DOI Artikel:
Tomalak, Mirosław: Two Unknown Paintings by Lodewijk Toeput and Joos de Momper the Younger
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.72800#0151
Mirosław copies painted by Frans Momper illustrates this process of "bringing the Four
Tomalak Seasons from their allegorical level back to the earthly dimension"28 even more
straightforwardly: labours of the months remain, but antique gods are already
missing. According to Veldman, the same tendency can be observed in con-
temporary Venetian art, namely in the paintings of the Bassano family.29 In the
Italian Renaissance a cycle of the seasons used to form a popular subject in ceil-
ing decorations30 and did not appear in easel painting until about 1575, when
Jacopo Bassano created the first series depicting the Four Seasons.31 More impor-
tantly, it was in this cycle that the traditional iconography changed for the
first time: the seasons were no longer represented by gods from Olympus, but
depicted in the form of vast landscapes with multiple figures performing vari-
ous agricultural tasks, such as shearing sheep, harvesting, milking goats, picking
grapes etc. They also included episodes from the Old and New Testament: Fall
of Man was incorporated in the Spring, Sacrifice of Isaac in the Summer, Moses
Receiving the Tablets of the Law in the Autumn, and Christ Carrying the Cross
in the Winter. Introducing biblical scenes in representations of the months or
seasons was not, nota bene, unknown in Netherlandish art, even though this
phenomenon has not been widely recognized.32 It is generally accepted that
the idea of Bassanos cycle derived from the North, and was inspired by four
prints engraved by Pieter van der Heyden and published by Hieronymus Cock
in 1570.33 The preparatory drawings were designed by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
(Spring and Summer) and Hans Bol (Autumn and Winter). Depicting labours of
the month summarized in four scenes, they are devoid of any kind of personi-
fications, allegories, deities etc. The only motif referring to classical sources of
28 I. Veldman, Waaien met de mode mee..., p. 80.
29 Ibidem, p. 78.
30 See i.e. Seasons by Paolo Veronese in the Sala dell'Olimpo in the Villa Barbaro at Maser
(1560-1561) or by Jacopo Tintoretto at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (1551-1552).
31 Specialists disagree whether the originals by Jacopo have survived. But from our point of
view questions of authorship are not of big importance, as it is the invention of new iconography
of the seasons in Italian art that matters to us. For the overview of the discussion on originals and
copies of the seasons by Bassano see: Bernard Aikema, Jacopo Bassano and His Public. Moralizing
Pictures in the Age of Reform, ca. 1535-1600, Princeton 1996, pp. 131-133.
32 I.e. according to Bernard Aikema, "The Northern depictions of the Seasons or the Months
[...] are almost always devoid of subsidiary religious scenes.” Ibidem, p. 136. To acknowledge the
superficiality of this statement it is enough to have a look at prints from the Emblemata Evangelica
series by Adriaen Collaert after Hans Bol, executed in 1585: labours of the months and Zodiac
signs are here combined with scenes from both Old and New Testament. The connection between
these spheres is stressed by Latin inscriptions at the bottom of the prints, which refer to specific
chapters of the Bible.
33 Ibidem, pp. 133-134; Stefania Mason, Low Life and Landscape: "minor pictura" in Late
Sixteenth-Century Venice [in:] Renaissance Venice and the North. Crosscurrents in the Time of
Dürer, Bellini and Titian [exhibition catalogue], eds. Bernard Aikema, Beverly L. Brown, Venice,
Palazzo Grassi, New York 2000, pp. 558-559. For the prints see: Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish...,
vol. 9, Amsterdam 1954, pp. 30-31, nos. 63-66.
150
Tomalak Seasons from their allegorical level back to the earthly dimension"28 even more
straightforwardly: labours of the months remain, but antique gods are already
missing. According to Veldman, the same tendency can be observed in con-
temporary Venetian art, namely in the paintings of the Bassano family.29 In the
Italian Renaissance a cycle of the seasons used to form a popular subject in ceil-
ing decorations30 and did not appear in easel painting until about 1575, when
Jacopo Bassano created the first series depicting the Four Seasons.31 More impor-
tantly, it was in this cycle that the traditional iconography changed for the
first time: the seasons were no longer represented by gods from Olympus, but
depicted in the form of vast landscapes with multiple figures performing vari-
ous agricultural tasks, such as shearing sheep, harvesting, milking goats, picking
grapes etc. They also included episodes from the Old and New Testament: Fall
of Man was incorporated in the Spring, Sacrifice of Isaac in the Summer, Moses
Receiving the Tablets of the Law in the Autumn, and Christ Carrying the Cross
in the Winter. Introducing biblical scenes in representations of the months or
seasons was not, nota bene, unknown in Netherlandish art, even though this
phenomenon has not been widely recognized.32 It is generally accepted that
the idea of Bassanos cycle derived from the North, and was inspired by four
prints engraved by Pieter van der Heyden and published by Hieronymus Cock
in 1570.33 The preparatory drawings were designed by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
(Spring and Summer) and Hans Bol (Autumn and Winter). Depicting labours of
the month summarized in four scenes, they are devoid of any kind of personi-
fications, allegories, deities etc. The only motif referring to classical sources of
28 I. Veldman, Waaien met de mode mee..., p. 80.
29 Ibidem, p. 78.
30 See i.e. Seasons by Paolo Veronese in the Sala dell'Olimpo in the Villa Barbaro at Maser
(1560-1561) or by Jacopo Tintoretto at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh (1551-1552).
31 Specialists disagree whether the originals by Jacopo have survived. But from our point of
view questions of authorship are not of big importance, as it is the invention of new iconography
of the seasons in Italian art that matters to us. For the overview of the discussion on originals and
copies of the seasons by Bassano see: Bernard Aikema, Jacopo Bassano and His Public. Moralizing
Pictures in the Age of Reform, ca. 1535-1600, Princeton 1996, pp. 131-133.
32 I.e. according to Bernard Aikema, "The Northern depictions of the Seasons or the Months
[...] are almost always devoid of subsidiary religious scenes.” Ibidem, p. 136. To acknowledge the
superficiality of this statement it is enough to have a look at prints from the Emblemata Evangelica
series by Adriaen Collaert after Hans Bol, executed in 1585: labours of the months and Zodiac
signs are here combined with scenes from both Old and New Testament. The connection between
these spheres is stressed by Latin inscriptions at the bottom of the prints, which refer to specific
chapters of the Bible.
33 Ibidem, pp. 133-134; Stefania Mason, Low Life and Landscape: "minor pictura" in Late
Sixteenth-Century Venice [in:] Renaissance Venice and the North. Crosscurrents in the Time of
Dürer, Bellini and Titian [exhibition catalogue], eds. Bernard Aikema, Beverly L. Brown, Venice,
Palazzo Grassi, New York 2000, pp. 558-559. For the prints see: Hollstein, Dutch and Flemish...,
vol. 9, Amsterdam 1954, pp. 30-31, nos. 63-66.
150