Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The Deploration cycle includes those scenes which deal with the Descent from the Cross, the Lamentation, and the Entombment. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the distinctions between these scenes become minimized in the Netherlands, and the dominant theme results as the lamenting over the dead Christ. This paper examines the iconography of this theme in the Deploration cycle in this period of Netherlandish painting. The earliest literary sources for the Deploration cycle are the passages dealing with the theme in the writings of the Evangilists. After these, the first literary description of the scene of the lamentation itself seems to be in the Sermons of Georges de Nicomedie in the ninth century. The scene is described in greater detail in the thirteenth century in the Meditations on the Life of Christ formerly attributed to St. Bonaventure; from this description a division of types may be made in the paintings under discussion. Contemporary mystical literature also influenced the iconography of the paintings of this period. Not only is the general atmosphere of intimacy amd spirituality similar in the literature and the paintings, but points of iconography were also established in the writings of the Mystics, as, for instance, in the Meditations on the Life of Christ by Thomas A Kempis, in the fifteenth century. Mystical literature of the period also dealt with the theme of the Sacred Heart: the idea that the wound in Christ's side was opened in order to permit the sinner to enter into His Sacred Heart. Although the bloody side wound is shown in most of the scenes treated in this paper, it never gains the predominance that it does in scenes of the Man of Sorrows. Therefore, the direct influence of this phase of mystical literature on the scanes of the Deploration cycle is doubtful. The scenes of the Lamentation are considered first in the paper, followed by those of the Descent and the Entombment. The sources in painting for all three subjects may be found in illustrated manuscripts executed in the "International Style". The fifteenth-century scenes of the Lamentation are divided into four general categories: the Pieta' proper, including only the Virgin and dead Christ; the Pieta group surrounded by other figures; the representation of Christ on a shroud; supported by Joseph of Arimathaea, St. John, or the Virgin; and the depiction of half length figures bewailing the dead Christ. In the first category, the Virgin usually sits upright with the dead Christ on her lap, but in the second she may either sit upright or lean down to kiss Him. One composition of the Virgin kissing Christ was so influential that it was repeated and reinterpreted many times: the Lamentation at the Royal Museum in Brussels, attributed to the workshop of Roger van der Weyden. The third category corresponds to the second moment described in the thirteenth century Meditations, when Christ lies on a sheet after having been prepared for the tomb. All of the works of the last category, of half-length figures, were influenced by a lost composition by Hugo van der Goes. In the sixteenth-century scenes of the Lamentation, the same general categories may be followed, with the addition of two types: Christ being supported on a sheet by both the Virgin and St. John, and His being supported without a sheet by a Holy Woman. Descriptions of the Descent from the Cross also occur in the Meditations already mentioned. In the fifteenth-century scenes, the first category includes those scenes which are depicted in full length, and may be divided into two types: those in which the Virgin faints and those in which the Virgin kisses the hanging right hand of Christ. The second category, including scenes representing half-length figures, is closest to the spirit of the Lamentation. In these, Christ is depicted in a vertical position, in constrast to His horizontal position in the half-length Lamentations. At least twenty copies of a lost composition by Roger may be classified under this type. The sixteenth-century Descent scenes may also be divided into full-length and half-length representations. A third type in the first category includes those scenes in which the Virgin neither faints nor kisses Christ's hand. Few examples of the Entombment exist in this period of painting in the Netherlands. The reason for this fact is that the themes of the Lamentation and that of the Entombment are essentially the same; it has even been suggested that the former grew out of the latter. The fifteenth-century scenes are represented by two examples of the horizontal Italian type of Entombment, a unique "Last Farewell before the Entrance to the Sepulcre" by Roger, and three works in which the body of Christ is being carried into a gaping hole in a rock. The first three examples of the scene in the sixteenth century include works in which Christ is being lowered into a diagonal, foreshortened sarcophagus. The last example in this century is a unique work with threequarter-length figures. The sixteenth-century scenes of the Deploration cycle generally show a decrease in emotionality from those of the fifteenth. The influence of these scenes in both centuries may be recognized in the numerous copies of lost works, as well as in the carrying over of the dead Christ on the Virgin's lap to other countries. The cycle of the Deploration scenes in this period of Netherlandish art is united not by the contemplation of the sacred Heart, but by the theme of the grieving over the crucified Christ. / 2031-01-01

