Mannerism and the Art of Our Times Jean Duvet and Jacques Bellange
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Document generated on 09/24/2021 2:39 p.m. Vie des arts Mannerism and the Art of Our Times Jean Duvet and Jacques Bellange Number 58, Spring 1970 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/58091ac See table of contents Publisher(s) La Société La Vie des Arts ISSN 0042-5435 (print) 1923-3183 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Duvet, J. & Bellange, J. (1970). Mannerism and the Art of Our Times. Vie des arts, (58), 42–43. Tous droits réservés © La Société La Vie des Arts, 1970 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Mannerism and th ( by Pamela Osier DELWORTH Acting Curator of Prints Mannerism, until recently four plates of the Apocafyp; that much disparaged style of constitute his major work bt the 16th century, has become like his other engravings the the focal point of a renewed are not well known, partly bt interest in the post-Renaissance cause of the scarcity of im period. While Mannerism first pressions and partly becaus appeared in Italy it quickly they have never been widel became an international phe appreciated. Only one othc nomenon, establishing itself impression from this series c firmly where it developed a engravings, that of St. Michai flavour of its own within the and the Dragon, is in the Nation; brilliant, glittering atmosphere Gallery. of the court of Francis I and The first plate, Duvet sttidyin •X^CFAIHHAC ETAUtS JEuVETIBVÎj Henri II at Fontainebleau, be TP&U.U COKTT.lfIA MJS"TEF.L\ EX the Apocalypse, in some respeel »1HA IOtV>WIS APOCAUP&I OE! tween about 1530-60. Although suggests the final scene of Si SWTTAC VERA UTERA.TEXTVJ fTOdM ACC0MM3CWTA AMrtBITO the School of Fontainebleau is John on the Island of Patmo: ETIAM VBOPVM PERITCW^M M)l not directly represented in the It is generally supposed, how National Gallery collections, the ever, that despite the appearanc Gallery can point to examples of an energetic man in his prime 1. DUVET Jean (1485-c.1561) Duvet Studying the Apocalypse by two artists, Jean Duvet Duvet treated this plate as Engraving; 11% x 8H in.; 1555. (1485-c. 1561) and Jacques Bel- The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Acquired 1954. title-page and portrayed him lange (1594-1638) whose work self in the figure of the beardei 2. BELLANGE Jacques (c. 1594-1638) The Adoration of the Magi is related to, yet remained in man who is not writing bu Etching; 23 % x 16% in. The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Acquired 1964. dependent of the influences of pondering the mysteries of th Fontainebleau. An impression of Apocalyptic visions. The iden the engraving Duvet Studying tification with St. John is m the Apocalypse was acquired as doubt intentional. A man o early as 1922 at a time when he sensitivity and imagination sucl was of little interest even to the as Duvet could not remain im collector. It was exchanged in pervious to the vicissitudes o 1954 for yet a better impression the religious wars or to the nev (plate 1). Bcllange's etching of and daring teachings of Luthe The Adoration of the Magi (plate and Calvin which were bring 2) and the drawing of St. John ing about radical changes in th Preaching (Vie des Arts, No. 57, familiar, established world. T( p. 19 and plate 3) are recent ac Duvet, troubled by the con quisitions which have already flicts within and around him attracted considerable attention. the words of the prophet, Little is known of Duvet's John, who also am your brothe life. No more than a few ar and companion in tribulation" chival references and some must have held a particulai seventy-eight or nine engravings immediacy. Further hidden allu which have come down to us, sions to Duvet are in the swan yet he holds an important place "l'oiseau à duvet", as well as ir in the history of engraving in the "duveteuses" plants and the France as the first to practice the bird whose under plummage 01 art of burin engraving on "duvet" is exposed as the eagl< copper; his earliest dated plate tears out the feathers. It is thii is an Annunciation of 1520. In the sort of recherché jeu-de-moi first plate of his Apocalypse that artists of the School o: figurée (plate 1) one of the Fontainebleau delighted in anc Latin inscriptions reads: "Jean deliberately sought out as i Duvet goldsmith of Langres 70 form of individual expression years of age has completed this At the superficial level the) work in 1555."' The twenty- were mere witticisms but they rowings