DOCSLIB.ORG

5 MOLLY FARIES a Woodcut of the Flood Re-Attributed to Jan Van

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
5 MOLLY FARIES a Woodcut of the Flood Re-Attributed to Jan Van 5 MOLLY FARIES A woodcut of the Flood re-attributed to Jan van Scorel* It was most likely in the summer of 1520 that Jan van Scorel returned to Venice from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The young Dutchrnan then visited several other Italian cities, as Carel van Mander tells us, before travelling on to Rome where he became curator of the Belvedere collection under Adrian VI. To Van Mander and subsequent art historians, Scorel's contact with Italian art during the early 1520s was of fundamental importance, for it established the painter as the major proponent of Italianate style in the north-Netherlands after his return to Utrecht in 1524. Italian influence is an often-considered topic in Scorel litera- turc : although outright copies of Italian works are infrequent in Scorel's career, the artist clearly knew Venetian and Roman works, especially Raphael's logí?ie, and compositions by Giulio Romano and Pcruzzi.1 Additions to Scorel's ()el4lr(, have been made steadily since the monographic studies early in this century, 2 but it is not surprising that somc of Jan van Scorel's compositions should have remained unrecognized, especially if long mistaken as Italian. The Flood (fig. 1) has usually been considered Venetian, perhaps executed by one of Titian's woodblock cuttcrs, Nicolo Holdrini.3 It is here re-attributed to Jan van Scorcl. The Flood is a large woodcut in two shccts. Copies in reverse and in the original direction also exist, some bearing the monograrn of the later 16th century Italian publisher and printer, Andrea Andreani. Although the two versions of the print differ slightly in size, the borders are original, even if retouched as they were in the examples I was able to study. The Metropolitan's example of the original has also been tinted in imitation of a chiaroscuro woodcut, but the print was certainly planned without any additions in color.4 The Andreani copy undoubtedly contributed to the basic categorization of the woodcut as Italian, yet the proble- matic nature of its style was conceded when it was included in the 1976/77 exhibition, Titan and the Venetian Woodcut. The attribution of the design to either Titian or Palma Vecchio (perhaps because of his bathing scenes) has never been fully accepted. The catalogue entry, in addition, alludes to the print's northern S aspects: it evokes 'a different world, that of Durcr.' The scene depicted is the deluge described in Genesis 8:6. Couples and nude figures cling to a narrow tonguc of land in the foreground while across the water tiny figures clambor up a distant shorc to try to reach the top of a pyramid standing before other ancient ruins. Throughout the composition many of the distraught and frightened turn to glance or gesture towards the ark floating on the water which will eventually inundate the entire setting. The rising water has already claimed a number of victims, including a dog and a horse, and it stretches upward on a diagonal to a wide expanse near the horizon. The Flood has often been interpreted as the symbolic parallel for the Baptism of Christ, and the ark seen as a prcfiguration of F.cclesia; but Scorcl's vision recalls 6 the eschatalogical sense of the verses of Matthew 24:37-39: '...and they did not know until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.' Like another slightly earlier northern European interpretation of the Flood, Hans Baldung Grien's painting of 1516 (fig. 2), Scorcl's composi- tion stresses the unrelenting obliteration of earthly life over any hope of salva- tion. In the interesting subject of Mankind Before the Flood that develops slightly later in the Netherlands in the 16th century, the warning of impending doom continues to be the basic thcine.6 Rather than thc combination of the events of the deluge and the recession of the water which sometimcs occurs in Italian versions,7 the subject of Scorel's Flood seems to be the mornent when the damned recognize that the ark will forever be inaccessible to them. A painting in the Prado of the same subject has in fact been attributed to Jan van Scorel (fig. 3). The large panel has never been accepted as an autograph work, but perhaps it should now be regarded as the work of a followcr, reflecting Jan van Scorel's concern with this subject.8 A number of motifs lI1 the woodcut of the Flood recur, however, in other paintings which arc more secure attribu- tions. The hand-on-thc-hcad gesture is seen again in Jan van Scorcl's Bathsheba in the Rijksmuseum. The antique-inspired ark is similar to any number of ships in Scorel's versions of the Martyrdom of St. Ursula. Moreover, the combination of the pyramid of Caius Sextus with an obelisk, gate, and columns like those from the temple of Saturn is repeated almost exactly in two paintings in Jan van Scorel's circle.9 Compositionally, in the figure types and groupings, and in the handling of the 7 1 Woodcut after Jan van Scorcl, The Flood, New York City, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1935 (35. 