PDF hosted at the Radboud Repository of the Radboud University Nijmegen The following full text is a publisher's version. For additional information about this publication click this link. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/132856 Please be advised that this information was generated on 2021-09-24 and may be subject to change. Art as History, History as Art Jheronimus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder assembling knowledge not setting puzzles Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. Th.L.M. Engelen, volgens besluit van het college van decanen in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 27 november 2014 om 10.30 uur precies door Stephen Graham Hitchins geboren op 28 februari 1949 te Rochester (Verenigd Koninkrijk) Promotor Prof. dr. A.M. Koldeweij Manuscriptcommissie Prof. dr. V. Manuth Prof. dr. P.J.A. Nissen Prof. dr. M. Sellink (Universiteit Gent, BE) Brepols Nijmeegse Kunsthistorische Studies Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Art as History, History as Art Jheronimus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder assembling knowledge not setting puzzles Doctoral Thesis to obtain the degree of doctor from Radboud University Nijmegen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus prof. dr. Th.L.M. Engelen, according to the decision of the Council of Deans to be defended in public on Thursday, November 27, 2014 at 10.30 hours by Stephen Graham Hitchins born in Rochester (United Kingdom) on February 28, 1949 Supervisor Prof. dr. A.M. Koldeweij Doctoral Thesis Committee Prof. dr. V. Manuth Prof. dr. P.J.A. Nissen Prof. dr. M. Sellink (Universiteit Gent, BE) Brepols Nijmegen Art Historical Studies Radboud University Nijmegen Incisive Eyes – a paradise imagined Art as history, history as art Jheronimus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder assembling knowledge not setting puzzles 3 00 00 00 00 00 000 Nijmegen Art Historical Studies XXI Series Editors Mette Gieskes, Bram de Klerck, Jos Koldeweij, Volker Manuth Department for Art History – Radboud University Nijmegen History as Art Jheronimus Assembling Bosch knowledge and not Pieter Bruegel setting the Elder puzzles Art as History Stephen Graham Hitchins For Ela, Alex and Ben and in memory of Bernard Denvir, Walter Horn, and my father “the latchets of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and loose” Mark I:7 Bernard Denvir was not only a friend to me at a time in my life when I most needed one, he was a distinguished and incisive art critic and editor, historian and writer. A man of great charm and generosity, his conversation was always full of wit and humour. He wore his learning lightly, his eye for art was true, and he did not make mistakes of judgement in the contemporary jungle. The AICA Memorial Award is named after him, and as its website correctly states: “His view was that art criticism should reflect a wide cultural knowledge and be expressed in clear, simple and interesting language”. And as a lecturer, he did not simply tell students the facts needed to know to pass the exam. He took you on a journey around the world. I hope that I have not let you down, Bernard. Walter Horn died within a year of Bernard, in 1995. He was the first art historian in the University of California and was responsible for establishing the History of Art department at Berkeley. From the recovery of Charlemagne’s ceremonial regalia in 1946 when he served in a special intelligence unit charged with locating works of art seized by the Nazis and restoring them to their rightful owners, to his magnificent three volume Plan of St Gall, Walter was a top man, a wonderful companion, gregarious, urbane and a cherished memory. Meeting in Switzerland was one of the highlights of my life. Your sommelier raises a glass. My father died in 2010 while I was writing this book. He had read through an early draft. A wonderful man for whom only absolute standards mattered and comparative standards were irrelevant, he pushed me gently all his life. As he went ‘gently into that good night’, certain in his beliefs, idealism undimmed, radicalism unfettered, soft blue eyes blazing, I thought of what this book would mean to him, the boy who despite being top of his school for four years and destined for great things, left at 15 to support a family without work in the 1930s. A man of few regrets, no bitterness, great humility, unending courtesy, he taught me that life was about more than self-interest, work about more than self-advancement, service about more than self-service, and happiness about more than what you earn and own. He taught me the fundamental values of taking responsibility, doing one’s duty, being honest and looking out for others. For him that was the right way, the only way. What more could anyone ask? © 2014. Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium Printed in the EU on acid-free paper ISBN 000-0-000-00000-0 D/0000/0000/00 Production, Printing and Binding: GRAFIKON, Oostkamp, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. Contents i Prologue 1 373 Epilogue iii Aims, hypothesis 1 Incisive eyes 375 List of works and questions – a paradise imagined 379 List of illustrations iv Scope and method 383 Bibliography of enquiry 2 397 Samenvatting v Une problématique 400 Resumen 49 The Spirit of the Age I vii The shape of the book 403 Résumé viii Four themes 406 Index xiii The Art of Meaning 3 419 Acknowledgements 71 Religion – a paradise lost 4 129 The Struggle for Faith 5 185 The Spirit of the Age II 6 211 Politics – a paradise postponed 7 255 Bearing witness beyond witnesses 8 297 Landscape – a paradise regained 9 351 Art as history, history as art Art as History - History as Art 1 Jan Chlebik Venice 2009 i Prologue – my point of departure “I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision” Charles Darwin1 I came to art history one Saturday morning in 1964 at the Tate Gallery in London. I was 15, and I went in a small party organised by my school art master to see the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. The Arts Council catalogue claimed that the exhibition was “the only one in Europe which has a systematic historical basis”.2 This outing was followed up a few months later in 1965 by a visit to a retrospective of the work of Giacometti. I had already seen four of his pieces in the Guggenheim Collection. I was transfixed. At the time doubtless most of what I learned was undermined by my ignorance, but it was the starting point. I was excited as I had never been before. I had never been out of Britain. The Guggenheim had come from Venice, a dream of a place, mysterious, romantic, an experience rather than a city, that until then was represented for me by sludgecoloured paintings of Santa Maria della Salute by not very talented practitioners in library books and the windows of art shops. But after those Saturday morning excursions in 1964-5 what Venice meant to me was an art collection that embraced all the major movements since 1910, a collection that had its home in a place where the world met. A place “unique among the nations, half eastern, half western, half land, half sea, poised between Rome and Byzantium, between Christianity and Islam, one foot in Europe, the other paddling in the pearls of Asia”.3 A place that had always captured the imagination of the world had now caught mine. Maybe “the idea of Venice was irreconcilable with the modern world”.4 Yet I was to discover the self-styled Serenissima through the world of modern art with repeated visits to the Biennale, the place where the art world met. The Biennale had been responsible for the Guggenheim first coming to Europe and it was the Biennale that always drew me back. It has intoxicated me every time I go there. And here, the art of my century was joined to the art of the past. At the Doge’s Palace were some paintings by Bosch. For my birthday in 1967 I had asked for a copy of Charles de Tolnay’s 1937 classic Hieronymus Bosch that had just appeared in English. Inexplicably and wonderfully, considering the cost, I received it. Without realising it, two channels of artistic interest had opened for me almost simultaneously. Yoking them together was a love of history, whose message I was brought up to remember – adapt or perish. 5 Some of the lessons it has taught me are in this book. 1 Charles Darwin The Origin of Species from page 1 of the facsimile edition, published in 1964 by Harvard 2 Arts Council The Peggy Guggenheim Collection 1964 p7 Herbert Read preface 3 James Morris Venice 1960 p23 4 James Morris Venice 1983 p10 5 I admit that I have come to this rather late but then, I am with Einstein when he wrote “It’s not that I am so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer”. iii Aims, hypothesis and questions “Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists” Marcel Proust My hypothesis is that both Bosch and Bruegel were assembling knowledge rather than setting puzzles.