4125761

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin -- Preuischer Kulturbesitz
Reflections on some unusual subjects in the work of Pieter Aertsen

Author(s): Keith P. F. Moxey
Source: Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 18. Bd. (1976), pp. 57-83
Published by: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin -- Preuischer Kulturbesitz
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REFLECTIONS ON SOME UNUSUAL SUBJECTS
IN THE WORK OF PIETER AERTSEN*
BY KEITH P.F.MOXEY
Pieter Aertsen is
primarily
known for his interest in the
depiction
of scenes of
every-
day
life and for the
representation
of
displays
of comestibles.' Less well known but
equally important
is Aertsen's work for the
church.2
Throughout
his life Aertsen re-
ceived numerous commissions for ecclesiastical
altarpieces.
These
altarpieces
are of a
traditional
type
whose
iconography
consists of conventional devotional themes. The van
der Biest
altarpiece
in the
Antwerp
Museum of 1546 which was commissioned for a
religious foundation,
a home for
elderly women,
has the Crucifixion as its theme. The
altarpieces
executed for the church of St. Leonard at
Ldau
have
typically
devotional
subjects, namely
the Seven
Joys
and the Seven Sorrows of the
Virgin.3
The lost altar-
*
I should like to thank Professor Herbert Kessler for
reading
this article and for various
helpful
suggestions regarding
the text.
1 For Aertsen's life and work see Johannes
Sievers,
Pieter
Aertsen, Ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der
nie-
derldndischen Kunst im XVI. Jahrhundert
(Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1908);
Max J.
Friedliinder,
Die altnie-
derliindische
Malerei
(Leyden: Sijthoff, 1936), XIII;
G. J.
Hoogewerff,
De Noord-Nederlandsche Schilder-
kunst
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1941-42), IV;
Robert
Genaille,
"L'CEuvre
de Pieter
Aertsen,"
Gazette des
Beaux
Arts,
XLIV
(1954),
267-88. Aertsen's secular work has
recently
been studied
by
this
author,
see
"Pieter
Aertsen,
Joachim Beuckelaer and the Rise of Secular
Painting
in the Context of the Reformation"
(unpublished
Ph. D.
dissertation, University
of
Chicago, 1974).
2
For Aertsen's
religious
work see
Detlev Kreidl,
"Die
religi6se
Malerei Pieter Aertsens als Grund-
lage
seiner kiinstlerischen
Entwicklung,"
Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen
Sammlungen
in
Wien,
LXVII
(1972),
43-108.
3 Whereas the
subject
of the Seven
Joys
had entered Christian
iconography
in the 13th
century (Louis
R6au, Iconographie
de l'art chretien
[Paris:
Presses Universitaires de
France, 19571, part II, 108),
that
of the Seven Sorrows was a recent innovation and one that had
particular significance
to the Brussels
area,
in which L6au is
located,
as well as to the
Antwerp guild
of St. Luke of which Aertsen was a member. The
devotion to the Seven
Sorrows,
first
recognized by
the church at the
provincial synod
of
Cologne
in 1423
when it was
placed
on the
liturgical calendar,
had been
spread
in the Netherlands
during
the late 15th
century by
Jan van
Coudenberghe, secretary
and confessor to the
emperor
Maximilian and later
Philip
the
Handsome.
Coudenberghe personally
instituted a number of Brotherhoods of the Seven Sorrows and the
institution
spread rapidly among
the
congregations
of Windesheim and the Brethren of the Common Life
(Floris Prims,
De
Broederschap
der Zeven
Weeen, Antwerpiensia
XIII
[1939], Antwerp:
De
Vlijt, 1940,
32-39). See also F. Prims, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, VII, part IV (Antwerp: Standaard Boeckhandel,
1940), 142f.
Particularly important in the dissemination of the new cult was the Brussels
"rederijker-
kamer" Mariakransken, whose leaders Jan Smeeken and Jan Percheval are attributed the
authorship
of a
play on the
subject of the Seven Sorrows (F. Prims, Antwerpiensia, 34). As
part of this
programme
Coudenberghe dedicated a number of
Virgin and Child
paintings executed in accordance with the format
of a work
allegedly painted by St. Luke (Prims, Geschiedenis van
Antwerpen, 142).
Though the question is somewhat removed from the
subject it is as well to
interject a note
concerning
the date of Aertsen's Seven Sorrows
altarpiece. The late
dating found in the Aertsen literature seems
unfounded. Edouard Michel who
published the
triptych first
suggested the dates 1559-62 ("Deux peintures
religieuses de Pieter Aertsen retrouvies dans
l'dglise
de
L~au,"
Gazette des Beaux Arts, VIII
[1925],
257-42). Robert Genaille also
proposed
a late date, placing the work in the
period 1556-60
("L'(Euvre
de
58 KEITH P. F. MOXEY
pieces
executed for the Nieuwe Kerk and the Oude Kerk in
Amsterdam,
ca.
1559,
had
the
Nativity
and the Death of the
Virgin
as their
subjects,4
while those
painted
for
Delft
churches
represented
the Adoration of the
Magi
and the
Crucifixion.s
Another lost
altarpiece
at Warmen Huizen
represented
the
Crucifixion.6 According
to van
Mander,
Aertsen
placed
considerable value in these works for he describes the artist as
being
enraged
at their destruction
during
the Iconoclasm of 1566.
"Pieter
was often in
an
incensed state of
mind,
because the works he once
hoped
to leave the world were
destroyed
in this
tragic way;
and
many
times he had such
bitter
arguments
with the enemies of art that he almost
brought
himself in
danger."'
Despite
the
orthodoxy
of these
subjects,
Aertsen's treatment of
many religious
themes
leaves the overall
impression
of a certain lack of concern with the
spiritual reality
of
what was
represented.
Aertsen was in fact
prepared
to introduce
distracting
secular
details into even the most devotional of scenes.
Particularly striking examples
are found
in his
depictions
of the
Nativity
and the Adoration of the
Shepherds.
In the
Adoration
of
the
Shepherds
in the
Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam of
1554,8
the monumental head
of an ox
vies
for attention with the
figure
of the Christ Child
(fig.
1).
The success of this
intensely
naturalistic ox's head must have been considerable for it
reappears
in the
frag-
ment in the
Rijksmuseum,9
as well as the
Adoration
of
the
Shepherds
in the Rouen
Pieter
Aertsen,"
Gazette des Beaux
Arts,
XLIV
[1954],
cat. no.
33).
The
stylistic
differences between this
work and the Seven
Joys
which is dated
1554
do not
appear
sufficient to
justify
a
large
interval of time
between the two works
(this
has also been noted
by Kreidl, 82).
More
importantly
the late date
jibes
with
that of Aertsen's documented return to Amsterdam in
1557.
Similar
objections
to the late date have been
expressed by
J.
Bruyn,
"Some
Drawings
of Pieter
Aertsen,"
Master
Drawings, III (1965), 355-68, esp.
note 12.
4 The
dating
of these
altarpieces
deserves comment since the
problem
is not mentioned in Kreidl's
study.
Sievers'
attempt
to date the Oude Kerk
triptych
in
1554 (Pieter Aertsen,
55
f.)
which has
already
raised the
suspicion
of Genaille
(cat.
no.
14),
cannot be
accepted. Firstly
the
subject
of the Adoration
of
the
Shepherds
dated
1554
in the
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam,
which he claims is a
fragment
of the
exterior of this
altarpiece,
does not
agree
with van Mander's
description,
which calls for an Adoration of
the
Magi (Dutch
and Flemish
Painters,
trans.
by
Constant van de Wall
[New
York:
McFarlane, Warde,
McFarlane, 1936], 205). Secondly
the
early
date conflicts with the first documented notice of Aertsen's
presence
in
Amsterdam,
which takes
place
in
1557.
Sievers' belief that Aertsen was back in Amsterdam
by 1555 also rested on the attribution to Aertsen of some stained glass windows in the Oude Kerk which
bore that date (65). This opinion which was re-stated by
Genaille in
1954 (cat. no.
15)
was
proved
to be
erroneous
by
A. van de Boom (Monumentale glasschilderkunst
in Nederland, I [The Hague: Nijhoff, 1940],
199
and
211-153;
cited by
J.
Bryn, 567,
note
17).
Sievers'
suggestion
that the
altarpiece
for the Nieuwe Kerk was dated ca.
1559 depends
on the
stylistic
evidence afforded by what
may
once have been a fragment of that work. This
represents
the heads of two
shepherds
and the head of a
large
ox and is in the
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (panel, 90 x 60 cms., 1960,
cat. no. 6). Genaille also subscribes to this date (cat. no.
25).
5
The paintings are described by van Mander (204-05). Only the left wing
of the Adoration of the
Magi survives in the
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (panel,
188 x 71 cms., 1960,
cat. no. 7). The fragment
is dated ca.
1565 by Sievers (77) and Genaille (cat. no. 47), while G.J. Hoogewerff suggests ca.
1560
(De Noord-Nederlandsche
Schilderkunst,
5 vols. [The Hague: Nijhoff,
1956-47],
IV, 522).
6
van Mander, 206.
7 van Mander, 206.
8
Panel 102
x
144 cms. Kreidl has recently confirmed that these are the
original dimensions of the
panel
and that it has not been cut down
(101,
note
127).
9 See note 4.
REFLECTIONS ON
SOIME
UNUSUAL SUBJECTS IN THE WORK OF PIETER AERTSEN 59
Fig.
1. Pieter
Aertsen,
Adoration
of
the
Shepherds, Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam.
(Courtesy Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam)
Museum.'o
The
motif is also found in two
paintings
of the Four
Evangelists
where the
symbol
of St. Luke offered an
opportunity
for its inclusion. In the
painting
in the
Suermondt
Museum, Aachen,
dated
1559,11
the ox is not
only
the most
prominent
of all
the
Evangelists' symbols
but it is
placed
in a
privileged place
in the
foreground.
Aertsen's interest in comestibles for
example
is an
important
feature of his Christ
in the House
of
Martha and
Mary
in the Brussels
Museum,
dated
1559,12
where a basket
carried
by
Martha has been utilized as an
opportunity
to
represent
a
complex
and elabo-
rate
arrangement
of
game
as well as
vegetables
of different
types. Finally
the dove seller
in the Presentation in the
Temple
on the exterior of the
surviving
left
wing
of the Delft
altarpiece"3
has
provided
Aertsen with an
opportunity
to introduce a
display
of
poultry.
