Deconstructing the Antique : the ornamental language in the sketchbook of the Cornelis Anthonisz. workshop
Authors
Kik, Oliver
Discipline
Arts
Audience
Scientific
Date
2023-06-01Publisher
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Metadata
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At the dawn of the 16th century, a novel architectural language was introduced in the Low Countries: the antique style. By the 1510s and 1520s, artists and designers in every field of visual arts (painting, woodcarving, sculpture, tapestry, printmaking, etc) incorporated a wide range of new fashionable forms in their architectural vocabulary, along a latest development of the gothic mode. These include putti, garlands, decorated architraves, composite columns, baluster columns, or grotesques. While these new forms have frequently been interpreted as a slavish import product from Italy, the northern antique ornament should rather be seen as a local dialect of the same language. This paper will take antother look at the sketchbook or model book of the workshop of Cornelis Anthonisz., kept at the Berlin Kupfertichkabinett, as it offers a unique catalogue of many of the typological models available in Netherlandish workshops in various media. In keeping with Vasari's famous adage of 'Disegno as the mother of all the arts', this paper will focus on the ornamental drawings in the sketchbook as a starting point for the application of ornament in other artistic disciplines. This analysis is part of a larger research project in establishing the formal vocabulary of the antique ornamental language 'spoken' in northern Renaissance workshop practice before the formalization of architectural orders as introduced by Sebastiano Serlio in 1537 (and disseminated in the Low Countries by Pieter Coecke van Aelst). Peck Drawings Symposium : making, collecting and understanding Dutch and Flemish drawings : 1500-1800.
This symposium has been organized in conjunction with by the Peck Collection at the Ackland Art Museum, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Rembrandt House Museum, at the he Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (1–2 June, 2023).
Identifiers
Type
Lecture
Peer-Review
Not pertinent
Language
eng