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DOI Artikel:Komunikaty
DOI Artikel:Heuer, Christopher P.: Three "Danzig" drawings: notes on the limits of influence
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.35031#0323
315
CHRISTOPHER P. HEUER
Pr/nce/o/? ŁG/Tery/Zy
77/rep 'Danzfg' D/Y7M77/gs.'
AG/P.S' OP 7* */?6 P/7/7/7.S o/7n/7/76/7ć'o '
"W"n the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdańsk there are three anonymous
! drawings after Hans Vredeman de Vries (1526-1609).' Vredeman, aproliEc and itiner-
ant print designer, worked in Danzig (Gdańsk) between 1592 and 1596 as a R/rtiEcation
engineer and painter. His Baltic tenure has long entranced scholars of Polish 'Nether-
landism', while his pattem books continue to provoke dispute among architectural
historians.^ In an article Rom 1927, for example, Georg Cuny spoke of the
//?//z/.s.s'' of Yrcdcmarfs engravings upon the Danzig Zcngńon.s' (Pol.: Zń/Ygown/o).' While
'influence' has proved a tenacious, popular and elastic modę of thinking about Netherlandish
prints in relation to local craft, Vredeman's engravings were circulated on such a wide-Eung,
if not even global, scalę that other possibilities arise; Vredeman's books were in Spain as
early as the mid-16th century, reaching South America before 1700. The way they were
received, of course, differed dramatically depending upon cultural circumstances. The three
'Danzig' watercolours based on Vredeman's prints - large, laboured copies in lavish falio
bindings - might thus permit the opportunity to reassess how the oRen-used categoiy of
'inEuence' applies to study sheets madę aRer engravings originating Rom afar.
The Erst drawing is pen, ink and wash, on unprepared paper (ill. 1). It is a copy aRer
Vredeman's enormously popular 1604-5 treatise on perspective (ill. 2), Erst published in The
Hague and Leiden by Hendrick Hondius. The tract offered a rich series of fantastic
architectural environments as demonstrations of perspective drawing, intended for painters
and inlayers. The drawing shows a direct copy of Vredeman's piąte 29: a corridor with a
vault and naked, fore-shortened human Egure lying on a table placed opposite an open
Hhanks to Krystyna Jackowska in Gdańsk and Peter Martyn in Warsaw.
' Biblioteka Gdańska PAN (Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences, hereafter BG PAN), Me /y/łc o wopacń -
ńfońwnńa w zń/owcń P/ń/io/ełi Gz/z/ńy/ńe/ Po/ył/e/' ńGz/ew// Mz/T/ł, Gdańsk 2000, pp. 4-8.
* See, for example: Teresa HRANKOWSRA, ed. A/z/er/z/nz/yzw ^ yzt77ce go/yłze/' p7777te/77//y^0 yey/'/ y/owz/rzyyze/777/
Myto/yłówSz/T/ł/, 7or77/7 7992), Warszawa: PWN 1995, esp. pp. 93-111; Arnold BARTETZKY, 'Niederlande versus
Polen: Zur Rezeption nordischen-manieristischer Architektur in Danzig', [in:] A. Langer, G. Michels (ed.) A7e/rogo/e/7
77/77/AY/ń/r/rz/ry/er 7/77 /5./M. Jz/ń/Gt/rz/erZ, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 2001, pp. 171-184; Brian KNOX, in Me A/Wnfec-
/z/re of Po/z//7z/ (New York: Praeger 1971, p. 111), indicates that between 1945 and 1949 restorers used Vredeman's
pattem books to rebuild sections of the Main City's neighbourhoods destroyed by the Soviet Tiberation' of April 1945.
^ Georges CUNY, Jo/7Z7/7/7ey Prez/e/77z//7/7 & Fr/ey 77/77/ Aeg/z/7Z7y D/cł/77z//7/7, Mitteilungen des WestpreuBischen
Geschichtsvereins 26(1927), p. 65; further: Barbara UPPENKAMP, Der F//9777// w/7 Demy Frez/e/z/z/z/ & E/ey z/T/f
ńrcń/feDT/r 77/77/ AT/ny/gewerZ/e, [in:] Mz/z/y Prez/e/77z//7 7/e F/i'ey 77/77/ z/7ePe/7Z77'yyz//7ce 7/77 Aorz/e/7, ed. H. Borgreffe et. ah,
Munchen 2002, p. 90-104.
