seeing history: in praise of anachronism, folly - Arbeitskreis ...

Ordnungen des Sehens. Innovationsfelder der kunsthistorischen Niederlandeforschung
Frankfurt am Main, 30. September bis 2. Oktober 2011
Öffentliches Abendprogramm (Samstag)
17.15 Uhr bis 19.00 Uhr HS 5
ABENDVORTRAG
DESIGNING ARCHITECTURE IN THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY
LOW COUNTRIES. ON A NEW ATTRIBUTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS.
PROF. DR. KRISTA DE JONGE
PROFESSOR OF HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE, CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF
LEUVEN, DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE, URBANISM AND PLANNING
The drawing for the rood screen at Sainte-Waudru, Mons (1535), possibly the
most famous Netherlandish architectural drawing of the sixteenth century, no
longer stands alone. It may now be joined with an impressive number of designs
for architecture (such as a façade and a book on the orders) and for microarchitecture
(such as portals, tombs, and stalls) conserved in various European
collections. Through the mass medium of etching, the oeuvre of this Anonymous
was also widely diffused throughout the Low Countries and their periphery from
the 1530s until the end of the century, Vredeman de Vries in particular recycling
many of his inventions in a more up-to-date ornamental vocabulary. The
architectural language of the Anonymus of the 1530s corresponds with that of
Jean Mone, “artist to the emperor” and chief arbiter of architectural taste in the
orbit of the Brussels court until the middle of the century. This new attribution
throws new light upon the complex history of Netherlandish architecture in the
1530s, when the newly introduced “antique” language still vied for attention
with the latest, most “modern” gothic. It implies, amongst others, rewriting the
generally accepted history of the introduction of the Orders into the Low
Countries, now focused on Pieter Coecke’s translations of Serlio. The role and
position of drawings in the workshop practice of the many guilds active in
architectural design – including painters, figural sculptors and goldsmiths next to
the more traditional practititioners – needs to be reconsidered entirely, and
similarly their status as a collectible, generally thought to be of more recent date
in the field of architecture.
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