DOI Heft:
Nr. 1-4
DOI Artikel:Brusewicz, Lech: On the perception of paintings in 17th century Holland
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18898#0020
2. Poeł turning away from mundane things, J. van de Velie's illustration in G. A. Bredero»
Aendachtigh Lied-boeck, Amsterdam, 1622 (after J. A. Emmens, Rembrandt..., op. cit.)
tion of this demand. It shows tlie poet Bredero kneeling in front of the Bibie and allegories
of Belief, Hope and Love, ostentatiously turning away from painting symbolized by pictures and
a female nude on an easel, and from earthly love shown in the shape of Venus and Amor. The
didactic message of the scenę referred both to Bredero who originally wanted to become a painter
and to every man. The epigram under the print speaks of it as follows: „When man has thoroughly
reconsidered his vanity, he wagcs war on Venus and tramples on the glamour of this world.
And he humbly lends his car to the virtue of sacred knowledge and gratefully offers God the
incense of reformation"63.
The presence and probably also the considerble popularity of deprecative opinions of painting
in a country where, on the one hand the dictates of the Bibie were obeyed with absolut e trust
and where on the othar, Erasmus's words that, „...stupid, obscene or subversive panels should
be removed not only from the churches but also from the whole community", were well remem-
bered, are cpiite understandable.
Still the first Old Testament commandment forbade quite explicitly making and adoring
any carved images or painting (Exodus 20:4). The vast production and the widespread Dutch
63. Quotcd after J.A. Emmens, op. cit., p. 142 ff.
14
Aendachtigh Lied-boeck, Amsterdam, 1622 (after J. A. Emmens, Rembrandt..., op. cit.)
tion of this demand. It shows tlie poet Bredero kneeling in front of the Bibie and allegories
of Belief, Hope and Love, ostentatiously turning away from painting symbolized by pictures and
a female nude on an easel, and from earthly love shown in the shape of Venus and Amor. The
didactic message of the scenę referred both to Bredero who originally wanted to become a painter
and to every man. The epigram under the print speaks of it as follows: „When man has thoroughly
reconsidered his vanity, he wagcs war on Venus and tramples on the glamour of this world.
And he humbly lends his car to the virtue of sacred knowledge and gratefully offers God the
incense of reformation"63.
The presence and probably also the considerble popularity of deprecative opinions of painting
in a country where, on the one hand the dictates of the Bibie were obeyed with absolut e trust
and where on the othar, Erasmus's words that, „...stupid, obscene or subversive panels should
be removed not only from the churches but also from the whole community", were well remem-
bered, are cpiite understandable.
Still the first Old Testament commandment forbade quite explicitly making and adoring
any carved images or painting (Exodus 20:4). The vast production and the widespread Dutch
63. Quotcd after J.A. Emmens, op. cit., p. 142 ff.
14