10
Dated ca. 1555
by
Genaille
(cat.
no.
17).
The work however was
probably painted later,
as its
stylis-
tic
affinity
with the
surviving
left
wing
of the
Delft
Presentation in the
Temple
of ca. 1565 would indicate.
The ox's head also
appears, though
not so
prominently,
in the
bady preserved
and undated Adoration
of
the
Shepherds
in the Tholen
Collection,
the
Hague (panel,
78 x 104
cms.,
dated ca. 1555-60
by Sievers, 65,
and
Genaille,
cat. no.
19).
11
Panel, 81 x 124
cms. (1952,
cat. no.
10).
A
replica
exists in the St. Elisabeths AWeeshuis in
Culemborg
(panel,
80.5 x 118 cms.).
This is dated at the same time as the
above
by
Sievers
(75),
Genaille
(cat.
no.
24)
and
Hoogerwerff (IV, 521).
12
Panel, 140 x 196.5
cms., Monogrammed (1949,
cat. no.
708).
13
See note 5.
60
KEITH
P. F. MOXEY
The lack of
religious feeling
that characterizes these works coincides with the nature
of the rest of Aertsen's artistic
production.
Not
only
is most of his work dedicated to
broadening
the
range
of
iconographic possibilities
in a secular
direction,
with the intro-
duction of the
peasant,
market and kitchen scenes as well as the
representation
of co-
mestibles into Netherlandish
painting,'4
but he was
prepared
to utilize
religious subjects
to
pursue
these secular
interests, regardless
of the
spiritual
loss that was
frequently
entailed. In such
paintings
as the Butcher
Shop
with the
Flight
into
Egypt
in the
Uppsala
University
Collection of
1551,
Christ in the House
of
Martha and
Mary
in the
Boymans
van
Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam,
of
1555,
or the Market Scene with Christ and the
Woman taken in
Adultery
in the Staedel'sches
Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt,
of 1559
(fig. 2),
the
religious
narratives are reduced to
insignificant
dimensisons and
placed
in the back-
ground
while the
foreground
is dominated
by
monumental
large
scale
figures
taken
from
everyday
life or
by
a
carefully organized display
of comestibles.
Fig.
2. Pieter
Aertsen,
Market Scene with
Chr'ist
and the
jiibman
taken in
Adultery,
Staedel
Kunstinstitut,
Frankfurt.
(Courtesy Staedelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt)
14
Examples
of his
purely
secular work are the Peasant Feast in the Kunsthistorisches
Museum,
Vienna
of
1550,
the Peasant
Company
in the
van
den
Bergh Museum, Antwerp
of
1556
and the
Egg
Dance in the
Rijksmuseum,
Amsterdam of 1557. Of a different order are his
figures
such as the Cooks in the Brussels Mu-
seum and in the Palazzo
Bianco,
Genoa of
1559,
as well as the Market
Peasants in the
Budapest
Museum
and the
Hermitage, Leningrad,
of ca.
1561.
Different
again
are his
pictures
of market vendors and their
wares,
for
example
the Market Scenes in the
Hallwyl Museum, Stockholm,
dated
1569
and in the
Boymans-
van
Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam,
of
approximately
the same date.
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Fig.
3. Pieter
Aertsen,
Return
front
the
Procession, Brussels Museum.
(Courtesy
Musees
Royaux
des Beaux Arts de
Belgique, Brussels)
The devaluation of the
religious
content of such scenes is not
only striking
to
us,
but
it was also
apparent
to the
age
in which Aertsen lived.
Erasmus,
for
example,
as
early
as 1526 had mentioned the
subject
of Christ in the House of Martha and
Mary among
those which he regarded as subject to abuse at the hands of painters who obscured the
subject by
means of irrelevant incidents. His
description
of such scenes which included
a scandalous
representation
of the
Apostles drinking,
coincides
closely
with Aertsen's
painting
in
Rotterdam
of
15535.1
Erasmus'
disapproval
of this
type
of
painting
was
repeated
much later
by
Johannes
Molanus,
the first writer to
expound
in treatise form the resolutions of the Council of
Trent
concerning
art. Molanus
paraphrased
the words of Erasmus and then
prescribed
heavy punishment
for artists who continued to deal with
religious subjects
in this
way.16
Scenes of Christ in the House of Martha and
Mary
of the secularized
type
favored
by
Aertsen are also mentioned
by
an
early
17th
century Spanish writer,
Vincente Car-
ducho:
"Tambien es
justo,
se
repare
en otras Pinturas de devoci6n
pintadas
con tanta
profanidad y desacato, que apenas
se conoce:
y
vi los dias
passados pintada aquella
santa visita de Cristo a las hermanas de
Lazaro,
la devota
Magdalena, y
la solicita
Marta,
cercados todos con tanta
prevenci6n
de
comida,
de
carnero, capones, pavos,
fruta, platos, y
otros instrumentos de
cocina, q
mas
parecia
hosteria de
gula, que
hospicio
de
santidad, y
de cuidadoza
finesa, y
me
espanto
de la
poca
cordura del
Pintor.17"
It is in the context of this orthodox albeit
unspiritual
oeuvre that the Aertsen student
is
puzzled
to find two
paintings
that must have been
regarded by contemporaries
as con-
troversial in their
implications
for the
religious
debates of the
day.
The first of these unusual
subjects
is the Return
from
the
Procession in the Brussels
Museum which is
usually
dated ca. 1550
(fig. 3).18
The
painting represents
the
peasant
celebrations that
accompanied
the observation
of church festivals. In the
background
a
procession
led
by
members of a crossbowmen's
guild carry
an
image
of St.
Anthony
while the
superstitious peasantry
kneel before it.'"
In the
foreground
a number of
people
which includes both
peasants
and members of a
better dressed
class, among
which at least one crossbowman
appears, enjoy
themselves
15 See P. K. F. Moxey, "Erasmus and the Iconography of Pieter Aertsen's 'Christ in the House of
Martha and Mary' in the
Boymans-van Beuningen Museum," Journal
of the
Warburg
and Courtauld In-
stitutes, XXXIV
(1971), 335-56.
16 Johannes Molanus, De Picturis et
Imaginibus Sacris
(Louvain, 1570),
70.
17
Vicente
Carducho, Dialogo de la Pintura (Madrid: 163355), 117-18.
18
Panel, 110 x
170
cms. The date has been
suggested by Sievers
(40) and Genaille (cat. no. 6).
19
The saint is identifiable
by means of his
T-shaped cross and his
symbol, the
pig (Louis R1au, Icono-
graphie de l'art
chrntien, 5
vols. [Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1955-59], III, part I; Karl
Kiinstle, Ikonographie der Christlichen Kunst, 2 vols., Freiburg im
Breisgau, Herder, 1926-28, II). For
the
popularity of St.
Anthony as well as the custom of
guilds of crossbowmen and musketeers to dedicate
themselves to his
service, see
Jacques de
Lennep, "Feu saint Antoine et
mandragore," Bulletin des
musdes
royaux des beauz-arts de
Belgique, XVII
(1968), 115-56:
also P. Noordeloos, "Eenige gegevens over
Broederschappen van S. Antonius," Publications de la
Socidtd Historique et
Archdologique dans le Lim-
bourg, Miscellanea P. J. M. van Gils, LXXXV
(2), (1949), 477-99.
REFLECTIONS ON SOME UNUSUAL SUBJECTS IN THE WORK OF PIETER AERTSEN 65
dancing.
On one side an
elegant couple
is
engaged
in intimate and
perhaps
amorous
conversation.
Despite
the
rosary
at her
belt,
the
woman,
like the rest of the
celebrating
crowd, pays
no attention to the
religious procession.
One other detail that reveals the
mood with which the saint's
day
is
being
observed is found in the extreme
background
where two men have drawn swords on one another.
The
picture represents
Aertsen's introduction into the monumental art of
painting
of a theme that had
previously only
been handled
by graphic
artists.
Village
festivals
were an
aspect
of the caricatural
peasant genre
found in German
engravings
and wood-
cuts of the first half of the
16th
century.
In the Peasant
Festivzal
of 1 559
by
Hans Sebald
Beham
(fig. 4),20 for
example,
the
spectator
is offered a whole series of
grossly
humorous
incidents. Much the same satirical intention underlies Daniel
Hopfer's
execution of the
same
subject.21 Despite
the more restrained character of the celebrations in Aertsen's
work,
it nevertheless resembles the
prints
that
preceded
it
by providing
what is
virtually
an illustration of one of the
perennial problems
of the
church,
the abuse of
religious
holidays.
The irreverence and
impropriety
with which
religious
feasts were celebrated
were
particularly
offensive to those
16th century religious
thinkers who wished to re-
form the nature of
religious
observance.22
Erasmus for
example
criticized
contemporary practice
in the
following
terms:
C"Nowadays...
the Christian multitude
spends
those
'holy days'
which were insti-
tuted of old for
piety's
sake in
drinking, lechery, dicing, quarrelling
and
fighting.
20
F. W.
H. Hollstein,
German
Engravings, Etchings
and
Woodcuts,
ca.
1400-1700.
8 vols.
(Amsterdam:
Hertzberger, 1954 sq.), III, 115.
For a
good reproduction
see
Georg Hirth, Kulturgeschichtliches
Bilder-
buch,
I
(Munich:
Knorr and
Hirth, 1881),
nos.
4153-16.
21
Adam von
Bartsch,
Le Peintre
Graveur, 21
vols.
(Vienna: 1805-21), VIII,
cat. no.
74,
Peasant
Feast,
undated.
(Hopfer
died in
1549.)
22 For the
history
of the celebration of church festivals in the Netherlands before the Reformation see
Pieter van den
Berg,
De
Hiering
van den
Zondag
en de
Feestdagen
in Nederland voor de
Hervorming (Doct.
diss.
Utrecht, Amersfoort,
van
Amerongen, 1911).
The
impious
character of late medieval feast
day
cele-
brations is commented
upon
in the
Conclusion, 117
f.
The extent to which the
pious objectives
of the observance of saints'
days
were violated
may
be
gathered
from an account of some of the wilder incidents that characterized
processions
of St.
Anthony
in Ghent.