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This dissertation evaluates the position of Netherlandish migrant artists in the dynamic cultural environment of seventeenth-century Rome through an examination of the role of the Bentvueghels (“birds of a feather”) as a social and economic nexus for the city’s foreign community. One of the most distinctive societies in the history of art, this high-spirited ex-pat “brotherhood” attracted hundreds of traveling artists and was notorious throughout Europe for its raucous initiations and for the raw depictions of Rome by Pieter van Laer and his followers, the Bamboccianti. While earlier scholarship has established important aspects of the group, such as its history and the artistic significance of individual members, the society has been characterized largely as antagonistic and antithetical to organizations and institutions specific to Rome. I offer instead a fresh outlook on the Bentvueghels that examines their day-to-day economics and response to (and even driving of) market forces in Rome, in order to determine how the society of foreigners as a whole operated functionally within a shifting creative environment in one of the most vital artistic centers in Europe. To address these issues, each chapter is arranged thematically and chronologically, focusing on the period between 1620, when the group first organized, through the close of the seventeenth century, when the last known images of Bentvueghel initiations were created. Using a methodology that integrates art historical primary source investigation with migration theory and network analysis, I analyze the various stages of the journey to Rome for these artists, from initial arrival, to the establishment of a workshop, to the achievement of success in local and international markets. The Introduction (Chapter One) sets up the methodological and historiographical framework for the dissertation. In the second chapter, “Arriving in Rome: The Bentvueghels as a Social and Economic Nexus,” the social activities of the Bentvueghels and their networks are discussed. Archival sources including parish censuses, criminal court records, and notarial documents demonstrate how the group enabled migrant artists to adapt to a different—and often hostile—market by fostering surrogate kinship networks. The Bentvueghels offered migrant artists, who were typically young (around 22-25 years of age), male, and single, a place to live, a ready-made network of friends, and critical financial assistance. Chapter Three, “Working in Rome: Bentvueghel Workshops and Working Practices,” establishes the working practices of Dutch and Flemish artists, a relatively uncharted area of research, and locates economic and social network formation within the space of the workshop. Centers of artistic production in the city are scrutinized, from the highly trafficked studios of Netherlandish artists such as Paul Bril to the private drawing academies hosted by prestigious patrons, including the celebrated Genoese aristocrat, Vincenzo Giustiniani. Paintings, drawings, and prints produced by Dutch and Flemish Italianate artists are compared to identify patterns in workshop practices, determine market impact, and measure the degree to which they were influenced by their new surroundings and by their association with the Bentvueghels. In the fourth and final chapter, “Staying in Rome: Cornelis Bloemaert II as a Case Study for Long-term Strategies of Networking,” I explore strategies of integration among members who remained in Rome for extended periods, focusing on the engraver Cornelis Bloemaert II as a case study. Collaborative enterprises such as large-scale book productions, which comprised a significant proportion of Bloemaert’s artistic output in Rome, provided ways for artists to enhance their artistic education and experiment with new techniques and motifs, while also encouraging further expansion and development of an artist’s social and economic networks. This study thus evaluates the full scope of a foreign artist’s experience in Rome, highlighting with greater accuracy the ways in which affiliation with the Bentvueghels influenced acclimation and eventual integration within the social and cultural fabric of the city. It offers, moreover, a much needed contextualization of the artistic relations between northern European and Italian artists in seventeenth-century Rome, and the important position of the Bentvueghels within this cosmopolitan environment. / Art History

<p>Marinus Van Reymerswaele's painting of 1542, <italic>The Lawyer's Office</italic>, was a completely new type of image in the history of art. It shows a lawyer and his assistant behind a desk strewn with briefs, wax seals and money. A complex set of historical circumstances at the interface of art, economics, and legal history in sixteenth century Antwerp explain this painting's appearance and significance. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, Antwerp became a locus of unprecedented artistic production caused by the dramatic growth of its mercantile population, its highly organized commercial infrastructure, and its competitive business atmosphere. These developments stimulated a new sophistication in the art market and an energetic approach to acquiring and collecting, supported by publicly-funded venues to mass-market paintings. Over the course of the sixteenth century, artists invented new subjects to meet public demand. Many of these were radically new. One of these artists, Marinus Van Reymerswaele (c. 1490-1546) made distinctive paintings of lawyers, bankers, and moneychangers which relate to fundamental changes in the legal and commercial infrastructure in the sixteenth century. In just one generation, the Habsburg authority centralized the political and legal landscape in the Netherlands. As the prized economic and cultural center of Habsburg territories, Antwerp was transformed. </p><p>This dissertation links the development of consumption practices and the rise of new pictorial subjects introduced in Antwerp with the changing business and legal climate of the city during the sixteenth century. Through an investigation of unpublished home inventories recorded between 1528 and 1588, it clarifies the acquisition preferences of the Antwerp public at large, considering both changing preferences for panel and linen paintings as well as for novel and traditional images alike. This reassessment of painting consumption reveals a starkly more conservative approach to buying images than previously assumed, underscoring the rarity of everyday life subjects in Antwerp domestic spaces. As a painter operating within this market, Marinus van Reymerswaele invented a new brand of painting -- the new old master painting -- that not only addressed broad social concerns sparked by Habsburg political, mercantile, and legal reforms, but also built on long-established Netherlandish visual traditions. As the sixteenth century drew to a close, his paintings became more desired by collectors but lost their topicality as memories of Antwerp's political anxieties faded into the past.</p> / Dissertation

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The Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands constitute an interesting case for studying the function and symbolism of matrimony. This period marked an active time of change in the Low Countries: there was ongoing antagonism between the dukes of Burgundy and their Dutch subjects; shifts in the mercantile industry caused economic flux; the Reformation sparked religious tension; and the rapid expansion of the art market created a Europe-wide demand for Netherlandish fine and decorative art. In the face of upheaval, the act of marriage and the ideology surrounding it remained relatively consistent. Betrothal and marriage ceremonies in the Low Countries were quite formal compared to those in southern Europe; the quintessential northern ceremony customarily involved a priest, witnesses, and symbolic hand gestures. The images discussed in this thesis overwhelmingly reflect the importance of ritualistic behaviour in the late medieval Netherlands; the majority of them depict proper in facie ecclesiae unions, meaning “in the face of the Church.” These images of ideal marriage rituals were most commonly commissioned by members of the court or Church, and were used primarily to display wealth and power, to enhance the pageantry of court life, to draw connections with the mythic or biblical past, to promote canon law, and to reinforce cultural values. The fifty-three images studied in this thesis not only relate to discourses on medieval marriage and art history; they also fit into the larger narratives surrounding civic authority, religious tension, economic change, and social mores. In this thesis, I use an interdisciplinary approach to reveal the main functions of matrimonial ceremonies in Early Netherlandish art, and to examine the gap between image and reality. This thesis contributes to a better understanding of ritual and visual expression in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands.