/10)

May: flower-bearer/tree or twigs in bloom (6/10) – sheep-tending (2/10) – pasturing horses (1/10) – personification (figure with a rake) (1/10).

June: personification (3/10) - reaping (3/10) – ploughing (1/10) – cultivating land (weeding?) (1/10) – cutting wood (1/10) – raking up hay (1/10).

July: personification (figure with a scythe) (4/10) - mowing (3/10) – reaping (1/10) – threshing (1/10) – cutting wood (1/10).

August: personification (with fruit of a sheaf) (3/10) – quenching thirst (1/10) – mowing (1/10) – picking fruit (1/10) – putting hoops on casks (1/10).

September: vintage (gathering grapes or treading grapes) (3/9) – Personification (3/9) – feeding hogs (2/9) – sowing (1/9).

October: gathering grapes, filling casks (2/10) – personification (2/10) – falcon hunting (2/10) – catching birds (1/10) – blowing horn (1/10) – testing wine (1/10) –– sowing (1/10).

November: ploughing (2/10) – warming (2/10) – killing hogs (1/10) – buying hogs (1/10) – falcon hunting (1/10) – shepherd (1/10) – cutting wood (1/10) – personification (1/10). 27

December: killing hogs (4/10) – personification (2/0) – threshing (2/10) – sowing (1/10) – warming (1/10).

So, as we see, some months already have a more or less established iconography: Janus and warming for January, pruning for February, flower-bearer for April and May, reaping for June, vintage for September, and killing hogs for December. In other months the iconography is less stable. More than 30% of months illustrations are still represented by personifications. This figure, however, is relative due to the problems of identification of the attributes. There are also intermediate forms, for example, a static figure holding but not using the specific tools for a certain work associated with the given month. The flower-bearer is also dubious: it represents no active labour but can be treated as an occupation, picking flowers. Although I classified these forms as personifications, I would like to make a concession that this is subject to interpretation.

I. 3.2. Months in the High Middle Ages: regional variations.

The above mentioned examples are still sparse and irregular if compared with the boom Months experience in the 12th century. The abundance of examples makes it impossible to go in detail within the limits of this study. A number of the most representative examples are to be found in the appended table (Appendix III, table 2) where the iconography is arranged chronologically and with regional variations. Despite a marked diversity certain generalizations can be made.

In 12th-century Germany however the illustrations of the months are comparatively rare, the iconography is not yet established, antique and Byzantine influences are felt now and then. In the manuscript of Gutta and Sintram of Marbach (Strasbourg, Library of the Episcopal Seminary), for example, reaping is spread over two months (July and August), the figure drinking from a bowl bears resemblance to that of the Chronograph of 354, some illustrations contain personifications. The compositional arrangement of the cycle in Stuttgart manuscript (MS. Hist. fol. 415, ―Chronicon Zwifaltense minus‖, Stuttgart, Königliche öffentliche Bibliothek) betrays the tradition of antique astronomical table with the personification of the Year in the centre holding symbols of sun and moon and flanked by the symbols of night and day. The second circle contains signs of the zodiac and the third occupations of the months. The table is enclosed in a rectangular frame with the images of the seasons in the corners. Hare hunting in January and catching birds in May are untypical motifs supposedly borrowed from Byzantine manuscripts. Fishing as a complimentary motif added to the typical pruning in February can be either ascribed to Italian influence or to the association with the Pisces of the zodiac. Mowing and reaping are placed in July and August, that is later than in South-European countries. The regional specificity due to the impact of climate indicate that a certain degree of observation of the reality was present. In general, German cycles of the 12th century are in transition, still dependent on the more archaic Latin or Byzantine tradition but showing a tendency toward the medieval ―active‖ concept.

English months cycles are not too frequent either. Scenes of agricultural or occupational character can be sometimes found in the decoration of Norman churches but they do not seem to be subjugated to an orderly meaning (Prior‘s Doorway at Ely; South Doorway of the Barfreston

Church). But even when they can be identified as months, their purely decorative character prevails. Thus, the series of months illustrations on the lead font in the church at Brookland are awkwardly fitted into the twenty arcades around the rim of the font with the result that some months, beginning with March, are repeated to fill the remaining space. Webster explains this oddity by assuming that the illustrations were copied from another source, most probably another medium – architecture or manuscript, and most probably French, the supposition supported by the French, not Latin, names of the months inscribed above the figures.64

A specifically English variation of the months is represented on the carved stone panels on the three sides of the baptismal font in the church at Burnham Deepdale in Norfolk. March is illustrated by digging whereas pruning, on the continent usually occurring in this month, is shifted to April hence the flower-bearer falls out at all. May shows the figure with a banner, perhaps referring to the procession at Rogationtide, or alluding to journeys and wars on the continent represented by a rider or a knight. The new occupation of weeding out thistles is introduced for June. Mowing, reaping and threshing are reserved for July, August and September respectively (i.e. a month later compared with the French cycles). Curiously enough the sequence runs clockwise (North-East-South), that is, right to left, probably meant for the people who had little experience of written texts.

On the whole, the English calendar seems to be based on the French cycles. ―The reference to vintage may support this derivation from France, for England was not, like France, the land of grape. Although the labors of the months found their chief inspiration in contemporary life, the tendency of the medieval mind to follow sources had its effect, sources were at times pictorial, here the French cycles, at times the more generalized tradition coming down from antiquity in encyclopaedia and poetry…‖65

The biggest popularity and development the theme seems to enjoy in Italy and France, especially in architecture. In Italy it is hard to isolate a single characteristic scene for each month with the exceptions of April, which shows an almost universal agreement on the flower-bearer, May which is represented by a knight or a rider and September which is unanimously associated with vintage. There can be singled out a few peculiarly Italian scenes of occupations. Such is the horn-blower for March and the thorn extractor for the same month. Some activities are characteristically shifted to earlier months. Reaping in June and threshing in July, as well as vintage beginning in August found at the Cathedral in Otranto (Appendix IV, June fig. 5, July fig. 6, August fig. 5) and Baptistery in Pisa and some Spanish churches can be easily accounted for by a warmer climate.

A far greater uniformity can be observed in France, especially in the regions of Saintonge-Poitou and Burgundy. The Months often appear alternating with the signs of the zodiac on the archivolts around the arched doorway typical for the Romanesque architectural school of Saintonge-Poitou, like, for example, in the church at Fenioux, the church of St. Pierre at Aulnay or in the church of St. Nicholas at Civray. The cycle can be summarized as follows:

64 Webster, p. 90-91.

65 Webster, see footnote on p. 91.

January: feasting (figure seated usually with a round loaf of bread and knife);

February: warming (figure seated in front of the fire);

March: pruning

April: flower-bearer;

May: rider with a sickle in his hand;

June: mowing;

July: reaping;

August: threshing;

September: treading grapes;

October: knocking down acorns fro pigs;

November: feeding animals (oxen);

December: feasting.

The regional peculiarity of the Months cycle in Burgundy is their inclusion in medallions around a portal as seen in the famous Cathedral of St. Lazare in Autun and Abbey church of the Madeleine at è (Appendix IV, Jan.-June, fig. 3,4, July fig. 4,5, Aug.-Dec. fig 3,4). In both cases the figure representing April is unusual: a man pasturing animals, perhaps sheep or goats. November in the Vézelay cycle is depicted as an old man carrying the young man on his shoulders obviously implying the Old and the New Year. Perhaps the same idea is expressed by the two figures that follow the sun on the utmost left but precede the Months cycle in Autun.

Another untypical representation at Vézelay was chosen for May: a man with a strikingly sad, or thoughtful, face is seated leaning on his shield. Koseleff suggested that it could allude to the tradition of May tournaments and that it is ―an exhausted [erschöpft] knight‖.66 Webster objects to this explanation on the grounds that such psychological intricacy is unlikely in the months cycle of the period and that ―one should not assume a too complex content in these scenes‖.67 He is inclined to agree with Brandt 68 who couples the figure with the dancing figure crowned with leaves on the right suggesting Mars and Venus. Compositionally, May must correspond to August placed symmetrically on the other side of the archivolt and represented by two images: threshing and boxing grain, so two figures for one month do seem plausible. The observation that the posture of the latter reminds the dancing priest of Venus for April of Chronograph of 354, however sharp, does not, to my mind, elucidate the matter unproblematically. The figure does not seem to be female, which rules out Venus. It could be still the priest of Chronograph or a festive dancer, but then Mars is an unlikely match. Some

66 Koseleff, p.33.

67 Webster. See note*on p. 76.

68 Brandt, p.195.

sources identify the dancer as personification of Spring69, which seems to me hardly possible since there are no other representations of the seasons. Perhaps it is a reference to May festivities when the King/Queen of the May was elected and adorned with leaves and twigs; May-tree, or May-pole, was set up and when children or young people went around with garlands or branches singing and collecting money. As many medieval festivities this one had an archaic forerunner in fertility cults devoted to the spirit of vegetation.70

The emotional state of ―the knight‖ remains unexplained but it does seem to belong to the local tradition of May illustration: the posture of the knight in Autun (face propped on the left hand) shares certain thoughtfulness with that in Vézelay.

The most striking feature of the tympanum at Vézelay is the three roundels with a somersaulting dog, an acrobat and a mermaid in the centre of the archivolt that interrupt the months cycle (Appendix III, fig. 1,2). The fact that they occur right above the head of Christ rules out their accidental character. Scholars have tried to interpret their significance within the comprehensive programme of the portal. Thus Peter Low building on the idea of his predecessors that the portal represents Pentecost suggested the interpretation of the central Christ figure as a symbol of Trinity while the three figures above, being curved so that they form circles, connect the idea of resurrection and eternal life, prefigured and enabled by the Pentecost, with the idea of the cycle of the year which ends where it begins just like each of these figures does.71

To conclude, the flourishing Romanesque and later Gothic architecture accommodated the months with an honorable place on portals, rose windows, flours of the churches thus making them accessible to a wide public as well as creating a link in the visual culture between Months and the most sacral themes implying the idea of the beginning or the end of time and history such as the days of Сreation and the Judgment Day, or symbolizing the Eternity, such as Resurrection and Ascention. Thus the Months, originally a heathen-flavoured theme, become an explicit and integral part of the medieval Christian world picture.

I. 3.3. The concept of labour in the Middle Ages.

It must be underlined also that the quantitative change is accompanied by the qualitative one. ―De Jaargetijden waren een vrij onschuldig heidens thema en konden daardoor in hun bestaande vorm – en gedeeltelijk ook inhoud – lang voortleven in de vroegchristelijke kunst‖. 72 The Seasons with their abstract ideas concerning the structure of the universe were easily adaptable within the Christian picture of the world. That accounts for their survival well into the Middle Ages on the one hand and the lack of development (hence a certain evisceration of

69 Zeringue.

70 Darkevitch, pp. 247-248; Frazer.

71 Lawrence.

72 De Vier Jaargetijden. Pp. 17-18.

meaning) on the other. The iconography of the Months on the contrary transforms radically, they are now represented as Labours (or Occupations) of the months. Although in antique representations such attributes as a rake or a basket for collecting fruit or grapes do occur, they are no more than attributes accompanying otherwise unidentifiable personifications, in the medieval Months the figure is usually shown using a tool (e.g. a plough) in an active manner. The tools and activities of agrarian character and the figure is a peasant.

How can this transformation be accounted for? Anne de Snoo supposes that it results from the changes in the social order as well as the new concept of work in the Christian mentality. ―In de Oudheid had landarbeid geen status, het waren immers slaven die zich bezighielden met het bewerken van het land. De Jaargetijden werden getooid met het gerede product, de arbeid of de arbeider die dat product tot stand bracht werd niet in beeld gebracht [... ] In de Middeleeuwen ontwikkelde men vanuit de christelijke geloofswereld een andere visie op are arbeid. Slavenarbeid was verdwenen en de herwaardering van werken op het land werd gepropageerd, want de mens zou door arbeid van de vloek van de erfzonde bevrijd worden‖73

Indeed, the medieval attitude to labour differed from that of the ancient world from the onset on. In the Greek polis the only befitting occupations of a citizen were those complying with his social, political and cultural life, having nothing to do with the physical labour, left to slaves or at best to freedmen. Work was considered something low, mean and dirty, something that degraded man to the level of animal. Farming though, as we have seen in Virgil, sometimes ―deserved‖ to be made an exception, but this exception did not seem to cancel the general rule. Gurevich links the dissenting views on the matter with the up-rise of the new mentality making way for the Christian one , ―Certain thinkers disagreed with this negative attitude to labour (the Cynics, Seneca, Epictetus), and we may see in their views preparatory steps towards that break with the old slave-owning morality which finally found expression in Christianity <…> Preaching ‗if any would not work, neither should he eat‘ (II Thess. 3:10), Christianity radically broke with this attitude to labour. A society of small-scale producers could hardly regard labour as something disgraceful. People began to look upon work as the normal state of human beings. True, if it was a necessary state, this was not because man was thus created but because of the Fall; that is to say, labour was still seen as a punishment. The essential point, however, is that idleness was now accounted one of the most grievous sins‖.74

But it would be a gross exaggeration to conclude that labour acquired an unproblematic halo of dignity. The ambivalence in the concept of labour noted by Gurevich becomes even more complicated if considered in the diachronic perspective, given all the contradictions of the three world-pictures – Classical Greek-Roman, barbarian and Judeo-Christian - that finally came to constitute the European medieval mentality. Jacques Le Goff emphasizes that all these three constituents caused a negative attitude to labour in the early Middle Ages – the first due to its inherent slave-owning mentality, the second due to the ―heroic‖ (=violent) style of life according

73 De Vier Jaargetijden. P. 19

74 Gurevich, A. P. 213 – 214.

to which plunder pays better than toil, and the third due to the priority of vita contemplativa over vita activa and the opinion that material preoccupations are the lack of faith and trust in God.75

Paradoxically, in the society fully dependant on husbandry the image of a peasant was negative in the extreme. Peasant, even the free one, was looked down upon with contempt. All the words used to name a peasant were of pejorative character: ―servus‖, ―paganus‖, ―villain‖, ―pauper‖. The attribute ―paganus‖ implied the affinity of farmers with paganism and superstition. But even Christian peasants remain sinners by definition, the very phrase ―servus peccati‖ symbolizing the slave-like relation of man to sin. In romances peasants are wild dangerous creatures inhabiting dark woods, threatening the noble knights, capable of foul murder. Peasants are all drunkards and voluptuaries. The word ―rusticus‖ (the country dweller) is built into the opposition to ―urbanus‖ and becomes the synonym of ignorant, illiterate and uncivilized person. Le Goff provides numerous eloquent examples of this sort.76

At the end of the chapter ‖Peasants and the Rural World in Literature‖ Le Goff writes, ―Although he [the peasant] did become a part of medieval humanism through art, where iconographic themes such as the Nativity and the monthly cycle of labors served as intermediaries, he was for the most part excluded from literature or relegated to teratological bestiaries‖.77 Shifting the emphasis to the first part of Le Goff‘s thought, I would like to suggest that it is the symbolical meaning of the image of the peasant with its Biblical overtones, that elevated the peasant and his toil in the eyes of the society. Of course it was a symbolical noble labourer, not the real one, that found his way to portals and windows of churches and to the books of hours in ownership of kings and aristocracy, later the upper bourgeoisie. The Good Sheperds, the Sowers representing Virtue were mere allegories but their visual representation in plastic arts enabled shifts of the stress onto more actual social meanings. When the Lollards‘ movement arose its spiritual leaders appealed to the same Biblical imagery. John Ball‘s famous slogan ―When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?‖ evoked directly the familiar images of the visual rather than literate culture.

To conclude, with the transition to Christianity Months and Seasons underwent considerable changes. Primarily the ratio of the frequency of their representations reversed: whereas earlier seasons enjoyed a far greater recurrence, in the Middle Ages their use shifted to the periphery (to less accessible decorations in mosaics, on sarcophagi and frescos). The emphasis came to be laid on the representation of the months adopted by the Christian calendars, which, due to their important function of calculating shifting church holidays such as Easter and Pentecost, in their turn were often included in cult books, namely Psalter, breviaries and later in books of hours. Integration into this context implies allegorical meaning of these images, that overtly had secular character. A big role in the spread of the imagery of the months was played by the church architecture. The function of the visual arts in church decoration and sacramental objects, often condescendingly referred to as ―the poor man‘s Bible‖, should not be

75 Le Goff, p.90.

76 Ibid, pp. 87-97. Also see notes 205,206,226.

77 Ibid, p. 97.

underestimated. The representations of months are a vivid example of how complex theological, philosophical, moral, social, etc. concepts were translated into the common visual culture. A still greater sophistication of meaning combined with incredible mastery, refinement and technical innovation the months cycle achieve in Très Riches Heurs illuminated by the brothers Limbourg, a true peak of the moths tradition.

From the point of view of the iconography a significant development occurred. Personification as a mode of representation was entirely replaced by a figure actively engaged in an activity associated with a particular month. The associations between the months and the occupations became more stable although the regional and climatic variations play a big role.

II. TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE GENRE BETWEEN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES AND PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER.

II.1. Calendar illustrations in Très Riches Heurs du Duc de Berry of the brothers Limbourg.

In early 15th century in the atmosphere of the intensive pictorial activity appears the most remarkable calendar series opening the book of hours with a justly proud name Très Riches Heures. It was commissioned by Duke of Berry, a younger brother of King Charles of France, and painted by the brothers Van Limburg of Nijmegen – Paul, Jean (Johan) and Herman. The work on the manuscript took several years, from 1411 to 1416 and was never finished due to the death of the duke and shortly thereafter the sudden death of the illuminators, most probably from the plague that broke out in Paris that year. The eldest of the brothers was scarcely 30 years old. Only seven decennia later the manuscript re-emerged to be completed for Duke Charles of Savoy by the French illuminator Jean Colombe.

To understand the breakthrough the brothers Limbourg achieved in Très Riches Heures one can compare its design with their own work in the Belles Heures (1405-1408/9) created only a few years before for the same patron. The illustrations of the months in the Belles Heures were integrated according to a traditional layout - they occupied a small space in the vignette in the centre of the upper margin with a similar vignette containing a sign of zodiac in the lower margin. The realistically painted figures prefiguring the later work are set off against the conventionalized gilded background. The format reserved for the calendar illustrations in Très Riches Heures (the whole verso page, 238x170 mm) laid the emphasis on the pictures traditionally placed in subordinated areas as well as allowed a far greater freedom for technical innovation inspired by the Italian painting.

The calendar painted by the Limbourgs was innovative in a multitude of ways: artistic, conceptual and scientific. Despite the stylistic diversity of the calendar as a result of the work of several hands, it is clear that it was designed as one whole according to a new concept supposedly premeditated by Duke himself or/and his learned advisors.78 Each illustration combines a frame with occupations integrated into a three-dimensional landscape and a semi- circular tympanum with astronomical and meteorological information and the allegorically represented signs of the zodiac and Apollo holding the sun and driving a chariot. The wealth of the astronomical information is unprecedented for this genre. Apart from the informative function, the arches crowning the miniatures ―impose an abstract, rational order on the varied world in the main miniatures below‖.79 Due to the arch the life of the people, animals and nature for all its realism, peculiarity, and love for detail remains integrated into the large scheme of the universe.

The calendar in Très Riches Heures was the first after the Chronograph of 354 where the full page was devoted to illustrations of the months. Not only the size but also the arrangement – on the versos, while the calendar text is placed on the rectos – ―reverses both hierarchy and

78 Bakker, p. 202.

79 Meiss, p. 185.

expectation, and is unique to this date‖.80 The brothers Limbourg did not only choose for a bigger format on a separate page, they also dispensed with all the border decoration so magnificently embellishing the Belles Heures. It was always assumed that the absence of decoration was due to the fact that the manuscript remained unfinished. Millard Meiss, however, stated that it was a conscious choice of Paul Limbourg who was responsible for the general design. In pages that follow the calendar, which were executed at earlier stages, the decoration, if any, is reduced to a few illusionistic elements (snails, irises) or to simplified conventionalized acanthus leaves. Moreover, the usual Gothic architectural elements so typical for illumination of that time are absent too. Normally such elements were built into the mise-en-page to provide the integrity of the miniature with the text. They fulfilled a double function: on the one hand, they were used to construct three-dimensionality within the miniature, on the other hand, they emphasized the two-dimensionality of the page thus facilitating the transition between the two. Often the miniature was depicted as if it was a window that gave out on the represented events. Technically, the tight connection of the miniature and the text was done with the ruling of the page, the rhythm of the lines introduced structural division in the miniature affecting the perception of the page as a whole.81

Curiously enough, this all does not apply to the calendar miniatures of the Très Riches Heures. The architectural elements belong completely to the space of the three-dimentional miniature and not to the space of the page. Only an utterly simple line separates the miniature from the bare parchment around. Thus the pictures were set free from the rest of the book, or at least they acquired an unprecedented independence. Paul Limbourg who designed the manuscript and executed the most advanced pictures (in the sense of three-dimensionality) challenged the miniature genre limits: it was a breakthrough into painting that just happened to be on the parchment.

This shift in the relation of the picture and the text draws attention to other significant transformations. The opening scene of January features Duke himself feasting in front of the fire surrounded by his noble guests. Moreover, it has been proved that the castles represented in the miniatures were the real ones belonging to Duke: the castle of Lusignan in Poitou (March), either Dourdan near Paris or Pierfonds (April), Hôtel de Nesle in Paris opposite Ile de la Cité (June), castle in Poitiers (July), Etampes near Paris (August), Saumur (September), fortified palace of the Louvre, built by Berry‘s brother, Charles V, shown in a view from Hôtel de Nesle (October), the castle of Vincennes where Berry was born in the background in December.82 The scene of the betrothal in April, the riding groups in May and August clearly refer to the real events in the Duke‘s family. This accentuated personalization complicates the traditional iconography introducing other layers of meaning against the background of the traditional ones.

Another significant innovation is the far greater attention to the natural, atmospheric and meteorological phenomena than ever before. It is noteworthy that the visual arts of preceding century there were clear signs of the awakening interest in depiction of the weather conditions.

80 Alexander, p. 438.

81 For the description of the techniques of ruling and their impact on the miniatures see Byrne.

82 For problems of identification see Meiss, pp. 201-206.

Thus, Jean Pucelle working in Paris illuminated the calendar in the Psalter for Bonne de Luxembourg (Jean Berry‘s mother) purely through the representation of natural phenomena: snowstorm, rainfall, flowers, blooming or bare trees, etc. ―Diagrammatic though they are, - characterized them Erwin Panofsky, - these rudimentary little landscapes <…> announce a truly revolutionary shift from the life of man to the life of nature. They are the humble ancestors of the famous calendar pictures in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry‖83. Meiss traces a number of other earlier examples of representations of weather. In Lombard Tacuinum (1390, Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Ms.s.n.2644) there is a scene where a woman and a child are seeking shelter from the rain beating them. January in the mural months cycle in the Torre dell‘Aquila in Trent (not long before 1407) is the earliest landscape covered with snow where people are featured enjoying it, groups of nobles (ladies décolleté in spite of the frost!) are throwing snowballs at each other.

Even if the Limbourgs were not the ―inventors of weather‖ in the European visual arts, they (Paul be precise) were the first to catch the atmospheric effects and peculiarities of lighting specific for a particular time of the year. The first in art history image of the breath condensing in the frost appears in February as well as the first footprints in the snow and the first shadows consistent with the source of the light (March and October). It is remarkable that within the limited colour scheme applied by Paul Limbourg in February to render the gloominess of this month he managed to find subtle variations of white for the depiction of the snow. ―The fluctuations of light on the snow, - notes Meiss, - is perhaps the painter‘s greatest achievement; it suggests a mode of reality that renders artificial the old convention of the house lacking a wall to reveal the interior‖.84

Another telling example of how the Limbourgs integrate and transform the convention is their treatment of space. The conventionalized arrangement of the space found in the Trent frescos, with a high horizon and split in sections so as to provide space for numerous occupations is a feature that is found in various degrees in the miniatures of February, March, April, July and August. However, in terms of influence on the spatial concept in the Très Riches Heures cycle it is more obvious to speak about Siena murals of Ambrogio Lorenzetti (1338-1339). ―The Limbourgs understood Ambrogio‘s epoch-making fresco far better than did the coparatively limited master in Trent, and indeed it must have been the mural in Siena that provided the basic conception and structure for landscapes such as February in the Tres Riches Heures‖.85 What happens in the scene of February is that the conventional ―high-rise‖ composition, ―in accordance with which the sequence of forms in the pictorial field from the lower frame to the upper generally coincides with the altitude of forms in the illusory space‖86 is reinterpreted ―naturalistically‖, as a slope of steep hill. To achieve this effect Paul Limbourg had to employ a superb control of diminution combined with receding intensity of color and sharpness of the outlines in the distance. Conscious of the tradition the illuminator ―was clearly testing what he had learned from French and Italian models against what he had come to see with his own eyes;

83 Panofsky, p.33

84 Meiss. P. 188.

85 Meiss. P. 186.

86 Meis. P. 186.

and he did not hesitate to make the necessary modifications‖.87 To various extents this can be said about the other painted who were involved in illumination of the calendar in Tres Riches Heures.

The enchanting realism should not mislead us into thinking that the Limbourgs ―painted what they saw‖ or discovered the linear perspective and applied the single point of view before it was done in Italy.88 After a closer examination it becomes evident that the masters combined different points of view and varied the scale of the figures disproportionately to architectural and landscape elements in accordance with their aesthetic purposes. Besides, a lot of elements were borrowed from the pictorial tradition. For example, the house with the ―removed‖ façade so that we can see the inside (February) is a typically medieval technique, often found in the portrayal of the birth of Jesus or Adoration of the Magi. The steep slope of the hill with a figure of a peasant driving a donkey could be inspired by the mural by Jacopo Avanzi in Padua (Basilica del Santo) or by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in Siena (Palazzo Pubblico). The scene of the hunt with the dogs tearing the boar apart is literally transferred from the miniature of Giovanni de‘ Grassi (Bergamo, Bibliotheca Civica, inv. A. Mai, cassaf.1.21, fol. 17r) or a girl lifting her skirt to warm her legs (Tacuinum, 1390, Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, Ms.s.n.2644). It is possible that at least one of the Limbourgs travelled to Italy with his patron, familiarized himself with the advances of the art there and made use of them. But it is not the separate elements that make this work so unique but the ingenuity with which these separate elements were reinterpreted and synthesized.

The complicated semiotic structure of these elaborate, densely populated and compositionally ingenious miniatures resists simple and exhaustive interpretation. One of the possible is a socio-ideological approach. Erwin Panofsky first suggested, that the calendar miniatures in Très Riches Heures offers an insight into the social context and the juxtaposition of classes, ―A purely descriptive presentation of labor and leisure [in earlier calendar cycles] is transformed into an antithetical characterization of divergent milieus‖.89 Jonathan Alexander went further to elicit the implied ideology, or rather ―attitudes held for the most part unconsciously, or at least taken for granted, but reflecting the material interests of those holding them‖.90

Alexander argues that the Limbourgs embodied such attitudes, in particular a negative image of the peasant. It is indeed evident that the two social groups are juxtaposed and contrasted. Although the occupations of the months do include leisure activities such as feasting in January, warming by the fire in February, flower picking, or just bearing in April, or horse riding and falcon hunting in May, which is naturally associated with the occupations of the knights, that is, nobility, the social dimension is not relevant for the traditional months series. In Tres Riches Heures however the contrasts are too striking to escape the attention. The occupations are strictly distributed between the peasants and the gentlefolk. January, April and

87 Meiss. P. 187.

88 Bakker, p.203.

89 Panofsky, p. 66.

90 Alexander, P. 438.

May show activities of the aristocracy. February, March, June, July, September, October and November feature peasants at work. August is an exception because although the aristocratic company dominate the foreground, they are accompanied by a common man, a servant, and in the background are a group of peasants harvesting and three refreshing themselves in a river. December is another and a more ambiguous exception. Here the noble occupation of hunting is shown but the aristocratic hunters are absent, instead, we see three gamekeepers, dressed up for the occasion but obviously common men.

The distribution can be, on the one hand, explained by the preferences of different hands that worked on different folios (Paul is believed to have painted February, March, June, July and December, while January, April, May and August are attributed to Jean, October and November were painted later by Jean Colombe according to the design supposedly made by Paul Van Limbourg).91 On the other hand, if we consider the book as a designed however unfinished whole, the contrasts cannot be occasional or random but must be seen as generating meaning.

Alexander scrutinizes the composition of the whole cycle and its iconographical sources and comes to the conclusion that the cycle aims to construct an ideologically biased images of classes. His analysis is based on singling out a number of meaningful juxtapositions. For example, January with its grandeur of the Duke‘s court feast is juxtaposed with February with its sober palette and the dominating cold colours. The colouristic contrast makes one look further and account for it. Alexander focuses his attention on the representations of nudity in February as contrasted with rich clothing and noble postures of the Duke‘s guests in January. Nudity here is of no classical ideal but, according to Alexander, ―an ideological representation showing the peasants as uncultured, boorish, and vulgar‖.92 As derision interprets Alexander also the postures of peasants: one in March bending so as to show his posterior, or another one in September in even a more pronounced pose with his underwear showing and stockings falling. The latter is flanked by a donkey and a pair of oxen which, in Alexander‘s opinion, functions as an implied comparison of the peasant‘s unselfconscious behavior to that of brute beasts. In the August scene, the contrast between the exaggerated luxury of the aristocratic company and the nudity of the swimming peasants is interpreted by Alexander in terms of the opposition of culture and nature.

The scene of August introduces another opposition, now rather moralistic than that of class. Swimming, in other words resting, peasants are opposed to the peasants at work. Within the concept the three-order structure of society, peasants (laboratores) are supposed to labour, just as aristocracy (bellatores) to fulfill their military functions and clergy (oratores) to pray. Since the order was believed to be established by God, abstaining from one‘s prescribed duty was not only socially condemned but considered a sin towards God. It is telling that iconografically the sin of sloth is fixed in an image of a sleeping shepherd or an idle peasant, whereas virtue is represented as a man sowing corn.93 Obviously these associations originate from the biblical parables of the Good Shepherd, Sower, workers in the vineyard etc. that

91 I follow the attribution of Meiss, pp. 185-201.

92 Alexander, p.439.

93 The iconography of the idle peasant is discussed in detail in Alexander and De Vries, A..

establish the symbolical link between agrarian activities and religious values. The logic of the medieval thinking promotes the symbolical meaning above the literary, that is why a bad monk is represented through the image of a sleeping shepherd, who fails to protect his flock (congregation) from the wolf (devil) (Shepherd Sleeping, Ost. Nationalbib., Cod. 507, fol. 1v). Alexander interprets the idle peasants of Tres Riches Heures in the light of such allegorical imagery. Thus, he challenges the view of the miniatures as representing the charms of simple life or being snapshots of the ―real life‖ of the Middle Ages. He argues that despite their seeming ―realism‖ the miniatures convey ideology from the point of view of which ―the peasants are here subjected to a gaze that is contemptuous and not without fear‖.94

After the premature death of the brothers Limbourg most probably from the plague in1426 the incomplete manuscript was locked up in a chest for several decennia and could not influence the following generation of illuminators. It was not until the late 15th century when it was discovered and its achievements were taken over. But meanwhile the genre was not standing still.

II. 2. Calendar illustrations in XV-XVI centuries.

The movement from illumination to painting that Paul van Limbourg made in the design of Très Riches Heures was symptomatic for the whole 15th century, which can be characterized by closer and closer relations between the two media. The relation is traditionally regarded as that of influence of the painting on illumination. The example of Paul Limbourg, however exceptional, shows that it was the result of the inherent development of illumination that came to three-dimensionality within itself. Certainly it was done not without the impulses from the outside. There never existed strict borders between media, workshop patterns and model drawings were made from frescos, sculptures and paintings. The influence of Jan Van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hugo van der Goes on illumination in terms of composition, motifs and style is indisputable. Besides, despite the guild divisions, painters were sometimes illuminators too and vice versa. For example, Gerard David made a considerable contribution to various important books in spite of the fact that he was not a registered member of the confraternity of illuminators in Bruges; Gerard Horenbout was an illuminator but he left a number of high-grade paintings. The influence was reciprocal and the exchange of patterns occurred both ways, as Maryan Ainsworth demonstrates in her article about the close cooperation between Gerard David and the Bening workshop. 95As far as the genre of the calendar illustrations is concerned, some significant changes are to be discussed.

2. 1. Page lay-out.