19a-b). 2 Hans Baldung Grien, The Flood, panel dated 1516, Bam- berg, Staatsgalerie. landscape, the Flood relates most directly to Scorcl's Baptisnz (fig. 4), implying a common date during the artist's Haarlcm period (1527-30) for the two works.l° In both compositions figures assume contrived poscs near the water's edge in the foreground while diminutive forms arc used as a space-crcating de- vice in the background. Like the Jordan river in the Baptism, the flood waters follow a strong diagonal into depth. The shapes of tree trunks and foliage, including Scorel's characteristic 'dripping' limbs, distant cityscapes and moun- tains are similar in the two works. Italian motifs abound in both the Flood and the Baptism, and in some cases, the artist referred to the same models. Scorel certainly knew Michelangelo's most famous works, for his Entry c f Clvrist into Jerusalem obviously derives from Michelangelo's Deluge on the Sistine Ceiling." The Cascina cartoon, though weakly reflected in the Flood as the 1976/77 catalogue states, exerted a stronger influence on the Baptism, as evidenced in the background figures in particular. 12 Nonetheless, the influence of Raphael may be more pervasive. Raphael's Mirac- ulous Draught of Fisyies is certainly the ultimate source for the bending male figures in both the Flood and the Baptism.13 The female figures and facial types, which in the Baptism were described by Van Mander as (flracelUcke Raphaelsche tronikens 14 (graceful Raphaelesque faces) belong to the same family of forms. The woman who holds her hair out to one side in the Flood is in fact in the same pose (although seen from behind) as Scorel's Lucretia, a painting which also dates from the Haarlem period and derives in turn from a Rairnondi print after 15 a design by Raphael. The pose of the male figure near the middle of the Flood, also seen from behind, is similar to one of the executioners in Raphael's Judgment of Solomon, and the xvonian with outstretched arms in the tniddleground seems likely to have been taken from Raphael's Fire in the Borgo.16 Aside from the possible reference to dying gladiator poses and the influence of several of Jacopo 8 de Barbari's prints (which might account for some of the Italo-Germanic refer- ences in the Flood), the figure style in this woodcut seems to rely more heavily on Raphael's idiom. It is now known that the Baptism established the landscape formula used by Scorel throughout the rest of his career and that it (and thus the Flood, too) was a rcworking of the earlier Tobias and the Angel (d. 1521, fig. 5), a painting exc- cuted during or just after Scorel's stay in Venice. 17 In the compositions from the Haarlem period Scorel retained the overlapping, and alternately light and 9 3 Follower ofJan van Scorel?, The Flood, Madrid, The Prado. 4 Jan van Scorel, The Baptis1rlof Christ, Haarlem, Frans Halsmu- seum. 5 Jan van Scorel, Tobias and the Angel, panel dated 1521, on loan to Diisseldorf, Kunstl11u- seum. dark landscape strata to create depth, but they were coordinated along one dominant rcceding diagonal. The Baptism and the Flood may also revive (and express more overtly) the figure types Scorel was formulating for the first time in the Tobias and the Angel. The kneeling and seated male nudes in the lower right corner of the Flood are similar to the poses of Tobias and the angcl. In parti- cular, the figure in the lower right corner of the Flood (as well as one of the boys in the tree), and the angel, betray as their model the famous Belvedere Tor- so, or one of its many painted and printed Renaissance reconstructions. 18 Exa- mination of the Tobias and tlze Angel with infrared light has also revealed that the angel was underdrawn as a nude and that the legs and torso were much morc carefully formed than the arms or the head (fig. 6).19 This indicates not only that Scorcl was assimilating standard Renaissance poses by 1521 but also that he was acquainted with Italian methods of drawing the unclothed figure in preli- minary studies, then draping it as appropriate for the subject of the painting. This interesting insight into Scorel's painting procedure clearly indicates how the artist's studies in Italy continued to influence the more nature figural compo- sitions of his Haarlem years.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Adaptation, Emulation and Innovation: Scorel, Gossaert and Other Artists As a Source of Inspiration for the Young Heemskerck
