ŠTEPÁN VÁCHA

The picturesque motif of the rotunda in the work of Roelandt Savery

There is general agreement among art historians that Roelandt Savery’s (1576-1639) years served under Emperor Rudolf II were of key importance for his subsequent work.1 The cultivated ambience of the imperial court in provided the young painter a powerful impulse for his artistic development. Among important sources of inspiration were Rudolf’s extensive collections of art and natural objects, and his menagerie.2 Also of importance were contacts with other artists, who, under the protection of the art-loving monarch, explored newly-established genres of painting, such as landscapes, floral still lifes, scenes from everyday life, and analytical studies of animals.3 Savery arrived in Prague in 1603, possibly on invitation of Rudolf II himself, who was highly interested in the work of Pieter Brueghel. Savery had already painted landscapes and rural scenes in Brueghel’s style in the Netherlands, but it was only in Bohemia that he developed his talent as an attentive observer of nature, urban landscapes, and people.4

Artists discovering the charms of Prague Not only Savery, but also other landscape artists a¡ctive at the court of Rudolf II – such as Pieter Stevens (ca. 1567-after 1626) and Paulus van Vianen (1570-1613) – succumbed to the charms of Prague. The city also became a repertory of motifs for many artists who were not closely connected or who knew it only from illustrations.5 A prominent example of the fascination for Prague is a Fish market on the banks of a river by Jan Brueghel I (1568-1625) from the year 1605; here, the Prague Castle with St Vitus’ Cathedral is set on the horizon of a landscape.6 Brueghel’s stay in Prague is attested to by a sketch of a burgher’s house (1604) and by a view of the city with an overhead perspective in Christ and his apostles resting on a hill outside Jerusalem (ca. 1605-1610).7 The discovery of Prague by Netherlandish artists around 1600 resulted in an expansion of the thematic repertory of European cityscape paintings, which had until then been determined by vedute of Netherlandish and Italian cities. There was no other city in at that time with such an extensive and thematically varied iconography. The unique urban confijiguration of the city – characterized by the indingw course of the river, the stone bridge, and the dominant feature of the castle and the cathedral – was widely known by spectacular topographic panoramas printed by Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1601) and the collaborating artists Philipp van den Bossche (fl. 1604-1615), Hans Wechter (ca. 1550-after 1606), and Aegidius Sadeler (1570-1629).8 Also eye-catching are documentary records of the entire agglomeration or sections of urban landscapes, which capture the unique genius loci. They are comparable with in terms of the overall extent and the number of palaces, monasteries, and churches.9 A special feature of this phenomenon consists of the ‘Prager Impressionen’, which are drawings presenting a particular aspect of the city: not monumental church buildings and representative palaces, but insignifijicant burghers’ houses and river mills, neglected or

51 Oud Holland 2019 - 2/3 volume 132 1 Roelandt Savery, Mountainous river valley with the Vyšehrad and the Hradčany in Prague, 1608-1612, drawing, whereabouts unknown.

even demolished buildings, serpentine alleys, passages, and courtyards brought to life by stafffage of the lower social classes.10 Roelandt Savery developed an exceptional sensitivity for this type of imagination, combining veduta and genre themes. Joaneath Spicer and Stefan Bartilla see Savery’s drawings of Prague as imaginative adaptations of the Netherlandish concept ‘naar het leven’, or attentive studies of reality without any embellishments.11 Moreover, in his choice of settings and buildings, the artist was guided by the contempo- rary aesthetical demand for the picturesque (‘schilderachtigheid’), which consisted of unusual topographical situations, visually captivating secluded spots, odd shapes, and bizarre features or dilapidation.12 Later on, Savery also developed this kind of picturesqueness in his imaginary landscape paintings with animals, in which he specialized after his return to the Netherlands. While still in Prague however, he also created fijictional compositions with local motifs (although only on paper). In a coloured drawing of a View of Prague Castle and the Summer Palace of Queen Anne, the familiar confijiguration of the city on the Vltava is inserted into a landscape, which is the product of his own imagination.13 Nor does his Mountainous river valley with the Vyšehrad and the Hradčany in Prague correspond to the topography of the Prague basin (fijig. 1).14 It depicts the dramatically emphasized Vyšehrad clifff surmounted by sacred buildings, and in the background a complex of the castle residence and the cathedral on a hill. The artist has replaced Charles Bridge by massive boulders, over which the River Vltava flows vigorously.

Savery’s records of Romanesque rotundas A distinctive feature in Savery’s landscape paintings is that of a round building, portrayed in a ruinous state. Usually they are variations on the well-known monuments of , which were popular among other veduta painters as well. The most common ones are the supposed of Minerva Medica on the Esquiline hill, the temple of Vesta in Tivoli and its dramatic falls of the river Aniene, the picturesque ruin of the temple of Venus in Baiae on the Bay of Naples, and, last but not least, the tempio della Tosse, a round temple of late antiquity with prominent niches on the facade.15 Savery, however, also introduced other types of round structures that do not correspond to these classical Roman buildings.

52 Oud Holland 2019 - 2/3 volume 132