The problem of the relations between the miniature, the surface of the page around it and the space of the text combined within the mise-en-page became a self-conscious aspect of the work later illuminators. Functionally calendar illustrations remained a subordinate part of the folio, often reserved to the margin. The aesthetical aspect however gained more and more

94 Alexander, p. 440.

95 Ainsworth, p. 241-242.

prominence: the calendar images were often surrounded by elaborate border decorations combining floral motifs, leaves, berries, fantastical creatures and real animals, executed in bright pure colours: often ultramarine or azurite blue, minium (red lead) or vermilion red, verdigris and copper sulfate green, and for the most luxurious editions gold leaf. The backgrounds were still conventional flat surfaces but the geometrical patterns were replaced by vegetal ornaments that served to suggest the surroundings: a wood, shrubbery, clouds or stars on the sky. The ornamental surface accentuated the three-dimensional images within the frame. Three- dimensionality in earlier miniatures was often rendered by the coulisse method. Gradually though perspective takes hold, the conventional backgrounds develop into real landscapes. The more the depth of the picture increased the ―flatter‖ became the framing patterns, a feature characteristic of the French manuscripts.

Later in the century a new concept appeared in Ghent-Bruges school of illumination, whose golden age spanned from the 1470s to ca. 1520s. The folio around the historicized miniature became an independent pictorial surface with its own three-dimensionality. Flowers, insects, shells, precious stones and other pictorial elements were painted in trompe l‘oeil technique rivaling the more moderate realism of the miniatures. Their striking contrast in scale (the border decoration elements look as if through the magnifying glass and the miniature as if through the telescope) emphasizes their belonging to different semiotic layers. The distribution profane-sacral is not strictly fixed to either the inner or the framing space. The border decoration framing a scene of the sacred history often contains elements that serve as points of transition from one space to another. Thus, the rosary on the border reminds of the function of the book, lilies and roses are symbolically associated to the image of Mary and so on. The book of hours in the hands of Mary of Burgundy refers to itself and provides an ‗entrance‘ to the illusionary space of the cathedral depicted in the central miniature. A dog on her knees, irises and carnations have symbolical meanings associatively connected with the religious themes of the Virgin and devotion. If we look at the calendar in the book of hours by the Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy (e.g. App. IV, Jan.fig.30), we can guess that all these flowers, branches, birds of the border decoration are somehow, if very unobtrusively, linked to the illustrations of the months. Butterflies were a symbol of material transience on the one hand and human‘s soul and its resurrection in Christ on the other, so their presence in the context of the calendar with its idea of eternal cycle of birth, death and revival cannot be an accident. The framing acquires therefore a ‗meta-textual‘ function, stressing the symbolical character of the image and inviting to contemplation.

In books produced by the workshop of Alexander Bening (active 1469-1519) and his son Simon Bening (active first half of 16th c.) the frames often imitate wooden gothic structures that were used in church furnishing and as elaborate carved retables. Especially remarkable in this respect is Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh, in which illusory ―wooden‖ frames contain a lot of compartments with roundels showing scenes of life, miracles and martyrdom of saints as well as signs of the zodiac, and ‗architectural‘ niches with saints as well as children‘s games.

In fact enlosing of the calendar illustrations into architectural framing was no invention. It occurs already in the Codex-calendar of 354, which had a great influence on medieval calendars, both in terms of structuring the information and in terms of the mise-en-page of the illustration page: the page was framed with an architecture-like structure, suggesting a temple

interior, with columns supporting a triangular tympanum and semi-spherical roof structures. The calendar in Landgrave Psalter of Thüringen (Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, HB II 24, Hildesheim, 1211-1213), for example, has a similar framing but it is divided into two parts, left reserved for the calendar information (dates, saint days), right occupied by the figure of a saint. The image of the month is shifted to the arch-like top. What is new in Benings‘ frames is the degree of illusionism and complexity of the semiotic organization of the pictorial space. The illusory architectural elements pretend to belong to physical reality, which stresses the symbolical character of the images in the roundels. The roundels look like windows into the other, sacred, reality. The similar style of the base-en-page month illustrations, so profane and quotidian, creates a parallel between them and the images of the saints and biblical figures of the roundels. The profane and the sacred are brought into contrapuntal, not contradictory relations. It is not simply a coexistence but mutual conditionality. Through the parallel with the sacred history everyday life gains legitimation and meaning. The cycle of vegetation, harvest and withering (analogous to the cycles of birth , maturing and death in human life) becomes not a mere eternal rotation and repetition but a model of the Great Cycle of sacred history.

2. 2. Iconography.

The iconography remains stable but it includes more and more details, human figures, animals, dwellings and environment. Thus in the illustration of March in the Hours of Charlotte of Savoy two men are working together in the garden, one pruning, the other digging – two activities typical for the month, but presented plausibly as cooperation (App. IV, Mar. fig.21). People are shown at different stages of the same task or busy with a different task. Eventually we get glimpses of the social structure. In the book of hours from Provence (1440-50) the landowner is giving instructions to two workers (App. IV, Mar. fig.22). In Benings‘ manuscripts the social structure becomes diverse: peasants, burghers, tradesmen, aristocracy. In September illustration in Breviarium Grimani doctor is letting blood of the patient, obviously a rich and important man judging by his clothes and house with big windows with stained-glass coats of arms (Appendix IV, Sep. fig.32).

Traditionally occupations were distributed as follows: leisure for wealthy burgers and aristocracy, work for peasants and artisans. Gradually we see common people getting their leisure too. The illustration of August in the book of hours by Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy shows a group of youths swimming and playing in the water (App. IV, Aug. fig.30). The peasant in the July illustration in Hours of Henry VIII has taken a break from reaping to quench his thirst (App. IV, Jul. fig.29). A peasant couple have sat down at the edge of the field to have a bite in Hennesy Hours (App. V, Aug. fig.36). In Breviarium Grimani a reaper has fallen asleep right on the rocky ground still holding his scythe (App. IV, Aug. fig.31). Alongside with traditional activities there appear new ones: spinning, fishing (formerly only occurring in Italian manuscripts), milking, beating flax. Some of them get bound to the traditional motifs by the logic of the activity or just by mere repetition. Spinning, an indoors activity, is depicted in February which usually shows domestic scenes of warming by the fire (App. IV, Feb. fig.33). Milking accompanies pasturing cows and sheep in April (App. IV, Apr. fig.35, 38). The autumn months October and November begin featuring scenes of cattle market (App. IV, Oct. fig.33, Spinola Hours, Paul Getty Museum, Ludwig MS IX.18, fol.6r). Noble activities are enriched by the scenes of tournaments (before it was only a single figure of a

knight) (App. IV, June fig.34), archery competitions (App. IV, Nov. fig.36), balls (App. IV, Dec. fig.33; Feb.fig.35), gallant courting, making music and boating as a favourite May activity (App. IV, May fig.27,29, 30-36).

Some activities are hard to define as work or leisure. Hunting for aristocracy is a sport, but for peasants it is rather procuring food, even if not exactly legal.96 The peasants in Breviarium Grimani (App. IV, Mar, fig. 32, recto base-en-page) – what do they think they are doing? Why are they fishing at night with lanterns? A bit of poaching while the lord is not looking?

Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh produced ca. 1500 is one of the earliest (if not the earliest) examples where a whole encyclopedia of children‘s games consistently accompanies the calendar. Sledging, bow shooting, ball games, golf-like games, mocking tournaments on boats (Mayer van de Bergh) and on barrels pulled by teams of boys (Breviarium Grimani), catching butterflies, playing dice, rattles, spinning tops, hula hoops, hobby horses and what not can we find in Benings‘ books, of which the Golf Book even got its name due to the game depicted in its calendar. Do they not anticipate Bruegel‘s Children’s Games?

Surely originating from earlier marginal drolleries, images of children find their way to calendars in a similar function, as a marginal note of amusement. In Breviarium Grimani, in general following the compositions of Très Riches Heures, Gerard Horenbout covered the nudity of the parents but showed a little boy pissing into the snow from the threshold. The same scene is repeated in Hennessy Hours (App. IV, Feb. fig.33; Jan. Fig. 37).

Masters of the later books of hours manage to combine the traditional iconography with the first-hand observations of reality. For example, in Breviarium Grimani, the illustration of December (App. IV, Dec. fig.32) shows slaughtering a pig and baking bread, very traditional motifs. But the surrounding circumstances let us guess that the master was not purely imagining. It enough to look at the man on the left who is rubbing his eyes because the smoke from the straw wisp he is using to burn the pig‘s bristle is biting them or a child leaning against his mothers lap and warming his little hands at the heat of the oven. Or the stooping woman who is kneading the dough for the bread in a wooden trough set up on a pair of trestles. It takes an attentive eye and great mastery to combine all this within one composition.

2. 3. Nature and city.

The most striking novelty in the calendar miniatures of this period is the emergence of nature. If previously a figure of a peasant was toiling against a conventional background often covered with golden foil, in the 15th century landscape made its conspicuous entry, sometimes still casiously and conventionally like, for example in the Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain (e.g. App. IV. Apr. fig 26), sometimes all out: fields, rivers, woods, hills, mountains. Moreover, it has depth and perspective, it has its specific lighting and atmospheric effects. The long-legged graceful peasants from the Hours of Henry VIII cast shades consistent with the source of light (e.g. App. IV, June fig.29). Remarkable that the master of the hours of

96 The medieval Forest Laws were infamous for their stringent punishments inflicted on peasants who violated them. See notes to p. 448 in: Alexander.

Anne of France almost invariably opts for the evening light: his peasants go on working even after the sunset (App. IV, Feb. fig. 27, June fig. 25, July 27, Aug. fig.25, Oct. fig. 25). One can deduce ideological background here but what an enchanting images dress it up. Branches or corn ears gilded by the setting sun, the blue haze fogging the mountains in the distance, silvery waters of the river setting the blue mountains off. For representation of a given month it is superfluous. So, it is clear that landscape has gained its own aesthetical value. The urban development in the15th and 16th centuries created a distance from which an aesthetical look at the nature became possible. When the man is not separated from his natural environment he cannot perceive nature aesthetically. It is not by chance that landscapes were drawn and painted by urban dwellers and that background landscapes appeared in manuscripts produced not in remote cloisters, but in urban ateliers by and for city residents.

A parallel phenomenon is the appearance of cityscapes. The new urban culture sought to appropriate the things earlier associated with the elite. Books of hours, luxury items previously made for kings, princes and dukes, became available to the upper middle class, that strove to compete with the nobility and clergy in pursuit of spirituality. The practitioners of Modern Devotion and just religious people used books of hours in their daily life for prayer and contemplation. More earthly considerations cannot be excluded either: books of hours were expensive things that radiated status and were a good investment. It is only natural the urban owners of prayer books and books of hours wanted to see themselves and their habitat on their pages. Demand engenders supply. The workshop of Simon Bening in Bruges created a lot of the images of the city. For example, October in the Flemish book of Hours from Munich is represented by the real square, Place de la Grue in Bruges, where a giant wooden crane was mounted on the quayside to upload wine barrels on a ship (App. IV, Oct. fig.32).

April illustrations begin to show not just a conventional piece of nature but a rich urban house with a formal garden. Showing works in a garden (a pleasure garden and not a practical orchard!) implies the aberration from the basic needs. It is not for the common good and survival that the worker toils but for pleasure of a particular garden owner. It is a subtle but significant shift, ―the area being cultivated is not for the society in general but for one household in particular, and the work often goes on under the watchful eye of an alert and interested proprietor‖.97 Gardens existed earlier in monastic seclusion and were created and perceived symbolically: they aimed to represent Eden or the future Paradise. A pleasure garden was a suspect, it appealed too much to earthly senses and distracted imagination from pious contemplation. This dangerous ambiguity is vividly expressed in Boschian gardens of earthly pleasures, much closer to hell than heaven. It was only in the royal and aristocratic setting, i.e. in the elitist culture relatively emancipated from the religious dominance on the one hand and simple practical considerations on the other hand, where the vogue on gardens was born. The garden was also comprehended allegorically, but this time in secular terms of court culture. The Roman de la Rose fascinated minds by its extremely elaborate allegorism and its being set in a garden could not but evoke associations and provide topics for courtly conversation of noble ladies and gentlemen strolling in a real garden. The duchy of Burgundy which set fashions throughout 15th-century Europe was the leader in garden design too. At the same time, the

97 Henisch, p. 52.

manuscript production in Ghent, Bruges and other Flemish centres came to dominate the international book market and thus contributed to dissemination of the garden obsession.

Urban middle class, if wealthy enough to get a garden lot, also joined in the vogue. In the miniatures we can see the typical design that was in: a formal garden with geometrical flower beds secured with stone curbs or overlaid with ―knots‖ (little hedges of tractable plants like thyme, hyssop, or thrift, cropped according to the pattern), latticed fences, trellises covered with vines, smooth sand or gravel paths, a fountain or a pond, sometimes surrounded by a sheltered gallery attached to the house and allowing the proprietors to enjoy their garden in any weather. Remarkable is the craving for control of nature. The much cherished piece of nature is a formal garden crisply laid out, exposing its underlying design. This almost military order and discipline imposed on vegetation ―demonstrates a decided preference for a nature tamed and trained into order. In the world at large, nature was unpredictable and uncomfortable; there was too much of it‖.98 Thus we see that the step that was made to create the distance for aesthetic appreciation was still not big enough to appreciate untamed nature.

Even in miniatures of other months where the labours are set in the countryside, the scale of nature is correlated with the scale of the man: the man is big and is placed in the foreground. Nature is reserved to the background and is depicted as charming, cozy and not threatening. It is cultivated land, here and there sprinkled with villages and farms, castles and estates. Again, the nature is tamed and idealized. Nowhere is poverty, hunger or suffering to be seen. The social hierarchy is present but it is respect that is stressed, not suppression. These images irradiate the serene pastoral of rustic joys, their selective realism strengthening the illusion.

To show how the power of art can be enchantingly deceitful, Bridget Henisch relates a story of an Italian humanist Maffio Vegio, having an image of the countryside conjured up by Virgil‘s Georgics, was ―bitterly disillusioned when, n 1425, the plague forced him to exchange the familiar corruption of the big-city life for the innocent charm of a real village, where he was faced with those special country pleasures never mentioned by the great Roman poet: bugs, midges, and unending rain‖. Another distance enthusiast of the country living Sir John Harington, in 1591, ―confessed that he found his own plowman‘s hard-won advice on how to prepare a field for planting intolerably tedious‖.99 Thus it ought to be kept in mind that the calendar illustrations reflected not the reality as such, but the model of reality which was shaped in an essentially urban context.

II. 3. Genre mass-produced: transition into new media.

In the 16th century the theme of Months outgrows the traditional medium of devotional books. Inexpensive printed cycles of serial subjects (Four Elements, Seven Mortal Sins, Four Seasons, Twelve months, etc.) gain wide popularity. The theme also gets appropriated by the applied arts: the images of the labours of the months and (more often four seasons) appear in the

98 Henisch, p. 61.

99 Ibid, p. 211.

stained-glass medallions embellishing windows in wealthy houses, as decorative and symbolical motif in clock decoration, in the corners of printed maps and as a motif in tapestries.

The transition into new media challenges the integrity of the genre, sometimes stretches it beyond its limits. For example, in the series of enormous tapestries ―Hunts of Maximilian‖ designed by Bernard van Orley months are not represented at all, only the signs of the zodiac appear on top of each scene. Thus the only feature that is left is the structural principle – a cycle of 12 pieces.

Some of the new media, although using the motif in a supplementary function, integrate it into a more consistent context. Its incusion in maps, for example, gives the represented space of the globe a temporal aspect, reminds of its rotation in the universe and its connection with other planets. In the portrait of a scholar and astronomer from Louvain Reinerus Frisius Gemma by Maarten van Heemskerck the motif of seasons in the form of landscapes inside a crystal globe suggests the allegorical motif of vanitas and eternal rotation.

An interesting example of a perfect match between the form and the content is the ingenious clock-face with the images of the months (ca. 1500) from the state museum Vander Kelen-Mertens in Louvain, which presents a remarkable view of the late medieval world picture (Appendix V). It consists of six concentric circles: the first in the centre contains the signs of the zodiac, the second shows the occupations of the months, third contains 24 figures for hours (noon is XII above coinciding with 22 June and midnight XII below coinciding with 22 December).The fourth circle represents the so called planets‘ children. The fifth is divided into 365 days, where repeated series of letters ―A‖ through ―G‘ stand for the days of the week, the saints‘ days are also indicated in red. The year begins across from the figure XI below. The sixth circle consists of the names of the months with the indication of the number of the days in the month. In the corners stand the figures of Jupiter (left-hand corner above), Mars (right-hand corner above), Mercury (right-hand below) and Venus (right-hand below). The picture is a visualization of the model of the world where the human life is closely and intimately interwoven with nature and the movement of the planets. What strikes as bizarre is that the direction of the signs of the zodiac, months and days is counterclockwise, i.e. opposite to the direction of the clock.

With the transition to the new media the motif also underwent transformations from the point of view of the contents. One of these was connected with the (re-)introduction of the analogy between the months and the ages of man.

The ―Shepherds‘ Calendar‖ and the Twelve Ages of Man.

A big role in popularizing of the genre belongs to the almanacs that appeared in Flanders at the beginning of the 16th century following the example of their French counterparts. Unlike Books of Hours that were luxury items made for the elite, almanacs were available to the wide public due to the spread of the cheaper technology of printing and the use of paper instead of precious vellum. Publishers discovered the commercial value of these booklets very quick. The cheapest

editions of ―plano‖ format (posters printed on one side and meant to be pinned on a wall) cost merely several duiten.100

Almanacs contained a wide range of information: calendar, market, exchange rates, historical chronicles, weather forecast, astrological prognostications, medical advice, stories, poems, songs, farces (kluchten) and proverbs. Thus, they combined informative, moral and entertainment functions.

A peculiar type of almanacs was the so called Schaapherder Kalender (the Shepherds‘ Calendar) the first Flemish edition of which appeared n Brussels in 1511 and was published by Thomas de Noot.101 It gained such a big popularity (and commercial success) that shortly afterwards similar almanacs appeared all over the Netherlands: in Antwerp, Maastricht, ‗s-Hertogenbosch, Rotterdam and so on. Despite the seemingly democratic name these editions were rather expensive and the complexity of the information offered by the Shepherds‘ Calendar required a certain level of education. The name refers not to the target audience but the peculiar kind of the content: practical wisdom on issues of morals and health. The choice of the profession carrying wisdom has its source in the Bible: were not the great patriarchs Moses and David shepherds? Were not the shepherds the first to be blessed with the news of the birth of Christ, let alone the parable of the Good Shepherd?

These almanacs (re-)introduced the idea of the connection between the cycle of nature and the ages of a man. The idea itself was not new, but it was the division of life into four, seven, nine or ten phases that was far more common.102 The concept of life consisting of 12 phases of six years goes back to a French poem of the 14th century where January is likened to early childhood (up to the age of six) which has no strength, skills or knowledge; February, which inclines toward spring, is similar to the next six years when man acquires strength, capability and knowledge and so on. The poem ends in an ironical, even cynical coda summarizing the 72 years of life: 36 wasted in sleep, years up to 15 of no value because of immaturity, 16 years wasted due to illness or imprisonment; should one be as foolish as to marry then he has wasted his remainder of 16 years and has had no life whatsoever.

The 12-months cycle structured the content of almanacs: each picture was accompanied by couplets informing the reader about the stars constellations, agricultural and recreational activities of the month, expected weather and wittingly combined this diverse information with medical and moral instruction.

For example, in the Shepherds‘ Calendar printed by Willem Vorsterman in 1513 in Antwerp, the illustration of August is accompanied by the following verse combining health instruction with summons to labour during the harvest time:

In oostmaent ter helft of daer omtrent

100 20 duiten equal 1 guilder.

101 This almanac was modeled on its French forerunner, Kalendrier et compost des Bergiers, published by Guy Marchant in Paris in 1491.

102 Dal, E., Skårup, p. 7-10.

Die sonne in virgo gaet dan beghint

Te mayene tarwe ende coren

So en wort den arbeyt niet verloren

Die vruchten rijpen des seker tijt

Ende en wassen niet meer na dezer tijt

Wil di in ghesondtheden leven

Veel slapens hitte en oncuischeit moetti vermiden

Scuwet medicijn te nemen in desen tiden

En wilt u oeck niet lichte van den velde stueren

Want den dach heeft veertien uren.

Iconographically the illustrations of the months in almanacs followed the examples of the books of hours and depicted labours and leisure activities of the months and the signs of the zodiac. Yet, there can be observed a significant semiotic shift. The weight of the accompanying information gradually forces the literal meaning of the illustrations out and foregrounds the figurative one.

There must have been a need to fill the old form with the new content to which testifies the following deviation in the iconography of the months genetically parallel to the Shepherds‘ Calendar. Among more numerous illustrations of conventional character, in early 16th century there appeared illustrations that broke with this tradition and illustrated months purely by showing phases of life. In his monograph on the subject Eric Dal collected four series of such illustrations: three consisting of wood- or metalcuts and one of miniatures.103 The four sources are no almanacs but they are based on the same poem that inspired the Shepherds‘ Calendar. The first three largely agree on the iconographical detail:

January is represented by playing and sometimes fighting young children;

February is set in a school where children acquire knowledge and sometimes get punished (Thielman Kerver‘s book of hours features a boy being flogged on his buttocks by a teacher);

March is illustrated by hunting and bow shooting;

April shows courting (lovers walking in the wood), obviously referring to the first experiences of love; in May the conventional motif of riding is reinterpreted as an occupation of a young man (or couple);

103 1. Paris: Nicolas Vivian 1515. Bibl.nationale, Paris. Lacombe, Catalogue 278; 2. Books of hours, Paris: Thielman Kerver 12.II.1522 (1523); 3. Prymer of Salisbury use. Paris: Francois Regnault 1529. The Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington D.C. (STC 15961.5); 4. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, French MS. 15th century. For illustrations see: Dal, E., Skårup, P.

June is represented by the wedding ceremony;

July shows the couple raising children;

August reminds that the most becoming occupation for an aged man is charity (the beggar and the rich man giving him alms are not only the object and the subject of charity but also the allusion to the poem according to which it is time to gather one‘s goods and wisdom when one turns to age and the one who has wasted them has spent his time badly), on the background there are elements of the labours of the months: men stacking sheaves of wheat or a woman carrying a basket of fruit on her head but it is clear that it is their metaphorical meaning that counts here;

September is illustrated by a vagabond and (in two cases) by a dog barking at him (since the poem states that at 54, man will get nothing in the barn if he has not it now);

October shows the elderly couple eating with their grandchildren;

November is depicted as a seated man/woman obviously suffering from pain (and remorse?) and a priest urging him/her to make their communion; as is easy to predict, December is represented by a deathbed.

The fourth and the earliest of the sources cited by Dal, although also based on the analogy between the months and the ages of man, has probably another origin because it has little reckoning with phases of six years and does not let establish obvious links with the poem. This cycle deviates from the above mentioned primarily in its general concept, far more pious, which is clearly indicated through the series of marked contrasts between the characters in the majority of these miniatures. Thus, a reading boy is juxtaposed to a playing boy in the school setting for March; the lovers picking flowers in the garden are contrasted to the man acquiring knowledge in April; in August the man making love with a woman in a public bath (an institution that had a reputation of a brothel in the Middle Ages) is opposed to the scene of Jesus washing feet of his disciples and so on. Logical that in the illustration of December the sinner‘s soul is taken by the devil while the soul of the righteous man is accompanied to heaven by the angels.

The idea of the correlation between the twelve months and the twelve ages of man was not confined to popular ideology. On the upper side of the social and educational ladder there were minds also fascinated by the parallelism between the cycle of the year and the cycle of human life. The set of four tapestries commissioned by a courtier of Margaret of Austria about 1520 reveals enormous learnedness and erudition of its designer in classical literature and mythology, Christian history and medieval romance.104 Each of the four hangings represents a season subdivided in respective months. The composition is centered around a deity with two attendants whose relevance is revealed by a Latin elegiac distich below. The rest is divided into three segments related to a certain month and the human age. The months are represented by the traditional labours depicted in the roundels with a sign of the zodiac above. The space between the roundels and the deity is occupied by a certain story elucidated by an inscription. For example, January is illustrated by the story of the test of Moses who broke the pharaoh‘s crown, was put to test in which he had to choose either from a bowl of jewels or a bowl of coals. He

104 Standen.

chose a coal and thus was proved innocent doe to his childish stupidity. The lack of intelligence in young children is compared with the frost: ―As the formless earth freezes under the constellation of the Water-bearer, so man is benumbed in his first years‖.105

In her analysis of this ―chamber‖ Edith Standen discovered a number of the glaring mistakes concerning the visualization of the text. This curious fact can shed some light on the collaborative process of creating a work of art from conception to execution. Standen‘s attributes the concept of the cycle to Jerome van Busleyden, one of the most learned humanists of the Low Countries of that time, whose death in 1517, that is, before the tapestries were designed and weaved, explains the mistakes. The lesson we can extract from this story, as well as those above, in relation to the genre of calendar illustrations is that in the perception of the audience, both well-educated and hardly educated, there emerges a conscious need and even demand for the new, metaphorical interpretation of the old genre.

The integration of the traditional illustrations of the months into a completely new context that entailed subtle but significant meaningful changes as well as the emergence of the completely new iconography indicate a certain triteness of the convention, a need to refresh it and to fill it with new content.

II. 5. Bruegel’s Twelve Months: the crossbreeding of calendar and landscape:

Although landscapes in the illustrations of the months appeared already in the 15th century, to change the relation and paint months in the landscapes was a radical change, involving considerable inversions of the genre and philosophical content. To be able to get an idea about Bruegel‘s transformation of the genre, let us look first at the genre of landscape the way it had formed by the mid 16th century onto which he grafted the genre of calendar illustrations.

II. 5.1. The genre of landscape in the first half of the 16th century.

Landscape as an autonomous genre emerged around the 1510-1520s, simultaneously in three regions of Western Europe. The Danube school (Albrecht Altdorfer, Wolfgang Huber, Hans Leu II) developed the art of the landscape in prosperous trade centres of the upper Danube, Regensburg, Linz, Passau. In Italy Giorgione painted idyllic landscapes as settings for biblical or mythological subjects; in the pure form landscape is elaborated in etchings and drawings of Domenica Campagnola around 1515-1525. In the Southern Netherlands the landscape was ―invented‖ by Joachim Patinir. It is probably not by accident that the appearance of landscape coincides with the growth of Antwerp and the boom of its artistic production. The urban middle class developed new tastes and a desire for new ideas in art and philosophy. Landscape in the Netherlands appears to have answered specific needs because it not only remained ―in‖ but developed into the 17th century and became the Netherlandish genre par excellence with a profusion of sub-genres that required narrow specialization.

Certainly, landscape had forerunners and did not appear from scratch. It existed already in the 15th century but had a subordinate or a utilitarian function

105 Standen, P. 136.

Panoramic landscapes occasionally served as city maps. An early example dates back to 1468 and represents a panorama of Antwerp surrounded by the waters of the Scheldt. This drawing was used as a juridical document in a dispute about the river toll. Such application was apparently not exceptional. Another excellent panoramic landscape with the view of an area in the County of Hainaut is included in a chart of 1490, now in Rijksarchief at Bergen (Mons), defining the respective rights of Hasnan abbey and the chapter of St. Waudru. Monarchs had their territories painted on paper or canvas, often with scenes of particular events from the life of the owner. This probably suggests that beside the purely topographical or legal function, these landscapes fulfilled other ones that demanded visualization.

The need for the symbolical representation of the world existed from time immemorial, certainly in the symbolically conscious Middle Ages. In the medieval Alexander romance there is a description of the king‘s tent decorated with the representations of twelve months and the mappa mundi – the world in its spatial and temporal aspects. Baldric of Dol, the abbot of Bourgeuil, in his praise poem for Adela of Normandy, the daughter of William the Conqueror, describes the decoration of her room as depiction of the world: Biblical and historical subjects on the walls, stars, planets and the signs of the zodiac on the ceiling, the world map on the floor. The princess must have felt the centre of the universe, at least symbolically.

Beginning from the 15th century on, the attention to the real, topographically recognizable world grows stronger and stronger. Contemporary cartography overlapped with art. Margarita Russell names Jan van Eyck the earliest Netherlandish painter-cartographer and cites Bartolomeo Fazio who in his collection of biographies De Viris Illistibus expressed admiration of his Mappa Mundi (now unfortunately untraceably lost), ―in which all the places and regions of the earth were represented in recognizable form and at measurable distances‖.106 It must have synthesized the most up to date scientific knowledge and interest in the real world with the aesthetic aspect. The discovery of the ―New World‖ and the expansion of the known universe made cartography an exciting enterprise and a specialty which attracted many artists and professional geographers, sometimes combined in one person. It was a mutual influence: exactitude of cartographer had an impact on the artists who in their turn affected the cartographers in terms of aesthetisation of the visual representation of geography. As a result for the wide audience maps became objects of luxury rather than practical use, which we see later in Vermeer‘s paintings and even now in many Dutch and Flemish homes.

What is more relevant for us in terms of the emerging genre of the landscape is the intermediary forms elaborated in the 16th century ranging from the perspective maps to the panoramic views of cities, vedutes. The former can be illustrated by the much admired woodcut panoramic map of Venice, printed in1500 by Jacopo de‘ Barbari, of such degree of precision that even now the extant buildings are recognizable; or a vedutes of Mantua and Zurich made by the Valckenborchs‘ peer from Mechlin Frans Hogenberg (App. V, fig. 2,3,4). The latter is widely represented in the Netherlands with one of the earliest examples dating back to 1500: the view of Dordrecht in S. Elizabeth‘s Day Flood 1421, painted by the Master of St. Elizabeth panels active in Utrecht (App. V, fig. 5). Although derived from medieval planar maps that combined plans with the superimposed topographical landmarks and narrative details, this panel introduces quite

106 Russel, p. 27.

novel features. We see a panoramic bird‘s eye view that combines the requirements of cartographical exactitude with the decorative function of the painting. Conscious of the system of Italian Renaissance linear perspective the master however manages to adjust it to the needs of his own. Dealing with an area far too large to be seen by one man from a single point of view he chooses to render it through the wide-angle view rather than the window view of the Italian Renaissance. The narrow strip of the sky over a very high horizon, the diminishing scale of objects approaching the horizon, the depth of the vista and the diversity of the depicted objects are the recognizable features of the Northern landscape, appearing as early as the beginning of the 15th century onwards in window views of the portraits or as backgrounds of a historical painting and in the earliest form of the landscape as a genre, the world landscape.

In a certain sense the world landscape may be considered a visual counterpart of the trend of the humanist thought which sought universality and comprehensiveness. The drive for discoveries was determined not only economically but also by the yearning to describe the world as fully as possible, fill it with the known, appropriate the terra incognita, make it own and familiar. In this respect the art is seen as an instrument of science. Albrecht Dürer understood his task this way, ―het meten van de aarde, zee en sterren is begrijpbaar geworden door de schilderkunst, en wordt aldus voor vele mensen aanschouwelijk gemaakt‖.107 But this ―measuring‖ does not mean a superficial, ―photographical‖ rendering of the physical world. Through the visible and measurable humanists aimed to get an insight into the invisible – the divine inner order of the universe. The physical world is rehabilitated as a means to see God through His Creation, hence vision is endowed with enormous significance. Konrad Celtis, a German humanist scholar and poet wrote, "Ich bin zu der Einzicht gelangt, dass dem menschlichen Geist nichts Beglückenderes indiesem kurzen Leben zuteil werden kann, als dass er sich der Betrachtung dieser Dinge widmet‖ . In the world he detects a perfect mathematical order and coherence, ―der herrliche Erdkreis, der in sich und in seinen Teilen gemäss einer Zahlenordnung durch jenen Bildner und Erzeuger aller Dinge mit höchster Weisheit und in wunderbarer Schönheit vollkommen geschaffen worden ist‖ In deze wereld hangt <...> das Menschliche und das Göttliche durch eine Art verwandtschaftlicher Verbundenheit zusammenhängt...‖. 108 The Pythagorean numerical harmony is revealed in the materiality and visuality of the world. The fact that Celtis refers to God in artisanal vocabulary, in Latin text ―opifice‖ (creator, craftsman, artist) and in German translation ―Bildner‖, in combination with this ode to vision can be interpreted as reference to the craft of painting. This apologia of the physical world and vision made the landscape as an independent genre possible.