According
to the
contemporary
chronicler Marc van
Vaernewijck
it was
customary
when the saint's
image
left the
gates
of the
city
for
groups
from rival sections of the
city
to
fight
for
possession
of the statue.
A cette
occasion,
on mettait
flamberge
au
vent, ichangeant
maint
horion,
tirant et secouant la
figure
du saint, comme un chat fait d'une souris. Les champions tombaient et
d~gringolaient
du haut en
bas
sur la
pente
de la
colline,
entrainant dans leur
mld~e
la statue
qui roulait, je ne sais oi, dans le sable.
Les plus
enrages,
les
plus
hardis et les
plus robustes finissaient
par s'emparer
de la
proie
et
gaign-
aient la
large,
et telle 6tait
l'issue
de cette bacchanale
paienne.
Mais le
peuple
etait si
prevenue qu'il
croyait que
l'on avait le droit de faire tout cela.
(Mare
van Vaernewijck, Troubles religieux en
Flan-
dre et dans les
Pays-Bas au XVIye
sikcle
(1568),
trans. Herman van
Duyse [Ghent: Heins, 1905],
65-66.)
Further insight
into the
superstition
and
revelry
with which feast
days
were marked
during
the
16th
century is afforded by Caspar Coolhaes's
treatises on the subject. (See H. C. Rogge, "De Roomsche
Feest--
dagen en hunne Viering in der
16de Eeuw," Bijdragen
voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis, VIII, N.R. [1875],
297-504).
In his
Christelycke
en
Stichtelycke Vermaningen
of
1607, he listed various folk customs asso-
ciated with each of the major feasts (which he terms "Bacchusfeesten") and bemoans the
blasphemous be-
havior with which they
were marked. He was
particularly
concerned that the reformed should still main-
tain such traditions
(280-81). Among the more spectacular excesses was the
practice of releasing a dove
symbolizing
the
Holy Spirit
inside the church on Pentecost. The
congregation then
proceeded
to
pursue
the bird, the
person retrieving it receiving the honor of taking it home for
supper! (296-97).
There is no time when more offenses are committed than on those
days.
When
people ought
to
specially
abstain from
offending.
We are never better at
imitating
the heathen than at the
very
times when we
ought
to be most
Christian.
And since
it is
perfectly
clear that a
thing
devised for the benefit of
religion
is
becoming
the
destruction of
religion,
I cannot
imagine why
the
Popes go
on
adding
feast
day
to
feast
day..."23
On another occasion Erasmus
specifically
mentioned the feast of St.
Anthony.
In "The
Tell-to-do Beggars,"
a
colloquy
of
1524,
an
inn-keeper
informs a Franciscan that the
following day
is to be the feast of St.
Anthony.
Keeper:
Tomorrow this entire
village
will
ring
with
carousings, games, dances,
quarrels
and
fights.
Franciscan: So the heathen used to
worship
their Bacchus. But
if this is the
way Anthony
is
worshipped,
I wonder he isn't furious with men that
are crasser than swine.24
Erasmus' criticism
became,
of
course, part
of the attacks made
by
the reformers on
the institutions of the Church. Luther went so far as to
suggest
that all
religious
feast
days
should be abolished:
"All festivals should be abolished and
Sunday
alone retained. If it were
desired,
however,
to retain the festivals of Our
Lady
and of the
major saints, they
should
be transferred to
Sunday,
or observed
only by
a
morning
mass after which all the
rest of the
day
should be a
working day.
Here is the reason: Since the feast
days
are abused
by drinking, gambling, loafing
and all manner of
sin,
we
anger
God
more on
holidays
than we do on other
days. Things
are so
topsy-turvy
that
holy
days
are not
holy
but
working days
are."25
Much the same sentiment was found
among
reformed writers in the
Netherlands,
and
in the earliest reformed sermons
published there,
the Lutheran Nicolaes Peeters in-
cluded a
lengthy
discussion of the
subject.26
Peeters
pointed
out that the true Christian
is free of all ritual observances and is
compelled by
the
Gospels
to observe none of them.
To illustrate his
point
he cited numerous
examples
of Christ's
disregard
for the strict
observances
required by
Judaic law and his
disputes
with the Pharisees on the
subject.
The reason for his attack on institutionalized feast
days was,
like
Luther's,
his concern
with their abuse.
"...
and there are never more sins committed than on such
days (feast days),
and
everyone
celebrates them
by wearing splendid clothes, just
as if God were interest-
23
Margaret Mann Phillips, "Ignavis Semper Feriae Sunt" (1515),
in The
Adages of Erasmus, A Study
with Translations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964),
628.
24
Erasmus of Rotterdam, "The Well-to-do Beggars" (1524), in The Colloquies of Erasmus, trans.
Craig R. Thompson (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965),
209.
25 Martin Luther, Letter to the Christian Nobility of
the German Nation
(1520), Luther's
Works,
XLIV, ed. J. Atkinson
(Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1966), 182-85.
26
Niclaes Peeters(?), Hier beghinnen
de Sermonen oft wtlegginghen op alle de Evangelien van der
Vasten, metter Passien, alsomen die inder
Kercke
houldt zeer
costelijck wtgheleyt (1520),
X (4th ser.) of
.frken
van de
Maatschappij
der Vlaamsche
Bibliophielen,
ed. J. G. R.
Acquoy (Ghent: Annoot-Braeck-
man,
1895), 79-85.
For a discussion of the
authorship
and date of this work see L.
Knappert, Het Ont-
staan en de Vestiging
van het Protestantisme in de Nederlanden (Utrecht: Oosthoek, 1924), 118-19.
REFLECTION$ ON SOME UNUSUAL SUBJECTS IN THE WORK OF PIETER AERTSEN 65
Fig.
4. Hans Sebald
Beham, Village Festival,
woodcut
Fig.
5. Pieter van der
Borcht, Jillage Festival, engraving
ed that
people
wear
expensive clothing
on such
days,
and that God
enjoyed seeing
this as much as the curious do. Oh
no,
on the
contrary.
That is
why
we who do
not realize this are not
only blind,
but more than
stupid.""27
27
Peeters,
80.
"
... so en werden nemmermeer meer sonden
gedaen,
dan
op
sulcken daghen,
ende elck
verciert hem met beter cleederen recht oft God behaechde datmen costelic
op sulcke dagen gecleet ginc,
ende dattet God oor also
geerne saghe,
als curiose menschen. Och
neen,
het is contrarie. Hierom en
sijn
wi
die dit niet en
mercken,
niet allen
blint,
met meer dan sot."
The account of the trial of the Sacramentarian
Angelus
Merula revealed that he
also
preached against processions:
"Item,
that he
[Merula] despised
all
pilgrimages, saying
that
going
on
pilgrimages
had no
significance
but rather that it was futile and devilish. And he
prevented
the above and forbad the
offerings
of the
pilgrims
that
people
used to
bring
to
place
before the Saints in this church of
Heenvliet.
Answer: Neither God nor
scripture
have instructed or ordered us to observe such
pilgrimages,
such as one now sees
daily (indeed,
more often than not on a
Sunday
so as to
anger God),
observed with
drunkenness and
gluttony
and in this manner
meaning
to honor their
tutelary
gods
and
marshals."28
Subsequently
Merula was
questioned concerning
his criticism of St.
Anthony proces-
sions,
to which he
responded, citing Deuteronomy,
that God
prohibited
such ceremonies
because of their
similarity
to
pagan
ritual.29
Perhaps
the most
important
Netherlandish reformer to attack the abuse of saints'
days
was Jan Gerritz.
Verstege,
whose treatise Den Leken
Wechwijser
was
particularly
influ-
ential. In it he wrote:
"They [the saints]
would also
regard
with
great
sadness that so
many gross
sins
take
place
as a result of their feast
days
and the
carrying
of their
images
in
pro-
cession,
such as
prostitution, adultery, drunkenness, fighting, murder,
the
wearing
of whorish
costume, dancing
and other
vanity
in
many ways.""30
While the abuse of
holidays
had been
subject
to censure
by
the church in the Nether-
lands
during
the course of the
16th-century,30a
it was not until after the Council of Trent
that such censures were
effectively
enforced. The Council decreed
that,
.
...
the celebration of saints and the visitation of relics
[should not]
be
perverted
by
the
people
into boisterous festivities and
drunkenness,
as if the festivals
in
honor
of the saints are to be celebrated with
revelry
and with no sense of
decency."31
The observation of
holidays subsequently
became one of the
aspects
of the
religious
life that was
regularly
checked in
episcopal
visitations.32
28
M. J.
Hoog, De
Verantwoording
van
Angelus
Merula
(1553; Leyden:
van
Doesburgh, 1897),
57-58.
"Item dat
hij [Merula]
veracht heeift alle
bevairden, zeggende
bevarde te
loopen
en heeift
nijet
te
beduij-
den,
mar tis
bueselinghe,
ende
duvelrije.
Ende dair en boven belett heeift ende doen beletten die offerhande
van den
pelgrims, dije men in desser kercke van
Heenvlijet
voir ijtzlicke sancten pleech
te doen. Antwoorde.
Godt noff oic die scrifture heeift ons zulcken
bevairden voertgeleijt
noff
gheboden,
als men nu
daghelicx
(ja vele meer
up Zonnen daghen om Gode te vertoernen) met dronckenschap
ende gulzicheijt
houdende is,
ende dair mede
zij haeren tutelaren goden
ende maerschalken meenen in eere te houden."
29 M.J. Hoog, 151.
30 Jan Gerritz. Verstege, Den Leken Wechwijser (1554), in Bibliotheca
Rteformnatoria Neerlandica, ed.
S. Cramer and F.
Pijper (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1906), IV, 290. "Sie sollen oick met
grote droiffenis an-
sihen, dat so viel
grove sunden, durch hoir festdagen
und beeldendrachten oirsaick hebben, als houryren,
ebreken, volsuypen, fechten, doitslain, houerdich zyn mn kleider, dantzen unde ander
idelheyt
in viel
manyren."
30a See A. Jans, "Enkele grepen uit
de kerkelijke wetgeving
ten tijde van Pieter Bruegel," Jaarboek
van het
Koninklijk
Museum voor Schoone Kunsten, Antwerpen, (1969), pp.
105-112.
31
J. Waterworth, The Canons and Decrees of the Sacred and
Oecumenical
Council
of
Trent (London:
Dolman, 1868), 25th Session
1565, 255-256.