    ILJA M. VELDMAN Adaptation, emulation and innovation: Scorel, Gossaert and other artists as a source of inspiration for the young Heemskerck The nature and scope of the early oeuvre of Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574) long remained indistinct. Produced before his departure for Rome at the end of May 1532, Heemskerck’s early work was also underestimated and misjudged, due to the absence of signatures and dates on many of his paintings and a dearth of other critical information. In his Schilder-boeck (1604), Karel van Mander centers his brief account of the painter’s fijirst thirty-two years on the omanticr anecdote of an artist of humble birth who persists in a career as a painter despite his father’s opposition.1 As Van Mander recounts, Heemskerck’s fijirst apprenticeship to the Haarlem painter Cornelis Willemsz asw cut short when his father fetched him back to their farm in Heemskerk to milk the family’s cows. But the boy ran away from home and apprenticed himself to the Delft painter Jan Lucasz, who taught him to draw and paint well. When Maarten learned of Jan van Scorel’s return from Italy and of the new Italian style he had developed there, he joined him as his assistant in Haarlem. Heemskerck mastered Scorel’s new art of painting so rapidly and so well, Van Mander writes, that one could barely distinguish their works from each other. Thereupon a jealous Scorel sent him away. Defijinition of Heemskerck’s early oeuvre On the basis of Van Mander’s account and the assumption that Scorel’s talents were naturally superior to those of a mere assistant (‘discipel’), much of Heemskerck’s early oeuvre was widely credited to Scorel, including paintings that in time would be recognized as his most outstanding works.
    [Show full text]
  • New Perspectives on Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Journey To
    KATRIEN LICHTERT New perspectives on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s journey to Italy (c. 1552-1554/1555)* Bruegel’s journey in context: I Fiamminghi and the south Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c. 1528-1569) travelled to Italy at a time when journeys to the south were becoming increasingly popular; from the second half of the sixteenth cen- tury onwards, the majority of well-established Northern European artists made such a voyage. In Italy they were called Fiamminghi,1 and while some of them travelled out of personal interests, the main reasons were visiting the ruins of classical antiquity and getting acquainted with the works of the Italian masters. Rome was very popular since it combined the best of both worlds and a visit to the Eternal City was often the under- lying reason for undertaking such journeys. It is well known that Jan Gossart (1478-1532) travelled to Italy in 1508-1509, accompanying his patron Philip of Burgundy on a diplo- matic mission.2 After his return to the Netherlands, Gossart played an important pioneer- ing role in introducing the Italian Renaissance idiom in the Low Countries.3 Other well-known artists travelling to Italy prior to Bruegel were Jan van Scorel (1495-1562) and his pupil Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574). Both painters played a decisive role in the introduction and propagation of the classical in the Low Countries and they copiously integrated Roman architecture and sculpture in their own works based on sketches which were made on the spot. Long after their return to the Netherlands these antique ruins and sculptures proved to be fruitful sources of inspiration for both artists.
    [Show full text]
  • 'From Nature': Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Artistic Theory And
    TABLE OF CONTENTS PART I Introduction I. Drawing ‘from nature’: sixteenth century Netherlandish artistic theory and practice I.1. Theory I.2. Practice II. Case studies II.1. Jan Gossaert II.2. Jan van Scorel II.3. Maarten van Heemskerck II.4. Hieronymus Cock II.5. Tobias Verhaecht Conclusion Bibliography PART II List of illustrations Illustrations Illustration front page: Maarten van Heemskerck, Forum Romanum seen from the Capitol (detail), Berlin, Staatliche Museum, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. KdZ 6696. Pen and brown ink, washed with bistre, 216 x 555 mm, signed and dated: Martijn hemskeric 1535 INTRODUCTION During the sixteenth century, many Netherlandish artists1 made a study trip to Italy, and more in particular to Rome, mainly as a completion of the artistic education they had started in their native country. Having arrived in the southern peninsula, they looked for prestigious commissions or employment in an Italian workshop. Many artists returned home after some years, others built up a life and career in the city and stayed. It has been generally acknowledged that northern artists travelled to Italy to learn from Antiquity and their contemporary Italian masters and that in Rome in particular, they made drawings of all the things they admired in the city which they could use in their work. Nonetheless, it remains questionable to what extent and for which purposes northern artists have collected visual material in Rome. Furthermore, it is certainly not clear if the practice of drawing ‘from nature’ may be regarded as one of the main reasons for sixteenth century northern artists to set off for a journey southwards.