It does not mean though that landscape did not have to seek justification, its raison d'être, in religious or mythological subjects. But the ratio of the scales of the figures and the environment radically changed - the phenomenon we first observe in the paintings of Joachim Patinir. He was the first Netherlandish painter who specialized in landscape per se. The term ―landscape‖ was coined by Albrecht Dürer in his journal of his trip to the Netherlands of 1520- 21, where he refers to Patinir as ―maister Joachim, der gut landschafft Maler‖.109 But to specify

107 The translation is cited from: De uitvinding van het landschap, p. 36.

108 Koepplin, pp. 101-103.

109 Rupprich, p. 169.

that his landscapes were far from our modern concept of this genre as ‗1. landelijke omgeving voor zover men die met één blik overziet, bep. zoals zij zich in haar samenstel vertoont, de aanblik ervan‘. En: ‗2. schilderstuk dat een landschap voorstelt‘ 110scholars use the term ―world landscape‖. This is a kind of landscape that strives to include the whole diversity of the world: forests, rivers, mountains, always bizarre rocks, villages, towns. To allow this comprehensiveness the line of the horizon is raised. As a consequence, the figures are diminished. Yet, they are diminished in scale rather than in significance. ―De heiligen die in de landschappen gekrompen zijn tot stoffage, zijn in tegenstelling tot wat hun kleine afmetingen laten vermoeden, in wezen veel meer dan alleen maar stoffage: ze behoren tot een beeldstructuur die historisch is geworden. De ware betekenis van de riligieuze thema‘s kon namelijk, zoals Pächt stelt, ‗pas door de brede schildering van het landschappelijke zichtbaar worden gemaakt‘‖111 These tiny firgures give a key as to how the landscape must be approached: not just the joy of seeing but as a metaphor. The world landscape always invites to the symbolical exegesis and always conveys a moral lesson.

The world landscape had its successors, such as the Master of Female Figures and Herri met de Bles, and still echoed well into the 17th century. However, other impulses, which emerge already in the second third of the 16th century, take over. The aesthetical aspect gains self- sufficient value. Jan Briels considers that, ―Bepalend voor deze verandering was de overgang in de 16de eeuw van een contemplatieve naar een meer actieve levenshouding, die een scheiding tussen nuttige en esthetische natuur bewerkte. Door de natuur in wetenschap en praxis aan het nuttigheidsprincipe te onderwerpen, kon zij niet meer als totaliteit en aan zichzelf gelijkblijvende kosmos worden ervaren. Hierdoor ontstond het idee van het landschap als esthetische natuur‖.112

From the point of view of historical anthropology, the rise of landscape can be seen as a phenomenon anchored in the special discourse cultivated in the learned circles of the middle class, the discourse of otium, or repose. The significance of this concept and the whole network of other concepts around it is considered by Leopoldine Prosperetti, an art historian who chooses the phrase ‗pingere rura‘ to denote the type of easel painting with countryside setting that emerges in the mid 16th century.113 The opposition of the town and countryside, a widely discussed theme in scholarship, gets another turn in Prosperetti‘s book. The distance between the urban and the rural must have reached the point from which the countryside could be seen in the haze of the aesthetic feeling. In addition to this, the classical literary tradition of rustic sentiment was being cultivated in the humanist circles. The fashion on Cicero and Horace draws the concepts of rus and otium ruris into the learned discourse and makes it possible to apply them to the life-style of the well-off middle class who can afford retrieving to a summer house in the countryside in pursuit of delicious solitude. Such a ‗temporary hermit‘ identifies himself with Horatian ‗mercator‘ who ‗otium et opidi laudat rura sui‘, that later will be translated by Vondel as ―de koopman<…>looft de rust en het lantleven‖. Petrarch‘s De Vita Solitaria also structures

110 Van Dale, headword ―landschap‖.

111 Wied in: De uitvinding van het landschap, p. 17.

112 Briels, p. 203.

113 Prosperetti.

the imagination of the locus of solitude where a humanist is busy cultivating himself. Not a lesser role played the youthful essay of Erasmus Antibarbarians glorifying the Brabant countryside as an ideal place for the exercise in spiritual wisdom. Evoking the Ciceronian figures of Scipio and Laelius, Erasmus casts the contemporary types for their roles - the learned urban professionals – who compete with clergy and aristocracy in cultivating virtue strolling through the meadows of brabantico rure enjoying a sophisticated philosophical conversation.

This imaginative trend can account for popularity of the world landscape that represents the full scope of features necessary for the meditation and places the subject of the meditation somewhere in a humble but picturesque corner. ―What made a hermytagie<…> attractive was not so much the spiritual drama of the hermit as the charming ingenuity of his eremitical abode‖.114 This shift of accent from the moralization to aesthetisation entailed the appearance and ensured the phenomenal success of the print series ―Small Landscapes‖ that represent the scenery of familiar places of retreat, such as villages surrounding Antwerp, the dunes around Harlem, or the sandy roads of the Forest of Soignes in Brussels. Hieronymus Cock, the publisher of the series, always on the lookout for topics that could appeal to his humanist clientele, must have detected the current sentiment, so happily blending rusticity, interest to the classical philosophy, devotional aspiration and the patriotic pride.

In contrast to Patinirian landscape the Master of the Small Landscapes envisioned the familiar places, just outside the city walls, filled with recognizable features: cottages with thatched roofs, fences, hedges, gardens, orchards, fields and so on. The horizon was lowered to suggest the flatness of the native land while the depth of the vista was preserved, especially in those of them where the composition is based on the motif of the village road running perpendicular to the surface of the sheet – a sort of invitation to the weary urban dweller (sometimes also depicted on the threshold of the village) to enter the longed-for domain of repose. Curiously enough, such rustic motifs were not invented by the Master of the Small Landscapes (whoever he was, Pieter Bruegel, Cornelis Cort or Hieronimus Cock himself). They are to be found in Errera Sketchbook and can be seen in pictures of Herri met de Bles, Cornelis Massijs and Cornelis van Dalem, but ―it took the initiative of the pictorial entrepreneur like Hieronimus Cock to turn Rusticum brabanticum into a specific pictorial genre that would appeal to humanist philosophers‖115

The bird‘s eye view panoramic landscapes also remained in trend but the emphasized extravaganza of the geologically unthinkable rock conglomerations typical for the fictional landscapes in the spirit of Patinir was gradually replaced with representations of the real, if stylized, visual observations of the travelling artists. Bruegel‘s Big Landscapes are a good illustration here. Topographical exactitude (to the extent that places can be identified116) is combined in them with the premeditated conception resulting in an integral whole that cannot be subsumed to either of them. Konrad Oberhuber‘s analysis of Bruegel‘s early drawings proves that the optical impressions and immediate observations were doubtlessly sketched from nature

114 Ibid., P. 104.

115 Ibid., P. 113.

116 See, for example: Hymans, p.370.

in the first stage of the creative process but that they were subordinated in later stages to the requirements of the design. The ingenuity with which the artist integrates the real and fictional elements, or elements inspired by the Italian art, or combines the Alpine scenery with Netherlandish dwellings can easily mislead the viewer into believing in the landscape‘s authenticity. However impossible this or that element can be, it receives a ―naturalistic‖ justification within the whole, often also playing a compositional role (creating distance, depth, punctuating or accentuating the compositional axes and so on). Oberhuber comes to the conclusion almost contrary to the prevailing view of Bruegel as a master evolving from the traditional Netherlandish landscape to the revolutionary of the direct view117. He is inclined to see Bruegel as a master who ―slowly moves from the more optical to the more mental approach in his mountain landscapes‖ and ―who is capable in the beginning of making fresh new observations from life and then incorporating these discoveries by assimilation into the art forms and the world view of his time‖.118

II. 5.2. Bruegel’s cycle Twelve Months: the problems of iconography.

Polonius: [aside] Though this be madness, yet there is method in it

W. Shakespeare. Hamlet, Act 2, scene 2.

The peak and turning point of the tradition is marked by the series painted in 1565 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The cycle is nowadays represented by five paintings Hunters in the snow, Gloomy day, Haymaking, Wheat harvest, and Return of the herd. Before we can make any assumptions about the content of the cycle let s look into the complicated and fascinating history of its survival.

Bruegel‘s Months cycle was commissioned by a well-off merchant Nicklaes Jongelinck for his villa ‗t goed ter Beken outside Antwerp. Jongelinck had apparently a vast and varied appetite for collection and the taste for encyclopedic wholeness. Among his assembled collection he claimed Twelve Labours of Heracles and Seven Liberal Arts from the Antwerp painter Frans Floris and the sculptural series of Seven Planets from Jacques Jongelinck.

The cycle did not stay long with the merchant though. On 21th February 1565 (1566 in fact because the year did not start in January, but on 1 March until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in1575) Jongelinck offered it as a collateral for Daniel de Bruyne‘s tax arrears of 16,000 guilders owed to Antwerp city magistrate. When the clerk who made the entry in the official city records decided to take it easy and describe the collection as ―Sixteen pieces by Bruegel, among which a Tower of Babel, a Carrying of the Cross and The twelve months‖ little did he know that he is responsible for a major art-historical dilemma. It sounds as if there were 14 paintings devoted to representations of the months, which seems rather bizarre. It is most natural to suggest that there were twelve paintings, each representing a respective month, the

117 De Tolnay, 1929, p. 199; Seilern, pp. 14-16.

118 Oberhuber, K. Bruegel‘s Early Landscape Drawings. Master Drawings, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Summer, 1981). Master Drawings Association, 1981. Pp. 149 and 151.

other two out of sixteen simply not mentioned be the scribe. The following history of the documentation seems to indicate another number.

It is not clear whether Jongelinck ever got his collection back. It appears he did, because City Council did not retain it but had to purchase it 28 years later from an art dealer, Hane van Wijk in order to give it as a gift to Archduke Ernst for the occasion of his Triumphal Entry into Antwerp in July 1594. The Account Book of the Archduke‘s secretary mentions a certain collection of ―six panels representing the twelve months‖. Although it fails to mention the name of the author, we can assume that these are the same paintings as those mentioned in the inventory drawn up a year later after the duke‘s death, this time more precisely stating ―six panels representing the twelve months of the year by Bruegel‖. Such accuracy was evidently exceptional for the time; afterwards records become sparse and inconsistent and we sometimes lose the whereabouts of the series for decades. It is known that Archduke Ernst‘s collection was transported to the imperial court of Rudolph II in Prague where it stayed until 1621, after which it resurfaced in the 1659 inventory of his brother Leopold Wilhelm, the governor of the Netherlands. Shortly before the cycle had been moved to Vienna and recorded with extreme precision but… this time as consisting of only five pieces! In the eighteenth century little attention was paid to the unity of the cycle, as a result three pictures (Hunters in the snow, Gloomy day and Return of the herd) landed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum at Vienna, The haymaking ended up at Prague (Schloss Ruadnitz), and Wheat harvest was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and one has been lost to date.119

The number of extant pictures – five – has kept art historians in confusion about the original number and consequently the concept of the cycle. The opinions are divided into the following groups:

1. Some see in them the representation of seasons. This view goes back to the reception of the cycle in 18th century. Chrétien de Mechel catalogues a set of paintings of the Four Seasons by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the Belvedere in Vienna, including one representing Summer, by description it seems to be the Wheat harvest: "L'Été, [représenté] par des moissonneurs dans une plaine très-étendue"; identifies The Return of the Herd as Autumn, and erroneously includes in the series Children's Games, which he calls Spring, and The Massacre of the Innocents, which he calls Winter.120 The mistake was sorted out but the view of the cycle as four seasons persisted well into the 20th century.121 The oddity of five pictures was explained by the supposition the one season was doubled up. Some have questioned belonging of Haymaking to the cycle.122 Gustave Vanzype observes that the paintings need not have belonged to a cycle at all.123 Inge Herold suggested a rather unconventional approach to the problem and divided the cycle into three

119 For details and the archive sources see: Buchanan, I, pp. 541-550.

120 Catalogue des tableaux de la Galerie Impériale et Royale de Vienne, p. 184, no. 62

121 Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 2 (1884), pp. 156–57; Frimmel, p. 473; Baldass, p. 30

122 Colin, pp. 131–32, 141–44, ill. p. 97.

123 Vanzype, p. 76. 56

thematical parts correlating with three periods in a year cycle (awakening of nature, harvests and winter (homecoming)) and with the ages of man.124

2. The second trend of scholarship considers Bruegel‘s cycle a series of twelve paintings.125 The big number of missing pendants is explained by the supposition that the cycle was never completed.126 To many, however, it seems unlikely that such a big number of paintings were lost without record.127 This does not surprise Michael Auner who believes that it could easily happen during the plundering of Antwerp by Spanish troops in 1576.128 Gotthard Jedlicka as an argument for 12 paintings suggests that Bruegel might have been familiar with the fourteenth-century poem about the twelve ages of man and meant to represent this analogy.129

3. De Tolnay was the first to suggest that the series was intended as six paintings representing two successive months.130 Gustav Gluck, originally supporting the theory of twelve, was persuaded and sided with De Tolnay, dissenting from him however in the identification of the months.131 This hypothesis seems to have won the most supporters recently.132

4. Another point of view was expressed by Fritz Novotny, who, although also thinks that there were originally six paintings, believes that Bruegel did not intend a rigorous division of the year and identifies paintings as early spring ("Vorfrühling"), early summer ("Frühsommer"), high summer ("Hochsommer"), autumn ("Herbst"), and deep winter ("Tiefen Winter").133 Some scholars share this opinion.134

Be it twelve of six, there remains a problem which painting represents which month(s) and which of them begins the series.

De Tolnay proposed quite an unconventional distribution shared by some other scholars, according to which the series started with Hunters in the Snow (December/January).135 Other

124 Herold, pp. 44–57, 60–62, 89–95, 100, 103–10, 114.

125 Friedländer, pp. 102–6, fig. 57

126 Glück 1932, pp. 40–42, 60, 66–69; Burroughs, pp. 96–99, 102–3; Grossmann, pp. 19, 30–31, 36, 197–99.

127 Salvini, R. pp. 162–64; Stechow, pp. 19, 34–36, 39, 96, 98, 104, 106, 155.

128 Auner, pp. 91–92, 97.

129 Jedlicka,. 186–87.

130 Tolnai; de Tolnay.

131Glück 1936, pp. 22–23, 43.

132 W. Mössner, p. 102; van Miegroet, pp. 29–35; Buchanan, pp. 541–50; Wied 1994.

133 Novotny, pp. 1–41

134Genaille, 1953; Demus.

135 E. van der Vossen. "De 'Maandenreeks' van Pieter Bruegel den Ouden." Oud-Holland, part 2, 66 (1951), pp. 103–16

scholars argue that in the 16th century the year started on 1st March therefore the cycle must begin with March or March/April.136 Grossman point out that the calendar illustrations in devotional books always began with January.137

De Tolnay‘s hypothesis seems to dominate in the scholarship of today. His arguments are based on the traditional iconography established in the books of hours, mostly those produced by the workshop of Simon Bening. De Tolnay suggested that the prototypes for the iconography of the Hunters in the snow are to be found in the Hennessy Hours, namely the motif of slaughtering of the hogs for December and hunting for January. The Gloomy day offers another clue: the child in the foreground is wearing paper crown and the man is eating a waffle which might allude to carnival which usually fell on February – beginning of March. In 1564 the Shrove Tuesday (the culmination of Carnival) fell on 15th February and in 1565 on the 7th March.138

If this supposition is correct then the cycle goes as follows:

December/January - Hunters in the snow;

February/March - Gloomy day;

April/May - the missing picture;

June/July - Haymaking;

August/September - Wheat harvest;

October/November - Return of the herd.

Evidence supporting De Tolnay‘s theory has been provided by a recently found drawing by Pieter Stevens, a Fleming from Mechelen who became a court painter to Emperor Rudolph II between 1594-1624 (when Bruegel‘s Months were in residence at his court in Prague). The drawing was proved to be a free copy of The gloomy day on the grounds of their affinity in composition and detail. The drawing is inscribed ―Februarius-Mert‖139. However, this evidence cannot be considered decisive since, as Deborah Povey points out, ―other paired series of months which also share stylistic affinities with Bruegel‘s paintings differ in this respect, for example, that engraved by Aegidius Sadeler after Paul Bril in about 1610 which follows the more conventional formula January-February etc‖.140

So what do we actually see in Bruegel‘s Months in terms of the iconography and how does it compare with the tradition?

136 Glück 1951; Baldass 1955, pp. 158–59; Menzel, 1966.

137 Grossmann, p. 342.

138 See: Buchanan.

139 For details see: van Miegroet.

140 Povey.

Hunters in the snow (App. VI, fig. 1) feature a group of hunters accompanied by the dogs who are returning to the village with a poor trophy – a fox. The hunters are passing a village inn in front of which a group of people are busy making a fire and burning the pig‘s hide. In the depth of the valley people are skating on the frozen lakes. A magpie is soaring in the air. Some crows are perched on the trees probably waiting to take advantage of the leftovers when the peasants are done with their work.

The scene of hunting is not the most wide-spread motif for December, but it does appear in Très Riches Heures and is adopted by later Flemish illuminators. It features a boar being torn apart by dogs, a motif the Limbourgs borrowed from an Italian source.141 Once chosen for the illustration of this month, it is transferred in almost identical form, for example, in Breviarium Grimani and in the Hennessy Hours (App. IV, Dec. fig. 32, 37). There is no snow in this scene and it does not bear any resemblance to Bruegel‘s painting. Besides, it is not the hunting itself which is shown, but the return from the hunt. A closer affinity with the Hunters in the snow seems to be offered by the marginal miniature on the recto for January in the same Henessy Hours: a hunter is walking in the snow with dogs and carrying a similar staff on his shoulder from which an animal, probably a fox, is hanging in a similar way as in the Hunters in the snow. (App. VI, fig. 1a). The hunter is shown in profile, while Bruegel‘s hunters have their backs turned towards the viewer. The composition in the Hennessy Hours is more simple, there is no downwards perspective but the diagonal of the frozen creek that separates the hunter from the village, which might have suggested the idea of the composition to Bruegel.

The motif of the pig slaughter belongs to the most popular ones for December (App. IV, Dec.; also table). In Da Costa Hours and the Golf Book a man is pressing the animal down with his knee while stabbing it in its throat, the blood is flowing into a skillet held by a woman on the left. There are also several magpies in the December scene in the Golf Book, one is also flying. A similar scene is found in another book of hours produced in Bruges in 1531 (App. IV, Dec. fig. 36) with the addition of the characteristic sheaves of brushwood for the fire and a round table similar to one the peasant in the Hunters in the snow is putting next to the fire. Apparently, Bruegel combines the iconography of both months, December and January.

Gloomy day (App. VI, fig. 2) depicts tree pruning, a motif most typical for March (App. IV, March, table), but sometimes also occurring in February (App. IV, Feb. fig. 28, 34, 36, 37). Hardly visible through the trees is a man standing on a ladder propped against the facade of a house. A comparable pictorial element is to be found in the Hennessy Hours or in the Flemish calendar in Munich in the scene of March (App. IV, March, fig. 33, 35, App. VI 2a). The stormy river and wrecking ships have no prototype in the tradition of months illustrations but the motif of wind may be traced to some ancient illustrations, the resonance of which is present in the March illustration in the Spanish Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile (App. IV, March, fig. 24). Given the references to the Carnival, there are again two months in question, February and March.

Haymaking (App. VI, fig. 3) is represented by mowing, an activity more characteristic of June, but wide-spread for July too (App. IV, July, table). The peasant representing July on the

141 Giovanni de‘ Grassi (Bergamo, Bibliotheca Civica, inv. A. Mai, cassaf.1.21, fol. 17r.)

West Portal of the Cathdral in St-Lazare is sharpening his scythe (App. IV, July, fig. 5) like the man in the left-hand corner in the Haymaking. It is worth mentioning that the Dutch variant for July is Hooimaand, Hay Month. Haymaking is not the only activity depicted, however. In the foreground the peasants are carrying baskets full of beans and cherries. The motif of berry picking is only associated with June (App. IV, June, fig. 4, 11, 14). Thus, from the point of view of iconography we deal with two months again, June and July.

Wheat harvest (App. VI, fig. 4) seems to present less difficulty in identifying the season. Although this activity is most typically associated with July in French manuscripts, in more Northern regions like England and the Netherlands it is shifted to August. There are few examples of Netherlandish miniatures that place harvesting in July (App. IV, July, fig. 15, 28, 32) but it probably should be accounted for by the influence of French models. If we take into consideration the fall of annual temperature in 1565142, the wheat harvest could be shifted to the late August or even September (although in terms of iconography I have not come across the scenes of wheat harvest in September).

In fact, what is shown in the foreground is not so much the activity of reaping but the lunch the peasants are having during their break. The man on the left is stealing a look at the jug hidden in the wheat and is lured to take a break. Another man is walking towards the group of the lunching company. One of the people under a tree is drinking from a pitcher. One of the peasants has stretched himself in the shadow of the pear tree to take a nap. The motifs of rest find their way into the calendar illustrations in the book of hours at least since the brothers Limbourg. In the scene of August, some peasants at the background are refreshing themselves in a river, a similar scene is depicted in a book of hours from Ghent (App. IV, Aug. fig. 18, 30). In the Golf Book a peasant couple is sitting on the edge of the field and a woman has brought them a snack in a basket on her head and a drink in a clay pitcher (App. IV, Aug. fig. 34). The base- en-page illustration of August in Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh depicts peasants diligently working: reaping and binding the wheat in the sheaves, but they have not forgotten their lunch – a basket and a pitcher are standing in the central foreground promising a deserved break. The marginal illustration of August in Breviarium Grimani snatches a look at a peasant who has fallen asleep with his hand still resting on the handle of his scythe while another peasant quenches his thirst in a fountain (App. IV, Aug. fig. 31 recto).

Perhaps we should consider the scene of the apple harvest on the utter right. A man has climbed an apple tree and is shaking apples off and two women are picking them up from the ground. From the point of view of iconography this is a riddle. Fruit picking occurs in some early sources, J.C. Webster mentions several cases, such as an Italian Psalter of 11th century, now in the Laurentian Library at Florence, a marble font in Chiesa della Fontana at Lentini (Sicily), reliefs on jambs of the portal in Babtistery in Pisa, Ms. 1137 now in Hofbibliothek at Vienna, reliefs of St. Aubin, Porch of the Prefecture in Angers, France. All these examples are from 11th- 12th centuries and from another region. Similar examples in later Flemish or French manuscripts have not been found. Considering that Bruegel travelled through France to, including Sicily, it is possible that he was influenced by these or similar sources. Another possibility could be a literary source. In Kyng Alisaunder the corn (wheat) harvest is also accompanied by the apple

142 For the information on the climate fluctuations see: Kraker, p. 26.

harvest ―In tyme of harvest mery it is ynuogh;/ Peres and apples hohgeth on bough ‖ and probably refers to September because ―The grapes hongen on the vine‖.143 Yet, I am inclined to think that the motif springs simply from observation of the reality. Apples ripen, after all, until late September.

A minor detail can be also of interest in this respect. A little left of the central axis of the Wheat harvest village dwellers have gathered to play a game of cock throwing. It consisted in throwing sticks at a rooster or a goose tied to a post until the bird died. The same game featuring a goose is depicted on the base-en-page of the August illustration in the Golf Book (App. VI, fig. 5a, 5b). Still further to the left another game played in a sandpit can be seen. De Tolnay identifies it as a ball game, ―le jeu de boules‖, and links it to September, unfortunately without arguments or references to a source. The question mark in brackets indicates that he was not sure himself.144

Bruegel‘s drawing Summer (App. VI, fig. 8) for the series Seasons combines almost all the elements of both the Haymaking and Wheat harvest including conventional and idiosyncratic, for example, such details as the apple harvest (on the second plane, right of the central axis) from the Wheat harvest and shooting the popinjay (at the background slightly off the central axis to the left) from the Haymaking. The inscription on the left ―Iulius, Augustus, nec non et Iunius‖ added to the engraving after the drawing excludes the possibility to extending the Wheat harvest to September. It is tempting to use the argument that in the restricted sense the Latin word ―Aestas‖ placed in the middle can mean July, August and September145, but Bruegel‘s own inscription of the first drawing in the cycle ―De lenten Mert, April, Meij‖ does not leave us this opportunity. Thus it can be concluded that the Wheat harvest clearly represents August. This consideration not only defies De Tolnay‘s hypothesis but also indicates the anomaly: the missing September.

Return of the herd faces us again with the ambiguity. There are again two pictorial motifs that can be traced back to the established iconography in devotional books. In the foreground shepherds are driving the cattle from their pasture to the village. In the background grapes harvest can be seen. The motif of the return of the herd as such has no precedents but it would not take a big stretch of imagination to associate it with the scene of ox sale or slaughter, for is it not, literally speaking, the way of all flesh? A sale of an ox is chosen to illustrate October in Da Costa Hours (App. IV, Oct. fig. 33). An ox is being slaughtered in base-en-page miniature in Golf Book and in the Book of Hours from Bruges (App. IV, Oct. fig. 35, 36). The marginal scene of October in the Hennessy Hours features these animals in another function: a cart pulled by yoked oxen in a forest setting (App. IV, Oct. fig. 37).

However, a scene of the cattle market where oxen are being sold can also illustrate November. Thus it appears in a book of hours produced in Bruges in late fifteenth century (British Library, Add. MS 18852, fol. 12). In the Book of Private Prayers written for Earl of

143 Tuve, p. 31.

144 ―Le jeu de boules au dexieme plan pourrait etre une allusion au mois de septembre (?)‖, De Tolnay, p. 69.

145 Latin dictionary, headword ―Aestas‖.

Salsbury decorated by Flemish illuminators around 1500, a scene of cattle (oxen and sheep) being driven to the market is also chosen to depict November (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, MS Gough Liturg. 7 (s.c.18340), fol. 10). The slaughtered oxen ended up on a meat market represented in the November scene in a Flemish Book of Hours, early 16th century .146

Quite often the ox motif is paired with that of the grape harvest: in Da Costa Hours a man is picking grapes from a vine that grows on a rack that is constructed at the facade of an urban house; in Golf Book the main scene verso represents a later stage of vine harvest, young wine testing; the Hennessy Hours offer a traditional illustration of grapes picking. Whereas these two motifs are separated in these books, in Breviatium Mayer van den Bergh and the Spinola Hours, filling barrels with wine, pressing wine, sale of an ox and slaughter of an ox are all combined on the same page. In all these cases we deal with the illustration of October since vintage never takes place in November.

In the middleground of the Return of the herd there is another detail that could refer to October: a man who is stretching the bird net on the slope of the hill. Although the bird netting does not belong to the established iconography, it does come up in the marginal illustration of October in Breviarium Grimani (App. VI, fig. 5a, 5b).

Free from the iconography, if we look at the completely bare trees of the foreground, the stormy sky, the people warmly dressed against the wind which is rendered by the blowing mane of the horse and the hat of the rider deeply pulled over his eyes, it all suggests November. Again, we have the combination of two months, October and November.

Is there a way to account for the missing month in De Tolnay‘s otherwise persuading scheme? I can think of two, equally weak, explanations. First, it could be argued that in the exceptionally cold year of 1565 the crops must have ripened late and Bruegel extended the harvest to September. But to what extent can we rely on such ―realistic‖ explanation and would not it work on the presumption that Bruegel had this strictly historical meaning in mind? Perhaps that is why he dated most of his pieces belonging to the cycle? But then he would have painted the real Flemish landscape without the fabulous mountains. Second, in principle, the vine-yard in The return of the herd can also suggest September, since it belongs to its most characteristic iconography. On the other hand, it would mean that the painting refers to the whole season, which again falls out of the scheme. Perhaps, we should recognize the limitations of the iconographical method in application to Bruegel, a master who stands at the crossroads of traditions and genres.

It seems that Bruegel combines two months with intentional ambiguity, selecting elements that can occur in either month for the chosen period – and thus merging them – and the elements that exclude each other – thus separating two months (with the exception of the Wheat harvest). If we look hard, the seam is sometimes left visible if not so obvious. For example, the people carrying fruit and vegetables in the Haymaking have no interaction with the mowers. They exit as if in parallel worlds. The cycle has been often marveled for its realistic representation of the weather conditions. If so, a remarkable natural phenomenon is depicted in the Gloomy day where the wind that is blowing the clouds from the snowy peaks on the left

146 Reproduced in: Henisch, p. 130.

contradicts the direction of the stream of smoke on the utter right and the direction of the rain half to the right of the centre. The intersecting branches of the trees in the centre reinforce this confusion. In my opinion, Bruegel consciously makes a montage of heterogeneous elements. These are not things happening simultaneously but a temporal sequence compressed into one space. This arrangement is made clear in the cycle of Seasons, where the iconographical elements belonging to different months (digging and pruning for March, designing a garden and shearing sheep for April, courting, playing music, boating with a May tree for May) are also interwoven into one realistically plausible whole. In principle, this device is very common in the medieval and early renaissance art. In Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh, fol. 20v, for example, the landscape depicted in the central miniature with the scene of David killing Goliath continues into the border, where the scale is significantly different and the following episode of the story is shown. Still, the two spaces are demarcated. Bruegel merges the heterogeneous elements imperceptibly and gives them a ‗realistic‘ motivation.

Therefore, the picture operates on two levels: iconographical, appealing to the visual culture of the beholder, and the ―natural‖, requiring him only to establish a relation between the picture and reality. Neither as we have seen is unproblematic for an attentive onlooker.

The contradictory interpretations of Pieter Stevens and Paul Bril indicate that Bruegel‘s intentions were already obscure to the following generation. Should we assume that the continuity of perception was broken or that the cycle was meant to inspire ambiguity? I am inclined to accept the latter.

One might ask; is there a point in all this search for traditional iconography if we just come to conclusion that Bruegel just made a mess of it? Are not all these labours there because they simply happen to take place at that particular time? In my opinion, Bruegel deliberately appealed to the culturally fixed patterns that were still strong in his day and at least several decades later and consciously made them confusing. The way he deflected from them was meaningful, not random. As Polonius in Hamlet observed, ―Though this be madness, yet there is method in it‖.

Not only did Bruegel depart from the traditional division of the year into 12 months, he also let his periods merge, overlap, extend or shrink suggesting that there is no strict division in nature. The moon and the stars, consequently the signs of zodiac have no place in the cycle – they determine the state of things no more. It is purely an earthly earth, driven by the whimsical logic of nature, unintelligible and often hostile to man. Bruegel‘s cycle loses the stability, serenity and comprehensibility of the familiar world of the books of hours. The cosmic order that underlay the medieval universe is gone.

At a similar conclusion, although from another direction, arrives Anthony J. Lewis who draws parallels between Bruegel‘s Months and the oeuvre of Shakespeare. He proceeds from analyzing the compositional peculiarities of the Flemish cycle, ―The traditional horizontals and verticals of the Quattrocento have been ―twisted‖ to form two diagonal lines‖ with the effect that ―the human activity in the foreground is now in a corner of the painting rather than in the middle, while the background, the natural world covering over half the picture plane, appears at both the

bottom and top of the painting‖.147 Such a compositional technique creates the tension between the two triangular areas and forces the man out of the viewer‘s direct observation, belittles him in comparison with the gigantic magnificence of indifferent nature. Observing the way Bruegel‘s central figures (also outside the cycle, from Icarus to the Christ in The procession to Calvary) he finds a lot in common with Shakespeare‘s heroes who are isolated from the rest of the world to the extent that ―One is forced to question the value of action, right or wrong, in a world where sacrifice is meaningless and action dwarfed by the environment‖.148

It is a subtle but a significant shift from the medieval view of the world where man is a part of harmonious universe and has his share, if humble, in the divinely established cosmic order. The reassuring predictability of the medieval calendars becomes a treadmill where there is nothing left for a human being but endure and persevere.

5.3. Composition of the cycle.

It is established that Bruegel‘s Months are a cycle, that, they were commissioned as a cycle and until 19th century perceived as a cycle. It took its rightful place within other cycles that Niclaes Jongelinck had, which must have satisfied his humanist need for encyclopedic comprehensiveness. Buchnan suggests that Months were meant for the dining room perhaps reminding Jongelick of Roman villas decorated with similar motifs. They are likely to have hung high up on the walls above the paneling, forming a continuous frieze around the room. It must have given him the sensation of the otium, a concept that was popular in humanist circles well- read in Roman authors like Cicero, Virgil, Horace.