from such disparate of unreality in both is heightened Art of Our Times - sources as Durer (cf. Apocalypse further by the irrational, up- of 1498), Mantegna and Michel tilted and overcrowded com fean DUVET and Jacques BELL ANGE angelo (anti-classical, distorted position. Bellange the man re configuration of human forms), mains hidden behind the façade he creates something quite dif of his witty line and almost de ferent. It is an attempt at a fies the spectator to interpret synthesis but since it is not quite such obscure images as that of resolved the effect on the spec the two struggling figures in the tator is one of discord and ten Adoration. Clearly the symbo sion. The unsystematic hand lism is of struggle and triumph, ling of the burin, moving in all probably spiritual, but the re directions and cutting back on lationship of this symbol to the itself, contributes to the frenzied main theme of the composition mood that becomes even more remains an elegant riddle. Be evident in the succeeding plates yond the eighty or so drawings, of the Apocalypse. For Duvet the forty etchings and a handful (who was trained as a gold of dubious paintings, little is smith and not unfamiliar with known of Bellange who was the technical perfection of the court painter to the Duke of engravings of Diirer and Mar- Lorraine from 1602-1616 at cantonio) the burin was surely Nancy. no more than an instrument of It has been suggested that expression and what we have "mannerism marked one of the been inclined to regard as deepest breaks in the history of technically backward is instead art, and its rediscovery implies the deliberate cultivation of a a similar break in our own particular and personal man day".2 Certainly the growing nerism. sense in our own times of the Bellange, at a much later alienation of the individual from date in the early 17th century, his social environment, the radi was to treat the new process of cal challenges to established etching in an equally cavalier authority and values, and to the [. BELLANGE Jacques (c.1594-1638) St. John Preaching fashion, concerning himself less accepted way of looking at Black chalk and reddish-brown wash on cream-coloured paper, traced with a stylus; ilV%x with its perfection than with things, the creative quest for 12'* in. The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Acquired 1969. its use as a form of expression new and imaginative answers that was peculiarly suited to his and interpretations, leading to ilso served as a mask and their before publishing them in Lyon. nervous, agitated line. In con the irrepressible urge to re jse often underscored a deep It has been suggested that the trast to Duvet, Bellange is more create the total environment, are personal involvement. The swan delay may have been due to the highly mannered. Evidence of symptomatic of present-day an bearing an arrow in its beak, difficulty of finding a text that this "maniera" is reflected in xieties and reflect the interplay laving broken the chain that would be palatable to Catholic the elongated forms, the small of deeply rooted psychological, bound it to the lifeless tree and Protestant alike, since some oval heads and the attenuated social and cultural tensions. trunk, swims triumphantly to of the imagery was highly un gesticulating fingers, styliza- Against the background of these wards Duvet. It is the symbol orthodox. What place for in tions which characterize the contemporary concerns, it is of Duvet's victory: MENS stance have the Three Fates in second generation of the School not mere chance that the inte RESTAT / VICTRIX + GRA / the context of the Book of of Fontainebleau and of late rests of the present age should DEQ SVADET / OPUS; a re- Revelation or in Catholic Chris international Mannerism. The be directed towards, and find iffirmation of his faith at a time tian iconography? Was this extremely decorative, eccentric new significance in, work of art of spiritual upheaval. Duvet's semi-obscure allusion nature of Bellange's work is from a period whose develop Although Duvet enjoyed the to the doctrine of Predestination seen here in one of the finest ment in many respects parallels patronage and protection of around which raged an agoniz impressions of his etching of our own. Francis I and Henri II as orfèvre ing controversy for every think The Adoration of the Magi (plate du roi, religious oppression in ing man of the time? 2) and in the rare black chalk 1. Duvet was actually born in France made it difficult for a Duvet's intense fervour is drawing of St.