32
Berg, 55 f.
Not
only
was the
impropriety
with which saints'
days
were celebrated the
object
of criti-
cism in
polemical writing
and
preaching
but the Netherlandish
engravings
of the
subject
of the
Village
Festival
produced during
the 1550's also have a
moralizing
intention
behind them. The
engraver
Pieter van der Borcht executed two such
prints
in 1555 and
1559
(fig. 5).33
The
subjects
are
very
similar to that
represented by
Aertsen
in
that
they
too
represent
the
carousing
of the
peasantry
on the occasion of a
religious holiday.
In
both cases the
foreground
is filled with celebrants while a
religious procession
takes
place
in the
background.
The later
print
of 1559 is
accompanied by
an
inscription
which
reads,
"Drunkards
rejoice
in such
feasts,
Arguing
and
fighting
and
drinking
themselves as drunk as
beasts,
To
go
to festivals be it men or women
Therefore let the
peasants
hold their
feasts."31
Pieter
Bruegel
also executed two
engravings
of
village
festivals in 1559. Like van
der Borcht and Aertsen he included
religious processions
behind the scenes of carefree
entertainment
(figs.
6 and
7).3'
Beneath the Fair at Hoboken
Bruegel
included an
in-
scription very
similar to that of the van der Borcht
print,
"The
peasants rejoice
at such festivals
To
dance, spring
and drink themselves as drunk as beasts
They
must observe the
holidays
Even if
they
fast and die of
chewing
!"36
The Feast
of
St.
George
lacks an
inscription
but the banner on the inn at the
right
of
the scene
repeats
the
closing
line of the verse that
appeared
on the van der Borcht en-
graving,
"let the
peasants
hold their feast"
("laet
die boeren haer kermis
houwen").
In
both of
Bruegel's prints
a further
moralizing
element is found in the
presence
of a Fool
among
the
celebrants,
who serves to indicate the
folly
of the actions
going
on around
him.
Aertsen's
painting
of the Return
from
the Procession not
only
lacks the
explicit
moral
inscription
found in the
prints
but the treatment of the
subject
also differs
significantly
from that of
Bruegel
and van der Borcht. While the
dancing figures
in the
foreground
certainly partake
of a mood of
lighthearted celebration,
this entertainment is
very
far
from the raucous and
vulgar
activities
represented
in the
engravings.
Furthermore there
33
See Heinrich Gerhard Franz,
Niederliindische Landschaftsmalerei im Zeitalter des
Manierismus,
2 vols. (Graz: Akademische Druck- und
Verlagsanstalt, 1969), II, ill. 270, Village Fair, 1555.
For the attri-
bution to van der Borcht see vol. I, 212;
F. W.
Hollstein,
Dutch and Flemish
Etchings, Engravings and
Woodcuts ca. 1450-1700, 19 vols. (Amsterdam: Hertzberger, 1949
sq.), III, cat. no. 467, Village Fair, 1559.
34 "De dronckarts
verblijen hem in
sulcken
feesten
Kijven en vichten en dronck drincken als beesten
Te kermissen to
ghaenne tsij mens oft vrouwen
Daer ome laet de boeren haer kermisse houwen."
35 Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish Etchings, III, cat. nos. 207 and 208.
36 "De boeren
verblijen hem in sulcken feesten,
Te dansen
springhen en droncken-drincken als beesten.
Sij moeten die kermissen onderhouwen
Al souwen
sij vasten en steruen van kauwen."
Fig.
6. Pieter
Bruegel,
Fair at
Hoboken, engraving
Fig.
7. Pieter Bruegel,
Feast
of
St.
George, engraving. (Courtesy
Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston)
REFLECTIONS ON SOME UNUSUAL SUBJECTS IN THE
W'ORK
OF PIETER
AER1TSEN
69
Fig.
8. The Brunswick
Monogrammist,
Return
from
the
Procession,
Brunswick Museum
(Courtesy Herzog
Anton
Ulrich-Museum, Brunswick)
are no
gross
and riotous incidents calculated to make the
figures appear coarsely
humor-
ous. The
insignificance
of
the sword
fight
in the distance is indicative of Aertsen's
general rejection
of the wild
carousing
that characterized the
subject
in both the German
and Netherlandish
print
media. Instead of
providing
the
spectator
with a
spectacle
of
holiday
festivities whose moral excesses are
provided
with
literary
and/or
caricatural
elucidation,
Aertsen's scene must be
appreciated
for its mood of carefree relaxation and
entertainment.
The character of the
painting
and even some of its formal
qualities
are reminiscent
of a
painting by
the Brunswick
Monogrammist,
an artist who was
particularly
influen-
tial on Aertsen's
early career.37
The
painting,
which is in the Brunswick
Museum,
de-
picts
a
pair
of lovers in a cornfield
(fig.
8).
From the festive
flags
that lie in the fore-
ground,
similar to those carried
by figures
in Aertsen's
work,
as well as from the
proces-
sion
taking place
in the
distance,
it is evident that this too
represents
an
aspect
of the
37
Cf. for
example
Aertsen's Christ
Carrying
the
Cross, formerly
in Kaiser Friedrich
Museum, Berlin,
of 1552 or his Market Scene with Ecce Homo in the collection of the Dienst voor?
Rijksverspreide
Kunst-
voorwerpen
in The
Hague
of
approximately
the same date
(as suggested by Sievers, 53,
and
Genaille,
cat.
no.
10),
with
comparable subjects by
the
Monogrammist.
For the
Monogrammist's
work see Dietrich
Schubert,
Die
Gemiilde
des
Braunschweiger Monogrammisten (Cologne:
Du
Mont, 1970).
celebration of feast
days.38
A close resemblance with Aertsen's work
may
be found in the
dress of the
woman,
which resembles that of the women in the Return
from
the Pro-
cession. The
rosary
at her belt seems to
pass
the same
sly
comment on her actions as that
which we have
already
observed in Aertsen's
painting.
More
important, however,
than these formal similarities is the lack of
explicit
moralizing
intention. The
figures
are
presented
in a
straightforward
fashion and there
is no
attempt
to ridicule them
through
caricature.
Despite
the fact that the Mono-
grammist's panel
with
its
air of reckless
passion
is more scandalous and
suggestive
than
Aertsen's,
the intention behind its
conception
is entertainment rather than moralization.
Aertsen's Return
from
the Procession
represents
not
only
the transformation of what
was a
satirizing pictorial
tradition into a scene from
everyday
life to be
appreciated
on
its own terms but it
ignores
the intellectual debate that was
raging
with
regard
to the
lack of
spirituality
that the scene
depicts.
The
painting
in fact
corresponds perfectly
with
the
general
lack of
spiritual
awareness that is evinced in much of Aertsen's
religious
work. The means
by
which an orthodox artist was enabled to
represent
a well-known
spiritual
abuse could
only
have been
by ignoring
the
deeper implications
of the
subject.
Another unusual
subject
in Aertsen's ceuvre and one that is more
directly
concerned
with the
religious
controversies of the
day
is the
Adoration
of
the Statue
of
Nebuchad-
nezzar,
in the
Boymans-van Beuningen Museum,
Rotterdam
(fig. 9).39
Like the Return
from
the
Procession,
its
only
visual
counterpart
is found in the
graphic
media.40
The
painting represents
the biblical
subject
in a
straightforward literary manner."4
It is clear
that the moment
depicted
in the
foreground
is the
very
act of
idolatry,
when at the
sound of music the multitudes bow down to
worship
their ruler. In the distance a later
moment in the narrative is
discernible,
in which the three Jewish
officials, Shadrach,
Meschach and
Abednego,
who had been thrown into the
burning fiery
furnace for re-
fusing
to
worship
the statue of
Nebuchadnezzar,
are consoled
by
the
apparition
of the
Son of God. The
parallel
between the action of the multitudes who fall to their knees
and honor the
image
and that of the Jews who do the same to honor the true God em-
phasizes
the moral
significance
of the
scene,
its criticism of
idolatry.
38 The most
fitting
title for this
picture proposed
to date is "En revenant de la kermesse"
(Simone
Bergmans
in Le Siecle de
Bruegel [exhibition catalogue,
Musee
Royal, Brussels, 1963],
cat. no.
256).
The
older title of Judah and Thamar which is still preserved for example in Schubert's recent book (cat. no. 24)
cannot
justifiably be maintained, for
many
essential elements in this biblical narrative (Genesis 58:
15-26)
are
missing. Such elements are the veil used by Thamar to disguise
herself from the father-in-law Judah,
and the staff, bracelets and ring given her by Judah in payment
for her services. This is not the case with
other
representations of this subject in Netherlandish art of the
16th century. (e.g., Lucas Gassel, paint-
ing, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 1548; Mathys
and
Hieronymous Cock, etching, 1551,
and Jan van
Hemessen (?), painting, formerly
in the Petri Collection, Antwerp, undated.)
39
Dated ca.
1552 by
Genaille (cat. no.
11).
40
The subject is extremely rare. No 16th-century examples are provided by Louis
R~au, II, part I,
598-401
or A. Pigler, Barockthemen, Eine Auswahl vom Verzeichnissen zur
Iconographie
des 17. und
18. Jahrhunderts, 2 vols.
(Budapest: Verlag
der
Ungarischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1956), I, 212.
It is, however, included in a series of ten
engravings
of subjects taken from the book of Daniel, pub-
lished
by Hieronymous Cock in 1565, after
drawings by Martin van Heemskerck executed in the
previous
year
(Hoogewerff,
579).
41 Daniel
5.
Fig.
9. Pieter
Aertsen,
Adoration
of
the Statue
of Nebuchadnezzar, Boymans-van Beuningen Museum,
Rotterdam.
(Courtesy Boymans-van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam)
The
"image controversy,"
the attack
upon
and the defense of the cult of
images
was
one of the more celebrated
polemics
of the Reformation.42
The
church defended the
worship
of
religious images
on the
grounds
that
respect paid
to an
image passed
im-
mediately
to its
prototype,
and
secondly
that
images
were the "bible of the
laity."
Both of these
arguments
however were attacked
by
the reformers.
Luther,
the most
moderate of the
critics,
believed that
only
those works that were
susceptible
to
worship
should be removed from the churches.