Scholars have noticed that although the cycle does not represent a panorama, it is united by the continuous line of the horizon. In her book ―Pieter Bruegel. Die Jahreszeiten‖ Inge Herold placed the panel in a row in such a sequence: Gloomy day - Haymaking - Wheat harvest - Return of the herd - Hunters in the snow (App. VI, 6a). Although the problem of which panel begins the series has not been decisively resolved, it probably becomes irrelevant if we see it as a closed circle that has no beginning and no end: the cycle of paintings representing the cycle of the year by its very arrangement in the interior. Another question is whether we should read the series left to right and not vice versa.

The direction of a certain sequence is determined by a given culture. A written text in Western languages goes left to right, but it does not mean that all kinds of signs follow the same rule. As far as the calendar illustrations are concerned we can observe the following arrangements. Where the illustrations were subordinated to the linear logic of the text they were placed accordingly, left to right. But a circular composition dictates another logic. We can give a number of examples where the sequence is counterclockwise, that it, if overturned horizontally, right to left. It seems to be rather a rule in the antiquity and early middle ages, for example, in the mosaic from Carthage 4th-5th century, now at British Museum; mosaic pavement in the Monastery of Lady Mary, Beisan, 568-69; in Manuscript gr. 1291, 9th century, now in Vatican

147 Lewis, pp. 406-407.

148 Ibid, p. 410.

Library; on baptismal font in Burnham Deepdale, 12th century, England (as it has been mentioned before, the illustrations run clockwise (North-East-South), but for a convex surface it results in the sequence going from right to left). Of course, all these examples can only be used typologically, as expression of the mental visual schema embedded in the culture. But the face of the clock from the state museum Vander Kelen-Mertens in Leuven is a vivid local example of the vision of the year cycle as running counterclockwise (App. V, fig. 1). It cannot be a random choice of the master who made it. It would be ―logical‖ to expect that the direction of months sequence would coincide with the direction of the hour hand, but it must have had a logic of its own. The easiest explanation that I can think of is that the connection between months (the word being a derivative from moon, moon month) and signs of the zodiac was felt rather strongly, and since the signs of the zodiac appear in the sky right to left, the direction of the year cycle had to run accordingly149.

Checking the supposition against the material let us try to place Bruegel‘s series in the opposite direction, right to left (App. VI, fig. 6b). What we see now is that the continuity is amplified not only by the horizon but also a number of undulatory lines that go on from one panel to the other. Thus, the upper line of the river in the Return of the herd continues in the edge of the field in the Wheat harvest, the darker backgrounds of the Wheat harvest and the Haymaking form a visually continuous area, the same can be said about the middle grounds that are outlined by capricious wavy lines. The continuity naturally breaks between the Haymaking and the Gloomy day because of the missing picture, but between the Gloomy day and the Hunters in the snow the play of the curves as well as the vertical and diagonal lines is remarkable. The line of the fallen tree continues in the line of the snowy hill in the neighboring painting and so does the line of the river in the Gloomy day. If we close the cycle by joining the Hunters and the Return of the herd the lines of the crags at the background on the utter left and right respectively interlock. The parallel diagonals, the rhythmical repetition of the outlines of the roofs echoed by the outlines of the crags and bodies of the cows sets intricate but visually persuasive relations between the two paintings.

These elements of the compositional coherence emphasize the idea of a closed circle with no beginning and no end. Moreover, thus ensured continuity of the physically separated panels is analogous to the continuity of the seasons, which cannot be rationally demarcated but are subjects to the natural current change of weather conditions.

5.4. Bruegel’s drawings Spring and Summer.

The same year Bruegel worked on a series of drawings Four Seasons only two of which have come down to us, Spring and Summer. The drawings were meant as designs for engravings, they were engraved by Pieter van der Heyden and published by Hieronymus Cock in 1570. The other two designs for Autumn and Winter were made by Hans Bol. Bruegel labled his drawings

149 There are exceptions, though. Thus, in the planetarium in Codex Voss. 79 at the Library of Leyden University (p. 49, plate 12) the direction of the signs of the zodiac (counterclockwise) and the months (clockwise) do not coincide. It begins at the top where January coincides with Aquarius and then months and signs of the zodiac run in the opposite directions.

in Dutch by simply naming then (―De lenten Mert, April Meij‖), the Latin verse was added by the publisher to make it apealing to the humanist audience.

In fact, Bruegel simply collaged the occupations of the months into respective seasons: working in the garden (pruning, digging, planting, etc) and sowing for March; tending to sheep for April, merrymaking and boat decorated with May tree for May. It is clear that the temporal succession is represented in one space. At the same time it is done plaisibly with a great number of realistic details: ropes that mark the straight lines of the future formal garden, a spade stuck into the ground by someone who is missing (has stepped out of the frame to fetch a plant?), little dog at the feet of the mistress‘s daughter, a little ball on a path, perhaps, dropped by the girl, even seams on the stockings of the peasant pruning vine on the bower, a duck perched on the hedge observing the scene, bee hives standing in a row at the wall, a women carrying a sack (of seeds for the sower?) on her head, the two classical statues supporting the arched green tunnen, a U of birds in the sky and sheep sailing at the horizon. All these details are superfluous from the point of view of the illustration, they outweigh the pure illustrative function. The realism is however subordinated to the pictorial needs. Thus the foreshortening is not always consequent: the workers shearing sheep are far too big in comparisson with the sheep shed, but they would not be visible otherwise. The point of view in these drawings is much lower, it is that of an onlooker who is standing here, within the garden, which gives the picture familiar, almost intimate character. His sharp look registers comical moments too: the subservient bow of the worker for the lady, the comical gesticulating of the lady herself.

The Summer, as has been mentioned before contains all the pictorial elements represented in the Haymaking and the Wheat harvest: haymaking, binding sheaves, transporting vegetables, reaping, apple harvest, and even shooting the popinjay. The motif of a lunch break is made extremely prominent by shifting the peasants seated on the sheaves to the extreme foreground, so that the figure of one of them is cut off by the frame and the foot and the scythe of the other one are breaking through the frame. One may interpret this in terms of moralizing on the sin of sloth, as Annette de Vries does, seeing here the hint on the Dutch expression ―over de schreef gaan‖, ―overstep the mark‖.150 Considering Bruegel‘s love for the literal representation of proverbs, this reading is convincing.

Another explanation, not excluding but providing a carnivalesque counterpoint to that of De Vries, can be given to this Rabelaisian figure guzzlying down from a big jug, his codpiece standing out. As contrasted to the cycle of the months, which had a distinct medieval flavour, the cycles of seasons presupposed Classical references and personifications. In the Summer Bruegel used elements alluding to the Classical tradition, perhaps, with the view of the cycle‘s literary programme. First, the drinking peasant may indicate Bruegel‘s familiarity with Roman calendar illustrations or their Renaissance copies (see August in Codex-calender of 354, App. II), where August was personified by a male figure quenching thirst. Second, the young peasant wearing a wreath of wheat ears alludes to the Classical personifications of the Summer, as well as the woman carrying a tray of vegetables on her head. Her bulky torso and far from elegant pose appear quite non-classical; the absolute absence of the head is accentuated by the implausible sudden shift of the point of view (for the rest of the picture very low, for the woman

150 De Vries, A., p. 143.

– from above) and is made obviously comic. Is Bruegel mocking the Classical tradition? Rather, he is refering to the carnivalesque culture rooted in the antiquity with its Saturnalias and similar mocking ceremonies that accompanied every cerious festivity in the Classical world.151 As Bakhtin demonstrates in his book about the medieval and Early Modern popular culture, this tradition did not break with the transition to the Middle Ages but remained very fertile up to the beginning of the 17th century and inspired great humanists like Erasmus and Rabelais. The world is presented by the carnavalesque vision as the upside-down world. The carnavalesque logic upturns all the hierarchy of values and ridicules all the serious and tabooed aspects of life whereas the images of the human bottom (food, drink, digestinon, sex, defection) are promoted to the top. The carnavalesque imagery is characterized by excessiveness and grotesque. Thus, the excessively drinking peasant with prominent genitals trespassing the border and the woman with food instead of the head are carnavalesque figures genetically connected with the antique culture of laughter.

Laughter had a mixed reputation in Bruegel‘s time. On the one hand, laughter was considered frivolous and even sinful, something reserved for lower classes but unbecoming to a civilized person. On the other hand, it was believed to be very healthy and facilitate good digestion. Various treatises recommended laughter as a remedy to melancholy. Pictures like Summer were often hung up in dining rooms. The inventory of the action after the bankruptcy of someone Jean Noirot, mentions five pictires of Bruegel, including peasant weddings and kermisses, the comic gernres par exellence, which hang in d’achter eetkamer, a back dining- room.152

Buchanan suggests, although without arguments, that Bruegel‘s Twelve months were also devised for embelishing the dining room, ―given the subject of the Month, a dining room would certainly seem an appropriate place for them‖. 153 If it is so, it means that the cycle was perceived in a humoruos (in both the old and new meanings of the word!) way. It does not exclude though its other, more serious meanings. A lot of other contemporaneous pictures and literary works testify to the fact that eductated people enjoyed texts with the ―double bottom‖.

The counterpoint of the serious and the carnavalesque demonstrates Bruegel‘s ability to construct ambiguous images eluding the straightforward message, but promoting stereoscopic vision. This is a vivid example of the mechanism of the double (multiple) coding that makes the artistic text not the bearer of information but the mechanism generating meanings.

5. 5. The significance Bruegel’s genre synthesis.

As is mentioned before Bruegel reversed the relationship of landscape and the calendar illustration. Landscape, which initially was not a part of the genre and made its entry comparatively late, turned to be an aggressive element. In his Twelve months cycle Bruegel let it outweigh the calendar genre and become the primary focus in the picture. It is obvious that Bruegel consciously played with ―the memory of the genre‖, both genres, actually. On the one

151 Bakhtin.

152 Gibson 2003.

153 Buchanan, p. 549.

hand, he made references to the calendar creating an expectation and broke the convention here and there to achieve the shifts in the meaning. On the other hand, he played with the genre modifications of the landscape itself. As was mentioned before by his time there were two major variations of landscape: the so called ―world landscape‖ and the aesthetic landscape. The former was characterized by a very high horizon, a great diversity of depicted loci, antithetic composition and the hidden meaning. The size of the details often relates to the significance in inverse proportion: the more inconspicuous the more significant. The amount of the tiny details makes it impossible to perceive the whole of the painting at one glance therefore the viewer is made to proceed from one detail to the other in order to decode the meaning symbolically repeating the theme of the ―life‘s pilgrimage‖, an important theme of the world landscape. The aesthetic landscape requires on the contrary the wholeness of the vision. It appeals to the senses and aims to give pleasure and even a remedy for the ailing soul.154 It usually contains a far more visually graspable scope of natural phenomena and focuses the attention on one or two picturesque details that become the primary bearers of the meaning. This landscape is usually didactically neutral.

Which of the two forms did Bruegel use? A lot of scholars concentrate on the realistic rendering of the weather and atmospheric phenomena in the paintings of the cycle. The plausibility of the agricultural works is also undeniably high. The variation of the colour rhythmical variation throughout the cycle contributes greatly to its aesthetic aspect.155 Considering that Bruegel with his Big Landscapes was one of the pioneers of the aesthetic landscape it is tempting to interpret the cycle of Twelve months in this sense.

Nevertheless, if one looks carefully some very well hidden features and details begin to disturb the pure ‗aesthetic‘ interpretation. For example, the considerably raised horizon (tree quarters of the height) does not strike the eye as conventional because it is motivated realistically by the concave surface of the locus itself. But it does pertain to the most typical features of the world landscape and warns one to be on the lookout for other details that fit in its scheme. The crags in the Haymaking – are they there as a picturesque detail or a reference to Patinirian rocks and ―narrow path‖, exemplified by a narrow plank-gangway winding around the rock to its top? (App. VI, fig. 3a, 3b). The hay cart – are they just a natural detail of the agricultural activity or does it allude to a very common allegory of the ―Hoiwagen‖, represented in Bosch‘s Haywain, Frans Hogenberg‘s etching Al hoy and by a float with the analogous tableau in the procession in Antwerp in 1563.156 It would change the meaning of the whole picture and the whole cycle. The withered branch above the sleeping peasant in Wheat harvest, which according to the infrared spectrography was not in the under-drawing and was added later – was it added for pure naturalistic reasons or does it pertain to the hidden meaning of the painting as De Vries argues.157 The drowning village in the Gloomy day, the gallows in the Return of the herd – these details are beyond the natural eye focus and only become visible when one adjusts the eye to look for

154 Prosperetti, pp. 160-162, see also note 32, p. 190.

155 See in detail, Herold, p. 105.

156 Koldeweij, 134-135; Gibson 1981, p.438.

157 De Vries, A., p. 138-140. 68

details and tunes the perception to read and interpret the painting successively, as a text – the mode of perception required for the world landscape as Falkeburg points out.158

In my opinion, Bruegel‘s realism is rather the means and not the end: he uses his outstanding skills of realistic rendering of the visible reality to hide the deeper meaning. But he leaves little inconspicuous keys here and there for an attentive viewer to use in the interpretation. Therefore, the paintings of the cycle ought to be classified as world landscapes with representations of the months. The calendar genre, being transplanted into the context of another genre, endures significant transformations: it looses its ordered character and the interconnections with the great planetary scheme; the man yields to nature; the representations of the occupations verge on the allegories – they become a part of the intricate and multifaceted system of meaning which defies predictability and tends to puzzle rather than reassure. The positive, idealizing pathos, so inherent for the calendar illustrations, is eliminated.

Bruegel‘s Twelve months became the landmark in the development of the genre and marked the directions where it would go afterwards. It synthecized two big Flemish traditions: the archaic calendar genre and the new still forming genre of landscape. The resulting product proved to be very fertile. Some artists (the brothers van Valckenborch) adhered to the line of the world landscape with its implicit symbolism. Other painters (e.g. Jacob Grimmer, Abel Grimmer, Hans Bol) exploited the combination realistic land-/cityscape+calendar illustration and made it their specility. Both trends modelled their works in this or that respect on Bruegel‘s cycle and used its motifs. Thus, the motif of the peasants resting under a tree became one of the most favourite pictorial elements. The motif of the skating peasants from the Hunters on the snow even became a separate genre, popularized by Hans Bol and Hendrick Avercamp. Landscapes with seasons and months gained such a popularity that they were produced on an almost industrial scale. Few artists (if any) reached Bruegel‘s artistic and philosophcal level, but they caught and satisfied a certain need of the contemporary society, therefore their work indicates the streamline of the visual culture and the world model of their time. In the further study we shall look at some experiments to which Lucas and Maarten van Valckenborch subjected the calendar genre.

158 Falkenburg, 2009.

III. LUCAS AND MAARTEN VAN VALCKENBORCH.

III. 1. Biography:

1.1. The family and the beginning of the brothers’ professional career.

The name Valckenborgh in different variants (Valckenberge, Valckenberch, Valkenborch, Valckenborch, Valkenborgh, Falckhenberg, Valckenburg, Falckenbrug, Falckenburger) appears in the documents from the archives of Mechelen, Antwerpen, Frankfurt and Nurmberg beginning from 1417. The genealogy of the family is traced in the works of Goris, Coninckx, Zülch and Friedriechs159 The family supplied three generations of painters whose activity is spread between 1560 and 1635, beginning from the brothers Maarten and Lucas Van Valckenborch. Their parents Lauryes van Vackenborch (†1568) and Anna Meys (born in 1504/05) married in 1526 and had seven children – Anna (1527-1577), Eustas (1530-1581), Quinten (1532/33 - ?), Maarten (1534-1612), Lucas (1535 or shortly after – 1597), Hans (?-?), Gerard (?-?), five of whom (Quinten, Maarten, Lucas, Hans, and Gerard) became painters. The oeuvre of the other three brothers is unfortunately unknown. Only once there resurfaced a painting under the name of Quinten Valckenborch during an auction in Amsterdam in 1953 only to disappear again after being bought.

An important but questionable source of information about the brothers is Karel van Mander‘s Schilderboek (App. VII, doc. 1). Their skill in the genre of landscape van Mander explains by their origin: ―vroylijcke Lansdtschappen‖ were very common in Malines and a lot of masters specialized in this genre, including the brothers Valckenborch who according to him were born there.

Over the course of the time archive documents resurfaced which made some corrections possible. According to the entry in the Civil Book of Frankfurt of 7th June 1586, Maarten was actually born in Louvain, and not in Malines.160 Zülch unearthed another entry in the town archive of Frankfurt a. M., where Lucas is called ―ein Maler van Leuen‖.161 It was proven that Maarten was born first, in 1534/35 and Lucas shortly after.162 H. Devonghelaere thinks that they might have been twins.163

Malines was the town where the professional life of the brothers began. Although we know nothing about their training, from the 18th-century copy of the Guild of Painters, Woodcarvers and Gilders of Malines (City Archive, Malines), we learn that both brothers entered the guild at the usual age of around 25: Maarten on 13th of August 1559 and Lucas 26th August 1560. Some time before 1559 Maarten married Luycke Vleminckx (1540-1612), who became the mother of his 15 children, 8 of which lived.164 In 1563 Maarten already had an

159 Goris; Coninckx; Zülch 1932; Zülch. 1935; Friedrichs.

160 Donner-von Richter.

161 Frankfurt a.M., Stadtarchiv, Bürgerbuch, 10 January 1594, fol. 120 recto. Published in: Zülch 1935.

162 Van Valkenburg, p. 43-46.

163 Devonghelaere, p. 20ff.

164 See document of 1586 published in Wied 1990, p. 221-222. 70

apprentice named Gysbrecht Jaspers, one year later Lucas also had an apprentice Jasper van der 1564 (App. VII, Docs. 4,5).

Shortly afterwards however the roads of the brothers‘ lives diverged. Maarten went to live in Antwerp where he taught their youngest brother Gerard from 1563/64 to 1568 (App. VII, doc. 3). They were probably not sure if they would stay there for good or return because in 1565 he and his wife bought a house in Malines which they sold less then a year afterwards.165 Lucas stayed in Malines until 1566, during which time married, too, and had a son Maarten II. The name of the mother is unknown.

1.2. Lucas van Valckenborgh: biography after 1566.

Spanish occupation under the leadership of Duke of Alva that followed the iconoclasm of 1566 made Lucas flee to Germany. In the certificate book of Antwerp there is a document of 15 May 1567 where he explains his departure by a wish to visit the year market in Cologne. He must have had more serious reasons why: his real and movable assets are found in the Confiscation register of Mechlin of 1567.166 From this fact we can deduce that Lucas was a protestant.

The route of the exile can be traced by the landscapes he painted that year: beginning in Liege and up the river Meuse: A View of Liege, Landscape with a Peasant Dance with the view of the village of Hermalle, Landscape with a Swineherd, which is identified with Huy, a town 25 km upwards the Meuse from Liege, A river landscape with the view of Dinant.167 These must be the paintings Karel van Mander means when he writes, ―Doe trocken sy, met oock Hans de Vries, nae Aken en Luyck, alwaer sy doe veel nae t'leven deden, ghelijck langs de Maes en daer ontrent Luyck veel fraey ghesichten van Landtschap zijn‖ (App. VII, Doc. 1).

The flood of the refugees caused the Archbishop of Liege take measures and he issued an edict that banned everyone who had not acquired civil rights within two years‘ time. Thus in 1570 Lucas van Valckenborch found himself in Aachen where he rejoined with his brother Maarten who acquired the citizenship of Aachen in1573. The brothers must have maintained a close relationship and despite the exile managed to while away the time rather joyfully in the company of their friend painter Hans Vredeman de Vries, or, at least, so sounds it in van Mander‘s account, ―Dees voornoemde dry, ghelijck sy met de Duytsche pijp (besonder Lucas) wel ervaren waren, vermaeckten sich, en waren dickwils met den anderen vroylijck.‖ (App. VII, Doc. 1).

A painting dated 1575 that shows the frozen Scheldt and the silhouette of Antwerp at the background suggests that Lucas returned to Brabant. In all likelihood he enjoyed great success because in 1579 he was already employed by Archduke Matthias of Austria, the governor of the

165 See document of 1565 published in Wied 1990, p. 221.

166 See: Archives generals du Royaume. Registres aux confiscations faites a Malines 1567-1579. N 19141.

167 The geography of his landscapes of this period is identified in: Stienon.

Netherlands. The service at his court involved moving to Brussels, the residence of the Duke, for whom he painted his portraits and designed uniforms for his army.168

In 1581, however, due to the political situation young archduke Matthias was withdrawn from Brussels. Two months he was held in Cologne on account of his extravagant debts until his monarchial brother Emperor Rudolf II settled the matter. Matthias arrived in Linz where he lived without a function and out of the royal favour. It is not clear whether Lucas van Valckenborch followed his patron immediately. His name is absent from the list of Matthias‘ courtiers from 1582 to 1601. Supposedly, Lucas moved to the quiet Linz rather for the reasons of escaping the turbulent situation in the Netherlands, perhaps, hoping to regain the royal patronage. The assumption that he spent this time in Linz is based on van Mander‘s account and the landscapes he painted rather than on solid documentations.

Despite the restricted means Archduke Matthias surrounded himself with the artistic milieu. In his service were the court painter Philipp Höning of Wels, goldsmiths Carl Renftel and Gotfried Korber, court cabinet-maker Paul Reischig, calligrapher Daniel Meltzer, and composer Lambert de Sayve. Lucas van Valckenborch ranked high among all these artists, and, in fact, enjoyed an unrivalled position. At the court Lucas also conducted various errands for the archduke. The majority of the paintings of this period are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

We come across his name in two accounts from Kremsmünster, that testify to the fact that Lucas van Valckenborch was active in Upper Austria, ―Den 12. October (1591) dem Spittlpaur zu Linz, das er der Furstl. Durchl. Hof Maller hierher gefiert, zu Lon…3.4.0‖ and ―Den 12. Juny (1592) der Furstl. Durchl. Erzherzog Mathias Hof Maler, Maister Lucas So Ieren Gnaden Sachen hierher gemacht, 10 fl.‖169

His drawings with landscapes of this period indicate that he traveled frequently. The high occurrence of the motif of the blast furnace in a mountain landscape allows us to presume that his routes ran through the Duchy of Styria or the river valley of the Enns by Steier, which was famous for its blacksmiths manufactures. The exact locations have not been identified, though. The fact that Valckenborch painted similar landscapes already in the Netherlands indicates that such subjects may have been, at least partly, inspired by the tradition going back to Flemish masters of early landscape, such as Herri met de Bles and Lucas Gassel, and not necessarily only by the real geographical locations.

Lucas was probably skilled not only in painting but also in courtly affairs - he gained favour of another member of the Habsburg dynasty, Matthias‘ brother Archduke Ernst, who facilitated his acquiring the citizenship of Frankfurt am Main. Wied supposes that the view of Linz of 1594, paid by Archduke Ernst, must have been also commissioned by him. Supposedly, this was not the only painting Ernst took with him when he moved to Brussels as a governor of the Netherlands. Perhaps he wanted a reminder of his native land and family, so Valckenborch

168 Reproduced in Wied 1990.

169 Kremsmunster, Stiftarchiv, Nr. 552, published in: Wied 1990. P. 222.

painted ―The landscape with the view of Neugebäude‖ for him, which depicts Rudolf II and his brothers Matthias and Ernst, as well as Lucas‘ self-portrait.

A number of other topographically precise paintings are attributed to Lucas van Valckenborch, such as landscapes with views of Prague, Trinkkur, and Aartal.

In 1593 Lucas van Valckenborch left Austria for Germany and settled in Frankfurt am Main. His moving coincided with and was partly caused by the departure of Archduke Ernst who became the commander in chief in the campaign against the Turks of 1594-94, as well as a wish to retire and spend his old age in the company of his family. These facts are also mentioned by van Mander. Lucas van Valckenborch died in 1597, of which there is an entry dated 2nd February 1597 of the death record of the city of Frankfurt.

2. 2. Maarten van Valckenborch: biography after 1566.

During the Iconoclasm and the following Spanish occupation, that caused his brother to flee, Maarten remained Antwerp. However, in 1573 he became a citizen of Aachen, which hints that his relationship with the established regime was far from cloudless. In Aachen he enjoyed the company of his brother Lucas and their friend Hans Vredeman de Vries.

The resignation of ―the iron duke‖ in 1573 and the bankruptcy of Philip that was officially declared in 1575 seemed to be favourable conditions to return home. Lucas probably travelled back to Antwerp which is deduced from the winter landscape dated 1575 with the silhouette of the town visible through the falling snow. Yet, they must have been cautious to haste and for good reason: during the massacre in 4th November 1576 8000people were killed and 1000 houses were destroyed. The brothers returned at the very end of 1576.

While Lucas left for Austria to work for archduke Matthias, Maarten stayed and in 1584 was chosen alderman of St. Lucas Guild.

Following the assassination of William of Orange, Spanish troops under the leadership of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, subdued the Southern Netherlands and prepared to conquer the Dutch provinces to the north of the Maas and Rhine rivers. Like many of his countrymen Maarten had to emigrate, this time he moved to Frankfurt am Main, where in 1586 he acquired the civil rights and stayed until death in 1612.

In 1592-93 his brother Lucas joined him in Frankfurt ―zu erholung seiner Gesundtheit vnd seinen hausgesessenen Brudern vnd verwandt(en) alhie aufzuwarten, vnd sambt den seiningen hauszhäblich ain Zeitlang sich alhie aufhalten möge‖170

In Frankfurt both Valckenborch families had a prosperous atelier, much to whose success was contributed by Georg Flegel. Maarten‘s sons Frederik (1566-1623), Gillis (1570-1622) and Maarten (1583-1635) became painters, which is mentioned in van Mander‘s Schilderboek ―oock eenighe sonen treflijck in onse Const naeghelaten‖ (App. VII, Doc. 1).

170 See document of 1593, published in: Wied 1990, p. 234.

III. 2. Lucas van Valckenborch: experiments in genre cross-breeding.

2. 1. Professional milieu.

Karel van Mander begins his account of the brothers van Valckenborch by explaining the specificity of their styles through the influence of the artistic milieu in which they started their professional life, ―Ghelijck de Water-verwe op doeck bequaem om vroylijcke Landtschappen te maken, en sulcke handelinghe te Mecchelen seer ghemeen wesende, en veel gebruyckt is: zijn door veel oeffenen aldaer verscheyden goede Meesters ontstaen, als elder noch verhaelt is‖ (App. VII, Doc. 1).

According to van Mander Malines numbered 150 ateliers in that time. He does not seem to be of high opinion about them, though, and refers to Malines as ―een Stadt daer veel slechte Doeck-schilders hun wesen hadden‖.171 Among those who did deserve his credit are Frans Minnebroer and his pupil Frans Verbeeck who ―was fraey van Water-verwe te maken dinghen op zijn Ieroon Bos‖ and painted very marketable landscapes and other popular subjects: ―onder ander eenen Winter sonder Snee oft Ys, met ontbladerde boomen, en met huysen heel als in eenen mist, seer natuerlijck om sien. Van hem ist datmen siet die drollige Boeren bruyloften, en derghelijcke bootsen‖.172 Among good landscape painters van Mander names Claes Rogier and Hans Kaynoot, a pupil of Matthijs Cock, who painted landscapes in the style of Joachim Patinir. Skilled in the watercolour technique was also Gregorius Beerings, who had traveled to Rome and painted landscapes with antique ruins. Hans Bol, who also lived in Malines, ―makende seer aerdighe vroylijcke doecken van Water-verwe‖ is highly praised by van Mander for his ―Fable of Dedalus and Icarus‖, most probably the watercolour which is now in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp.

Watercolour was used not only for landscapes but also for religious subjects. Among those who painted religious subjects were the above mentioned Frans Minnebroer and Cornelis Enghelrams.

Another kind of paint based on the water-soluble binder medium is tempera, which was very wide-spread in manuscript illumination and in easel painting before the invention of the oil paint. This technique was applied by Pieter Bruegel in his Parable of the Blind and Adoration of the Kings that is now in Brussels. It is assumed that he learned this technique from his mother-in- law, illuminator Mayken Verhulst, who later also trained Bruegel‘s son and her own grandson, Jan Brueghel. But there are other possibilities too. His teacher, Pieter Coeck of Aalst was, according to van Mander, skilled in ―beyde in Oly en Water-verwe: oock in Patroon teyckenen,

171 Van Mander, Het leven van Hans Bol, Schilder van Mecchelen.

172 Van Mander, Het leven van Frans Minnebroer en meer oude Schilders van Mecchelen.

en schilderen, seer uytnemende‖.173 When in Italy Bruegel lived at Giulio Clovio‘s and helped him with painting miniatures, which requires great skill in tempera.174

In the oeuvre of Lucas van Valckenborch however few watercolour paintings are extant. In the complete catalogue published by Alexander Wied there is one picture painted in tempera on canvas, ―Landscape with mountains and a mill‖ (1577); three in tempera on panel: ―River landscape with a swineherd and peasants‖ (1569), ―Landscape with a fisherman on a bridge‖ (1570?), ―Rocky landscape with mines‖ (1576); one (presumably) in tempera on copper: ―A view of a vast landscape with feasting peasants‖, and one (now missing) round painting in gouache depicting the tower of Babel and showing great affinity with Bruegel‘s Babel tower in Vienna. In the body of his works the share of the watercolours is relatively small compared with oil paintings on panel or canvas. As for Maarten van Vackenborch, no single watercolour has survived (if there were any) that can be with certainty attributed to the master. Thus, it can be concluded that it is to the genre of landscape and the general influence of the older and contemporary masters, rather than the watercolour technique, that we must attribute van Mander‘s words.

The influence on the creative work of both Valckenborchs cannot be confined to the local tradition of Malines. Antwerp, where Maarten lived for several years and where Lucas spent time in the 1570s, could not but leave its imprint on them. In the 16th century the City on the Scheldt experienced a true Golden Age. It outbid Ghent and Bruges, previously the most thriving cities of the Southern Netherlands, and became the most important port, consequently the centre of trade and finance. With the population of 55,000 inhabitants it ranked among Paris, London, Rome and Venice as one of the most densely populated cities of Europe. Other important cities, such as Venice, Genoa, Seville and Lisbon granted Antwerp political privileges, river and land routes bound the city with Cologne and Frankfurt and further, with South Germany and Bohemia. It was a cosmopolitan city where merchants from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany and cities of Hanseatic League came to reside. The policy of toleration attracted a large Jewish community.

Economic prosperity brought about the flourishing of arts. Around the time when Maarten moved to Antwerp there were active such masters as Frans Floris, Marten van Cleve, Pieter Aertsen, Joachim Beuckelaer, Marten de Vos, Francken and Cornelis van Dalem, Pieter Balten, Gilis Mostaert, Abel and Jacob Grimmer. Hans Bol and Gillis van Coninxloo also moved from Malines to Antwerp. The printers Hieronimus Cock and Christophe Plantin published books, prints and maps disseminating the humanist thought. Bruegel had moved to Brussels a year before Maarten moved but his influence remains strong through his works as well as prints made after his drawings.

The artists maintained close professional and social contacts with each other, competing on the same market and often having the same clientele. They were connected by the guild matters, participation in the city‘s public life, as painters and/or as members of the chambers of

173 Van Mander, T'leven van Pieter Koeck, Schilder en Bouw-meester van Aelst.

174 De Tolnay 1978.

rhetoricians (rederijkers kamers). The designs, patterns, compositional schemas were circulated through prints and professional pattern or sketch books. Our modern concept of copyright did not bind the artists, so they were free to use each other‘s ideas and finds.

Diverse genres were practiced: historical paintings (based on the classical and contemporary Renaissance examples brought from Italian journeys), allegoric paintings, genre paintings, portraits, landscapes. Some of them were already long established, while some were in the process of formation. To the latter belongs the genre of landscape, to which both Valckenborchs paid a great tribute. In fact the share of landscapes, in this or that form, amounts to approximately two thirds of the whole oeuvre of Lucas. As for Maarten, he painted almost exclusively landscapes. Most of their cycles devoted to months or seasons are built into the landscapes.

2.1. The cycle Twelve Months: the kaleidoscope of genres.

Lucas van Valckenborch turned to the theme of months several times. Wied assumes that he painted the figures of the peasants for Jacob Grimmer in his cycle Four Seasons (1577), now in Budapest.175 The motifs reminiscent of the calendar illustrations appear in many of his landscapes. Thus, in the Landscape with swineherds and the blast furnace (Wied 1990, Cat. No. 23) the painter resorts to a very familiar November motif of knocking down the acorns to fatten the pigs, Landscape with a view of a valley (Wied 1990, Cat. No. 70) haymaking is going on, the Spring landscape with an elegant company (Wied 1990, Cat. No. 90) certainly appeals to the iconography of May through the images of courting couples and a boat embellished with May trees.

