DOI Heft:
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DOI Artikel:Paszkiewicz, Piotr: Noctural bird of wisdom: symbolic functions of the owl in emblems
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18898#0080
11. H. Bary after F. van Mieris, Wine is the Mocker, drawing (after F.W.H. Hollstein, Dutck
and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, I, Amsterdam, 1969)
the mans vom.it underlines, as was freąuently the case in the 15th and 16th ccnturies, the meaning
of the composition. Cornelis Saftleven's intention in the painting entitled Peasants Playing
Musie (Dresden, Gemaldcgalcrie) (fig. 12) must havc heen similar. The owi seated on the man-
telpiece in a village inn watches the men playing musical instruments and drinking. On a nearby
wali there is a drawing of a candle and spectacles. Thus we have a combination into one allegoric
"whole of motifs conveying the same message: a live owi and a candle and the spectacles by
which it was often accompanied in drawings. The whole evokes obvious associations with Cor-
nelis Bloemaert's engraving of which we spoke before, the Wat baetheers eff bril, ais uijl niet sien
lvii, after Plendrick Bloemacrt.
The association of the owi with love, at times even with debauchery and scenes with an erotic
flavour, though not so freąuent, was by no means rare in the art of Germany and the Netherlands
from the 15th century onwards. This might have been affected by the popular contemporary
belief that drunkenness, symbolized among other things by the owi, is an intreduction to
unchastity. „It leads man to prostitution, fornication, debauchery and shamelesseness," a Gouda
74
and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, I, Amsterdam, 1969)
the mans vom.it underlines, as was freąuently the case in the 15th and 16th ccnturies, the meaning
of the composition. Cornelis Saftleven's intention in the painting entitled Peasants Playing
Musie (Dresden, Gemaldcgalcrie) (fig. 12) must havc heen similar. The owi seated on the man-
telpiece in a village inn watches the men playing musical instruments and drinking. On a nearby
wali there is a drawing of a candle and spectacles. Thus we have a combination into one allegoric
"whole of motifs conveying the same message: a live owi and a candle and the spectacles by
which it was often accompanied in drawings. The whole evokes obvious associations with Cor-
nelis Bloemaert's engraving of which we spoke before, the Wat baetheers eff bril, ais uijl niet sien
lvii, after Plendrick Bloemacrt.
The association of the owi with love, at times even with debauchery and scenes with an erotic
flavour, though not so freąuent, was by no means rare in the art of Germany and the Netherlands
from the 15th century onwards. This might have been affected by the popular contemporary
belief that drunkenness, symbolized among other things by the owi, is an intreduction to
unchastity. „It leads man to prostitution, fornication, debauchery and shamelesseness," a Gouda
74