Zwingli,
on the other
hand, proscribed religious
art from the church
altogether,
and
only permitted
its narrative
expression
in
private
homes. Calvin later
adopted
much the same
position
as
Zwingli. Strength
of
feeling
on
the
subject
of
images
was
particularly strong
in the Netherlands where it finds ex-
pression
not
only
in theoretical
treatises,
but in
plays, poetry,
and
song.43
In this context it is not
surprising
that the
story
of
Shadrach,
Meshach and
Abednego
should have been chosen
by
reformed writers as an
appropriate example
of God's con-
demnation of
image worship.
The case of the three Jews in the
fiery
oven had for
example
been cited in the famous Zurich
Disputation
on
images
held in
152.4"
The
Catholic
side, arguing against
the removal of
images
from the
churches,
maintained that
the Jewish officials were
examples
of true believers who could
keep
their faith even
though they
lived in the midst of idols.
Zwingli
countered that the three Jews had been
compelled
to live
among
idols and did not do so out of choice.
They
lived
among
heathen
whereas the
contemporary
situation
in
Zurich was one in which there were both true
Christians and false
Christians,
both of which
purported
to hold the same faith. Con-
sequently
it was
necessary
that the false Christians see the error of their
ways,
and come
over to the side that believed in the destruction of
images.45
The theme was taken
up
once more
by
John
Calvin,
"Whoever bestows
any
kind of veneration on an
Idol,
be the
persuasion
of his own
mind what it
may be, acknowledges
it to be
God,
and he who
gives
the name
divinity
to an Idol withholds it from God.
Accordingly
the three
companions
of
Daniel have
taught
us what estimate to form of this dissimulation
(Dan. III).
To
them it seemed easier to allow their bodies to be
cruelly
consumed
by
the flames
of a
fiery
furnace than to
please
the
king's eye, by bending
their
thighs
for a little
before his statue! Let us either deride their infatuation in
flaming
the
anger
of a
mighty king against them,
to the
danger
of their
lives,
and for a
thing
of no mo-
ment, or let us learn
by
their
example,
that to
perform any
acts of
idolatry,
in order
to
gain
the favor of man, is more to be shunned than death in its most fearful
form." 46
42
For an introduction to the subject see Hans von Campenhausen, "Die Bilderfrage in der Reforma-
tion," Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte,
LXVIII (1957), 96-128.
43 For a
history of the
image controversy in the Netherlands see Keith Moxey, "Pieter Aertsen, Joachlim
Beuckelaer," part II.
4
Charles Garside, Zwingli
and the Arts (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1966), 141.
45 Garside, 142.
46 John Calvin, On Shunning the
Unlawful
Rites of the Ungodly and
Preserving
the
Purity of the
Christian
Religion (1557),
in Tracts
Relating
to the Reformation, trans. H.
Beveridge (Edinburgh:
Calvin
Translation Society, 1844), I,
570.
The same sentiments were echoed some time later
by
the Netherlandish Calvinist
leader Marnix van St.
Aldegonde:
"We cannot serve two
masters,
we cannot
profess
God and also bend our knees to
Baal. We should rather allow ourselves to be thrown into a
flaming oven,
than
with either words or deeds or with some outward
appear
to
support
the abominable
idolatry."47
As
might
be
expected
the narrative of the adoration of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar
was
given quite
another
interpretation by
Catholic
apologists.
For Anthonie de Val for
example,
the
episode
was an illustration of the role of
temporal authority
in
enforcing
the cult of
images.
Whereas
in
the
age
of the
Apostles
such a role was
impossible
because
the rulers were
unbelievers,
the
contemporary
situation was
quite
different.
Arising
from their belief in
Christianity, contemporary
rulers had the
authority
to enforce the
ceremonies of the church. Thus while Nebuchadnezzar
persecuted
the Jews for their
belief in
God,
he acted like an
unbelieving
ruler of the time of the
Apostles,
but when
following
his
conversion,
he forbad
blasphemy against
the God of the Jews he became
the
counterpart
of
contemporary
rulers who
prohibited
the attack of the cult of
images.
"Therefore in the time of the
Apostles
and
Martyrs
matters were ordained in the
manner which was
represented
when the
outstanding king
Nebuchadnezzar forced
the
upright
and
good
servants of God to
worship
the
Idols,
and those that did not
want to do so he threw in the fire. But now
they
are ordained in accordance with
what was
represented shortly
thereafter in the life of the same
king.
That
is,
when
he
ordered,
after his
conversion,
that God be
worshipped throughout
his
kingdom,
so that those who
blasphemed against
the God of
Shadrach,
Meshach and Abed-
nego
should be
punished.
Therefore the first
period
of Nebuchadnezzar
repre-
sented the first
epoch
in which the
kings
of the
pagans persecuted
the
Christians,
but the second
period
of this
king symbolized
the
period
of the
kings
that
followed,
such as those in
power now,
who are believers and Christians and who
persecute
the
unbelieving
and obstinate
heretics."47"
In a work
published
in
Antwerp though
written
primarily
for an
English audience,
Nicholas
Harpsfield
utilized the
story
of the
worship
of Nebuchadnezzar's
image
as an
47
Phillips
van Marnix van St.
Aldegonde,
Van de Beelden
afgeworpen
in de Nederlanden in
Augusto
1566
in
Godsdienstige
en
Kerklijke Geschriften, ed. J. J. van Toorenenbergen (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1871),
I, 21. "Wij en
moghen geen twee heeren dienen, wij en moghen
Godt niet belijden ende daerentusschen
onse
knieen
den Baal
buyghen.
Vele eer moeten wij
ons in eenen
vlamminghen
oven laten
werpen,
dan met
woorden of met
eenighen uytwendigen schijn
den
grouwelicken afgodendienst
toe te staen."
47a Anthonie de Val, Den spieghel der Calvinisten en die wapenen der Christenen om die Lutheranen
en nieuwe
Evangelisten
van Geneven te wederstane.
Antwerp Tronaesius, 1566,
folio 29v. Ergo
in den
tijt der
Apostelen
en Martelaers wert vervult dwelcke
ghefigueert
was als de voert Coninck Nabuchodono-
sor bedwanck die rechtveerdige en goede
dienaren Gods te aenbidden de
Afgoden
en die dat niet en wilde
doe iachde die te viere waert. Maer nu is vervult dat corts daer nae in den
seluen
Coninck gefigueert
werdt
als
hy
een ghebot wtgaf
in zijn rijcke daernae dat hy bekeert was om Godt te eeren: Dat so wie
blasphe-
meren soude den God van Sydrac, Misaac en Abdenago dat die soude gepuniert
worden. So dan den eersten
tijt
van Nabuchodonosor figureerde
die eerste tijde van die
Coninghen
der ongheloovigen die
gheperse-
queert
hebben die Kerstenen maer de nacomende tijt van desen Coninck heeft beteeckent den tijt van de
naevolgende Coningen
als nu geloovige en Catholyke die
welcke vervolghen
die
ongheloovighe ende
obstinate ketters.
illustration of the difference between
idolatry
and the Christian cult of
images.
Whereas
idol
worship
was
sinful,
the
worship
of Christian
images
was
not,
since the honour
paid
to the
representation passed directly
to its
worthy prototype.
"Wherefore when
Shadrach, Meshach,
and
Abednego
refused to do obeisance to
a statue dedicated to the
gods by Nebuchadnezzar, they
were
thought
to have re-
fused to
worship
the
gods
as well. And for that reason Nebuchadnezzar addressed
them as follows:
'Why,'
he
said,
'do not
ye
serve
my gods,
nor
worship
the
golden
image
which I have set
up?' (Daniel 3:14).
That
worship, therefore,
would have
been linked to the
greatest impiety,
so that
rightly
those
holy
fathers
rejected
it
even at the risk of death. Now the adoration of
Christ,
not
only
as God but also as
man,
lies at the forefront of our
religion.
His likeness offers to us the surest
proof
of His
humanity.
Since the
mind,
fixed
deeply
on Christ
(whom
the entire like-
ness
represents),
adores in His likeness neither the material nor the form nor the
colors but rather
through
them adores
Christ,
what else could the
rejection
of this
adoration as idolatrous
be, except
the silent confession either that Christ did not
assume human flesh or at least that this flesh
ought
not be adored in Him? In the
very
same
way through
likeness we
worship
the Blessed
Virgin Mary,
the
apostles,
and the
martyrs."47b
It is clear from the
preceding
that the Catholic attitude towards the
story
of the
adoration of Nebuchadnezzar's statue did not
permit
of
its
interpretation
as a defence
of the cult of
images
and that Nebuchadnezzar's action was
deplored by
both Protestants
and Catholics alike. The
major
difference
lying
in the Catholic refusal to
accept
that
the narrative's
moral,
its criticism of
idolatry,
had
any application
in
contemporary
circumstances.
Aertsen's
painting
of the
worship
of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar is not
only
his
only representation
of an Old Testament
subject
but also one of the few occasions in
which his treatment of a biblical narrative is unencumbered
by
an excessive
absorption
with
genre
and still life details. In
light
of the
significance
of the
subject
within the
context of the
image
debate it would
appear unlikely
that either Aertsen or his
patron
would have remained unaware of the
implications
of their chosen
subject.
In view of
these considerations we can
only
assume either that while
retaining
his
orthodoxy,
Aertsen shared the Erasmian concern with the abuse of devotional
subjects,
to the extent
47b
Nicholas Harpsfield, Dialogi sex, Antwerp, Plantin, 1566, p. 716. Quare cum Sidrac, Misac Abde-
nago, statua Diis
5
Nabuchodonosore dicatum, proni
adorare
recusaret; ipsos quoque
Deos adorare re-
cussasse censebatur.
Atq,
ideo Nabuchodonosor, ita eos adortus est: "Quare," inquit,
"Deos meos non
colitis, et statuam aurea, quam constituti, non adoratis ?" Summa itaq;
cum impietate
illa adoratio coniucta
fuisset; ut merit6
beati illi
patres
etiam cum uitae
periculo eai
reiecerint.
Iam
adorare Christum, non
soliim ut Deum, sed et hominem in
praecipua
nostre religionis parte ponitur.
Cuius humanitatis certissimii
nobis documetum ipsius Imago praebet.