We are going to focus on several cycles of paintings united by the theme of the year cycle.

Chronologically, the earliest cycle refers to the period between 1584 and 1587 and was supposedly painted for the Linz palace of either Archduke Matthias or Archduke Ernst. Now the cycle is represented by seven paintings. It is unknown whether the series was ever completed or five paintings have been lost. Five of the extant paintings (provisional names: Summer landscape with Corn Harvest (July or August), Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (September), Autumn landscape with grape harvest (October), Winter landscape (January or February), and Spring landscape with the Palace in Brussels (May)) are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and two (Spring landscape (March or April) and The return of the herd and cattle sale (November)) were until 1996 in Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic. The Vienna paintings must have originated from the collection of Matthias or Ernst, the ones in Brno come from the St. Augustine Monastery in Alt-Brünn to which, according to the last Abbot of the monastery before secularization, they were offered by Maria Theresia as satisfaction of debt.176

175 Wied in: De uitvinding van het landscap, p. 130.

176 Wied 1990, P. 153.

The two paintings in Brno were returned to the monastery.177 It is not clear if it is to these paintings that we must refer the entry in the inventory of the collection of Archduke Ernst in Brussels that was drawn up after his death.178

Lucas worked on the series from 1584 to 1587. This can be exactly established because all the paintings are monogrammed and dated:

Spring landscape (March or April)-1584/L/VV, I.IVN;

Summer landscape with Corn Harvest (July or August) – L/VV/ 1585;

Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (September) – 1585/L/VV;

Autumn landscape with grape harvest (October) – 1585/L/VV;

Return of the herd and cattle sale (November) - 1586/L/VV;

Winter landscape (January or February) – 1586/L/VV;

Spring landscape with the Palace in Brussels (May) – 1587/L/VV.

The paintings are to be found in Appendix VIII, 1-7.

They are all painted with oil on canvas. The measurements range within 2 cm in height and 4 cm in length: in the same order as above: 115x200 - 116x198 - 116x198 - 116x198 - 115x196 - 117x198 - 116x198. Already the measurements indicate the degree of this ambitious project: it was meant to occupy the perimeter of more than 24 meter. If we include the distance between the paintings and allow for doors and windows it is clear that the master had a palace scale in mind. Compared with those of Bruegel, with the measurements around 117x163, Valckenborch‘s canvasses have a more oblong panoramic format.

2.2.1. Spring landscape (March or April).

In Wied‘s catalogue this painting begins the series on the grounds that ―Das niederländische Jahr began noch im 16. Jahrhundert am 1. März‖.179 In fact, the new system of Gregorian calendar had been introduced in 1575, that is, 9 years before Lucas completed the painting, but it can be argued that such changes do not occur in people‘s consciousness as quickly as in official documents. Chronologically, this was the earliest picture of the series, and from the dating of the last one (May) it is clear that Lucas did not stick to the same order as the months go in the year. It is possible to allow, though, that the May painting does not belong to

177 I contacted the Moravian Gallery and it turned out that both paintings had been returned to the monastery as restitution in 1996. My inquiry to the monastery about the colour photos was not answered, so I had to make with the black-and-white photos published by Wied.

178 Inventory of Archduke Ernst‘s collection, 1595, entry published in Wied 1990, p. 223.

179 Wied 1990, p. 153.

the series – Lucas had two royal clients after all, brothers, who could compete with each other in collecting art.

From the point of view of the iconography, the painting shows the labours typically associated with March: laying the garden, digging and pruning vines. On the left foreground peasants have brought pickets for the vineyard and are unloading them - detail motivated by the needs of the activity rather than iconography. In the central foreground a worker is hammering the picket into the ground and another one to the left of him is arranging a vine around its support, perhaps also pruning it. A man of higher status (a bailiff?) is supervising the activity.

In the lowered middle ground, works in a formal Renaissance garden can be seen. The garden is surrounded by trellises twined with vines. A noble couple, apparently the owners of the castle behind, is strolling in the garden and another woman elegantly dressed is keeping an eye on the workers. A similar garden can be seen in Bruegel‘s Spring, but in another perspective, far closer and from the point of view of the onlooker standing in the middle of the works. The posture of the mistress of the garden is much more involved and spontaneous. Therefore this can hardly be the origin. In fact, the garden, or even the park, looks very abstract, with its ideal flatness and geometry of the forms. It is rather derived from perspective maps of cities, and is constructed in the strict Italian linear perspective. It can be compared with Lucas Gassel‘s The story of David and Bathsheba, which also features a formal park, but in Valckenborch‘s Spring landscape the perspective of the estate is supplementary and does not determine the general perspective of the painting. More activities are going on further away: laying a garden labyrinth, working in the orchard, carrying and transporting sacks. The boats rocked by the sea waves in the left background are reminiscent of Bruegel‘s The gloomy day, but the effect is smoothened: none of them is wrecking and the storm is localized.

Compositionally, the space is divided into three planes: the foreground is raised, the middle ground is lowered and separated from the background by the river flowing into the distant sea. The composition is dominated by a mighty tree, which sets the painting‘s vertical axis. The diagonal, that sets off the foreground, crosses the painting from approximately the middle left to the right downwards. The other diagonal is determined by the straight lines of the architectural forms of the middle ground. The depth is constructed in a number of ways. Firstly, by the tree in the foreground – a wide-spread device in Netherlandish landscape painting and frequently used by Valckenborch in his landscapes. Secondly, by the rectangular foreshortened map-like form of the estate, whose vanishing point is shifted beyond the pictorial space. Thirdly, by the colour and atmospheric perspective.

The view is given from a significantly raised angle and the resulting panorama is far too wide to be fixed by a single point of view. The high horizon and the enormous, grand panorama link the picture to the tradition of the world landscape. The vastness of the vista allows the painter show a great diversity of natural phenomena and man-made objects: trees (wild and domesticated), rocky mountains, river, sea, estate with a mansion, gardens, orchard and a vineyard, bridge, dike, village, church, castle, town with a port, ships sailing in all directions. The weather conditions are also strikingly various: clear in the foreground, cloudy above the town, dark and stormy above the sea with bright light breaking through above the horizon.

This observation leads our attention to the network of thematic oppositions. Firstly, comparing the human figures we immediately see the difference in depicting peasants and people of a higher social position. The peasants are shown in the active way: their postures are plausibly motivated by the work they are doing: unloading the cart, digging, pruning and so on. They are also actively engaged with each other: making eye contact, talking, gesticulating. The cart driver is talking to someone outside the picture‘s pictorial space; another man is waving to someone who would be on the viewer‘s side of the picture‘s plane. This way they belong to this, close and familiar world. The figure of the bailff standing in the middle of the foreground is different: he is posing, his head slightly inclined, his left hand slightly raised in a conventional indicating gesture, not motivated by the surrounding circumstances. He is holding an object resembling a rod, which suggests an attribute rather than an instrument. He seemingly belongs to a different reality, symbolical rather than actual. This opposition between socially low/vigorous posture/eye contact and socially high/static/unfocused stare recur almost invariably in Valckenborch‘s multi- figured paintings.

Secondly, the artificiality of the geometrical forms of the mansion and the formal park are contrasted with the prevailingly curved lines of the natural forms of the foreground, the bend or the river and the masses of crags on the left and in the central background; the flatness of the estate is made striking in presence of the soaring peaks. Crags, the pet subject of the Netherlandisch landscape, have lost the awesomeness and fantastical forms so often seen in works of Patinir or Matthijs Cock, though. They are still grand, massive and peaky but their grandeur is made more plausible, certainly under the influence of the first-hand observations of real mountains in the valley of the Meuse or in the Styrian limestone Alps, which were identified in many of Valckenborch‘s paintings. In comparison with the most typical of Valckenborch‘s landscapes (for example, Mountaineous Landscape, 1582, in Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, or A landscape with a smeltry and a river valley, (between 1580-1590), Collection Dr. Einar Perman in Stockholm) (Wied, 1990, Cat. No41 and No56 respectively) filled with a strong sense of man being insignificant in relation to the magnificent even intimidating nature, the share of the human organizing activity is far greater – it occupies more than half of the pictorial space.

Another striking opposition is the contrast between the space of the estate and the countryside on the one hand and the space of the town on the other. The border between them is indicated by the bridge. Everything on this side of the bridge and the fence of the estate is marked by the tranquility, stability, order, concentrated but calm activity. Everything beyond the dike and bridge separating the country from the territory of the town is dominated by the storm: the mighty waves, violently blowing sail of the ship, trees bending under the gusts of the wind, the slanting stripes of the falling rain. Even the behavior of the birds is contrasted: calmly soaring or sitting on the tree to the right of the centre (the countryside) and anxiously rushing above the town on the left.

This thematic arrangement alludes to the humanistic aesthetisation of the countryside as a temporal refuge from the troubles of the big world and the place where one can quietly refine oneself. In the Spring landscape the refinement is shown as not just contemplative repose but as active organizing of nature.

2.2.2. Summer landscape with corn harvest (July or August).

The second painting of the series shows the whole range of works associated with the summer, not just July and August: reaping, haymaking, sheep shearing, the latter far more often occurring in the illustrations of June (App.IV, June, table). Two motifs are definitely Bruegelian: fruit (apple?) harvest in the background and the group of eating peasants in the foreground are unmistakably borrowed from the Wheat harvest. The man guzzling down from his pitcher throwing back his head immediately evokes the figure in the foreground in Bruegel‘s Summer. Although it is clear that the painting shares a great affinity with Bruegel‘s painting and drawing, there are a number of significant differences. Bruegel‘s peasants are more dissolved in the landscape coloristically while those of Valckenborch are set off by the dark background of the tree and its shadow and the red accents in their clothing and the reddish tints of their tanned hands. Framed by the miniaturistically painted blackberry branch on the left and the ears of wheat on the right they are seated as if on stage, their theatrically exaggerated poses intensifying this effect. There are more peasants scattered throughout the foreground mostly in pairs: a flirting couple, a bulky man looking at an old woman patronizingly, a peasant repairing his scythe while another one is talking to him (giving advice?) – these are mini genre scenes demanding attentive observation and imagination. Their theatrical psychologism has nothing to do with the apathetic chewing of Bruegel‘s peasants.

In terms of the rendering of the atmosphere of a summer day, Valckenborch‘s painting is much cooler in its palette than Bruegel‘s warm yellows, reddish ochres and browns, the hazy silver of the horizon only intensifying the effect of the humid heat. In Summer landscape (July or August) the changeable lighting of a cloudy day is indicated by occasional spots of light that accentuate the yellow tints of the field in the middle ground and the one deeper in the valley, as well as the luminous water and the intensely lit distant field stressed by the juxtaposition with the dark silhouette of the rocky ridge.

Compositionally the Summer landscape with corn harvest has a diagonal structure, this time almost evenly divided into left-hand lower triangle of the foreground and the right-hand upper corner of the middle and background. The transition between the planes is mitigated, there is none of the sharp cut-off line of the Spring landscape (March or April). Although the ‗tricolor‘ schema of diving the planes (brown-green-blue) introduced by Patinir is preserved, the yellow of the fields in the valley and extremely gradual transition from green to bluish green, and the silvery gray of the mountains are rather uniting than separating. The vast panorama filled with meadows, fields, woods, a winding river, bridges, villages, towns, and mountains stretches to the high horizon. The obligatory mountains are relegated to great distance, so they do not dominate the landscape, deep, flat and peaceful. There is no meaningful opposition between the foreground and the background, the activity (or leisure) of the people in the foreground being integrated into the total world landscape.

2.2.3. Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (September).

The following painting of the series is drawn from a wide repertoire of Early Modern leisure activities associated with fairs. On a square pond a peculiar game can be seen: a person standing on a boat must catch a prize hanging on a rope stretched between two posts. Peasants are feasting and dancing a round dance. A peddler is selling toys, from whom a boy has probably got a hobby-horse. A group of gentry are standing in the centre, restrained and aloof, hardly

involved in all this merrymaking, they are rather observing, perhaps with an ‗anthropological‘ interest in the rustic life. In the distance on a kermis square a makeshift platform has been put up and a stage performance, probably, a rederijkers drama is going on. In a sandpit in the right middle ground a ball game is being played. The same game consisting in sending a ball (with a hand or a paddle) through a rolling hoop (or an arched gate) is depicted in Jan Sadeler‘s engraving after Hans Bol Castle with a park and in Bruegel‘s St. George Fair, etching by Johannes van Doetechum (App. VIII, 3a). Wied identifies the painting as September on the basis of De Tolnay‘s note in Pierre Bruegel l'Ancien, where he suggested that ‗le jeu de boules‘ in Bruegel‘s Wheat Harvest might be associated with September. I would like to remind that De Tolnay did not support his suggestion with arguments. Games, although often depicted in books of hours, did not have fixed relations with the iconography of the months. The game depicted in the marginal illustration of September in the Golf Book bears no resemblance to that in our painting, apart from the very general classification of ―Krocket-äniche Spiel‖.180 In both prints mentioned above if there is a seasonal reference then it is rather with spring (St. George day is 23rd April; Bol‘s courting couples could be associated with April or May, though no inscription identifies them as referring to any particular time of the year). Taking into consideration the fact that the signs of grape harvest, the most characteristic motif for September, are nowhere to be seen, the identification of the painting with this month requires evidence other than that based on the iconography of calendar illustrations. Because so much attention is given to the festivities, we must probably look for a key there. Considering how many holidays there were especially before the Reformation, each town and village having its own patron saints, it is no easy task unless the village is localized. Valckenborch‘s painting provides us with this additional key. The city on the horizon was identified as Antwerp.181 Indeed, the skyline repeats that of A view of Antwerp in winter painted from roughly the same angle only from a much closer point. The winding river on the right must be the Scheldt then, which means that our village is situated to the South of Antwerp. The first immediate association is Bruegel‘s Kermis at Hoboken, an event that in the 16th century took place twice a year, the first Sunday after the Day of Finding of the True Cross (3rd May) and the first Sunday of the Birth of Mary (8th September). The first date is out of question, but the second appears to support Wied‘s identification. It can be argued though that our painting shares only a few very general kermis motifs of Bruegel‘s picture (a stage performance, a round dance, a fight, the invariable pissing peasant) (App. VIII, 3a), while the most specific ones, like the archery contest (due to Hoboken‘s guild of archers), the fool, pigs, are not depicted. Perhaps, the reference is indeed of a general character – to local customs and to the native painterly tradition of kermis scenes.

The foreground is occupied by peasants carrying baskets of fruit and vegetables, slightly reminiscent of a similar motif in Bruegel‘s Haymaking. A woman is washing the vegetables in a fountain, two men are flirting with her, seemingly inviting her to join the festivities on the square. Another woman is arranging the vegetables neatly in a basket, probably for a market. The lower left-hand corner of the painting is a kind of still life with carrots, cabbages, cauliflowers, pumpkins, beetroots and onions. These foodstuffs, however healthy considered now, in the Early Modern period were seen as coarse, inciting lust and only appropriate for a

180 Wied 1990, p. 155.

181 Ibid.

villain‘s diet.182 This accords with the general view of peasants that is expressed in the caption added by the publisher Bartholomeus de Mompere‘s to the engraving after Bruegel‘s Kermis of Hoboken:

“Die boeren verblijen hun in sulcken feesten, Te dansen, springhen en dronckendrincken als beesten./Sij moeten die kermissen onderhouwen, al souwen sij vasten en sterven van kauwen.”

To conclude, from the point of view of traditional iconography of months we have nothing that relates our painting to September, since the only harvest that is traditionally depicted is the grape harvest (App. IV, September, table). So, it is more through the motif of the games, so widely represented in the Golf Book and Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh, that the painting can correlate with the older genre. But much stronger than calendar illustrations, the painting makes use of the Flemish genre of kermis scenes. The vegetables displayed in the foreground can be seen as a comic element invariably associated with peasants: a mockery of the allegory of abundance.

As in Summer landscape, the foreground, also formed by a diagonal, is not so strongly separated from the middle ground. In fact only a gentle slope leads to the slightly lowered plane of the village square. The perspective is unified and linear. The browns of the foreground give way to the yellows and greens of the middle ground, the horizon is blurred by soft silvery bluish grey. The nature is domesticated and ordered, it is a densely populated and built on space. The painting combines the elements of still life, genre painting, popular Flemish scenes of village kermis built into the vast perspective of the world landscape.

2.2.4. Autumn landscape with grape harvest (October).

In this painting Lucas van Valckenborch returns to the conventional iconography: the motif the grape harvest which is associated with September or October (App. IV, Sept, Oct, table). The scenes of vintage are however relegated to the middle ground. On the right the grapes are being picked, in the centre they are being pressed and on the right the casks are being filled with wine and sealed. A group of gentry are picnicking on the bank of a stream flowing between the rocks. A figure of a sleeping peasant alludes to Bening‘s books of hours. The prominent position in the foreground is occupied by a woman with baskets full of fruit and berries who is being inviteded to join the picnicking company in the middle ground by an elegantly dressed gentleman. The woman‘s clothes are different both from those of noble ladies and from those of the peasant women. Unlike the peasant women who are working she is idle, just kneeling beside her baskets. The presence of fruit and berries is motivated neither by their origin (orchard) nor by their destination (market). They are just displayed in the foreground as a kind of still life. The same clothes (and seemingly the same model) we encounter in Valckenborch‘s later market scenes, where such figures are either market vendors or personifications, or ambiguously balancing between the two. Invitation of the market vendor to join the aristocratic company is a kind of promotion of the trade and erasure of the social antagonisms. The amorous advances of

182 McTighe, p. 318.

the gentleman towards the peasant woman on the right dissolve the last marks of social inequality in the bucolic atmosphere of the perfect harmony.

Although the heterogeneity in the mode of depiction of human figures remains, it is now not determined by class anymore. The couple in the centre is depicted in conventionally rigid postures but their picnicking peers are quite animated. The frontal position of the peasant woman just stepping out from the precarious bridge seems quite unnatural compared with the peasant in the left-hand corner – bending with his posterior to the viewer, a recurring comic motif in Netherlandish painting of Bruegel‘s tradition. In these discrepancies we feel the seams of different genres Valckenborch is employing.

The composition of the Autumn landscape with grape harvest diverges from all the previously discussed paintings of the cycle. The diagonal line indicating the raised foreground does not continue, the view is frontal. The landscape‘s high degree of topographical precision was pointed out by Bredt, who supposes that the landscape had a real origin in the South Tyrol. 183 The smoothly rounded contour of the hill to the left of the centre is a rather untypical element of Valckenborch‘s landscapes dominated by picturesque wild rock formations. The rocks are shifted to the right with a castle nestling on top. Distant mountains are discerned at the horizon, suggesting the depth, but the vista is largely blocked by the hill.

In general the realistic landscape is outweighing the world landscape, still strongly felt in the previous pictures. The figures in the central part belong to another degree of conventionality and could be described as staffage if they did not indicate the theme of the cycle. It can be concluded that Valckenborch combines different genres (calendar illustrations, still life, genre scenes and allegory) that require different modes of representation. This results in a collage-like rather then integrated whole.

2.2.5. The return of the herd and the cattle sale (November).

This painting reassures us in our supposition made above that Bruegel‘s cows from his The return of the herd are destined to be sold and slaughtered and thus refer to November.184 In the foreground a herd of cows is being driven to the cattle market in the valley. They are followed by a pig herd. On the right another swineherd is heading to the market too with his herd. The slaughtering can be seen in the middle ground as well as bleeding a pig for black pudding. Another cattle market can be seen at distance on the island placed in the river mouth and topped with a castle. As the eye moves to the background, it sees a city with a busy harbor which is sprawling on a long cape. In terms of iconography this painting alludes to the tradition

183 Bredt, o. J. Ernst Wilhelm B., Die Alpen und ihre Mahler, Leipzig, 1914. P. 78.

184 The provisional title is certainly based on that of Bruegel‘s Vienna counterpart, which was also titled by art historians, therefore is, in fact, misleading: it is not the return of the herd, but a herd on its way to the cattle/meat market. The same must be pointed out about the ―The Corn Havest‖, which is often used instead of the Wheat harvest, the mistake due to a mistranslation from Dutch where the similar sounding word ―koren‖ refers to all sorts of grain. Besides, the more direct link between the motif of the herd and month November supports De Tolnay‘s identification of the months in Bruegel‘s cycle.

of calendar illustrations and demonstrates another time Valckenborch‘s familiarity with Bruegel‘s cycle, since Bruegel was the only one who chose to depict the herd on the way to the market instead of the market itself.

In this painting Valckenborch returns to the diagonal composition with a sharp, rather conventional division between the foreground and the middle ground and the far stretching background. The return of the herd is another world landscape, with the inclusion of calendar iconography and a realistically painted foreground.

A noteworthy detail can be seen on the left foreground: an elderly crippled beggar is talking to one of the shepherds who is giving him alms. This detail could also allude to the calendar illustrated with the twelve ages of man discussed above, although regardless of the linkage with a particular month since the beggar is featured there for August or September. Being given a prominent place and placed on the opposite end of the same diagonal axis as the city and the castle the figure suggests some figurative meaning of the whole painting. In the Middle Ages the images of cripples embodied all sorts of evils and sins, which is immediately associated with Boschian moralizing allegories. Perhaps, the beggar symbolizes the sin of sloth, a marginal note to the industrious and prosperous world depicted in the painting, with its shepherds, sellers and buyers on the market, and sailing ships, the symbols of trade and prosperity.185 Perhaps, the storm gathering above the sea and the town must be taken into consideration. The waters of the bay are rough and a lightning crosses the sky. So the sunlit bucolic scenes of the foreground and the middle ground are once again juxtaposed with the dangers of the big world.

2.2.6. Winter landscape (January or February).

The only labours that are depicted in this painting are carrying bundles of faggots. A cart pulled by a pair of horses is loaded with faggots, certainly being delivered to a market. Such bundles often appear in the illustration of December in the scenes of pig slaughter and roasting. This pictorial motif can also be attributed to January by continuity, since the most characteristic activities for this month are warming or feasting by the fire. In Hours of Henry VIII a servant is bringing some firewood, in Flemish Book of Hours of 1531, in Golf Book and in Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh the wood is chopped (App. IV, Jan., fig. 31, 33, 35). More often this motif is shown in February. Cutting tree branches for fire wood appears in Très Riches Heures, a French Book of Hours, Hours of Charlotte de Savoy; in another French Book of Hours from Avignon a servant is seen in the doorway with a bundle of wood for the fire (App. IV, Feb, fig. 19, 21, 22, 29). Snow is more often associated with January, the snowfall is depicted in the Hours of Henry VIII and in a French Missal of 16th century (Bibliotheque nationale, Ms. Lat. 886, fol. 4r). But it can also occur in December illustrations (Flemish Book of Hours, ca. 1500, The Fitzwilliam Maseum, Cambridge, MS 1058-1975, fol. 12v., Da Costa Hours, App. IV, Dec., fig. 34).

In winter, when most work came to a standstill, more leisure activities were depicted. January: feasting, warming, less often and rather on the margin: sledging (Golf Book, January

185 De Vries, L., p. 10.

and December App. IV, Jan., fig 35, Dec., fig. 35; Book of Hours, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Ms. 1058-1975, fol. 1v.), playing a sort of hokey (Book of Hours, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Ms. 1058-1975, fol. 1v.). December: skiing (Spinola Hours, December, The J. P. Getty Museum, Ludwig MS. IX.18, fol. 7r.), skating (Psalter, Flemish, The Bodlean Library, University of Oxford, MS Douce 5, fol. 1 v.), playing snowballs (Flemish Book of Hours, December, The Walters Arts Gallery, Baltimore, MS W425, fol. 12). Sledging and playing snowballs are present in our painting too. Thus, as we see, the motifs range within tree winter months as if combining them in one season.

This is not the most striking about this painting, though. The Summer landscape with corn harvest also combined iconography of three months and the Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest did not follow the traditional iconography whatsoever. It is the composition that makes this painting exceptional to the extent that it raises questions about its belonging to the cycle. First, it is shown much more close-up, the foreground as well as the middle ground. Although the tri-partite composition is preserved the division is strongly smoothened. The scales of the foreground and the middle ground differ only insignificantly. Although the background is blurred with the thick snowfall, through the mantle of snow we can discern the vague outlines of a gate and roofs of the houses – much bigger than it would be expected from the compositional structure of the world landscape which Valckenborch keeps to in all other paintings of the series.

Another deviating feature is the setting. Whereas the rest of the paintings are situated markedly in the countryside, the density of the dwellings in the Winter landscape suggests rather a town, or at least a suburb of a town. Thus the landscape refers rather to the new genre of winter cityscapes, to which Valckenborch paid tribute 11 years before in his View if Antwerp in Winter.

A feature that unites this painting with others is the changeability of the weather: in spite of the thick snow we can clearly see the shadows falling to the right and patches of brightly lit snow on the roof of the house on the right, under the tree on the left, on the road in the middle ground. Taking into account the density of snow, this is a remarkable and not very plausible weather condition.

2.2.7. Spring landscape with the Palace in Brussels (May).

May, the month of love, is always associated with knights, tournaments and chivalrous courtship – motifs rooted in the medieval concept of courtly love. In the Spring landscape we see couples of lovers strolling, dancing, flirting, singing, picnicking and gallantly talking – naturally about the intricacies of love and faithfulness! In the right foreground is a group of ladies seated on the grass, the central one is holding roses on her lap – an unequivocal hint at the Roman de la rose. A gentleman is lying on the grass beside and addressing her with a gesture of his hand. At a distance a tournament is held: two knights are riding at full tilt against each other. In the left middle ground an entrance to the garden of love can be seen. A lady is standing at the archway welcoming a chevalier who is falling on his knees in adoration. The function of the garden as a garden of love becomes clear from a circular fountain in the middle. A naked goddess or Nymph, who is standing in a basin supported by fauns, is spouting water from her breasts. A round island with a green labyrinth before the watergate is the so called tempietto d’amore, a common feature of Renaissance parks, symbolizing the cobweb of courtly love.

The palace in front of which the tournament is going on was identified as the Brussels palace. An anonymous painting attributed to Lucas Gassel and an engraving by Bartholomeus de Mompere have documented the palace for us the way it looked in the 16th century (App. VIII, 7a). The palace in the Spring landscape accords with them in detail. Wied recognizes also other buildings, such as the Belfry and the cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula. Despite the precision of the architectural detail, the palace is inserted into a completely fictitious landscape. The city around the palace is also rendered with great artistic liberty.

In this painting Valckenborch returns to the traditional composition of the world landscape with its three-colour scheme and the bird‘s view perspective. The closeness of the foreground is motivated by placing it on a high hill that slopes diagonally from right to left. The flat valley is stretching almost infinitely, the horizon is obscured by the silvery mist. The painting is united by a rhythm of round forms, the most conspicuous forms, those of the island and the fountain, are repeated in the curves of the river and outlines of the skirt of the lady with roses, placed on the same diagonal line and indicating her function as the personification of love.

The elevated subject is slightly diluted with comic elements, the familiar characters of the Flemish peasants or kermis scenes: a fool, an old couple and a peasant who – simple soul – remains unaware to the lofty atmosphere and relieves his nature against the wall of the garden of love. It is curious that the gesture of the fool repeats in reverse the gesture of the gentleman appealing the lady with roses. Although her look indicates her preference, this ―reflexion‖ adds a note of the carnavalesque to the general tone of courtly reticence.

To sum up, it is clear that we deal with a very heterogeneous cycle. At the first glance it seems that Valckenborch follows the line chosen by Bruegel, that is, hybridization of two genres – calendar illustrations and landscape. The landscape strongly reminiscent of Patinirian world landscape in Valckenborch is felt even stronger. What are the relations between the two in the cycle? Are they consistent or not, and in the latter case, is it random or is there a certain intention?

As we have observed, in some of the paintings Valckenborch holds to the traditional iconography, and in some combines the motifs of several months; sometimes he dissolves the iconography by including external elements or introducing new motifs, and sometimes he departs from the convention at all. His compositions are more stable but yet there is a discernible variation of them. Let us see if we can establish any consistency between them or perhaps a certain pattern. I suggest the following grouping:

To the first group belong the two Spring landscapes and the Return of the herd and the cattle sale (November). It is noteworthy that these tree paintings simultaneously are the most traditional ones in terms of the composition characteristic of the world landscape.

To the second group I would refer the Summer landscape with what harvest (July or August) and the Autumn landscape with grape harvest (October). The Summer landscape is composed of the iconographical motifs ranging within three months: sheep shearing in June, haymaking in July, reaping in August. Although the right-hand triangular segment of the 86

composition perfectly agrees with the enormous vastness of the world landscape, too much attention and space (more than a half) is given to the foreground. The eye gets distracted from travelling to the horizon but rather kept to the genre scenes displayed closer to the viewer.

The Autumn landscape combines the grape harvest and other procedures involved into vintage: treading grapes, making the casks, filling and sealing the casks. The picnicking group represents tasting wine (some people are holding their goblets up). Apart from the grape harvest, apple harvest is also included, a motif that we only come across in Bruegel‘s Wheat Harvest. Combination of motifs is a widely employed technique in later Books of Hours, especially regarding the vintage months (September and October), so it is mostly the structure of the landscape that deviates from the scheme of the world landscape. Although the horizon is high, the depth is largely blocked by the mountains of the middle ground. A higher degree of topographical precision, which inspired Bredt to identify the location, outweighs the more abstract meaning of the world landscape.

The third variation is almost complete abandonment of the traditional iconography in the Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest. Only the motif of games provides a link to some later calendars, such as those in Golf Book, Breviarium Mayer van den Bergh and Spinola Hours, where it does not have a fixed character and is always relegated to the margin. In fact Valckenborch imports a totally different genre – kermis scenes or genre scenes in the rustic setting. These scenes are played out in the space of the world landscape.

The last variation is represented by the Winter landscape and consists in using the traditional iconography (although without strict attachment to a particular month) in the spatial scheme that departs very far, if not completely, from the spatial organization of the world landscape.

Therefore we have fore types of relations:

Calendar iconography World landscape spatial organization

1. traditional traditional

2. mixed traditional with significant deviations=mixed

3. non-traditional traditional

4. traditional non traditional

As we see Valckenborch, like an alchemist, tries out every possible combination and proportion of the two genres. As suggested by the analysis, the landscapes where he remains faithful to both traditions yield more keys for symbolical interpretation, although of completely secular character. It is telling that in two of these paintings (both Spring landscapes) there is a figure that is singled out and seems to be a personification and in one of them (Return of the herd 87

and the cattle market) there are two figures that have strong allegorical connotations in the visual culture – the shepherd and the beggar. Where he experiments (but not radically) with the imagery and the space organization he arrives at an intermediate form, muffling the intellectual resonance of the world landscape and shifting the stress to the realistic elements. Perhaps that is the reason why Valckenborch places the personification in the Autumn landscape with grape harvest – as if to compensate for the lack of abstract meaning. In the Autumn landscape with the vegetable harvest placing the pictorial elements that have little or nothing to do with the convention (actually belonging to another genre) into the space of the world landscape Valckenborch reaches the ambiguous effect of the comical set off against the elevated perspective of the world landscape. Thematically, though, the painting falls out and only its formal inclusion into the series allows us to reconstruct its relevance. The painting can be perfectly viewed outside this context. This painting is the richest in the specter of the integrated genres. Using the traditional iconography in the compositionally diverging space disturbs the link of the Winter landscape with the cycle even stronger than the previous experiment. Instead, the painting acquires autonomy and can function as a winter cityscape.

As we see, in the cycle Valckebborch gives not so much a panorama of the year cycle but rather a panorama of contemporary genres. Moreover, he conducts the experiment of crossbreeding between them as if to check what the result will be like. If we see the series in the chronological order, the sequence of hybridization types is as follows: 1 – 2 – 3 – 2 – 1 – 4 – 1. Five missing pictures do not allow us to make final conclusions, but it appears that having tried out all possible combinations Valckenborch came to the conclusion that the deviations either in form or in content weaken the integrity of the cycle which must be held together by the inertia of the original genre, that is, its modification discovered by Bruegel. So, he returned to it. Perhaps not so deep philosophically as Bruegel, Valckenborch thinks rather with genres. He is more interested in the untraditional montage of the traditional forms and the produced semiotic effect. This experiment continues in his other cycles – this time cycles of four seasons – where he abandons the landscape and tries out the novel genre of the market scene.

