DOI Artikel:
Kobe, Rainer: Isaac van den Blocke, malarz i menonita w Gdańsku na początku XVII w. Czy jest coś menonickiego w jego obrazach Wąska i przestronna droga?
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43445#0063
between the images, and van den Blocke himself probably did not know about his spiritual
ancestors in Strasbourg. The connecting link lies in the common religious thinking behind
both the Strasbourg pictures and van den Blockes paintings.
Both paintings by van den Blocke with their pronounced moralizing reference to
his own present time, fit not only into the Mennonite thought world, but also eąually
well into that of the moralizing Gdańsk Lutherans. The painter and Mennonite Isaac
van den Blocke painted in accord with the wishes of the circle of the Lutheran
Gdańsk patricians who had commissioned his work, without having to deny in so
doing his own conceptions of faith. The paintings: Before the Flood and The Narrow
and the Broad Way, which Isaac van den Blocke painted for the Gdańsk Protestant
patricians in the early 17th century, show in the choice of subject matter and didactic
visual language a close connection both with late Mediaeval as well as with early
Reformation Anabaptist-Spiritualist models. Their message portrays Christian morality
impacting lived reality. Thus they target a primary aspect of the Mennonite under-
standing of faith, which reveals some similarity to Johann Arndts Vom wahren
Christentum. The content of the paintings reaches beyond the strictures on confes-
sional orthodoxy and can be understood as the harbinger of a burgeoning Pietism.
Isaac van den
Blocke...
ancestors in Strasbourg. The connecting link lies in the common religious thinking behind
both the Strasbourg pictures and van den Blockes paintings.
Both paintings by van den Blocke with their pronounced moralizing reference to
his own present time, fit not only into the Mennonite thought world, but also eąually
well into that of the moralizing Gdańsk Lutherans. The painter and Mennonite Isaac
van den Blocke painted in accord with the wishes of the circle of the Lutheran
Gdańsk patricians who had commissioned his work, without having to deny in so
doing his own conceptions of faith. The paintings: Before the Flood and The Narrow
and the Broad Way, which Isaac van den Blocke painted for the Gdańsk Protestant
patricians in the early 17th century, show in the choice of subject matter and didactic
visual language a close connection both with late Mediaeval as well as with early
Reformation Anabaptist-Spiritualist models. Their message portrays Christian morality
impacting lived reality. Thus they target a primary aspect of the Mennonite under-
standing of faith, which reveals some similarity to Johann Arndts Vom wahren
Christentum. The content of the paintings reaches beyond the strictures on confes-
sional orthodoxy and can be understood as the harbinger of a burgeoning Pietism.
Isaac van den
Blocke...