In
qua
cum non materia, non
formi,
non colores sed
per
ea omnia,
in Christu, quem
tota Imago refert, penitus
infixa mens eundem adoret, hanc
adoratione, ut
idolatricam
repudiare, quid
aliud esset, q
tacite confiteri; Christum, aut
humani
carnem non induisse? aut certe hac
in ipso non adorandam esse? Eadem
plane
ratione
per Imagines beatam virginem Mariam, Apostolos
ac
Martyres
colimus.
Fig.
10. Pieter
Aertsen,
Seven
J'Vorks of
Charity',
National
Museum,
Warsaw.
(Courtesy
Muzeum
Narodowe, Warsaw)
Fig.
11. Pieter
Aertsen,
St. Peter and Paul
Healing
the
Sick, Hermitage, Leningrad.
(Courtesy Hermitage Museum, Leningrad)
of
being willing
to
pictorialize
his
attitude,48
or that like the Return
from
the
Procession,
the
painting
is another document to Aertsen's lack of interest in
spiritual
realities and
that the
subject
was a
special commission, perhaps
from a baker's
guild,
for whom the
theme would have had
professional
rather than
religious meaning.49
Among
the most uncharacteristic of all Aertsen's
religious
works are three
paintings
that he executed in the last
years
of his life. These are the Seven
JWVorks of Charity
in the
Warsaw Museum of
15753 (fig. 10),5"
St. Peter and John
Healing
in the
Hermitage,
Leningrad,
of 1575
(fig. 11),51
Christ
Healing
the Lame
formerly
in the
Sperling
Gallery,
New York
(1952),
of 1575
(fig.
12).52 In contrast
to
many
of Aertsen's reli-
gious works,
the
paintings
are executed in a
straightforward
manner in which atten-
48
While
reviling
the
superstition
involved in the cult of
images
Erasmus
disapproved openly
of the
activities of the iconoclasts. Erasmus
characteristically
felt that the solution to the
problem lay
in
educating
the masses as to the
proper way
of
approaching
ecclesiastical art. For Erasmus's attitudes towards the reli-
gious
art of his time see Rachel
Giese,
"Erasmus and the Fine
Art,"
Journal
of
Modern
History,
VII
(1935),
257-79; Georges Marlier,
Erasme et la
peinture flamande
de son
temps (Damme:
Editions du Mus'e van
Maerlant, 1954), Chapter IV;
Erwin
Panofsky,
"Erasmus and the Visual
Arts,"
Journal
of
the
Warburg
and Courtauld
Institutes, XXXII (1969), 200-27, esp.
208.
49
According
to Reau the Three Jews in the
Fiery
Furnace were
regarded
as
patrons
of bakers'
guilds
(II, part I, 399).
This accounts for the
representation
of the
subject by
Aertsen's son Pieter
Pietersz.,
in
an
altarpiece
for the Haarlem bakers
guild
in 1575.
(The painting
is now in the Frans Hals Museum in the
same
city.)
In Pietersz.'s
painting, however,
the
emphasis
is on the
binding
and on the
placement
of the
three Jews in the
oven,
rather than on the adoration of Nebuchadnezzar's statue.
(For
an illustration see
G. J.
Hoogewerff, IV, 553.)
One other
contemporary purpose
behind the
representation
of the Three Jews
in the
Fiery
Oven was as a
typological prefiguration
of the Resurrection. This
may
be seen in the left
wing
of a lost Resurrection
altarpiece
attributed to Pieter Coeck van Aelst in the Germanisches
Museum,
Nurem-
berg.
While the central
panel
with the Crucifixion is
lost,
the
original
character of the
altarpiece
is
pre-
served in a
replica
in the Karlsruhe Museum. The
panel
in
Nuremberg
has as its
counterpart
a
right wing
representing
Jonah's deliverance from the
belly
of the
whale,
which exists in the same museum. In three
panels
the miraculous salvation of Jonah and of the Three Jews are
regarded
as
prefigurations
of the sal-
vation of mankind at the Resurrection.
(For
a discussion of the
relationship
of the
Nuremberg panels
to
the
Karlsruhe replica,
as well as the attribution of
part
of the left
wing
in
Nuremberg
to the Brunswick
Monogrammist
see
Schuberg,
cat. no.
20).
50 Panel,
112x 143 cms.
Monogrammed (1966
cat.
I,
no.
121817).
Aertsen's
borrowings
from Pieter
Coeck's Flemish edition of Sebastiano Serlio's Fourth Book of Architecture have
already
been noted
by
Th.
Lunsingh Scheurleer,
"Pieter Aertsen en Joachim Beuckelaer en hun
ontleeningen
aan Serlio's archi-
tectuurprenten,"
Oud
Holland,
LXII
(1947),
123-34. This
painting
contains further instances of this
type
of
borrowing
which have so far been overlooked and which indicate that Book
IV
was not the
only
work
of Serlio's with which Aertsen was familiar. The
palatial doorway
on the
left,
for
example,
before which
clothes are being distributed is taken from a woodcut of a Doric doorway in Serlio's Book IV (Reglen van
Metselrijen, op de
vijve manieren van
Edificien, te
W4tene, Thuscana, Dorica, Ionica, Corinthia en Com-
posita [Antwerp, Coeck 1549], folio XXIIIv) while the
gateway into the
churchyard is taken from a wood-
cut of an ancient
gateway reproduced in Serlio's Book III (Die Aldervermaertste
Antique edificien va
temple, theatre, amphitheatre, paleisen, thermen, obelisce, brugge, arche
triumphal
ac bescreve en
gefigu-
reert met haren
gronde
en mate
oock
de
plaatsen daerse staen en
wise
dede
make, [Antwerp, Coeck 1546],
folio XXVI v). The Ionic arcade on the left seems to be
adapted from the
examples of arcades found in
Book IV
(Reglen van
Metselrijen, folios XLI r, XXVII r).
si Panel, 55.5 x 76 cms. (1958 cat. no. II, no. 404). The
buildings on the left of the street are
adapted
from those that
appear
in one of the woodcuts
illustrating Serlio's Book II on
perspective (Den Tweeden
boek
van architecturen Sebastiani
Serlij.
tracterende van
perspectijven,
dat is, het insien duer tvercorten,
Antwerp, Verhulst,
1555,
fol. XVIII r).
52
Panel, ca. 56 x 75 cms. It bears Aertsen's personal mark. Several attempts to ascertain the present
location of this
painting
have met without success. The
photograph provided here is
reproduced from that
which
appeared in Kreidl's article
(fig.
no. 85).
REFLECTIONS ON SO-ME UNUSUAL SUBJECTS IN THE WORK OF PIETER AERTSEN 77
Fig.
12. Pieter
Aertsen, Christ
Healing
the
Paralytic, formerly Sperling Gallery,
New York
tion is
paid
to the communication of
religious
realities rather than the
opportunities
for
secular
exploitation.
The Seven Works of
Charity
was a
popular subject
in Netherlandish art of the 16th
century.53
It is taken from Matthew's account of the Sermon on the Mount in which
charitable actions are
directly
related to the fate of mankind at the Last
Judgment.54
After
describing
how Christ will
judge
the nations of the world
separating
the
righteous
from the
unrighteous
as
sheep
from
goats,
Matthew
writes,
"Then shall the
King say
unto them on his
right hand,
Come
ye
blessed of
my
Father inherit the
kingdom prepared
for
you
from the foundation of the world.
For I was
hungered
and
ye gave
me meat: I was
thirsty
and
ye gave
me drink: I
was a
stranger
and
ye
took me in:
Naked,
and
ye
clothed me: I was sick and
ye
visited me: I was in
prison
and
ye
came unto me."55
53
See
Pigler, I,
527. The theme was handled either as a series of
separate panels representing
individual
actions or as a
single
scene in which all the actions took
place simultaneously.
s5 Matthew 25: 31-46.
55 According
to
R6au
the seventh act of
Charity, burying
the
dead,
was added to the series in the 12th
century (II,
Part
II, 748).
When asked
by
the
righteous
on what occasion
they
had had the
opportunity
of
doing
Christ these
favors,
he answered that insofar as
they
had done them for another human
being they
had done them for him. Christ then
promised
to
punish
the
unrighteous
with
eternal damnation for
having
failed to
perform
the actions enumerated above.
The
foreground
is dominated
by groups representing
the
clothing
of the
naked,
the
feeding
of the
hungry,
and the
offering
of
hospitality
to the
homeless,
while
at some distance in the
background
we see the
thirsty
offered
drink, prisoners being
visited,
the burial of the
dead,
and the visitation of the sick. There is no
attempt
to
introduce the
distracting
details from
everyday
life that form so
important
a
part
of his
other work. The
heaps
of
clothing, baskets, jugs, etc.,
that litter the
foreground
do not
fill the
picture plane
but are related in scale to the other elements in the scene.
The
subject
of the Seven Works of
Charity
was a traditional
one,
but one that had
acquired
fresh
significance
in
the
light
of reformed criticism of the Catholic view that
good
works had an
important
role to
play
in the
obtaining
of salvation.
According
to
the reformers faith in Christ was the sole means
by
which man was saved so that
good
works therefore became the
sign
of a
good
man rather than the means
by
which a man
became
good.
The definition of this new
position
was the work of Luther whose views
are summarized in the
following passage
from his treatise On Christian
Liberty:
"Since, then,
works
justify
no
man,
but a man must be
justified
before he can do
any good work,
it is most evident that it is faith
alone, which, by
the mere
mercy
of God
through Christ,
and
by
means of His
word,
can
worthily
and
sufficiently
justify
and save the
person;
and that a Christian man needs no
work,
no
law,
for
his
salvation;
for
by
faith he is free from all
law,
and in
perfect
freedom does
gratuitously
all that he
does, seeking nothing
either of
profit
or of salvation - since
by
the
grace
of God he is
already
saved and rich in all
things through
his faith -
but
solely
that which is
well-pleasing
to
God."56
Stemming
from his view of the
innately corrupt
character of human
nature,
Calvin
also stressed the unworthiness of
any
human action in the
program
of
justification.
It
was
through
God's
grace
that men were
saved,
for all their own actions were
irrevocably
tainted with sin.