2.3. Seasons and Markets: an urban fantasy.

2.3.1. The genre of the market scene in Flemish art of the 16th century.

The modest fact that Lucas Valckenborch explained his departure from his native land by the wish to see the fairs of Germany testifies to the fact that it must have been considered a serious excuse for being absent from work! It is clear that market as an economical mechanism and a street market as its instance gained an important role not only in Early Modern economy and everyday life but also in the culture.

It is therefore tempting and not entirely wrong to account for the emergence of the genre of market scenes by historical reasons. Indeed, the rise of the market economy over the course of the 16th century, the Flemish epitome of which was Antwerp before the Eighty Years war, had to awake interest to the new aspects of reality and could not but provoke social debate about their implications. Always doubtful, the compatibility of the market economy with Christian values became an important issue. Art had to respond to the challenge. The novel genre of market 88

scenes, which appeared in the mid 16th century, became not so much the ―mirror‖ of reality but rather the interface for the actual debate. The earliest painting of this kind, Meat Stall, was painted by Pieter Aertsen in 1551. Like in the case with the genre of landscape, the market scene (or its variation, the kitchen scene) appeared as a hybrid form, that later emancipated form the religious context and gave rise to the would-be still life. In the beginning, the genre served for communicating a moral lesson. The meticulously painted material abundance of the foreground capturing the attention of the viewer was given another perspective by the scenes painted in the background, often contrasted stylistically too. The most characteristic for this type is Aertsen‘s Christ in the House if Mary and Martha (painted in many variants by Aertsen himself and by his nephew Joachim Beuckelaer), where the antithesis of vita activa and vita contemplativa is rendered through the opposition of the palpability of the foreground and the spiritual meaning of the story visible in the opening to another room. Peasants are often depicted on the foreground whose crudeness and proximity to the foodstuffs loaded with erotic connotations associates them with sexual indulgence and purely material nature. However, this clichéd vision is turned against the self-righteous attitude and moral superiority on the part of the viewer when placed in the context of the story of Christ and a woman taken in adultery represented in the painting of Pieter Aertsen. Thus, the mechanism of perception is supposed to follow the play of similarity and difference as the eye moves from the foreground to the background and back.

Gradually, though, the genre evolved towards the weakening of the religious element, ―the balance has clearly shifted toward a prime consideration of the represented comestibles and of the behavior of the vendor figures rather than the recognition of the holy figures and an alternative path of the spiritual‖. 186 More and more the genre concentrated on representing working people in the respective locations of market or kitchen. As an alternative Joachim Beuckelaer tried to give the genre an intellectual turn and bind the materiality with the paradigm of scientific knowledge. Thus, he painted the cycle of ―Four Elements‖ that established the correlation between various foodstuffs sold on markets and the natural elements.

The materiality of the market, however morally dubious, have had a strong attraction and proved to be worth depicting. Besides, due to its synthetic character market scenes offered enough room for many kinds of other genres, as well as different modes of representation.

2.3.2. Historical and biographical context.

The last years of his life Lucas van Valckenborch turned to the genre of market scenes he had never practiced before. They are strikingly different in content and spirit from the landscaped months with their aristocratic participants clearly aimed at the high audience of the archduke and his court. The later paintings have ―moved‖ to the middle-class urban setting. It can hardly be an accident that this new turn coincides with Lucas‘s move from the archduke‘s court in Linz to Frankfurt where he plunged into the atmosphere of big prosperous cosmopolitan

186 Silver, p. 98.

metropolis, one of the biggest European trade centres. Frankfurt of the late 16th century was an imperial free city, famous for its fairs. The wave of protestant emigrants from the Spanish Netherlands appeared to be a favourable stimulus for its economy: they brought with them their wealth, their business skills and contacts with the international network of Flemish traders. Economically Frankfurt came to remind Antwerpen of the mid 16th century, with the exception of its art market. Flemish painters could profit from the situation since the demand was high while the competition from the weak local tradition was low.

Another telling similarity between Antwerp of the mid 16th century and Frankfurt at the end of it was pointed out by Elizabeth Honig, namely the paradoxical discrepancy between the real practice and the social conceptualization of it: ―the local power elite changed from the old ideal of ―merchant-knights‖ to a modern noncommercial patriciate <…> Thus in Frankfurt, as in Antwerp, a situation arose in which a society was dependant on trade and exchange for its exceptional well-being and yet chose to repudiate the values of commercial practice‖.187

In this situation Lucas van Valckenborch turned to paintings about the market and set in the street market. On the one hand he drew on the tradition he was familiar with it from his Antwerp years. Some motifs he used in his paintings are slightly reminiscent of the moral issues raised by Pieter Aertsen. On the other hand, Valckenborch‘s paintings are strikingly different. They are completely purged from the religious subtext of Aertsen. They are much more formal in structure, the chaotical profusion of food in the foreground is replaced with neat, almost scientific arrangement of foodstuffs: one type per a container. If Aerten‘s types looked like real people, Valckenborch‘s types are formalized to the utmost.

It is not only the Flemish tradition that Lucas could be aware of. In fact, while Valckenborch was in service of the archduke, the genre of market scenes gained international popularity and was exported to Italy where it was transformed into the more realistic and less allegoric direction than its Flemish counterpart. Yet, as Sheila McTighe brilliantly demonstrates in her article, market scenes also become a semiotically intensely loaded form, a point of intersection of socially important discourses.188 Living in the city situated on the crossroads of East, West, South and West Europe, Lucas van Valckenborch could become familiar with this Italian trend and taken it into consideration.

Yet, the most immediate affinity in structure and the mode of representation enable us to assume that Valckenborch‘s variation of the genre is indebted to Jean-Baptiste Saive, who painted the cycle of six paintings with market scenes combining two months of the year each (App. VIII, fig. 8, 9). The series was commissioned by archduke Ernst, the brother of Valckenborch‘ patron, for his sister Maria in 1590. Compositionally Saive‘s ―July and August‖ contain both structural elements that organize the two variations of Valckenborch‘s seasons: an urban street and the conventional space of the vendor‘s stall. The two roundels with the illustrations of the months Valckenborch turned into two window-like openings flanking the central figure of the vendor.

187 Honig, p. 133.

188 Mc Tighe, pp. 301-323.

2.3.3. Market scenes and allegories of seasons.

Nine paintings of Lucas van Valckenborch loosely termed as ―market scenes‖ came down to us. Hana Seifertová has established that the earliest of the paintings belonging to this genre dates from 1592. It is A scene with vegetables and fruit (Sommer) from Schloß Častolovoce, painted in Linz (App. VIII, fig. 9). Wied presumes that this scene belongs together with Vegetable and poultry parket (Autumn) (1594) (App.VIII, fig. 10) from Wassenaar, which seems to me unlikely on compositional grounds. He accounts for the difference of 14 cm in the height by assuming that was a piece was cut off on the top of the first painting. Indeed, the pointed roof and the top of the tower at the background do look cut off, but so is the roof in the Summer from the Witt Library, London, that has a similar composition and uses the same model for the man as in A scene with vegetables and fruit. According to Wied, these two paintings may have belonged to an incomplete series. If this is correct then the first series under consideration is:

A scene with vegetables and fruit, 165x235, 1592, Častolovice (App. VIII, fig. 12);

Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn), 179,5x235, 1594, Wassenaar (App. VIII, fig. 10).

Seifertová suggested that ―The four large pieces on canvas with four anni temporibus‖ from the inventory of Archduke Ernst in 1595 do not refer to the paintings from Vienna and Brno discussed above but to these pictures, which means that another two have been lost.189

Other six market scenes were painted between 1595 and Lucas‘ death in 1597. As their measurements are range within 7cm both in height and breadth their grouping in cycles is rather hypothetical. Wied divides them the following way:

Spring, 1595, 125x186, Collection Fischer, Sweden (App. VIII, fig. 11);

Summer, ?, 120x195, Slovenska Narodna Galeria, Bratislava (App. VIII, fig. 15);

Autumn, ?, 122,8x192,5, Slovenska Narodna Galeria, Bratislava (App. VIII, fig. 15);

Fish market (Winter), 1595, 123x191, Collection Fischer, Sweden (App. VIII, fig. 16).

The third cycle is again incomplete:

Summer, ?, 118x185, private collection, Germany (App. VIII, fig. 17);

Fish market, ?, 120x190, Collection Bogaert, Antwerp (App. VIII, fig. 14);.

And the last one is only represented by one painting:

Meat and fish market, ?, 122x188, Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (App. VIII, fig. 18).

For the sake of analysis, I suggest another grouping - based on compositional affinity. The paintings in question overtly break up into two types. Those that are explicitly played out in

189 Seifertová, p. 337.

an urban setting and involve customers can be referred to Type I. And those that are set in an ambiguous, very conventional space and feature no customers I will discuss under Type II. It is interesting that both types stem out the earliest cycle.

2.3.3.1. Type I: market scenes proper.

Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn), Wassenaar, Jochems‘ Collection;

Fish market, Sweden, Fischer‘s Collection;

Fish market (Winter), Antwerpen, Bogaert‘s collection;

Meat and fish market, Montreal.

The Swedish and the Canadian paintings are almost identical with the exception of a few details.

As suggested by the titles, all these paintings have an explicitly designated setting, a market. Moreover, it is an urban market, not a spontaneous makeshift village market. There are more or less permanent stalls, the foodstuffs are sorted, the depicted human figures are clearly divided into the vendors and customers. The market scene is built into the perspective of a town, with its high buildings, streets, city wall, city gate, and a river. Compared with the countryside landscapes the river is never winding: it is aligned and limited within its man-made stone banks, bridges, and walls. Nowhere does the river lead the eye to the horizon. In fact the horizon line is always blocked by the buildings. The cityscapes have a markedly linear perspective, set by the straight lines of the architectural forms. The city is identifiable. Seifertová established that the street in Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn), Fish market (Fischer collection) and Meat and fish market is St. Leonhardkai in Frankfurt, if freely rendered.190 The earliest of these scenes, Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn), still keeps the memory of the calendar illustrations. At the background the wine market and cattle market are depicted, which allude to vintage associated with September or October and November with its fattening of pigs and cattle markets scenes. In the other paintings Valckenborch abandons the archaic iconography and replaces it with more fashionable scenes of ijspret: skating in frozen river can be seen in all the three winter scenes.

The market scenes occupy the foreground. The foodstuffs are favorably displayed and finely painted. In several segments Wied recognizes the hand of Georg Flegel, a friend and the assistant of Lucas van Valckenborch, who often painted still life elements for him. Thus, the peaches and apples in the autumn scene are executed with much greater precision than the green and red grapes the vendor is holding. In all the paintings of this type two women, a younger and an older, dressed appropriately to communicate their higher status of well-off burghers, are shopping. The postures are highly artificial. Even when the situation of the scene requires action their gestures remain extremely conventional: a slightly raised hand designating speaking or holding the handle of the basket with no curvature betraying the weight of the burden. Their eyes are (with one exception) averted, heads very upright or very slightly inclined. Such wooden posture contrasts with more natural attitudes of the low-class figures of the market sellers (again,

190 Seifertová, P. 337.

with one exception). The ―naturalness‖ of these latter figures is relative: they hardly make eye contact with others either, they are mainly separated figures not connected by any hint of a narrative.

The two exceptions, mentioned above, occur in one and the same painting, namely in the Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn), which is why I would like to consider it separately. The ―characters‖ are an old man sitting in the right corner and an old ugly woman in the left, both seemingly of peasant origin; the two middle-class women (a mother- and a daughter-in-law?); a young vendor, and a young man dressed as an urban dweller, high-spirited, both figuratively and literally (=drunk), who is holding up an exquisite silver vessel from which he has filled the bowl he is holding out as if offering to join him drinking. He is the most animated figure of the scene and the only character whose look is turned in the direction of the viewer. The woman, who is standing immediately in front of him and could be the addressee, pays no attention, she is looking at the vendor, who in her turn is looking not at her client, as one would expect, but at the old man. This zigzag way of not answered looks leads us to the only eye contact within the scene: between the old man and the young vendor. The man is showing her a hare holding it up at its hinder pads. This gesture must be meaningful otherwise the point of the painting misses us. The hare itself is an ―odd one out‖ because it is a fruit and poultry market, no other game can be seen.

The gesture, the animal, the fruit, the wine, and even the postures of people‘s bodies are a text, obscured to us by ages, but for an Early Modern viewer immediately decodable since it is woven from the actual discourses of food, body and proverbial language.

Holding the hare (or a rabbit?) at his hind legs the old man exposes the animal‘s genitals to the girl at the stall, that is, implying something erotic. The girl‘s response is hard to tell, her face is unexpressive. Perhaps her gesture provides more information? She is holding up a bunch of grape but the direction is quite ambiguous: it seems to be meant for the client but the girl is not looking her way, her hand is loitered indecisively, the sprig of the grape bunch pointed towards the young man. The delay could explain the gesture of the client: her bent fingers can suggest impatience. Appeal to the proverbial language so common for the Netherlandish painting and the vogue for collecting proverbs in the 16th century makes it tempting to interpret the grapes in the light of the proverb ―De druiven hangen te hoog‖. These proverb and its variants ―De druiven zijn zuur‖/ ―De druiven zijn te zuur, zei de vos, maar kon er niet bij‖, etc. stem from an Aesop‘s fable dealing with the unattainability of the desired object which makes the desirer alter their belief about this object into its reverse (sweet into sour). The girl could be saying to the old man, ―I am ―too high‖ for you‖.

―Too high‖ can be interpreted not only in terms of age but also in terms of social position. The girl appears to be balancing between the two social strata. She is wearing peasant clothes, which indicate her background, but she is working at an urban market and perhaps has aspirations for a social promotion. This supposition is strengthened by the way she is depicted (static, uncharacteristic, markedly different from the realistically painted peasants), which, as has been mentioned before, is employed by Valckenborch for differentiating socially superior characters. Another hint at the difference between the girl and the peasants in the foreground is her proximity to ―fine‖ foodstuffs for the elite (grapes, apples, pears) whereas they are sitting

amongst baskets of onions and nuts, not only crude in nature, according to the contemporary dietological theories, but also predisposing to excessive sexuality.191 One of such theories based on the idea of ―low‖ and ―high‖ food as the ―natural‖ basis for social inequality was expressed in Pisanelli‘s treatise ―Trattato della natura de‘ cibi et del bere‖ only five years before Vaclkenborch painted this scene . The book gained international resonance and was translated into many languages. What is even more relevant for us is that Valckenborch‘s Itaalian peers were actively appropriating these ideas in the genre of market scenes, constructing social identities through images of foodstuffs and body. Living in Frankfurt, he might have been aware of the recent trends in the South.

Unlike in the Italian painting of the same genre, the vendor is not ―provocatively posed‖.192 The eroticism here is of another kind, it is subdued and hidden in the conventional symbolism of the surrounding foodstuffs. For example, the relation of the grapes the girl is holding to the wine the young man is drinking could hint at the erotic relation between two figures because wine was believed to incite lust. In the language fruit are often used for erotic metaphors. About the apples and pears the popular Netherlandish wisdom says, ―Als een appel/peer rijp is, valt hij (vanzelf), (al is het ook in een moddersloot)‖.

Going back to the gesture of the peasant, we could consider another interpretation. It might designate not only a crude manner of courting, but his sexual right on the girl as his wife. Unequal marriages were not only widespread but were a big topic in matrimonial philosophy since Erasmus and a big topic in visual arts. The sadness of the girl can be then explained by her unfulfilled sexual and social desires. The birds in the cage refer then to her being locked by the wedlock, and the message of the grape bunch can be turned to herself, her desires are as sweet as inaccessible. This supposition seems less far fetched if we compare it with the twin paintings with the fish market and Autumn from Bratislava where this theme is designated more overtly.

One could go on infinitely about the intricacies of the fruit erotic symbolism, after all visualizing autumn presupposes the appeal to fertility. But what is important in regard to the ―genre memory‖ is that the images of the moths, depicted at the background, import the network of mutual correlations between things: between the ages of man and the times of the year (in which context the ages discrepancy between the girl and the man is emphasized); between the foodstuffs and the humors (which was also the basis for the dietary theories).

As far as the other market scenes of Type I is concerned, the occupations of the months give way to the images of ijspret, the time of the year is represented through the weather conditions and foodstuffs: meat and fish for winter. Indirectly fish could refer to Pisces, the sign for February and the carcasses of pigs could allude to the pig slaughter in December. Peculiar for these paintings is the antithesis between realistically painted objects in the foreground and psychologically plausible postures of the fish-mongers or butchers on the one hand and the marked wooden attitude of the two invariable female figures clad in black to such an extent that it becomes comic. Hints of erotic nature are present here too. A fish-monger from the Montreal

191 McTighe.

192 Ibid, P. 304.

market scene is holding up a fish (a common symbol for the male organ) showing it to the older lady. The stealthy smile of the fishmonger‘s son and the gesture of the lady as if saying ―Shame yourself!‖ support this guess. The bunch of onions in the hand of the younger lady in the ―twin‖ paintings might be hinting that she is on the look-out for sexually potent foodstuffs (for her husband?) and her melancholic look must suggest that she has not succeeded so far.

2.3.3.2. Type II: allegorical representations.

A scene with vegetables and fruit, 1592, Častolovice

Spring, 1595, Sweden;

Summer, ?, Bratislava

Autumn, ?, Bratislava;

Summer, ?, Germany

If the market scenes of Type I play around the figurative meanings of things referring to the issues of social reality, the paintings belonging to Type II are explicitly allegorical. The setting can be hardly called a market. Although the central female figure is seated among the baskets with fruit, vegetables or flowers, but there is no hint at the real urban setting. There are no customers and she is not a vendor, the commercial aspect, present in Type I, is discarded. The background is obscured by abstract darkness, employed to set off the elaborate floral composition. On the table in front of which the figure is placed a still life is arranged. Baskets, copper buckets, wooden tubs are filled with vegetables or fruit painted with subtlety and photographic precision characteristic of Georg Flegel‘s hand.

With the exception of the earliest Scene with vegetables and fruit the composition is similar: the central dark, coulisse-like segment is flanked by two openings. The left gives on a landscape with the labours of the months (haymaking for summer, vintage activities for autumn and strolling in the garden for spring). In the left opening a garden can be seen: a Renaissance formal garden with a gallery around belonging to a castle or a mansion, with a couple strolling along the geometrical paths. Only in one case (Autumn from Bratislava) it is an orchard and an additional occupation is shown, namely, the apple harvest.

The central figure is depicted in a very conventional way. She is purged of all the characteristic features and facial expression: it is pure allegory of the season. Her gestures are utterly reserved. A basket of already peeled beans on the knees of the woman in the Summer and her hand in the bigger basket scooping the bean pods suggest that she is engaged in the activity of peeling. But the amount in the pealed beans does not fit with only a few pods on the floor, which makes it clear that all these vegetables are simply attributes of summer. Whereas in Type I the vendor was a mediator between the countryside and the city and thus referred to some social and economic reality, now it has become the personification of nature.

The ideal character of the allegorical figure is contrasted with the grotesque figure of the peasant carrying the basket. He is stooped, his toothless mouth is half open, his face with the hooked nose is wrinkled and covered with gray bristle, his look is sharp and expressive. He 95

belongs to another semiotic semiotic space and another genre than the allegorical figure. He comes from the Bruegelesque peasant scenes. Even a more recognizable type from the peasant dance scenes is represented in Autumn from Bratislava, the bulky coarse redneck… with an unexpectedly sad look in his eyes. The woman, dressed in far more refined clothes is pointing at him with reproachful ―look-at-yourself‖ look in her eyes. The peasant seems to be ashamed of his coarseness but he is ready to give the fruit of his work to his betters. This looks less allegorical in than others because it clearly deals with the antithesis between urban refinement and peasant vulgarity, to a lesser extent than with the allegory of the autumn.

At this point we should raise a number of questions: How do these types relate to the genre of market scenes, to the genre of the calendar illustrations and to each other?

For all the play with issues of class and sex, the moral suspicion about the market raised by Aertesen is strangely missing, or at least strongly suppressed. What we do not see on these markets is money exchange. People are giving and accepting things as they were gifts. Elizabeth Honig accounts for it by the desire to relieve the moral tensions by representing the market not as a socio-economic phenomenon but a natural one. The scenes of the labours of the months are integrated because they irradiate the patriarchal, pre-commercial values. A similar device is employed in the Shepherds‘ Calendars, whose rigidity, conventionality and abrupt transitions Saive‘s and Valckenborch‘s compositions remind. The almanacs were produced for urban dwellers and tradesmen and the archaic iconography served not only to integrate the urban life into the natural cycle, but justify the commerce through it. By implication the urban consumption was naturally, that is, unproblematically, bound to the agricultural production as two stages of a natural cycle.

Yet, some indications of the tensions of the market are still to discern in Valckenborch‘s market scenes of Type I. Although the money exchange is not shown, there is a disquieting effect in the artificiality of the foregrounds, cut off from the backgrounds submerged into the natural weather conditions, especially evident in winter scenes with their veils of snow. ―Valckenborch‘s scene assures us of the abundance of the autumn harvest and of the eagerness of farmers to provide for city folk, but its final effect is of claustrophobia and consumer confusion. The woman‘s baskets and hands are full, yet still one reaches for more‖, comments Honig on the Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn).The chronotopos of the market automatically brings about the anxieties associated with it and encoded by the previous stages of the genre. That is why Valckenborch decides to dispense with it whatsoever and this is how he arrives at Type II. There are no more stalls or kiosks, there no more customers, there is no sign of a street or a market square, while the rural images and occasionally aristocratic villas with the patriarchal peasant labour/noble leisure repertoire of the calendar illustrations return. Goods here are not to sell and buy, they are the gifts of nature, a fantasy of the rural idyll of donation. It cannot be by chance that this motif is also present is Valckenborch‘s Spring landscape with an elegant company (Wied 1990, Cat. N 90) where aristocratic merrymakers receive gifts from

peasants and a woman very much like the one in Spring from Fisher‘s collection is receiving flowers from a girl.

It is interesting that both types are mixed within one cycle:

Cycle I Cycle II Cycle III Cycle IV

Type I A scene with Spring Summer vegetables and (Collection of (Germany) Fruit Fischer) (Častolovice) Summer (Bratislava)

Autumn (Bratislava)

Type II Vegetable and Fish market Fish market Fish market poultry market (Winter), (Winter), (Montreal) (Autumn) (the (Fischer‘s (Antwerpen, Hague) collection) Bogaert‘s collection)

Strange as the relation of the allegorical pendants to urban commercial scenes might seem, there is a strategy to it: they provide the solution to the disturbing issue of the market. ―The naturalization of the market is effected by turning it into a world of offering and acceptance rather than selling and buying. Lucas attempts to resolve the tensions of transforming nature as production into nature as consumption by erasing commercial realities behind the latter proposition. His goal is not so much to view the older cycle of nature in terms of the urban market as to present the market as part of the older cycle of nature, with its attendant class- structured myths‖.193

To conclude, it can be stated that Lucas Valckenborch as an artist highly conscious of the genre and its memory, uses it to construct the meanings actual for his audience and shared by himself. The elements of the genre of calendar illustrations keeping the ―genetic memory‖ of the correlation between the human life and the natural cycle of the year are employed by the artist to neutralize the serious social implications of the market. In fact they endow the market with the

193 Honig, p. 138.

bliss of the bucolic idyll, camouflaging the economical mechanism of production and consumption with the allegory of the natural abundance of which country and town both partake.

3. Maarten van Valckenborch.

Like his brother Maarten van Valckenborch repeatedly turned to the theme of the months. Being primarily a landscape painter he often used calendar iconography as supplementary motifs. Pasturing sheep, grape harvest, vegetable harvest, gallant picnics are recurring topics for the landscape staffage. He also painted cycles of the months. Unlike those of Lucas, his paintings are scattered throughout private collections and are often not traceable. That is why I would like to concentrate on two cycles, one rather representative of his oeuvre and the other one rather exceptional.

3.1. A love for pastoral: the early cycle of the months.

The first cycle Alexander Wied refers to the early period of Maarten‘s oeuvre but does not date it. In Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, where the Landscape with wheat harvest is kept, the painting is dated ―after 1580‖.194 From this cycle only two paintings (oil on oak panels) have come down to us:

1. Landscape with a draw bridge and sheep shearing, 43x59cm, undated, monogrammed M/VV, collection of L. Jacobs van Merlen, Antwerp, (App. IX, fig.1);

2. Landscape with wheat harvest, 43,5x61cm, undated, monogrammed, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede (App. IX, fig. 2).

Two paintings are documented as sold in an auction in 1929 in Dortmund and the last time seen in Berlin, namely:

3. River Landscape with Haymaking, 43x60cm (App. IX, fig. 1 );

4. Landscape with Grape Harvest, 43x60cm, (App. IX, fig. 2).

Of these two paintings there are only small black and white photographs, which, however, allow us to discern the activities and get a general opinion about the style.

Although only four paintings have been tracked, it is clear that the cycle was meant to consist of twelve paintings, even if not all of them were executed. The iconography is traditional: the first painting without doubt can be identified with June, in Flemish tradition often represented by sheep shearing. Wied is in two minds about Landscape with wheat harvest

194 ―Landschap met oogstende boeren‖, dossier, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede. The reasons for such dating are not given.

whether to identify it as July or August, which I find too cautious since we have other two paintings with very traditional iconography for summer months: sheep shearing for June and haymaking for July, so the third must be August, if we assume that the paintings belong together at all. The measurements and the affinity in the style appear to support this. The fourth painting shows grape harvest and treading the grapes, so it must refer either to September or October. In the middle distance ploughing can be seen, which again can be associated with both months: September (Da Costa Hours, Hennessy Hours, App. IV, fig. 34, 37) and October (Très Riches Heurs, Hours of Henry VIII, App. IV, fig. 18, 29). Perhaps we should give preference to the two Flemish sources.

What strikes in these paintings is the wide range of activities involved in a particular ―labour‖. In Landscape with a draw bridge and sheep shearing the sheep are being driven from the pasture, carried to the water, washed, and then sheared. The wool is collected into baskets and uploaded onto a boat. In the middle distance on the left there people standing precariously on high ladders are plucking cherries (?) from a tall tree. Every peasant does his or her task in their own characteristic way. The woman in the left foreground has laid the sheep on the ground and is shearing the animal professionally, with confident movements, while the man is stooping awkwardly over the sheep, trying to hold it with an elbow because it does not want to stand still. The foreground is made prominent by a mighty tree rising to the top edge of the picture and stretching out its branches over the best part of the foreground.

In Landscape with wheat harvest the reaping peasants are shown in different stages of their work: just raising the scythe, swinging it and slashing the wheat ears. One of the reapers is sitting down to repair his scythe. A woman in the foreground has bent to bind a sheaf with her rear turned the view, but there is no jeering note in her pose. The work is shown as noble and enjoyable. Some peasants are grouped in the shadow of a big tree to have a bite or take a nap – the motifs of Bruegel‘s Wheat harvest. The man drinking from a jug alludes to Bruegel‘s Summer but his pose lacks excessiveness and a good-humoured smile of the woman next to him takes the jeer away from the viewer. The man sleeping under the tree has curled and is not exposing himself. Only one figure, placed certainly deliberately at the central axis (slightly to the right) in the pose alluding to Bruegel‘s Land of Cocaigne, is contrasted with the surrounding atmosphere of the earnest activity. There are two other scenes that allude to the marginal leisure activities in books of hours. Several naked figures can be discerned in the deep shadow of the trees between the water mill and the castle, one of them swimming in the clear water of the river. In the village, a group of peasants are resting under a pergola twined with vines in front of a tavern.

The warm atmosphere of the late afternoon is rendered through the colour scheme. The saturated ochre imprimatura glows through the translucent layers of paint and provides for the tonal unity of the painting. The glazing technique is applied in the segment with the wheat field where the mass of the wheat is suggested by the glaze while separate wheat ears are designated by more opaque and pastose strokes of lighter yellow and darker ochre. The imprimatura also shows through the silvery greys of the sky producing the effect of the evening lighting. A range of cooler bluish greens (verdigris-based?) slopes slightly from the right middle to the left separating the intense red-gold foreground from the warmly lit silver of the background. Occasional reds of the peasants‘ garments, a typical Flemish recipe for the staffage, is present 99

but mitigated in the warm palette of the surroundings. In general the style of the painting is freer and a lot more suggestive compared with the rigorous precision of Lucas van Valckenborch.

Both landscapes are set in a rather flat landscape, lacking the picturesque mountains of Lucas van Valckenborch. Low hills smoothly slide to the river and stretch out to the horizon. The other bank of the river is higher, the cliffs rise from the water and the walls of a castle are as if growing from the rock formations. The cliffs do not dominate the landscape and do not rise above the horizon. The horizon is relatively low - only slightly above the middle of the pictorial surface. The depth is constructed through the devise of the binding river flowing into the sea and through the atmospheric perspective. The mountains, towns and the sea of the background are submerged in a haze and appear dreamlike, almost irreal compared to the palpable reality of the foreground and the middle ground.

Both paintings are permeated with the spirit of Georgics. They construct a fantasy of a city dweller about the countryside. However the boat loaded with wool in the Landscape with a draw bridge and sheep shearing the sheep must be heading for the town with its manufactures and trade, the eye is captured the charm of the near landscape and is not encouraged to travel to the direction of the city and even less so to ponder about the issues of the village production and urban consumption.

3.2. The Biblical cycle in Vienna: genre inversion.

The almost complete cycle of 11 paintings, with only December missing, is monogrammed M/VV but not dated. Franz argued that it was painted in the 1580s.195 So it belongs approximately to the same period as Lucas‘s series of months landscapes now in Vienna and Brno. Through his brother Maarten may have had customers at the court of archduke Matthias. Before 1765 when the series moved to Vienna, it was in the Habsburgs‘ Castle in Graz. Further back the cycle is not traceable in documentation but it is easy to imagine that it could be bought or even commissioned by a high client, perhaps the archduke himself. All the paintings belonging to this series are now in Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The paintings are much bigger format (all the paintings measure 86x123cm) than the previous series. The peculiarity of the cycle is that the months are illustrated through the stories from the New Testament, the relevant book and chapter are indicated on the top of the painting. The stories are brought into connection, more or less ingeniously, with the labours of the months. The sign of the zodiac appears in a little halo above. The cycle, with the indication of the monogram and indication of the book/chapter from the Bible, goes as follows:

January (Adoration of the Magi), M/VV, MAT. CAP.2;

February (Flight into Egypt), M/VV, MAT. CAP. .;

March (Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard), MAT. CAP. 20;

195 Franz, p. 141.

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April (Noli me tangere), M/VV, APRILIS IOHAN. CAP. 20;

May (Parable of the Lilies in the Valley);

June (Sheep shed and Jesus as a Good Shepherd), M/VV;

July (Feeding of Five Thousand), M/VV, IVLIVS.IOHAN.CAP. 6;

August (The Sabbath Controversy), M/VV, AVGVSTVS/MAT.CAP. 12;

September (Parable of the Seeds), M/VV, MAT.CAP. 13. SEPTEMBER;

October (Parable of the Wicked Tenants), OCTOBER MAT: CAP.21;

November (Parable of the Prodigal Son), M/VV, NOVEMBER. LVCAE.CAP.15.

Since the exact dating is not established, it is not therefore clear whether Maarten van Valckenborch came to the idea himself or might have been inspired by the cycle of prints ―EMBLEMATA EVANGELICA‖ made by Adriaen Collaert after Hans Bol in Antwerpen in 1585. Hans Bol, Valckenborchs‘ collegue from Malines and later in Antwerp, moved to Amsterdam in 1584, so he must have made the drawings some time before. The correlation between the stories (also from the Old Testament) and the months is different, as well as the iconography for each month. Therefore, if there was an influence either way, it was at the level of the general idea. Both Protestant refugees, Valckenborch and Bol must have had strong beliefs and a wish to discuss them.

Although connecting the iconography of the months and Biblical stories in the pictorial series of twelve months was a novelty, the idea itself was not so original after all. Diverse activities depicted on the margins sometimes accompanied sacred texts (e.g. Luttrell Psalter) or in paintings devoted to sacred subjects, like for example, Patinir‘s Flight to Egypt in Prado, where wheat harvest, ploughing and sowing are depicted at the background. The calendars were originally integrated in books of devotion: breviaries, psalters, books of prayers and books of hours. Astonishing as it may seem, in contrast to pagan calendars (e.g. Codex-calendar of 354), Christian calendar illustrations never showed liturgy, religious processions and festivals, they are confined to purely secular occupations. But it does not mean that they remained divorced from the surrounding context. Every calendar page embellished by the illustration of the month and the sigh of the zodiac contained the days of the saints and other ecclesiastical holidays for each month. In this context calendar illustrations despite their secular character were inevitably associated with the facts of the holy history. The cyclical concept of time provided a counterpoint to the Christian linear vision of time. On the other hand in the ultimate perspective of eschatology, the creation comes back to the Creator, thus completing a circle. So, in the long run the contradiction of cyclicity and linearity is resolved. Besides, biblical discourse with its metaphors and similes often based on comparison with agricultural practices cultivated the cognitive mechanisms that facilitated quick transitions between the concrete and the abstract.