CHRISTOPHER P. HEUER
Pr/nce/o/? ŁG/Tery/Zy
77/rep 'Danzfg' D/Y7M77/gs.'
AG/P.S' OP 7* */?6 P/7/7/7.S o/7n/7/76/7ć'o '
"W"n the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Gdańsk there are three anonymous
! drawings after Hans Vredeman de Vries (1526-1609).' Vredeman, aproliEc and itiner-
ant print designer, worked in Danzig (Gdańsk) between 1592 and 1596 as a R/rtiEcation
engineer and painter. His Baltic tenure has long entranced scholars of Polish 'Nether-
landism', while his pattem books continue to provoke dispute among architectural
historians.^ In an article Rom 1927, for example, Georg Cuny spoke of the
//?//z/.s.s'' of Yrcdcmarfs engravings upon the Danzig Zcngńon.s' (Pol.: Zń/Ygown/o).' While
'influence' has proved a tenacious, popular and elastic modę of thinking about Netherlandish
prints in relation to local craft, Vredeman's engravings were circulated on such a wide-Eung,
if not even global, scalę that other possibilities arise; Vredeman's books were in Spain as
early as the mid-16th century, reaching South America before 1700. The way they were
received, of course, differed dramatically depending upon cultural circumstances. The three
'Danzig' watercolours based on Vredeman's prints - large, laboured copies in lavish falio
bindings - might thus permit the opportunity to reassess how the oRen-used categoiy of
'inEuence' applies to study sheets madę aRer engravings originating Rom afar.
The Erst drawing is pen, ink and wash, on unprepared paper (ill. 1). It is a copy aRer
Vredeman's enormously popular 1604-5 treatise on perspective (ill. 2), Erst published in The
Hague and Leiden by Hendrick Hondius. The tract offered a rich series of fantastic
architectural environments as demonstrations of perspective drawing, intended for painters
and inlayers. The drawing shows a direct copy of Vredeman's piąte 29: a corridor with a
vault and naked, fore-shortened human Egure lying on a table placed opposite an open
Hhanks to Krystyna Jackowska in Gdańsk and Peter Martyn in Warsaw.
' Biblioteka Gdańska PAN (Gdańsk Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences, hereafter BG PAN), Me /y/łc o wopacń -
ńfońwnńa w zń/owcń P/ń/io/ełi Gz/z/ńy/ńe/ Po/ył/e/' ńGz/ew// Mz/T/ł, Gdańsk 2000, pp. 4-8.
* See, for example: Teresa HRANKOWSRA, ed. A/z/er/z/nz/yzw ^ yzt77ce go/yłze/' p7777te/77//y^0 yey/'/ y/owz/rzyyze/777/
Myto/yłówSz/T/ł/, 7or77/7 7992), Warszawa: PWN 1995, esp. pp. 93-111; Arnold BARTETZKY, 'Niederlande versus
Polen: Zur Rezeption nordischen-manieristischer Architektur in Danzig', [in:] A. Langer, G. Michels (ed.) A7e/rogo/e/7
77/77/AY/ń/r/rz/ry/er 7/77 /5./M. Jz/ń/Gt/rz/erZ, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 2001, pp. 171-184; Brian KNOX, in Me A/Wnfec-
/z/re of Po/z//7z/ (New York: Praeger 1971, p. 111), indicates that between 1945 and 1949 restorers used Vredeman's
pattem books to rebuild sections of the Main City's neighbourhoods destroyed by the Soviet Tiberation' of April 1945.
^ Georges CUNY, Jo/7Z7/7/7ey Prez/e/77z//7/7 & Fr/ey 77/77/ Aeg/z/7Z7y D/cł/77z//7/7, Mitteilungen des WestpreuBischen
Geschichtsvereins 26(1927), p. 65; further: Barbara UPPENKAMP, Der F//9777// w/7 Demy Frez/e/z/z/z/ & E/ey z/T/f
ńrcń/feDT/r 77/77/ AT/ny/gewerZ/e, [in:] Mz/z/y Prez/e/77z//7 7/e F/i'ey 77/77/ z/7ePe/7Z77'yyz//7ce 7/77 Aorz/e/7, ed. H. Borgreffe et. ah,
Munchen 2002, p. 90-104.