"...
the doctrine of the
Scripture is,
that our
good
works are
perpetually
defiled
with
many blemishes,
which
might justly
offend God and incense him
against us;
so far are they from
being able to conciliate his favor,
or to excite his beneficence
towards
us; yet that, because in his
great mercy
he does not examine them accord-
ing
to the
rigor
of his
justice,
he
accepts
them as
though they
were
immaculately
pure,
and therefore rewards them, though
void of all merit, with infinite
blessings
both in this life and in that which is to come."57
Calvin's view of the worthlessness of
good
works is
put
more
forcefully
in the follow-
ing lines, polemically
directed
against
the Catholic
position:
56 Martin Luther, Concerning Christian Liberty (1520), in First
Principles of the Reformation, ed.
Wace and
Buchheim (London: Murray, 1883), 122.
57
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian
Religion (1559 ed.),
2
vols., trans.
by John Allen (Philadel-
phia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education,
1956),
II, 29.
'"Now
it is
plain
which
party
better deserves the
charge
of
degrading
the value of
remission of
sins,
and
prostituting
the
dignity
of
righteousness. They pretend
that
God is
appeased by
their frivolous
satisfactions,
which are no better than
dung;
we
assert,
that the
guilt
of sin is too atrocious to be
expiated by
such
insignificant
trifles;
that the
displeasure
of God is too
great
to be
appeased by
these worthless
satisfactions;
and therefore that this is the exclusive
prerogative
of the blood of
Christ. "58
In the Netherlands the
inadequacy
of
good
works for salvation is mentioned for ex-
ample by
Jan Gerritz.
Verstege.
"Works make no one
holy
before
God,
that
is,
our sins are not
forgiven
us on
account of our
past
or future
good works,
because
they
are
altogether
too small and
too few in number. Therefore trust the faith in Christ's
complete
worthiness...
Good works are born out of love. Love is born out of
faith,
that
is,
from the certain
knowledge
that God loves us."59
The traditional
importance
of the role of
good
works was restated
by
the Church at
the 6th Session of the Council of Trent in 1547:
"For faith unless
hope
and
charity
are added thereto neither unites man
perfectly
with Christ nor makes him a
living
member of His
body."60
Canon XXIV seems to have been
specifically
aimed at the
type
of criticism that has
already
been described.
"If one
saith,
that the
justice
received is not
preserved
and also increased before
God
through good works;
but that the said works are
merely
the fruits and
signs
of Justification
obtained,
but not a cause of the increase thereof; let him be anath-
ema.1
In
turning
to the
painting
it is
important
to note that Aertsen himself has left no
doubt in the
spectator's
mind as to the
theological significance
of his
subject.
Not
only
is there an
inscription
over the Serlian
portico
on the
right citing
the source of the
iconography
-
"MAT XXV" - but in the recessed
panel
on the left of the arch there is
a relief of the Last
Judgment. By
these means the connection between
good
works and
salvation is
emphasized
and made
explicit.
Aertsen's use of an
inscription
to
identify
his
subject
is rare in his work. The
only
earlier
painting
in which such a
painted inscription appears,
the Kitchen Scene with
Christ in the House of Martha and
Mary
in Vienna of
1552,
is
significant
in that it is
Aertsen's most
directly moralizing
work.62
In view of this,
it is clear that Aertsen's use
of an
identifying inscription
is an indication of the
importance
that he attached to the
theological implications
of his
subject.
58 Calvin, Institutes..., II, 40.
59 Jan Gerritz. Verstege, 169.
60 Waterworth, 55.
61
Waterworth, 47. As Emile Mile has pointed out, the assertion of the
validity
of works of
charity
later became an
important element in Counter-Reformation
thought (L'art religieux de la fin du
XVIe
sik?cle,
du
XVIIe
siicle et du
XVHIIe
siicle [Paris: Colin, 1951], 86 f.).
62 See B. J. A. Renckens, "Een Ikonografische Aanvulling op Christus bij Martha en Maria," Kunst-
It
is
significant
that Aertsen's other late works should be related
in
both
subject
and
treatment to the Seven Works
of Charity.
Both Sts. Peter and John
Healing
the Sick and
Christ
Healing
the
Paralytic
at the Pool
of Bethesda,
are
examples
of Christian com-
passion
for the
suffering
of the unfortunate.63
As in the Seven Works
of Charity,
the
subject
of Sts. Peter and John
healing
is handled
with
great
attention to narrative
clarity (fig. 11).64 Sts.
Peter and
John,
located in the
middle
ground,
close to the center of the
painting,
walk
past
the
sick, raising
their
right
hands in a
gesture
of
blessing.
The
strongly
directed fall of
light
of a
setting
sun casts
long
shadows from their
figures emphasizing
the means
by
which the miracle was
effected. The
foreground
is
occupied by figures
of the sick who are
arriving
to
join
those
already awaiting
cure. Far from
distracting
the viewer's attention from the main
event,
all the
figures
have their backs to the viewer and their attention riveted on the
miracle. The contrast between this
group
and the
peasants
who enliven the
foregrounds
of Aertsen's Christ with the Woman Taken in
Adultery
in Frankfurt and in Stockholm
(fig.
2)
who are
arrayed
in the foremost
plane
of the work with their attention directed
at the
spectator
rather than at the
religious event,
could
hardly
be
greater.
In this
paint-
ing
Aertsen
deliberately
omitted the
psychic autonomy
that made the incidental secular
figures
in his earlier
religious
works
independent
aesthetic elements that demanded
appreciation
in their own
right
and subordinated them to the
spiritual meaning
of the
work as a whole.65
The
unity
of action that characterizes Aertsen's
composition
is echoed in
yet
another
important
dimension of the work. Whereas in his earlier
work,
Aertsen had tended to
depict
the secular elements that filled much of the
picture plane
in a realistic
style
that
was
opposed
to the mannered
elegance
of the biblical
figures
in the
background,
no such
distinction is found in this case.
The
consequences
of the miraculous actions of the
Apostles
are indicated in the
distance
right
where a
group
of
figures placed
behind a curious
open
structure
(a
refer-
ence to the
porch
of
Solomon,
where the miracle is said to have
occurred)
watch the
events
taking place.
These
figures
who wear inscribed
headbands, represent
the
high
priest
and the sect of the Sadducees
who, according
to the Bible:
historische
Mededelingen
van het
Rijksbureau
voor Kunsthistorische
Documentatie,
IV
(1949),
30-52. The
inscription
is found on the floor in the
foreground
left.
63
Acts 5:12-16; John 5:1-9. Mile has noted that Peter's miracle was interpreted by Baronius, in his
Annales
Ecclesiastica
of
1598-1607,
as
proof
of the
supernatural powers
vested in the
papal
successors of
Peter
(52-55).
It is of interest that the
healing
of the
paralytic
should have been used on at least one
occasion in the
17th century as a biblical example
of the visitation of the sick.
MAlle
mentions its
occurrence in a series of
paintings executed by Murillo between
1671
and
1674
for the
chapel
of the
Brotherhood of Charity
in Seville. Each of the
paintings
illustrated one of the works of charity
in terms of
an
appropriate
biblical narrative.
64 The subject is rare in
16th-century painting. (See Pigler, I, 581; part III, 1088.)
It occurs in a series
of
engravings
of the Acts of the
Apostles by Phillips
Galle after a drawing by
Martin van Heemskerck.
65 The curious isolation of Aertsen's
peasant figures, which precludes any
kind of
psychological
inter-
action between them has been noted by Alois Riegl, who
interpreted
it as a device to relate the figures
more
directly
to the
spectator:
Wir begegnen
somit in dem
hollaindischen
Genre des Pieter Aertsen der...
Neigung,
die einzelnen
Figuren
im Bilde
geistig gegeneinander
zu isolieren und
dafiur
mit dem Beschauer zu verbinden, ...
(Das
holliindische
Gruppenportriit,
2 vols. [Vienna: Osterreichische Staatsdruckerei,
1951],
I, 107).
"...
were filled with
indignation.
And laid their hands on the
apostles
and
put
them in the common
prison."66
The same careful attention to the
scriptural
text is found in the
picture
of Christ
Healing
the
Paralytic
at the Pool
of Bethesda.67
In this
painting
the miracle
occupies
the center
foreground,
Christ
being
in the
very
act of
instructing
the man who had not
been able to reach the
healing
waters of the
pool
to
pick up
his bed and walk. In the
brilliantly
lit
background
behind the elaborate architecture of the
pool
more sick
people
can be seen as well as the
angel
whose
periodic presence
served to stir the waters of the
pool
and endow them with miraculous
powers.
As in the Peter and John
Healing
the
Sick,
the distance
represents
the
sequel
to the narrative. The
paralytic
is shown
carrying
his bed
through
a crowd assembled before a domed
building. According
to the
scriptural
account the miracle took
place
on a
sabbath,
and when the Jews saw the man
carrying
his
bed, they said,
"It is the sabbath
day:
it is not lawful for thee to
carry thy
bed."68
Finally
in the extreme distance it is
possible
that
yet
another narrative moment in the
figures standing
in the
doorway
of the
building
that closes the view. Sometime after the
miracle took
place
Christ met the healed man in the
temple
and told him to sin no more.
As a result he identified Christ to the Jews who then
sought
to kill
him.69
Both the Peter and John
Healing
the Sick and the Christ
Healing
the
Paralytic
resemble the Seven Works
of Charity
in
bearing prominent inscriptions
that
identify
their biblical sources.70 All of them are executed with a careful
regard
for narrative
accuracy. Nothing
is
permitted
to distract the viewer from the central
point
of the
biblical
history represented.
How are we to account for these
highly spiritual
renditions of
religious
events in the
light
of the rest of Aertsen's
oeuvre?
How can we reconcile the
sincerity
of
religious
66
Acts 5:17-18.
67
This
subject is also rare in the
16th century.
Three
drawings, however,
are known. These are
by
Pieter Cornelisz.
Kunst,
in Warsaw
(see Pigler, I, 301 f.; Reau, II,
Part
II, 377);
J.
Wiericx;
in the
Lugt
Collection,
The
Hague,
dated
1550,
and Lambert
Lombard,
sold in London
1934,
dated
1559.
68
John 5:
10.
It is
possible
that the actions of the Jews would have been associated with the
rejection
of
good
works
by
the reformed
just
as earlier a reformed writer had used the incident to criticize Catholic
insistence on the observation of external ritual such as the observance of
holidays.
That Christ was
willing
to do this for
neglected
invalids on this
high
feast
day
of
Pentecost,
occurred
for our instruction so that we
should,
without
respect
for
persons
and without consideration of
whether it is a
high
or a low feast
day, help
and console our
neighbors, etc.
...
... Like those Jews who forbad this
poor man from
carrying his bed on the
Sabbath, whose cele-
bration had been ordained
by God, so
they still
cry out if a
poor man wins his bread with work on
feast
days or if a rich man works in order to
give to the
poor, saying: This
person and that
person
do not observe the
holidays. These
holidays, however, are not ordered
by
God neither are
they
in
the New Testament.
Dat Christus desen verlatenen siecken dit
op dien
hoogen feestdach van Pinxten heeft willen doen,
is tot onser
leeringen geschiet dat wi sonder wtnemen der
persoonen, sonder aensien van
hooge oft
leege vierdagen, onsen naesten
helpen ende troosten, etc. ...
gelijc dese Joden desen armen mensche
verboden zijn bedde opten Sabboth te dragen, die van God gheboden was te vieren, also
roepen si
nu ooc, als een arm menshe
sijn broot met sinen arbeyt op feestdagen winnet, oft dat de
rijcke
arbeyden om den armen te
geven, ... Peeters, 79-80).
69
John 5: 14-18.
70 While referring to the sources of the iconography the reading of these inscriptions offers some
difficulty. In the Sts. Peter and John
Healing the
Sick, the
inscription reads, "Dwerckd XIII." Whereas
feeling
that characterizes the
representation
of these themes with the casual
suppression
of
religious
content that is
typical
of his earlier work?
While these
questions
must for the time
being
remain
unresolved,
it is
possible
that
their
unique
character
depends
on the new attitude to the visual arts
brought
about
by
the Counter-Reformation.
As a
consequence
of reformed attacks on the
worship
of
images
Catholic writers not
only sought
to reassert the traditional devotional and educational functions of
religious
art,
but also to reform the nature of ecclesiastical
art,
thus
placing
it
beyond
the reach of
Protestant criticism.7' The
goal
of these reforms was
essentially
to raise the
spiritual
content of works of art. In
Italy
the new demand for
spiritual efficacy
was reflected in
contemporary
artistic
theory, particularly
in the
concept
of decorum with
its
demand
for historical
accuracy
in the rendition of
narrative.72
The new
requirements
for church
art were summarized in the Resolutions of the Council of Trent
adopted
at its final
session in
15
65.73 Essentially
these called for the
representation
of no false doctrines
and an avoidance of lasciviousness and "seductive charm."
Bishops
were to visit the
dioceses to ensure that "there be
nothing
seen that is
disorderly
or that is
unbecomingly
and
confusedly arranged, nothing
that is
profane, nothing indecorous, seeing
that holi-
ness becomes the house of
God."74"
In addition the
bishops
were to see that no "unusual
images,"
e.
g., representations
of new
miracles,
were
represented
until
they
had been
approved by higher authority.75
"Dwerckd" is an abbreviation for "Die Werken der
Apostel,"
as the
1891 catalogue points
out
(II, 40),
it is not clear what the numeral "XIII" refers to. The same
catalogue suggests
that this
may
refer to verse
153
of Acts
5,
where the narrative
may
be said to
begin.
In the Christ
Healing
the
Paralytic,
the
inscription
reads, "IOA VC." Once
again
the letters are clear while the numerals are not.
"IOA" is an abbreviation
of
"Joannes,"
and the numeral "V" can be
interpreted
as a reference to
Chapter
5 from which the narrative
is taken. The narrative
only occupies
verses
1-9
so that "C" remains
enigmatic.
71 For a
general
account of the defense of
religious
art before the Council of Trent see Hubert
Jedin,
"Entstehung
und
Tragweite
des Trienter Dekrets uber die
Bilderverehrung," Theologische Quartalschrift,
CXVI
(1935), 143-89
and 404-29. For the Catholic reform see: Charles
Dejob,
De
l'influence
du Concile
de Trente sur la
littdrature
et les beaux-arts chez les
peuples catholiques (Paris: 1884; reprinted
Geneva:
Slatkine
Reprints, 1969),
Ch.
V,
Parts 2 and
3;
Emile
MVale,
L'art
religieux apres
le
Concile
de
Trente
(Paris: Colin, 1932); Anthony Blunt,
Artistic
Theory
in
Italy
1450-1600
(Oxford:
Clarendon
Press, 1940;
reprinted 1964),
Ch.
VIII;
Julius
Schlosser-Magnino,
La letteratura artistica
(1924),
trans.
by Filippo
Rossi (Florence: La Nuova Italia and Vienna: Anton Schroll, 1967), Book VI, Part IV. A survey of the
scholarship
on the
subject
is
provided by Paolo Prodi, "Ricerche sulla teoria delle arti
figurative nella Ri-
forma cattolica," Archivio italiano per la storia della
pieth,
IV
(1965), 122-212; particularly 122-40.
The
necessity for caution in the postulation of
relationships between the
thought of the Counter-Reformation
and the art of the period has recently been emphasized by A. W. A. Boschloo in a work that
appeared after
this
study
had been
completed (Annibale Carracci in
Bologna, Visible Reality in Art
after the Council of
Trent, 2 vols., The
Hague: Government
Printing Office, 1974, Chapter VIII). Boschloo demonstrates that
far from
being uniform in their effect on artistic
production, the Resolutions of the Council of Trent were
interpreted in
widely differing ways according to the
disposition of local ecclesiastical authorities.
72 For the
history of the
theory
of decorum see Rensselaer Lee, "'Ut Pictura Poesis': The Humanistic
Theory of
Painting," Art Bulletin, XXII
(1940), 197-269; esp. 228 f.
73 Waterworth, 255-256.
74
WT
aterworth,
256.
75 The effective enforcement of the Resolutions of the Council of Trent in the Netherlands did not take
place immediately. Holland, and
particularly the diocese of Utrecht within whose
sphere of influence
Johannes
Molanus,
a Flemish
theologian
at the
University
of
Louvain,
was the first
to
expand upon
the
implications
of the Council for the visual arts in his
De
Historia S.S.
Imaginum
et Picturarum of
1570.
In a manner
analogous
to the Index of
prohibited
books,
Molanus
categorized
certain
subjects
as
dangerous
and therefore
prohibited.
In
his detailed discussion of
subject matter,
he used historical and
archaeological
criteria
for
determining
the
way
in which
they
should be
represented.
It is clear that the
spirit
of Aertsen's late
religious narratives,
the trio
composed
of
the Works
of Charity,
the Sts. Peter and John
Healing
and Christ
Healing
the
Paralytic,
coincides
closely
with the nature of
religious
art envisioned
by
the Resolutions of the
Council of Trent as well as
by
Johannes Molanus. Not
only
are the biblical narratives
represented
with a
particular
concern for textual
accuracy
but no secular element is
permitted
to distract attention from the
religious meaning
of the works.
Whereas some of the earlier
religious
works of Pieter Aertsen reveal an
essentially
unspiritual
attitude towards
subject
matter which enabled him to
pursue
his new secular
interests in
everyday
life within the framework of
religious subjects,
or
even,
as in the
case of the Return
from
the Procession or the Adoration
of Nebuchadnezzar, permitted
him to
represent subjects
of controversial
significance,
the late narratives reveal a radical
change
of attitude. We can
only speculate
that it was the Iconoclasm of
1566
which
brutally
and
violently brought
to
public
attention the reformed criticism of ecclesiastical
art,
as well as the
personal
loss entailed in the destruction of his own
altarpieces,
that
led Aertsen to reevaluate the
philosophical implications
of his
stylistic vocabulary.
Amsterdam
lay, proved
no
exception
to the other
provinces
in
protesting
their
proclamation. (F. Willcox,
L'Introduction des Decrets du Concile de Trente dans les
Pays-Bas
et dans la
Principaute
de
Likge [Lou-
vain,
Librairie
Universitaire, 1929],
194
f.)
While there was no
objection
on
points
of doctrine the
clergy
felt that the centralization of diocesan
authority
in the hands of the
bishop
was a violation of ancient
rights
and
privileges.
The discontent was focused in the
Chapters
of the Cathedral of Utrecht whose dissent
was so effective that the new
arrangements
were
only put
into effect at the direct command of the Duke
of Alva in 1568
(207 f.).
While the
city
of Amsterdam had
technically
formed
part
of the diocese of Haar-
lem,
whose first
bishop
was installed in
1561,
it was
only
in 1571 when Godefroid van Mierlo became
bishop
of
Haarlem,
that the diocese became autonomous of Utrecht and that a
provincial synod
was held
for the
purpose
of
proclaiming
the decrees of Trent
(215).
There is no mention however in either the
resolutions of the
provincial synod
of Utrecht in 1565 or those of the
provincial synod
of Haarlem in 1571
of matters
pertaining
to ecclesiastical art.
(For
Utrecht see F. van
Rappard
and S. Muller
Fz., Veerslagen
van kerkvisitatien in het bisdom Utrecht
uit
de XVIe eeuw
[Werken Uitgegeven
door het
Historisch Genoot-
schap, XXIX, 3rd ser. Utrecht: 1911],
5
f. for Haarlem, Hugo van Heussen, Batavia Sacra, 2 vols. [Brussels:
Foppens, 1714], II,
514-516.)
A more
important
indication of the enforcement of the Tridentine resolutions
concerning art
may
be
found in the records of
episcopal
visitations of
parishes
within the diocese of Utrecht after 1564. These
records reveal that while the standard
inquiry
contained
questions concerning the extent of the artistic
destruction that had taken
place during the Iconoclasm of 1566 and what had been done to replace those
losses,
there is no mention of the content and
style
of works at
present
on
display (Rappard
and Muller Fz.,
passim).
After 1572 when most of Holland fell into the hands of reformed forces the
position
of Amsterdam be-
came increasingly
isolated. It remained in the control of a Catholic city council until 1578. (For the history
of the
city during
the 1570's, see J. ter Gouw, Geschiedenis van Amsterdam [Amsterdam: van Holkema
and Warendorf, 1891], VII;
also H. Brugmans, Opkomst en Bloei van Amsterdam [Amsterdam: Meulen-
hoff, 1911], Ch. II.)

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Staatliche Museen zu Berlin -- Preuischer Kulturbesitz

Reflections on some unusual subjects in the work of Pieter Aertsen

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