Having been removed from it medium, calendar illustrations still kept the sings of the holistic thinking characteristic of the Middle Ages. Their constant companions, the signs of the zodiac, reiterated the correlation between the human life and the universal order. But this order 101

acquires more and more profane character. Almanacs discussed the influence of stars on the body, the diet for a certain season and morality along with the dates of fairs, currency exchange and the like. The link with the sphere of the sacred was therefore steadily weakened. The popularization of the subject and its application in all sorts of media continued this process. McLuhan‘s expression ―the medium is the message‖ can be applied to the situation: the new media gave the old subject another meaning.

In his cycle Maarten van Valckenborch makes an attempt to reconstruct the broken link by visualizing it. Let us try to follow how he does it.

January is illustrated by the story of the three Magi (Kings) from the East who came to pay homage to infant Jesus. In most West European Churches the holiday commemorating this event - Epihpany, Dutch variant Driekoningen - falls on the 6th January. The association with the month is therefore immediate. The reference to the festivities is made through the paper crowns the children in the background are wearing. The children are warming by the fire, which in its turn refers to the traditional iconography of the months. Besides, since Bruegel‘s Adoration of the Kings in the Snow, Census in Bethlehem and the Massacre of the innocents these subjects were often placed in a snowy landscape. There is no snow in Maarten‘s January but the cold palette of the lavender blue ice on the river, grey-blue sky with the setting sun, dark clouds coming from the right and barren trees conveys the atmosphere of an icy cold day. In the other paintings though the weather conditions become irrelevant or accidental. It is obvious that it is not the intention of the artist in this cycle to portray the nature and its seasonal changes.

For February Valckenborch chose one of the most popular subjects in religious visual arts, the Flight into Egypt, the final episode of the Nativity of Jesus or one of the episodes in the cycles of the Life of the Virgin. There is no exact reference to the month in the story, except for the sequence of events: Herod ordered to murder the infants in Bethlehem, the holy family were warned by the angel and fled. Logically thinking it could not have taken too much time: Maria and Joseph would have returned to Nazareth. In visual arts, though, the link with the time of the year is usually omitted. The subject is often set in a lavish landscape presenting nature in full swing. Sometimes apocryphal miracles are included, such as the miracle of the wheat field, which we see in Patinir‘s Flight into Egypt from Prado: the wheat which was only being sowed miraculously grew to full height to conceal the tracks of the holy family from the pursuing soldiers.196 None of such miracles are depicted in Valckenborch‘s painting. The massacre of the innocents is depicted in the middle distance on the left: soldiers are breaking into the village houses, a couple are running away trying to rescue their children. On the right, on the contrary, everyday life is going on and everything is very trivial: some women, very small in scale, are carrying bundles of faggots to warm their houses and a tiny figure of a man working in a vineyard (pruning? cutting branches?) is hardly discernible in the distance. The allusion to the labours of the months is made almost imperceptible.

The colour scheme is much warmer here: the warm ochre and yellow hues of the foreground melt into the soft greens and grays of the background. The light of the rising sun is glowing behind the hill illuminating the landscape. Only the barren tree in the foreground

196 Silver, p. 32.

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indicates that the season for green is yet to come. Mary sitting on the donkey is painted in the idealizing style of Italian Madonnas. Joseph is a more mundane figure: under his quasi-historical piece of drapery one can discern less historical attire of a contemporary Jewish merchant. The wide-rimmed hat completes the impression. Valckenborch has given him a saw as an attribute. The recognizably Flemish village of the background and slightly ―modernized‖ appearance of Joseph suggest the parallelism of the sacred history and ―the everyday reality‖.

March is represented by the parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. Since pruning the vines is March‘s most wide-spread motif the connection is motivated by the narrative itself. Some people are shown already engaged in this activity, some are just on the way, as it must be according to the story. What distinguishes this painting from the previous ones is that the laborers are active participants of the story and not just staffage. Three peasants are painted on the same scale as the landowner. One of them is placed in the foreground talking to the landowner and the other two are just beginning to descend to the vineyard in the valley. They are holding their instruments and are dressed in contemporary peasant clothes. The landowner on the contrary is wearing historicized attire. This anachronism is made prominent by placing the representatives of the two different semantic layers in the foreground and establishing contact between them. The two worlds do not run parallel as in the previous two paintings but intersect and communicate.

April is illustrated by the episode following burying of Christ when Mary Magdalene went to the tomb but did not find the body there. When she was weeping Christ appeared to her but told her ‗Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father‖. The crosses on the distant mountain and the angel in the open tomb expand the temporal reference of the story. The link to the month is motivated by the timing of the Easter which mostly falls on April. In the middle distance two peasants are digging soil, a motif appropriate for March, but further on a sheepfold can be seen, which belongs to the iconography of April. Although the village is recognizably Netherlandish, the round or octagonal ziggurat-like stepped tower at the background, behind the Calvary, represents the Temple of Jerusalem the way it was imagined then. The figures of Mary and Jesus are much bigger than those of the workers, the abrupt drop in scale is not motivated realistically, the distance between them is not so big. It is rather for the reasons of the semantic emphasis that the figures of the sacred history are magnified. They are also distinguished by their clothes, in model and colour symbolism appropriate for the Biblical narration. The composition, the poses and the clothing are strongly reminiscent of the Italian Cinquecento, e.g. Noli me tangere by Fra Bartlomeo (c.1506) from Louvre (App. IX, fig. 6a). Adding the digging peasants Maarten again juxtaposes the earthly and the sacred and shows them as happening simultaneously.

May is a month of aristocratic leisure and courtship in a ―garden of earthly pleasures‖, a decisively inappropriate subject for the purpose. Therefore Maarten chose one element of the garden, flowers, and ―transplanted‖ them to the wilderness to link them to the parable of the Lilies in the Valley. Jesus is pointing to the flowers while talking to a group of apostles surrounding him. The landscape forming the background against which the figures are standing is executed in the spirit of rustic landscapes, showing the charms of the countryside: a small castle, a village house with a wooden attic, a cow at the edge of a winding stream, beautifully painted trees soft hills melting at the horizon. The flowers of the parable and the biblical group 103

stand out in the surrounding painted in a totally different style: the flowers however meant to be ―wild‖ are displayed as if in a still life and people are painted in the style of the Italian mannerism. Again, we deal with two realities (―sacred‖ and ―everyday‖) rendered through two different modes of depiction.

For June, the month of sheep shearing it would be impossible to find a better subject than the parable of the Good Shepherd. Hans Bol used the subject for July, which is quite strange because it is not typical for the Flemish tradition; the only source where sheep shearing is used to illustrate July is Très Riches Heures. This painting has a remarkable structure diverging from the previous ones. The figure of Christ is removed from the foreground to the middle distance and slightly diminished in scale compared to the figures in the foreground. The foreground is occupied by the peasants washing and shearing sheep. They are shown as assistants of Christ, the Good Shepherd who is leading his sheep over the little bridge to this side of the river. Although the difference in the garments is preserved the shepherd‘s hat worn by Jesus is echoed by the hat on the head of the central figure of the peasant carrying a sheep. This detail stresses the parallel and makes it extra clear that we deal with the device of realized simile: Jesus says, ―I am the Good Shepherd‖ and we see good shepherds who are taking care of their sheep. The little bridge functions as equality sign between them. Washing sheep in the river may hint at baptizing. It is telling, too, that the landscape is homogenous and the transition between Christ and the peasants easy and smooth. Without doubt, the earthly occupation is meant allegorically: its spiritual meaning prevails over its outward look.

July features the typical occupation of haymaking which functions as a visual parallel to the Biblical story of the miracle of the Feeding of the Five Thousand, a story about the vision blinded by material preoccupations. Therefore the painting is compositionally divided into two equal parts flanking the central group consisting of Jesus, a group of Apostles and a child with the basket with barley breads: to the left is the crowd of people receiving bread and to the right is a meadow with mowers. To understand the relation of these two segments we must concentrate on the details.

Apart from the peasants engaged in mowing there are others that are sleeping or eating. Further on, at the edge of the meadow a hay cart is can be seen, at the horizon a city is lying sprawled on a cape, a silhouette of which reminds the silhouettes of Antwerp in Lucas‘s paintings. It is certainly not the topographical, but symbolical features of the city that are at stake here. Wied, who recognizes the typical Netherlandish character of the Flemish port town, on the mall he notices also ―einen Kran in jener – eine Kanone ähnelden – Bauart, wie er auch beim Turnbau zu Babel von P. Bruegel d. Ä. In Wien vorkommt‖.197 On the left, at distance a crag can be seen with the silhouette of a castle as if growing from the rocks, visually placed symmetrically to the town on the right.

The reference to the Babel Tower, the symbol of the earthly hubris, irradiates its symbolical meaning over the upper right segment of the painting, to which the town and valley belong. The hay wain, a seemingly logical element of haymaking, becomes contaminated with the symbolism of the Babel Tower. As a result its allegorical meaning of material interests which

197 Wied 1990, p. 258.

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was strongly codified in the visual culture of the 16th century shows through its realistic motivtion. The town‘s left antithetic correlative is the castle, and the valley is juxtaposed to the field where the miracle is in progress. But do all the people who witness the miracle understand its meaning? This is what Jesus stressed talking to the crowd that followed him to Capernaum ‗Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves‖ (John, 6:26). Of all the people Maarten depicted on the field only one – whose astounded face is placed precisely in the centre of the composition - appears to understand. All the rest are just busy eating or distributing food, surprised at the most. Perhaps the differentiation between vision/blindness correlates to working/sleeping in the right segment? If not for the figure of the sleeping peasant the mowers would be integrated into the space of the earthly matters, but this tiny detail demands differentiation. Their opposition alludes to Proverbs 10:5, ―A child who gathers in summer is prudent but the child who sleeps in harvest brings shame‖. The context of the New Testament suggests that the field is meant allegorically in the spirit of Paul‘s letter to Corinthians, ―So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labour of each. For we are God‘s servants, working together; you are God‘s field‖ (1 Corinthians 3:7). The mowers must be then interpreted as those who have seen and understood and are now working on God‘s field, while the witnesses who remained blind the inner meaning of the miracle are no better than the sleeping peasant. The diagonal that runs through the face of the enlightened apostle (Philip?) connects the mowers to the castle on the rock and the crowd of Five Thousand to the town on the right. The painting is strongly reminiscent of Patinir‘s antithetic compositions and makes use of some pictorial motifs associated with his formula: the opposition of the cultivated land and the wilderness, the castle on a crag symbolizing the limited accessibility of the Heavenly Jerusalem and hardships of the ―narrow path‖.

August is the harvest (oogst) month. Therefore it is an appropriate setting for the episode when Jesus‘s disciples plucked the heads of grain and were blamed by the Pharisees for trespassing Sabbath. Jesus reminds them that ―The Sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath‖ (Mark 2:27) and that love for God stands above the letter of the law. The three Pharisees are depicted on the left with their attributes: the Torah and the white piece of parchment with scriptures bound to the forehead, the symbol of hypocrisy and ostentatious piety. The twelve disciples are climbing a steep path through the wheat field. In the valley at the right background and on the hill on the left the harvest is in progress. A cart of hay is driven to a barn on the utter left. Nothing however suggests the meaning of this pictorial element in the sense of the previous painting, here it is merely a part of the harvest. The metaphor of the harvest is often used in both Old and New Testament to denote requital (Jeremiah, 51:33) and the Judgment Day (Revelation 14:16) when the wheat will be separated from the chaff (Matthew 3:12) or when the weed will be separated from the good grain ―Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn‖ (Matthew 13:30). Thus, the image of the harvest in the painting hints at the destiny of the true and untrue faith.

Working in the field acquires in the New Testament also the meaning of the dissemination of the Word, the work intended for the apostles: ‗The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his 105

harvest.‘(Mathew 9:37-38). The same metaphor Paul often uses in his letters (e.g. Romans 1.13; Galatians 6:9). In this sense the field designates the potential believers Jesus and his apostles are to convert.

To illustrate September Maarten van Valckenborch chose the parable of the seed, and made a link to the iconography of the months through the motif of sowing (ploughing, harrowing). Like in June, Jesus is shifted to the middle distance. Christ is preaching on the boat to a crowd of people, while the foreground is given to the figure of the sower. It is a story- within-a-story played out in the familiar surroundings of Flemish countryside with a hamlet, fields and a dike. At the background two cities can be seen which may be interpreted as a reference to Augustinian City of God and the City of Man, analogous to the meaningful structure if the whole cycle: the antithesis and coexistence of the two histories, sacred and human.

In the middle distance a field is being harrowed and further on another sower is at work, perhaps illustrating a different soil where the seeds of the parable fall. The minority of the seeds that fell on good ground and brought forth grain and the majority that did are parallel to the citizens of the City of God and the City of Man. The figure of the sower is certainly an allegory, the analogy of Christ, but through its realism connected to the hamlet in the middle ground. Therefore the sower unites the two parallel realities. As a side effect the image of the peasant, traditionally depicted in a caricaturistic way, is elevated by the allegory.

October is illustrated by the parable of the wicked tenants: the vineyard of the story provides an easy link to the vintage motif typical for this month. Like in the previous painting, the story-within-a-story structural device is used. Jesus is talking to a Pharisee in the middle distance while the workers in the vineyard are walking in the foreground. In the lower right-hand corner the wicked tenants are murdering the servant (or the son) of the landowner. The labourers walking in the foreground and the peasants carefully collecting the grape harvest are the tenants who will be given the lease instead and ―who will give him [the landowner] the produce at the harvest time (Mathew 21:41). This chapter in Mathew contains other parables with the message that the repentant outcasts of the society deserve Heaven while those who are self-content in their righteousness will be rejected. Again, however allegorically meant, the usually pejorative image of the peasant is endowed with the dignity due to the Biblical metaphor.

In November the parable of the Prodigal Son is wittingly integrated into the iconography of this month through the traditional motif of feeding of the pigs. The Prodigal Son, who out of starvation had to hire himself out to feed pigs and would be glad to eat their food, is depicted kneeling at the tub from which the pigs are eating with a gesture suggesting contemplation. In the middle distance the succeeding episode is shown: the father is embracing his regained son. To celebrate this event the father ordered to slaughter a calf, which also fits with the iconography of November, however less traditional, but established by Bruegel – the return of the herd. Indeed, a herd of oxen is descending from the mountain into the valley. People cutting the branches of the trees on the right are a strange element. It is absent in the story. In terms of iconography it is quite rare, archaic and rather used in architecture (Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun, France ; mosaic pavement in the Cathedral of Otranto, Italy). Perhaps, it should be interpreted in the light of the Biblical text. Because the parable of the Prodigal Son is meant to illustrate the God‘s forgiveness of the sinners as opposed to His condemnation of the outward righteousness

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(the second son) expressed in the words of John the Baptist, ―Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ―We have Abraham as our ancestor‖; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire‖ (Luke 3:8-9).

The organizing principle of the cycle is the juxtaposition of two realities, the sacred and the human. To visualize these parallel realities, Maarten van Valckenborch employs different mode of depiction of the figures. The Biblical characters are not only dressed differently but are also characterized by another ―body language‖, their postures are stylized in Italianate manner whereas the peasants are strongly reminiscent of the Flemish tradition with an active, sometimes grotesque demeanour. The clichéd postures of the Biblical figures made Franz suspect another hand in the big figures in the whole cycle on the grounds of their stylistic incongruity.198 Wied does not agree and explains the figures conventionality by the lack of skill in Maarten, ―Die Figuren sind zwar ausdrukzam, schablonenhaft, unbeholfen – Marten was offenbar kein maler der Figuur, noch viel weiniger als Lucas‖.199 Comparing them with the small scale figures in the Feeding of Five Thousand Wied comes to the conclusion that they all belong to the same hand. I cannot agree with this patronizing assessment of both painters. Lucas was employed by archduke Matthias precisely because he was good in portraits, including the full-length ones. Two portrait of the archduke he painted in 1579 proves that he deserved this high opinion. However statically posing as it is expected from the gala portrait Matthias is shown as a live young man with a haughty, even a little boyishly arrogant face – far more live than Lucas‘s wooden aristocratic staffage in his landscapes. There are no portraits or large scale figures known by Maarten but a lot of other multi-figured paintings, in particular The Babel Tower from Castle Gaesbeek (Wied 1990, Cat. N 38) that shows workers in a great diversity of most natural poses required for all kinds of physical work, testifies to the fact that the conventionality of the Biblical figures was not the lack of skill but the requirement of the semiotic structure of the cycle. Just like Lucas in his landscaped cycle of the months Maarten plays with the different semiotic levels. The figures of the sacred history are represented in the Italianate style with its repertoire of attitudes and poses, very much like those on the altar- piece with Annunciation, Adoration of the Shepherds and Crucifixion attributed to Maarten (Wied 1990, Cat. N 45). The peasants belong to a different reality than the heroes of the Biblical narratives. The difference in clothing and rendering the body codifies the semantic distinction.

Juxtaposition of the two realities does not imply their antagonism, though. As has been observed above characters of the two layers sometimes come in contact (March), ―borrow‖ clothing accessories from the other layer (February, June) or symbolically represent the other layer (the sower in September, the peasants shearing sheep in June). The labours of the months function in a number of ways: as a neutral background for the Biblical story (January, February, April), sometimes they are the characters of the Biblical parable (workers in the vineyard,

198 Franz, P. 141.

199 Wied 1990, p. 238.

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swineherd (Prodigal Son), as the visualized metaphors (sower, shepherds, harvesters), sometimes their role in the painting requires interpretation (mowers in July). The elusive, not fixed relation between the outward form and the meaning thematizes the idea of Augustinian two cities, whose citizens live among each other and are not to distinguish by the human eye.

Although Maarten van Valckenborch does not resort to the spatial structure of the world landscape, the painting of this cycle share its the visual rhetoric: the spectator is required not to perceive the painting as a the whole, at one glace, but to focus on the details, however miniscule, and ―read‖ the painting as a text, that is, successively: travelling from one to another and contemplating the meaning of each individual detain and their connections, and extracting a lesson, the viewer repeats the ―life‘s pilgrimage‖.200

From the point of view of the genre, the classification of the cycle as relating to the calendar genre is questionable. It has its formal characteristics such as the twelve pieces even explicitly named after the months. The figure twelve in the context of the evangelical parables attracts Biblical associations with this number (e.g. the twelve apostles, the twelve Israel) which can trigger further interpretation. The cycle features the traditional iconography of the labours of the months. Nevertheless, the man with his work does not exist their for the sake of representing the cycle of the year. His role is either supplementary or is filled with another, metaphorical meaning. It is difficult to judge how consciously the link between the calendar illustrations and their religious context in psalters and books of hours was felt. Having originated from the pagan world these pictures retained their close bondage with the agricultural year and the natural cycle. Their relation with the Christian context where they were assimilated was intricate, rather contrapuntal then parallel, but at any rate implicit, kept to the subtext, no thematized visually. Making the religious subtext overt Maarten van Valckenborch undermined the autonomous value of the months illustrations. He was probably aware of the effect and reintroduced the signs of the zodiac, which remind of the holistic system of analogies and the circular model of the time. But they are at odds with the main theme in the cycle because it refers to the final Judgement and the end if time, i.e. to the linear model of history. In the eschatological perspective images of the months fade away and lose their real sense. Perhaps this is the implication of the cycle, but then it should be considered as another genre.

200 Falkenburg 1990.

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CONCLUSION.

The brief historical sketch outlined by this study does not claim to be comprehensive or exhaustive. Nevertheless it enables us to draw a number of conclusions.

The genre of calendar illustrations fulfilled the function of the visualization of the concept of time which is not only special for every culture but is also connected with a whole system of other concepts. As a result the change in one segment of the system causes changes in the other. We have seen that with the transition to Christianity the calendar illustrations endured a gradual but drastic transformation and this is how the medieval genre of the labours of the months was born. The agrarian society that produced it needed the reassurance of the stability of the universe ruled by the planets and bound by ubiquitous analogies. The calendar was thus not only the representation of the agrarian cycle but the system of the medieval knowledge. Over the course of the time the illustrations of the months proved to have a capacity to integrate a wide scope of other meanings. They came to reflect the social hierarchy, if in an idealized form; it provided the model for comparison with the cycle of human life; it gave room to the aesthetic view of nature that appeared in the Late Middle Ages as a result of urbanization. In the 16th century the genre was repeatedly put on trial in its most characteristic features, such as its serial character, the central place of man occupied with work/leisure, its rather stable iconography. It stepped out of its traditional medium of the devotional books into the profane context of almanacs, print series, applied arts and so on. It was grafted to other genres which significantly blurred its borders. The most productive appeared to be its hybridization with the landscape undertaken by Pieter Bruegel. But the diminished scale of man, the play with the iconography, blurring of the divisions between months had a serious impact on the content of the genre. In Bruegel‘s masterpiece it ceased to be the ingenuous illustration of the year cycle and became a multi-faceted text demanding interpretation.

Nature, which appeared as late as the 15th century in calendar illustrations in the form of the background landscape became the primary focus of attention. The increased degree of realism was combined with the idealization of the countryside as an image of the patriarchal values. Humanists, which aspired to identify with the antiquity, cultivated the rustic repose and otium as an ideal setting for refining one‘s soul. The landscapes with the seasonal works were seen through the prism of Virgilian Georgics celebrating the Golden Age of which husbandry was a reminder.

Not only landscapes but also other genres appealed to the rustic idyll. In his market scenes Lucas van Valckenborch attempted to account for the problematic socio-economic reality by binding it to the agricultural cycle with its imagery of the patriarchal pastoral, undisturbed by the market economy.

Maarten van Valckenborch‘s Biblical cycle reveals the triteness of the genre and the need to fill it with more abstract content. This approach correlates with another direction in which the calendar illustrations developed – the allegorization of the calendar imagery. The cycles of the months became more and more obsolete because it was not the concrete occupation that was interesting but an abstract idea. For that purpose the seasons served better. The peasant women, like those in Lucas‘s allegorized market scenes, come to represent not the work but the

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abundance of nature and remind more and more Classical goddesses. The trope of personification characteristic of the Classical poetics in general and of the illustrations of the seasons in particular once again came in handy. It is tempting to compare the cycle of the genre development with the cycle of the year that reached it send and returned to its beginning. The collective monograph ―De Vier Jaargetijden‖ shows the development of the genre up to the 18th century. We can observe two major directions in which this development went: realistic landscape and allegory. Occupations of the months are occasionally present but they are no more the major bearer of the meaning. Such transformation of the genre is a logical consequence of the industrialization of the society and its emancipation from the agricultural cycle.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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GHENT UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ARTS AND PHILOSOPHY

THE CYCLE OF THE YEAR: THE GENRE OF CALENDAR ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINS TO LUCAS AND MAARTEN VAN VALCKENBORCH.

VOLUME II: APPENDICES

A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the By Nadya Lobkova Requirements for the Degree 00902394 Of Master of Arts in Art Science Master in Art Science at Ghent University Academic Year 2009- 2010. Promoter: Prof. Dr. M. Martens

119

VOLLUME II

APPENDIX I.

APPENDIX II.

APPENDIX III.

APPENDIX IV.

APPENDIX V.

APPENDIX VI.

APPENDIX VII.

APPENDIX VIII.

APPENDIX IX.

120

APPENDIX I.

1. The Zodiac Man. Très Riches Heures du Duc 2. Hours for Rome use, France, Kirchheim de Berry. Chantilly, Musée Condé, Ms. 65, fol. (Alsace), ca. 1490 (almanac 1490-1508), printed 14v. by Marcus Reinhard, Pierpont Morgan Library 32528.1 [ChL 578], f. π2r.

4. Astronomical calendar, Medical miscellany, England, London 1490 or 1491. British Library, 3. Medical miscellany 15th c., Germany, British Egerton 848, fol. 22. library, Arundel 251, fol. 46.

121

APPENDIX II.

CODEX-CALENDAR OF 354.

Romanus 1ms., Barb.lat 2154, Vindobonensis ms., MS 3416, Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Copy 1620 Vienna Copy ca. 1500-1510, region of Nuremberg JANUARY

122

FEBRUARY

MARCH

123

APRIL

MAY

124

JUNE

JULY

125

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

126

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

127

APPENDIX III.

Table 1. Iconography: 9-11th centuries.

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec MS. Gr. 1224, P* P Warrior Flower – Flower- P P P Gathering Blowing horn Falcon P Vatican Library, (shield, spear bearer bearer (basket of (scythe? (fruit: grapes (cowherd?) Hunting? (forked 9th c. , helmet) fruit) sheaf?) Melons?) stick) MS. Gr. DXL, Killing hogs warming Shepherd Flower- Flower- Reaping Threshing Quenching Vintage: Catching Plowing? Sowing Library of St. carrying a bearer bearer thirst gathering birds? Mark, Venice, lamb grapes 11th c. MS. 387, warming Figure with a Figure Figure Flower- plowing Mowing reaping sowing Gathering Killing hogs Staatsbibliothek, large bird: holding a pointing to a bearer (holding grapes, filling Vienna, before hunting with bird and a blossoming scythe as an casks 830 falcon? snake tree attribute) Martyrology of Killing hogs warming P P Flower- P mowing reaping _ P Man leaning warming Wandalbert, MS. (figure Figure bearer (nude (figure on a staff Reg.lat.438, cloaked and holding twigs holding holding vines) (shepherd?) Vatican Library, hooded, objects: and blowing Rome, 9th c. holding scoutge?flail? (or drinking fishes-pisces) stalk of from) a horn wheat? MS. Janus-figure Care of vines Pruning vines Flower- P Some land P P P sowing Cutting wood Killing hogs Theol.lat.fol.192, (with a bearer Figure amidst cultivation (Man (man with a (man holding a Saatsbibliothek, sword) flowering (weeding?) carrying a sheaf of cup) Berlin, 10th-11th shrubs or scythe) wheat) c. trees MS. Theol.231, P Pruning P Flower- Flower- P P P P P P P Göttingen, (old man vines Figure with a bearer bearer (unidentified (figure with a (figure with a (figure (unidentified Figure holding (figure Universitäts- holding a basket/sack/ object) scythe) sheaf) carrying vines attributes) an axe and carrying bibliothek ,ca. hatchet and a vase? with grapes) three sticks limed 975 book(?) sticks(?) and a sling(?)) Calendar of St. warming pruning Galloping on Flower Pasturing Raking up Reaping Putting hoops Gathering Testing new Buying hogs Killing hogs Mesmin, MS. a horse, bearer horses hay on casks grapes wine Reg. lat.1263, blowing a (figure Vatican Library, horn drawing wine Rome, early 11th from a cask) c. MS. Acq.e.doni warming fishing Extracting Flower P Reaping Threshing Plucking fruit Treading Vintage: Plowing Killing hogs 181, Laurentian thorns bearer (figure grapes filling casks Library, holding a Florence, 11th c. rake) MS. Cott. Julius Plowing and Pruning Digging and feasting Sheep- Cutting wood mowing reaping Feeding hogs Hunting with warming threshing A. VI, British sowing vines raking the tending falcon 128

Museum, soil, sowing London, 11th c. MS. Cott. Plowing and Pruning Digging and feasting Sheep- reaping Cutting wood mowing Feeding hogs Hunting with warming threshing Tiberius B.V., sowing vines raking the tending falcon British Museum, soil, sowing London, 11th c feasting

*‖P‖ stands for ―personification‖.

Table 2. Iconography: 12th-14th centuries.

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Germany

MS. Feasting Cutting wood Pruning Digging Training or Ploughing Mowing Reaping Vintage Sowing Threshing Killing hogs Landsdowne (+warming) grafting vines 381, British Musem, London, 1175-1185.

MS. Of Gutta Feasting? (a _ Digging Flower-bearer Music- Mowing Reaping Reaping Vintage - - - and Sintram man with a making, (indirect: (indirect: of Marbach, dish and a carrying a a carrying two Library of the staff) A woman bundle of hay. sheaves and a Episcopal with a yoke) Seminary, peacock Also a bowl Strasbourg, as reference 1154 to drinking)

MS. Hist. Hunting hares Cutting wood Pruning Care of vines Catching Plowing Mowing Reaping Sowing Vintage Killing an ox Killing hogs fol.415, birds (indirect: man (sharpening a (gathering (?) ―Chronicon carrying a scythe) grapes) Zwifaltense plough on his

129

minus‖, Kön. shoulders; Öffenbare Bibliothek, A cup as Stuttgart reference to thirst)

England

Lead font, Two-faced Warming Pruning Flower-bearer Rider with Mowing Raking up Reaping Threshing Vintage: Feeding hogs Killing hogs church, Janus holding falcon hay treading Brookland, a loaf and a grapes Kent. horn

Du Bois Tree-faced Digging Pruning vines Man carrying Rider with a Weeding Mowing Reaping Plucking Killing Knocking Warming feet Hours, Janus, two green falcon grapes animals down acorns, at the fire England, drinking and twigs, (hogs?) with feeding hogs 1325-1330, bear/wolf at bowing a an axe (Ms. M. 700 horn the Pierpont background Morgan Library) Stone font, A man warming digging pruning Figure with a Weeding Mowing Reaping Threshing Vintage: Killing hogs Feasting church, drinking from banner filling casks Burnham a horn (procession or Deepdale, journey?) Norfolk

Italy

Baptismal Janus-figure Figure, Extracting Flower Rider Reaping Threshing Munted man Vintage Gathering Ploughing Killing hogs font, National mutilated thorns bearer(?) (hunting?) (treading fruit (?) Museum, grapes) Florence

Cathedral of Warming Cooking: Extracting Pasturing Care of vines Reaping Threshing Vintage: Vintage: Ploughing Cutting wood Killing hogs Otranto, roasting a pig thorns goats or flower picking and treading (also some mosaic bearer (?) pressing (?) grapes attributes: a pavement, grapes sack? A horn? 1160s, Italy A flask in the man‘s hands) (testing wine while he is 130

supposed to be cutting wood?)

MS. 1137, Warming Fishing Extracting Flower-bearer Rider with a Reaping Threshing Gathering Vintage: Storing wine? Ploughing Killing hogs Vienna, thorns sword fruit treading (a man with a Hofbibliothek grapes wineskin over his shoulder)

France

Reliefs on Feasting and warming pruning Pasturing Rider leading Gathering Mowing: Threshing Treading Feeding hogs Gathering Killing hogs rchovolt of warming goats his horse fruit sharpening a grapes (also a faggots portal, Autun, (figure by the scythe reference to Cathedral St. fire cutting gathering Lazare bread grapes)

Reliefs on Feasting Warming Pruning Flower-bearer Rider with Mowing Reaping Binding Vintage: Feeding hogs Killing hogs Feasting archivolt of falcon sheaves (also treading ―Royal reference to grapes Portal‖, threshing – a Cathedral flail) Chartres

Reliefs on Feasting: a Warming pruning Pasturing Warrior and a Mowing Reaping Threshing, Vintage: Killing hogs One figure Feasting archivolt of figure with a (getting goats nude figure gathering carrying portal, loaf and a undressed in dancing Boxing the grapes another on his Vézelay, Ste. knife the warmth?) grain shoulders Madeleine (Old and New Year?)

Jan Feb Mar Apr May June July Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Fig.1. Archivolt of portal, Vézelay, Ste. Madeleine.

131

Fig. 2. Archivolt of portal, Vézelay, Ste. Madeleine, detail.

132

APPENDIX IV

JANUARY

IX-XIV centuries.

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. 2.The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol. 3v

3. Archivolt of the tympanum, the main Portal (inside 4. Archivolt of the tympanum, West Portal, the narthex), Basilique Ste-Madeleine, Vézelay (West Cathédrale St-Lazare, (Burgundy), 1130-1135, Burgundy), 1100s, France France

133

5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, 6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, Italy. Choir, South wall, bay 2, early 13th c., France.

7. Psalter, Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , 8. Book of Hours, France, Paris, between 1230 and Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 1v. 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 015r.