    [Show full text]
  • Jan Van Scorel’ Under: Biographies 15Th - 17Th Century, In: Neeltje Köhler, Koos Levy-Van Halm - Epo Runia E.A
    SCOREL, Jan van 1 Schoorl 1495 - Utrecht 1562 The following text is part of the catalogue ‘Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850. The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum’ (2006). Copyright belongs to the respective owners: Ludion Ghent, the authors and Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem. All rights reserved. Original source: Irene van Thiel-Stroman, ‘Jan van Scorel’ under: Biographies 15th - 17th century, in: Neeltje Köhler, Koos Levy-van Halm - Epo Runia e.a. (eds.), Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850. The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum (Ghent: Ludion Ghent, 2006) 303-304. Jan van Scorel was born in Schoorl (northwest of Alkmaar) on 1 August 1495 as the natural son of the priest Andries Ouckeyn and Dieuwer Aertsdr.1 Two seventeenth-century sources give differing accounts of Scorel’s artistic training. According to Van Mander, Scorel attended the Latin School in Alkmaar until the age of 14, went to Haarlem in 1509 to study with Willem Cornelisz (died in Haarlem in 1592),2 and continued his training three years later in Amsterdam under Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen (Oostsanen? c. 1572-Amsterdam 1533).3 Buchelius - who is silent concerning the artist’s pupillage in Haarlem – maintains that Scorel trained in Alkmaar with Cornelis Cornelisz Buys (active as of 1516, died 1545/46 in Alkmaar), the brother of Van Oostsanen.4 Van Mander also notes that Scorel spent a brief time with Jan Gossaert (Maubeuge 1478-Antwerp 1532) in Utrecht, probably in 1517 or 1518.5 Van Mander relates that in 1518 or at the latest 1519, Scorel left Utrecht to travel along the Rhine via Cologne to Spiers, where he stayed a while with a specialist in architecture and perspective, and then to Strasbourg and from there to Basel.
    [Show full text]
  • Jan Van Scorel Och Gustaf Vasa
    SVENSKA FORNMINKESFORENINGEHS TIDSKRIFT. FEMTE BANDET. 3:e häftet. INNEHÅLL: Sid. Svenska Fornminnesföreningens sjunde allmänna möte i Skara den 18 —20 Juni 1883..................................................... 203. BOIJE, S., Aro särskilda åtgärder önskvärda för bevarandet af runinskrifterna? ___________ _____ ____ _____ ____ 219. ÖDBERG, F., Örn Axevalla slott .......... ............................... 226. MONTELIUS, O., Hvad vi veta om Vestergötland under hedna­ tiden ............................................................... ................... 231. HILDEBRAND, H., Några ord om Vestergötlands äldre medel-' 5 tidskonst (med 8 fig.)...................................................... 249. GRANBERG, O., Jan van Scorel och Gustaf Vasa................ 268. NORDLANDER, J., Örn fingrarnes namn i svenskan ............ 272. Svenska Fornminnesföreningens styrelse och ledamöter den 31 december 1883______ _____ ____ _____________ I. Jan van Scorel och Gustaf Vasa. Af Olof Granberg. I sin berömda och för kännedomen om de äldre nederländske mästarne nästan oskattbara konstnärskrönika, »Het Schilderboeck», utgifven i Haarlem 1604, berättar gamle Carel van Mander örn målaren Jan van Scorel bland annat följande: »Scorel rekommenderade bos konungen af Sverige, hvars namn var Gustaf, en arkitekt, medsändande till Hans Majestät en Maria-bild, hvari konungen fann ett stort behag och (Gustaf) skickade, jemte ett af konungen sjelf undertecknadt bref, Scorel såsom ett tacksamhetsbevis en kunglig gåfva, nämligen en kost­ bar ring, en mårdskinnspels, en is-släde, hvarmed konungen sjelf plägade färdas öfver isen och med fullständig utrustning för en häst och derjemte en svensk ost, vägande 200 skålpund. Konun­ gens bref kom till handa, ehuru med afskuret sigill, men alla skänkerna uteblefvo». Denna historia har någon gång anförts af Jan van Scorels biografer, men den bar, såsom naturligt är, oftare betraktats så­ som en karakteristisk anekdot än såsom ett trovärdigt aktstycke. Följande dokument, som af arkivarien i Utrecht Mr S.
