Frans Floris de Vriendt radically transformed Netherlandish art. His monumental mythologies introduced a new appreciation for the heroic nude to the Low Countries and his religious art challenged standards of decorum. Born into a family of sculptors and architects, Floris refashioned his art through travel, first studying with the humanist painter Lambert Lombard in Liège and then continuing on to Italy. These experiences defined the hybridizing novelty of his art, forged by juxtaposing antique and modern, Italian and northern sources. This book maps Floris's hybrid style onto shifting conceptions of cultural, religious, and political identity on the eve of the Dutch Revolt. It explores his collaborations and rivalries, engagement with artistic theory, hierarchical workshop, and revolutionary use of print.
Author(s): Edward H. Wouk
Series: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, 267. Brill’s Studies on Art, Art History, and Intellectual History, 19
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 858
City: Leiden
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Figures
Chapter 1. Introduction. Fall and Redemption: The Divine Artist
Monstrous Hybridity
Floris’s Renaissance
The Politics of the Body
The Limits of Hybridity and Drunken Fantasia
Northern Diligence
Recovering Floris
Out of Bruegel’s Shadow
Chapter 2. A Portrait of the Artist: Floris’s Biography in Context
A Family of Artists
Innovating the Tradition
Lambert Lombard as Teacher and Theorist
Ad Fontes
Lombard’s “Academy” and His Grammar
Chapter 3. Iter Italicum: Floris’s Italian Journey in Context
The Journey to Rome
Drawing in Rome
Making Order of the Antique
The Antique Ideal
The Relief-Like Style in Motion
Painting in Rome
Modernamente antichi e anticamente moderni
The Mobility of Style
Chapter 4. Triumphal Entry: Floris’s Return to Antwerp (1546–49)
Floris’s Return from Italy: Continuity and Innovation
A Cosmopolitan Art
Floris and the Genoese Nation: Art and Identity
The Mystery of the Santa Margherita Triptych
The Entry of 1549 and the Arch of the Genoese Nation
Schiappalaria and Floris’s Mythological Vocabulary
Afterglow of the Triumph
Chapter 5. The Floris Workshop: Practice, Theory, Ritual
Representing a Liberal Art
The Artist in his Studio
The Workshop Experience: Participation and Etiquette
Building a Team
The Floris Signature Paradox
Signatures Under Scrutiny
The Rise of the Print
Victoria
Drawing in the Workshop
Fall of Phaeton
Chapter 6. Portraits and Head Studies
The Head Study and Its Uses
The Model
From Studio to Cabinet
Contextualizing the Head Study
The Portrait
The Model Family
Chapter 7. Experiments in Religious Art: Style and Audience
Religious Art and the Relief-Like Style
Ut pictura poesis: Floris’s Tabula Cebetis
Imitatio Christi and the Northern Past
Granvelle and the Conflicts of Patronage
A Crucifixion for Granvelle
Imitatio Mariae
Alone Among Women
The Crucifixion Altarpiece for Delft
Altarpieces for Zoutleeuw
Afterlife of a Sacred Image
Chapter 8. Ardens amator artium: Floris, Niclaes Jonghelinck, and the Nature of Netherlandish Art
Jonghelinck: The Man and the Myth
The Labors of Hercules and The Liberal Arts
The Collection in Print
The Ideology of the Suburban Villa
Jacques Jonghelinck’s Bacchus and The Seven Planets
Enter Bruegel
A Northern Pastoral
Jonghelinck and an Emerging Discourse on Netherlandish Art
Pictorial Babel
Chapter 9. Losing Faith: Floris’s Allegory of the Trinity
Questioning Faith in Style
Gathering the Faithful
Off the Altar
Grace Without Mary
A Prophetic Message
“Even as the hen gathered her chicks”
A Performance of Style
Against “Rome”
Chapter 10. Iconoclasm and Poesie
A New Mobility of Images
Venus Refracted
Venus in Vulcan’s Forge
Titian in the North
The Poesie
Danaë and the Golden Rain
Viewing Distances
Susanna and the Elders
The Beauty of Print
The Story of Pluto and Proserpina
Chapter 11. Humanæ Societati Necessaria: Frans Floris’s Vision for the Arts
Floris’s Palace and his Public
An Order of License
Constructing “Raffaello fiammingo”
The Artist’s House
The Artist’s Inspiration
The Tools of the Artist
The Virtue of Diligence
The Virtue of the Northern Artist
Contested Legacy
Chapter 12. Coda
Altar and Cabinet
Rupture and Continuity in the Southern Netherlands
The Rebel Angels Rise Again
Death of the Artist
Adoration of the Shepherds
Restoration and Redemption
Appendix A. Mentions of Floris in Literary Sources
Appendix B. Drawings after the Antique attributed to Floris and recorded in the lost Album Dansaert
Appendix C. Text and Music of the chanson “Le Cruel Mars”
Appendix D. Timeline of Floris’s Chief Dated Works in Historical Context
Checklist of Paintings
Checklist of Drawings
Checklist of Prints
Notes
Bibliography
Index