9. English Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1250, 10. Psalter, Bruges, 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.103 fol. 4r Library, MS. M 106, fol. 1r

134

11. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 1r. 12. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 1v

13. Psalter, France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 2r

14. Psalterium, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.l2]-2

135

16. DuBois Hours, England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 5r

15. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.72 fol. 001r.

17. Breviary, France, Paris, 1350-1374, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 1r. 18. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 1r

XV-XVI centuries

136

19. Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.1v.

20. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont 21. Book of hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420- Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 1r 1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 2v.

137

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy. France, Paris, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 1r.

24. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. France, Langres, ca. 1465, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. G. 55, fol. 2r.

23. Book of hours. France, Provence, ca. 1440-1450, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 1r.

25. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, perhaps Burgos or Segovia, Spain,1465-1480, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. 854, fol. 2v. 26. Hours of Anne of France. France, Bourges, ca. 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677, fol. 1r

138

27. Book of hours, perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M.285, fol. 1r. 28. Book of hours. France, Avignon, ca. 1485-1490, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 348, fol. 9r.

29. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 11.

30. Book of Hours, the Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy, the Louthe Master, and the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, Flanders, Ghent or Bruges, ca. 1500, Cambridge, Harvard University, Houghton Library MS Typ 443.

139

31. Hours of Henry VIII, France, Tours, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 1r.

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

32. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca 33. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., Marciana. München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 2v.

140

34. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 2v.

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, 36. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Add.24098, fol.18v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 1v

141

37. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 1v/2r.

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Allegorical figure Warming by the fire Feasting (eating/drinking)

pure +eating/drinking simple Two- or three- faced Janus.

1/37 9/37 13/37 3/37 10/37

Including additional motifs:

-fetching fire wood, Henry VIII Hours:

-chopping wood, Hennessy Hours)

2.7% 59.5% 35.1%

142

FEBRUARY

IX-XIV centuries.

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, 2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol.4v.

3. Archivolt of the tympanum, the main Portal (inside 4. Archivolt of the tympanum, West Portal, the narthex), Basilique Ste-Madeleine, Vézelay (West Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy), 1130-1135, Burgundy), 1100s, France France

6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass,

Choir, South wall, bay 2, France,13th c. 5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, Italy,1160s.

143

7. Psalter. France, Paris, after 1228 and before 1247 , 8. Book of Hours. France, Paris, between 1230 and Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 2r 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 15 v.

9. Psalter, England, Reading, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont 10. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 4v Library, MS. M 106, fol. 1v

12. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 1v 11. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 1v

144

13. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 3r

14. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.13]-2

16. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 5v. 15. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.72 fol. fol. 1v

145

17. Breviary, France, Paris, 1350-1374, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 1v. 18. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 1r XV-XVI centuries

19. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.2v.

146

20. Book of hours, France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420- 21. Book of Hours, France, Paris, ca. 1420, Pierpont 1430. Pierpont Morgan Library MS M. 27, fol. 3v. Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 2r

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy. France, Paris, ca. 1420-1425 MS M.1004 fol. 1v.

24. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. France, Langres, ca. 1465. Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. G. 55, fol. 3r. 23. Book of hours. France, Provence, ca. 1440-1450, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 2r.

147

25. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile, Spain, perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont 26. Book of Hours, France, Besanc on, ca. 1470, Morgan Library, Ms. 854, fol. 3v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.0028, fol. 001r

28. Book of hours, perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M.285, fol. 2r. 27. Hours of Anne of France. France, Bourges, ca. 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library MS M.677 fol. 1r

30. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 29. Book of hours. France, Avignon, ca. 1485-1490, 13. Pierpont Morgan Library , MS. M 348, 10v.

148

31. Hours of Henry VIII, France, Tours, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 1v.

32. Book of Hours, the Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy, the Louthe Master, and the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, Flanders, Ghent or Bruges, ca. 1500, Cambridge, Harvard University, Houghton Library MS Typ 443.

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

33. Breviarium Grimani, Gerard Horenbout, Alexander & Simon Bening, ca 1510, Biblioteca Marciana, Venice.

149

34. Da Costa Hours. Bruges, ca. 1515 Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 399, fol. 3v.

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, f.19v 36. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M.451 fol. 2r.

150

37. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 2v/3r.

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Catching Warming Cooking** Allegorical Pruning*** Hunting Cutting Fishing Digging Feasting Skating bitds by the figure trees/ fire* (woman with (a) Chopping candle(s) wood

1/38 16/38 4/38 3/38 6/38 1/38 2/38 1/38 2/38 1/38 1/38

2.6% 42 % 10.5% 7.9% 15.7% 2.6% 5.2% 2.6% 5.2% 2.6% 2.6%

*Due to its popularity this motif gradually began to involve other secondary motifs such as feasting (alone or with guests, dance and music) or eating a simpler meal, chopping and bringing wood for the fire, spinning.

**Cooking always occurs by the fire so this motif adjoins the previous one.

***I included the marginal motif from the Hennessy Hours here, whereas the major illustration recto shows hunting.

151

MARCH

IX-XIV centuries.

4. Archivolt of the tympanum, West Portal, Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy), 1130-1135, 3. Archivolt of the tympanum, the main Portal (inside France the narthex), Basilique Ste-Madeleine, Vézelay (West Burgundy), 1100s, France

5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, 6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, th Italy. Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13 c., France.

152

8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 16r. 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 2v

9. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 5r 10. Palter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 106, fol. 2r

12. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan 11. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270 Pierpont Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 2r. Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 4

153

13. Psalterium, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.l4] -3

14. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 15. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 2r M.700, fol. 6r.

16. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 2r. 17. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 3r.

154

XV-XVI centuries

18. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.3v.

19. Book of hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420- 20. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont 1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 4v. Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 3r 155

21. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, France, Paris, ca. 22. Book of hours. France, Provence, ca. 1440-1450, 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 3r. fol. 2r.

23. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. France, Langres, ca. 1465. Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. G. 55, fol. 24. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, 2r. Spain, perhaps Burgos or Segovia, Pierpont Morgan Library, 1465-1480 ,Ms. 854, fol. 4v.

25. Book of Hours, France, Besanc on, ca. 1470, 26. Hours of Anne of France. France, Bourges, ca. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.0028, fol. 2r 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M.677 fol. 2r

156

28. Book of hours. Avignon, France, ca. 27. Book of hours, Perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, 1485-1490, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS. M.285 M 348, fol. 12r.

29. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H- 338GW 12953], Bildnr. 15.

30. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 2r.

31. Book of Hours, the Ghent Associates of the Master of Mary of Burgundy, the Louthe Master, and the Master of the Dresden Prayerbook, Flanders, Ghent or Bruges, ca. 1500, Cambridge, Harvard University, Houghton Library MS Typ 443.

157

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

32. Breviarium Grimani, Gerard Horenbout, Alexander & Simon Bening, ca 1510, Biblioteca Marciana, Venice.

33. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 4v.

158

34. Da Costa Hours. Bruges, ca. 1515 Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 399, fol. 4v.

35. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 3r/4v.

159

36. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, f.20v. 37. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M.451 fol. 2v.

Golf Book, recto, base-en-page

160

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence. extracting extracting pruning/ digging* Cutting Carrying Plowing Sowing Blowing Drinking snakes thorns branches/ faggots horn wine(?) care of vines trees

1/46 1/46 17/46 11/46 5/46 3/46 3/46 2/46 2/46 1/46

2.1% 2.1% 37% 23.9% 10.1% 6.5% 6.5.% 4.3% 4.3% 2.1%

*In later books of hours more than one motif are combined, thus digging can be the major as well as a marginal motif. I include all of them and calculate the percentage from the total number of motifs.

161

APRIL

IX-XIV centuries

6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, th 5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13 c., France. Italy.

162

8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol.16v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 3r.

9. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont 10. Psalter, Bruges, 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 5v Library, MS. M. 106, fol. 2

11 Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan 12. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Library, MS. M. 440, fol.2v Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 5r

163

14. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan 13. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 2v Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 2v

16. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 6v.

16. Psalterium, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.l5]-3

164

17. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 4r. 18. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 2v.

XV-XVI centuries

19. Très Riches Heures de duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.4v

165

21. Book of Hours, France, Paris, ca. 1420, Pierpont 20. Book of hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420- Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 4r 1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 5v.

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy. Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 23. Book of Hours. Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 4r.

25. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. Langres, France, ca. 1465, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. G. 55, fol. 26. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, 2r. perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. 854, fol. 5v.

166

28. Book of hours. Perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.285, fol. 4r 27. Hours of Anne of France. Bourges, France, ca. 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 2v.

30. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 17.

29. Book of Hours, Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 348, fol. 13v.

31. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 2v.

167

Books of Hours from the Workshop of Simon Bening.

33. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca 34. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., Marciana, fol. München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 2v.

168

35. Da Costa Hours. Bruges, ca. 1515 Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 5v.

36. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 4r/5v.

169

37. 38. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol.3r. 37. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, fol. 21v.

Golf Book, recto, base-en-page

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

170

Flower- or Pasturing Strolling in a Personification Catching Pruning Hunting with branch- goats/sheep** garden birds falcon bearer*/

Picking flowers/

Making a wreath

23/40 9/40 4/40 2/40 2/40 1/40 1/40

57.5% 22.5% 10% 5% 5% 2.5% 2.5%

*The more archaic motif of a flower-bearer is later motivated as picking flowers and making a wreath or both.

**Sometimes includes also milking a cow.

171

MAY

IX-XIV centuries

6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France. 5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, Italy.

172

8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 17r. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 3v.

9. Psalter, France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270 10. Psalter, Bruges, 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Pierpont Morgan Lib. MS M.101 fol. 6r Library, MS.M. 106, fol. 3r.

12. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan 11. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 3r Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 3r

173

14. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol.3r.

13. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.l6]-4. 15. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 7r.

16. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont 17. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 3r. Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 5r.

174

XV-XVI centuries

18. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.5v

175

20. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont 19. Book of Hours, France, probably Rouen, ca. Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 5r 1420-1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27 , fol.6v.

21. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy. Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 3r.

23. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. Langres, France, ca. 1465. Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. G. 55, fol. 6r. 22. Book of hours. Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 5r. 176

24. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, MS. 854, fol. 25. Hours of Anne of France. Bourges, France, ca. 6v. 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 3r

26. Book of hours. Perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285, fol. 5r. 27. Book of Hours, Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, Pierpont Morgan Library, 348, fol. 15r.

28. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 19.

177

29. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 3r.

31. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca 32. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., Marciana, fol. München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 6v. 178

33. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, fol.18v.

34. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 3v. 179

Golf Book, recto, base-en-page

35. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 6v

36. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 5v/6r.

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

180

Hunting Horse Boating* Making Strolling in Knight Branch- Personification with a riding* music* the garden (flower-) falcon* (courting)* bearer*

17/41 8/41 4/41 3/41 3/41 3/41 2/41 1/41

41.5% 19.5% 9.75% 7.3% 7.3% 7.3% 4.8% 2.4%

*These motifs are often combined: boating+music making; strolling and flower-bearing, etc.

181

JUNE

IX-XIV centuries.

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. 2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol.5v.

6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, 5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France. Italy. 182

8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 17v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 4r.

10. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 7r.

9. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 106, Fol. 3v

11. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 3v. 12. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 3 v

183

14. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 3v

13. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.l7]-4.

15. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS. M.700, fol. 7v.

16. Breviary, France, Paris, 1350-1374, Pierpont 17. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 3v. Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 6r.

184

XV-XVI centuries

18. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.6v.

185

19. Book of Hours, France, probably Rouen, ca. 20. Book of Hours, France, Paris, ca. 1420, Pierpont 1420-1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 6r 7v.

21. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol.3v.

23. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. Langres, France, ca. 1465. Pierpont Morgan Libary, Ms. G. 55, fol. 3v.

22. Book of Hours, Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 3r.

186

24. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont 25. Hours of Anne of France. Bourges, France, ca. Mogan Library, MS. 854, fol. 7v. 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 3v.

26. Book of hours, perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, 27. Book of Hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.285, fol. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M 348, fol. 3v. 6r.

28. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 21.

187

29. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 3v.

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

31. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca 32. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., Marciana, fol. München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 7v.

188

33. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 7v.

34. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 6v/7r.

189

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, 36. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Add.24098, fol.23v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 4r.

Golf Book, recto, base-en-page

190

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Mowing Shearing Picking Carrying Ploughing Tournament Reaping Weeding Picking (or fruit faggots flowers tending) sheep

19/39 6/39 3/39 3/39 2/39 2/39 2/39 1/39 1/39

48.7% 15.4% 7.7% 7.7% 5.2% 5.1 5.1% 2.6% 2.6%

191

JUNE

IX-XIV centuries.

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. 2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol.5v.

6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, 5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France. Italy. 192

10. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 7r.

9. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 106, Fol. 3v

11. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 3v. 12. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 3 v

193

14. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 3v

13. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.l7]-4.

15. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS. M.700, fol. 7v.

16. Breviary, France, Paris, 1350-1374, Pierpont 17. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 3v. Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 6r.

194

XV-XVI centuries

18. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.6v.

195

19. Book of Hours, France, probably Rouen, ca. 20. Book of Hours, France, Paris, ca. 1420, Pierpont 1420-1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 6r 7v.

21. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol.3v.

23. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. Langres, France, ca. 1465. Pierpont Morgan Libary, Ms. G. 55, fol. 3v.

22. Book of Hours, Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 3r.

196

26. Book of hours, perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, 27. Book of Hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.285, fol. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M 348, fol. 3v. 6r.

28. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 21.

197

29. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 3v.

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

31. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca 32. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., Marciana, fol. München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 7v.

198

33. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 7v.

34. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 6v/7r.

199

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, 36. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Add.24098, fol.23v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 4r.

Golf Book, recto, base-en-page

200

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Mowing Shearing Picking Carrying Ploughing Tournament Reaping Weeding Picking (or fruit faggots flowers tending) sheep

19/39 6/39 3/39 3/39 2/39 2/39 2/39 1/39 1/39

48.7% 15.4% 7.7% 7.7% 5.2% 5.1 5.1% 2.6% 2.6%

201

AUGUST

IX-XIV centuries

4. Archivolt of the tympanum, West Portal, Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy), 1130-1135, France

3. Archivolt of the tympanum, the main Portal (inside the narthex), Basilique Ste-Madeleine, Vézelay (West Burgundy), 1100s, France

202

5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, 6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, Italy. Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France.

8. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 9r 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 5r

9. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 10. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 18v. Library, MS. M 106, fol. 4v.

203

11. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 6v. 12. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 4 v.

13. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol.4v.

15. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, 14. DuBois hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. Cod.Don.186 [S.l9]-5. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 8v.

204

16. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont 17. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 4v. Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 8r.

XV – XVI centuries

18. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.8v.

205

20. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 8r

19. Book of Hours, France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420-1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 9v.

21. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 4v.

23. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont. Langres, France, 22. Book of Hours, Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, ca. 1465, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. G. 55, fol. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 8r. 9r.

206

24. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, 25. Hours of Anne of France, Bourges, France, ca. perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 4v. Morgan Library, MS. 854, fol. 9v.

26. Book of hours. perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285, 8r. 27. Book of hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 348, Fol. 19v.

28. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 25.

207

29. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8 fol. 4v.

Books of Hours from the Workshop of Simon Bening.

31. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana.

208

32. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol.9v.

33. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 9v.

209

34. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, fol. 25v.

35. Book of Hours. Bruges, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol.5r.

210

36. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 8v/9r.

Table. Motifs: Frequency of occurrence.

Threshing Reaping Hunting with Swimming* Boxing grain Grape harvest Sowing (sometimes a falcon also binding sheaves)

17/40 16/40 2/40 2/40 1/40 1/40 1/40

42.5% 40% 5% 5% 2.5% 2.5% 2.5%

*Both times a marginal motif.

211

SEPTEMBER

IX – XIV centuries

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. 2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol. 7v.

5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, 6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, Italy. Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France.

212

8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 19r. 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 5v.

9. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan 10. Psalter, France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Library, MS. M 106, fol. 5r Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 10r

11. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 7r.

12. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont

Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 5r.

213

14. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan 13. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 5r. Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 5r

15. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.20]-6. 16. DuBois Hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 9r.

17. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont 18. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 5r. Morgan Library, MS M. 264 fol. 9r.

XV-XVI centuries 214

19. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.9v.

21. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 9r 20. Book of hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420- 1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 10v.

215

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 5r.

24. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont, Langres, France, 23. Book of Hours, Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, ca. 1465, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. G. 55, fol. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 9r. 10r.

25. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, 26. Hours of Anne of France. Bourges, France, ca. perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 5r. Morgan Library, MS. 854, fol. 10v.

216

27. Book of Hours. perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, 28. Book of hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285, 9r. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 348, Fol. 21r.

29. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 27.

30. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8, fol. 5r.

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening. 217

32. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana.

33. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol.

218

34. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 10v.

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, 36. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Add.24098, fol. 26v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 5v.

219

37. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 9v/10r.

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Vintage* Sowing** Ploughing** Threshing

Treading grapes Plucking grapes

17/42 12/42 6/42 5/42 2/42

40.5% 28.5% 14.2% 12% 4.8%

*In earlier manuscripts two motifs are often combined: a man treading the grapes is simultaneously plucking them. I counted them separately.

**Ploughing often accompanies sowing. I counted the motifs separately.

220

SEPTEMBER

IX – XIV centuries

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. 2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol. 7v.

5. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, 6. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, Italy. Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France.

221

9. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan 10. Psalter, France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Library, MS. M 106, fol. 5r Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 10r

11. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 7r.

12. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont

Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 5r.

222

14. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan 13. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 5r. Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 5r

17. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont 18. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 5r. Morgan Library, MS M. 264 fol. 9r.

XV-XVI centuries 223

19. Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.9v.

21. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 9r 20. Book of hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420- 1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 10v.

224

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 5r.

225

27. Book of Hours. perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, 28. Book of hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285, 9r. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 348, Fol. 21r.

29. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 27.

30. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8, fol. 5r.

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening. 226

32. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana.

33. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol.

227

34. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 10v.

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, 36. Book of Hours. Bruges, Simon Bening, 1531, Add.24098, fol. 26v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 5v.

228

37. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 9v/10r.

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Vintage* Sowing** Ploughing** Threshing

Treading grapes Plucking grapes

17/42 12/42 6/42 5/42 2/42

40.5% 28.5% 14.2% 12% 4.8%

*In earlier manuscripts two motifs are often combined: a man treading the grapes is simultaneously plucking them. I counted them separately.

**Ploughing often accompanies sowing. I counted the motifs separately.

229

NOVEMBER

IX – XIV centuries.

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309.

2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol. 8r.

4. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, 3. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France. Italy.

5. Archivolt of the tympanum, the main Portal (inside 6. Archivolt of the tympanum, West Portal, the narthex), Basilique Ste-Madeleine, Vézelay (West Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy), 1130-1135, Burgundy), France. France

230

7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 6v. 8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol. 20r.

9. France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol.12r 10. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 106, fol. 6r.

11. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, 12. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 8r. Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.22]-7.

231

14. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c, Pierpont Morgan 13. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 6r Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 6r

15. Grosbois psalter, Liège, 1261, Pierpont Morgan 16. DuBois Hours, England, probably Oxford, ca. Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 6r. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 10r.

17. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.75, fol. 6r. 18. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 11r. XV-XVI centuries

232

19. Très Riches Heures de duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.11v.

21. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 11r 20. Book of Hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420-1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 12v.

233

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 6r.

24. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont, Langres, France, ca. 1465, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. G. 55, fol. 23. Book of Hours, Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, 12r. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol. 11r.

26. Hours of Anne of France, Bourges, France, ca. 25. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 6r. perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. 854, fol. 12v.

234

27. Book of Hours. perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285, 11r. 28. Book of Hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 348, Fol. 24r.

29. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 31.

30. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8, fol. 6r.

235

Books of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

32. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana.

33. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, fol.28v.

236

34. Book of Hours. Bruges, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 6v.

237

35. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 12v.

36. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 11v/12r.

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Knocking Killing Beating Cutting Carrying Old Sowing Baking Hunting Bow down hogs flax wood faggots and Bread shooting acorns (sometimes New (threshing oxen) Year and fattening pigs at the background)

19/36 8/36 2/36 1/36 1/36 1/36 1/36 1/36 1/36 1/36

52.7% 22.2% 5.5% 2.7% 2.7% 2.7% 2.7% 2.7% 2.7% 2.7%

238

DECEMBER

IX – XIV centuries

1. Calendar, Salzburg school of illumination, ca 818, Munich, Staatsbibliothek, MS. Clm. 210, cim 309. 2. The Shaftesbury Psalter, England, 2nd quarter of the 12th century, British Library, Lansdowne 383, fol. 3v

4. Chartres, Cathedral of Notre Dame, Stained Glass, 3. Cathedral of Otranto, mosaic pavement, 1160s, Choir, South wall, bay 2, 13th c., France. Italy.

6. Archivolt of the tympanum, West Portal, 5. Archivolt of the tympanum, the main Portal (inside Cathédrale St-Lazare, Autun (Burgundy), 1130-1135, the narthex), Basilique Ste-Madeleine, Vézelay (West France Burgundy), 1100s, France

239

8. Book of Hours. Paris, France, between 1230 and 7. Psalter. Paris, France, after 1228 and before 1247 , 1239, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.92, fol.20v. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 283, fol. 7r.

9. Psalter, France, perhaps Beauvais, 1260-1270, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.101 fol. 13r

10. Psalter, Bruges 1255-1265, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 106, fol. 6v.

11. Psalter, Reading, England, ca. 1245-1255, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M 103, fol. 8v. 12. Psalter, Oberrhein, Elsaß, 1270, Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Cod.Don.186 [S.23]-7.

240

14. Psalter, Utrecht, 2nd half 13 c., Pierpont Morgan 13. Psalter, probably Ghent, 1270-1280, Pierpont Library, MS. M. 113, fol. 6v. Morgan Library, MS M.72, fol. 6v

15. Grosbois Psalter, Liege, Pierpont Morgan 16. DuBois Hours. England, probably Oxford, ca. Library, MS. M. 440, fol. 6v. 1325-1330, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.700, fol. 10v.

17. Breviary, Paris, France, 1350-1374, Pierpont Morgan Library. Manuscript. M.75, fol. 6v. 18. Book of Hours, France, ca. 1395-1405, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.264 fol. 12r. XV-XVI centuries

241

19. Très Riches Heures de duc de Berry, 1416, Musée de Condé, Chantilly, Ms. 65, fol.12v.

21. Book of Hours, Paris, France, ca. 1420, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1000, fol. 12r. 20. Book of Hours. France, probably Rouen, ca. 1420-1430. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 27, fol. 13v.

242

22. Hours of Charlotte of Savoy, Paris, France, ca. 1420-1425, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1004 fol. 6v.

24. Hours of Pierre de Bosredont, Langres, France, ca. 1465, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. G. 55, fol. 23. Book of Hours, Provence, France, ca. 1440-1450, 13r. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.358, fol.12r.

25. Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile Spain, perhaps Burgos or Segovia, 1465-1480, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. 854, fol. 12v. 26. Hours of Anne of France, Bourges, France, ca. 1473, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.677 fol. 6v.

243

27. Book of Hours. perhaps Bruges or Valenciennes, 28. Book of Hours. Avignon, France, ca. 1485-1490, ca. 1470, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.285,12r. Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M. 348, Fol. 25v.

29. Horae, Kirchheim im Elsaß, 1490, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek [BSB-Ink H-338GW 12953], Bildnr. 33.

30. Hours of Henry VIII, Tours, France, ca. 1500, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS H.8, fol. 6v.

244

Book of Hours from the workshop of Simon Bening.

32. Breviarium Grimani, ca 1510, Venice, Biblioteca Marciana.

245

33. Flemish Book of Hours, Bruges, 1st half of 16th c., München, StB, cod. lat. 23638, fol. 2v.

34. Da Costa Hours, Bruges, ca. 1515, Pierpont Morgan Library, Ms. M 399, fol. 13v.

246

35. The Golf Book, ca 1530, British Library, Add.24098, fol. 29v.

36. Book of Hours. Bruges, 1531, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.451 fol. 7r.

247

37. Hennessy Hours, Flanders, 1530-1543, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, fol. 12v/13r.

248

Table. Motifs: frequency of occurrence.

Killin Bakin Huntin Roastin Feasting/ Carryin Choppin Warin g hogs g g a g a pig g g wood g feet bread boar merrymakin faggots by the g fire

25/41 5/41 3/41 2/41 3/41 1/41 1/41 1/41

61% 12% 7.3% 4.9% 7.3% 2.4% 2.4% 2.4%

249

APPENDIX V.

2. Panoramic map of Venice, Jacopo de‘ Barbari.

1. Clock-face with the images of the months (ca. 1500), state museum Vander 3. Panoramic map of Mantua, Frans Hogenberg. Kelen-Mertens, Louvain.

250

4. Vedute of Zurich, Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, 1581.

5. View of Dordrecht in S. Elizabeth‘s Day Flood 1421, 1500, the Master of St. Elizabeth panels.

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APPENDIX VI. BRUEGEL.

1a. January, Hennessy Hours, fol. 2r.

1. Hunters in the Snow, 1565, oil on panel, 117 x 162 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

1b. December, Hennessy Hours,fol.13r., (detail)

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2a. March, Hennessy Hours.

2. Gloomy Day, 1565, oil on panel, 118 x 163 cm, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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3. Haymaking. 1565, oil on panel, 117 x 161 cm, Lobkowicz Collections, Lobkowicz Palace, Prague.

254

3a. Haymaking (detail). 3b. Joachim Patinir. Landscape with St. Jerome, ca. 1515-20, 74 x91 cm, Prado, Madrid.

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4a. Wheat harvest (detail).

4. Wheat Harvest, oil on panel, 118 x 161 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 4b. August, The Golf Book, (detail).

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5a. Return of the Herd (detail).

5. Return of the Herd, oil on panel, 117 x 159 cm Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

5b. October, Breviarium Grimani (detail).

6a. The cycle Twelve months (left to right).

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6b. The cycle Twelve months (right to left).

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7. Spring, drawing, pen and brown ink, 1565, 22 x 29 cm, Albertina Museum, Vienna.

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8. Summer, engraving after Pieter Bruegel, 1570, 22.5 x 28.3 cm, published by Hieronymus Cock.

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APPENDIX VII

1. Karel Van Mander. Het Schilderboek.

Het leven van Lucas en Marten van Valckenborgh, Schilders van Mecchelen. Ghelijck de Water-verwe op doeck bequaem om vroylijcke Landtschappen te maken, en sulcke handelinghe te Mecchelen seer ghemeen wesende, en veel gebruyckt is: zijn door veel oeffenen aldaer verscheyden goede Meesters ontstaen, als elder noch verhaelt is. Onder ander, zijn daer geboren, Lucas en Marten van Valckenborgh. Ick verneem oock niet, dat sy oyt in hun jeught zijn gheweest buyten s'Landts: maer hielden sich veel te Mecchel en t'Antwerpen, tot der tijt van d'eerste beroerte, die in't Iaer 1566. aenving. Doe trocken sy, met oock Hans de Vries, nae Aken en Luyck, alwaer sy doe veel nae t'leven deden, ghelijck langs de Maes en daer ontrent Luyck veel fraey ghesichten van Landtschap zijn. Dees voornoemde dry, ghelijck sy met de Duytsche pijp (besonder Lucas) wel ervaren waren, vermaeckten sich, en waren dickwils met den anderen vroylijck. Doe nu in Nederlandt weder veranderinghe viel, door dat den Prins van Oraengien met de Staten des Landts hun teghen den Spaengjaerts aenstelden, quamen sy weder in hun Vaderlandt. Lucas niet alleen aerdigh in Landtschap wesende, maer oock in cleen beelden, cleen Conterfeytselen van Oly en Verlichterije, is hy door zijn

Const ghecomen in kennis van den Hertogh Matthias, welcken uyt dees Landen vertreckende, reysde Lucas mede tot Lintz op den Danouw, alwaer hy

hem hiel by den Hertogh, veel wercken doende, en is eyndlijck van daer vertrocken, doe den Turck Hongherijen quam bekrijghen. Lucas is daer boven

in't Landt ghestorven, en Marten te Franckfoort. Hy heeft oock eenighe sonen treflijck in onse Const naeghelaten

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2. Antwerp, City Archive: Cerificatieboek, 1567, 15 May, fol. 18.

Lucas van Valckenborch states that he wants to visit the year market in Cologne and other cities and places.

3. Antwerp, City Archive: Certificatieboek 1568, fol. 5.

Maarten (Merten) van Valckenborch states that his brother Geeraard lived at his place and learned his trade four and a half years.

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4. Malines, city archive: Schilders, Beeldsnijders en vergulders ambachtsboek, 1562-62 (18th century handwritten copy, index of apprentices), fol. 16.

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Gysbrecht Jaspers apprentices with Maarten van Valckenborch, 25 Dec, 1563.

5. Malines, city archive: Schilders, Beeldsnijders en vergulders ambachtsboek, 1562-62 (18th century handwritten copy, index of apprentices),

Jaspar van der Linden apprentices with Lucas van Valckenborch, 30 Dec, 1564. 265

APPENDIX VIII. Lucas van Valckenborch.

1. Spring landscape (March or April), 1584, 115x200 сm, Brno, St. Augustine Monastery.

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2. Summer landscape with Corn Harvest (July or August), 1585, 116x198 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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3. Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (September), 1585, 116x198 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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3a.

Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest Pieter Bruegel, St. George Fair. Hans Bol, Castle with a park. (detail).

Pieter Baltens, Performance of the farce "Een cluyte van Plaeyerwater of van den man diet water haalde" at a Pieter Bruegel, St. George Fair. Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (detail). Flemish Kermis.

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Pieter Baltens, Performance of the farce "Een cluyte van Pieter Bruegel, Kermis at Hoboken. Plaeyerwater of van den man diet water haalde" at a Flemish Kermis.

Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (detail).

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4. Autumn landscape with vegetable harvest (September), 1585, 116x198 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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5. The return of the herd and cattle sale (November), 1586, 115x196 cm, Brno, St. Augustine Monastery.

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6. Winter landscape (January or February), 1586, 117x198 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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7a.

7. Spring landscape with the Palace in Brussels (May), 1587, 116x198 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum.

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Spring landscape with the Palace in Bartholomeus de Mompere. The Brussels (detail). Palace in Brussels, engraving.

Lucas Gassel (?), The Palace of Brussels.

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Spring landscape with the Palace in Brussels (details)/Lucas Gassel. Panoramic landscape with a garden of Love.

8. Jan Baptiste Saive, Fruit market (July and August), 1590, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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9. Jan Baptiste Saive, Fruit market (September and October), 1590, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

10. Vegetable and poultry market (Autumn), 1594, 179,5x235 cm, Collection of H. Jochems, Wassenaar.

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11. Spring, 1595, 125x186 cm, Collection Fischer, Sweden.

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13. Autumn, 122,8x192,5 cm, Slovenska Narodna Galeria, Bratislava.

12. A scene with vegetables and fruit (Summer), 1592, 165x235 cm, Staatsschloß Častolovice, Chech Republic.

14. Fish market, 120x190 cm, Collection Bogaert, Antwerp.

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15. Summer, 120x195 cm, Slovenska Narodna Galeria, Bratislava.

281

16. Fish market (Winter), 1595, 123x191 cm, Collection Fischer, Sweden.

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17. Summer,118x185 cm, private collection, Germany. 283

18. Meat and fish market, 122x188 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal.

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APPENDIX IX. MAARTEN VAN VALCKENBORCH.

1. Landscape with a draw bridge and sheep shearing, 43x59cm, undated, monogrammed M/VV, collection of L. Jacobs van Merlen, Antwerp. 285

2. Summer landscape with wheat harvest, after 1580, 43.8 x 60.9 cm, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede (photograph by R. Klein Gotink).

286

2a. Summer landscape with wheat harvest (details).

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3. January (Adoration of the Magi), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

288

4. February (Flight into Egypt), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

289

5. March (Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

290

6. April (Noli me tangere), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna. 6a. Fra Bartlomeo, Noli me tangere, ca.1506, Louvre

291

7. May (Parable of the Lilies in the Valley), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

292

8. June (Sheep shed and Jesus as Good Shepherd), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

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9. July (Feeding of Five Thousand), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

294

10. August (The Sabbath Controversy), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

295

11. September (Parable of the Seeds), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

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12. October (Parable of the Wicked Tenants), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

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13. November (Parable of the Prodigal Son), 86x123 cm, Kunsthistorisches Musem, Vienna.

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