    [Show full text]
  • Recent Acquisitions Exhibit La Salle University Art Museum
    La Salle University La Salle University Digital Commons Art Museum Exhibition Catalogues La Salle University Art Museum 5-1970 Recent Acquisitions Exhibit La Salle University Art Museum Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/exhibition_catalogues Part of the Fine Arts Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation La Salle University Art Museum, "Recent Acquisitions Exhibit" (1970). Art Museum Exhibition Catalogues. 110. http://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/exhibition_catalogues/110 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the La Salle University Art Museum at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Art Museum Exhibition Catalogues by an authorized administrator of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ACQUISITIONS EXHIBIT an exhibition of recent acquisitions to the La Salle College Study Collection of Art ART FOR LA SALLE: THE STUDY COLLECTION This exhibit represents a selection of the major works from the La Salle Collection of art. This collection, still in its initial stage of development, forms the core of a unique and expanding student- community oriented program in art. La Salle has, for some time, enjoyed a fine reputation in the performing arts, particularly through its own dramatic productions, and the varied offerings of the Concert and Lecture series. Less well -publicized perhaps, but sim ilarly extensive, has been the continuing series of art exhibits in the College Union Building. Throughout the last decade, too, efforts have been made to strengthen the place of art in the curriculum of the college.
    [Show full text]
  • 2 Jan Van Scorel, Self-Portrait. from a Group Portrait of Jeruzalem Pilgrims
    Jan van Scorel, Self-portrait. From a group portrait of Jeruzalem pilgrims ; Scorel calls himself canon of St. Mary's in the inscription beneath his portrait. Frans Hals Museum. Haarlem. 2 MOLLY A. FARIES* Jan van Scorel, Additional Documents from the Church Records of Utrecht Jan van Scorel is one of the few Netherlandish artists of the 16th century whose career can be followed regularly in documents. Because he held the ecclesiastical offices of vicar in the church of St. John and canon of St. Mary's, both in Utrecht, Scorel's name often appears in the church records. When G. J. Hoogewerff published his book about this painter in 1923, he incorporated the results of an investigation of the archives made by S. Muller Fz., the head of the municipal (1874) and provincial (1879) archive of Utrecht until 19201. Hoogewerff selected a number of documents from Muller's study and grouped them in the back of his book; other references to the archives he scattered through the text. Unfortunately, when mentioning a document, he did not footnote, nor did he cite folio or inventory numbers. It is therefore difficult to separate Hoogewerff's supposition or discussion about the document from the recorded fact itself. It is hoped that the chronological list at the end of this article will rectify this oversight and clarify some of the confusing issues. The list also will provide us with a quicker reference to Scorel's chronology and access to the original sources. Furthermore, the list includes much new material on Scorel, concerning his activities as a canon in the church as well as some of his connections with the secular world.
    [Show full text]
  • Dr. Molly Ann Faries Curriculum Vitae Professor Emerita VI. 2015
    Dr. Molly Ann Faries Curriculum Vitae Professor Emerita VI. 2015 EDUCATION 1962 AB College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio 1963 AM University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 1972 PhD Bryn Mawr College (thesis on Jan van Scorel; advisor: Prof. James Snyder) RESEARCH TRAINING 1966-68 Amsterdam, Art History Institute of the State University of Amsterdam (studied with J. Bruyn, J.Q. van Regteren Altena, H. Jaffé) 1973-74 Amsterdam, Central Research Laboratory for Works of Art and Science (with support of National Endowment for the Humanities Post-doc Younger Humanist Grant) EMPLOYMENT 1969-71 Instructor, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pa. 1972-73 Lecturer, Goucher College, Towson, Md. 1975, spring Guest curator, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, The Netherlands 1975-78 Assistant Professor,Indiana University 1978-85 Associate Professor, Indiana University 1985-2004 Professor, Indiana University 1998-2005 Professor and Chair, Technical Studies in Art History, University of Groningen, The Netherlands 2006- Professor Emerita, Indiana University and University of Groningen GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, AND AWARDS 1995 College Art Association/National Institute for Conservation Joint Award for Distinction in Scholarship and Conservation 2001 American Institute for Conservation Caroline and Sheldon Keck Award for Excellence in Education 2010 Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric, and Science 1966-67 Fulbright-Hays Grant 1967-68 Fels Foundation Dissertation Grant 1 1973-74 NEH Fellowship (ACLS declined) 1975- Indiana University Grants-in-Aid (1975, 1976, 1977, 1982, 1983, 1987, 1988); Indiana University Summer Faculty Fellowships (1976, 1978, 1987, 1997, 1979-80 ACLS Fellowship (Chester A. Dale Fellowship declined) 1981-82 Senior Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Washington, D.C.
    [Show full text]
  • The Historical Reputation of Jan Van Scorel's Portraits
    Countenances of the deepest attentiveness: the historical reputation of Jan van Scorel’s portraits* Albert Godycki Figure 1 Jan van Scorel, Twelve Members of the Utrecht Brotherhood of Jerusalem Pilgrims, c. 1525. Oil on panel. Utrecht: Centraal Museum. The historical fame of Jan van Scorel (1495 - 1562) can be said to rest on two factors: his earliest biographers emphasised his sojourn in Italy and marked him out as the bringer of a ‘new style’ back to his native Netherlands; for more recent art history, it is the privileged position which Alois Riegl accorded to the painter as the first artist to have created an autonomous group portrait.1 It is then perhaps to be expected that the bulk of Scorel’s output has been in the past interpreted through either or both of these methodological lenses. Yet, with all long-term historiographies the inevitable fluctuations in academic and more broadly social circumstances have variably conditioned the understanding and position of Scorel’s oeuvre in art historical narratives, not least in that of portraiture which is the concern of the present paper. By drawing attention to early biographers’ statements on Scorel, and by expanding Riegl’s analysis to include other portraits, not just the oft-cited series of Jerusalem Pilgrim portraits (fig. 1)2, this paper aims to examine how an illustrious * I wish to thank the conference organisers, Doctor Mateusz Grzeda and Professor Marek Walczak, for the opportunity to participate in the conference, and for the stimulating exchanges which it generated. This paper greatly benefited from those exchanges. My thanks also to Professor Joanna Woodall, whose patience seems to know no bounds.
    [Show full text]
  • Jan Van Scorel's Crucifixion for the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam: the “Finest
    Volume 12, Issue 2 (Summer 2020) Jan van Scorel’s Crucifixion for the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam: The “finest painting in all of the regions of Flanders” Molly Faries, Henri Defoer [email protected], [email protected] Recommended Citation: Molly Faries, Henri Defoer, “Jan van Scorel’s Crucifixion for the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam: The “finest painting in all of the regions of Flanders”,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 12:2 (Summer 2020) DOI: 10.5092/jhna.12.2.1 Available at https://jhna.org/articles/jan-van-scorels-crucifixion Published by Historians of Netherlandish Art: https://hnanews.org/ Republication Guidelines: https://jhna.org/republication-guidelines/ Notes: This PDF is provided for reference purposes only and may not contain all the functionality or features of the original, online publication. This PDF provides paragraph numbers as well as page numbers for citation purposes. ISSN: 1949-9833 Jan van Scorel’s Crucifixion for the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam: The “finest painting in all of the regions of Flanders” Molly Faries, Henri Defoer This essay identifies one of Jan van Scorel’s most important, lost works—the Crucifixion for the high altar of the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam—by evaluating the evidence provided by workshop replicas, later copies, and other works influenced by the original painting. The questions surrounding the prestigious Oude Kerk commission play out in the context of Scorel’s reestablishment in the northern Netherlands after his return from Italy in 1524 and the responses by Scorel’s contemporaries such as Maarten van Heemskerck to his new Italianate style. 1 Jan van Scorel’s Crucifixion for the high altar of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam is one of the paintings that Karel van Mander lamented was lost during the Iconoclasm in 1566, along with others in Utrecht, Gouda, and elsewhere.1 The sense of loss is made all the more palpable when one considers how the Oude Kerk painting was appreciated by those who had the chance to see it before it was destroyed.
    [Show full text]
  • Portrait of Joost Aemsz Van Der Burch and the Artist’S Portrayals of ‘Great Lords of the Netherlands’
    354 the rijks a new attributionmuseum to jan van scorel bulletin A New Attribution to Jan van Scorel: The Portrait of Joost Aemsz van der Burch and the Artist’s Portrayals of ‘Great Lords of the Netherlands’ * • molly faries and matthias ubl • abstract This article posits a new attribution to Jan van Scorel of the imposing, frontal portrait of Joost Aemsz van der Burch (c. 1490­1570), Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation, especially as compared with Scorel’s portrayal of Reinoud iii van Brederode (1492­1556), Lord of Vianen, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. Other portraits by Jan van Scorel that are related in terms of patronage are also discussed, including Portrait of Janus Secundus (1511­1536), The Hague, Haags Historisch Museum; Portrait of a Man in a private collection in England; Portrait of Jean ii de Carondelet (1469­1545), Brussels, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; Portrait of Joris van Egmond (1504­1559), Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; and Portrait of a Man, Antwerp, The Phoebus Foundation. These provide insights into Scorel’s development of portraiture on a more monumental scale, his distinction as a portraitist from his contemporary, Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen, and his clientele at courts in Breda, Mechelen and Brussels. he surprise of the 2015 Brussels Fig. 1 of his age, perfectly attuned to the T bozar exhibition, Faces Then: jan van scorel, entrepreneurial spirit that shaped the Renaissance Portraits from the Low Portrait of Joost history of the region. While this paint- Countries, was the hitherto complete - Aemsz van der Burch ing deserves all its recent acclaim, part (c. 1490-1570), ly unknown Portrait of Joost Aemsz c.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ruin Landscape in Jan Van Scorel's Workshop
    Chapter 2 The Ruin Landscape in Jan van Scorel’s Workshop Prototype, Imitation, Emulation, Invention We know very little about Maarten van Heemskerck’s tenure in Jan van Scorel’s workshop (1527–30). We have Karel Van Mander’s biog- raphies of both artists, which, as we have seen, are of mixed reli- ability while serving to give Van Scorel a somewhat false primacy over Van Heemskerck. We know of no Roman or post-Roman draw- ings attributable to Van Scorel, and no pre-Roman drawings by Van Heemskerck, let alone drawings by him from his time in Van Scorel’s workshop.1 Moreover, only a few paintings from their period togeth- er have come down to us. Van Scorel’s post-Roman oeuvre contains several examples attributed to his circle rather than to him. Van Heemskerck’s pre-Roman painted oeuvre is small and contested.2 While the body of material evidence between Van Scorel and Van Heemskerck is slight, looking closely at what remains hints at a more complex scenario lurking beneath the simplistic traditional view of Van Heemskerck’s indebtedness to Van Scorel. Examining these sources allows us to move past the historiographic biases Van Man- der established to reveal Van Heemskerck’s critical revision of his artistic inheritance from Van Scorel’s workshop. Jan van Scorel first appears in Van Heemskerck’s biography as the younger artist’s beacon. Van Mander tells us that after Van Scorel re- turned from Rome, the Utrecht painter was very famous and had brought with him from Italy an un- usual and much more beautiful, novel manner of working which appealed to everyone, and especially to Marten, [who] managed to get to this master in Haarlem.3 Van Mander goes on to note that while in Van Scorel’s Haarlem workshop, Van Heemskerck assimilated the master’s manner thor- oughly.
    [Show full text]