1684), has for centuries been mistaken for several of his namesakes. The Flemish painter Gysbrecht Thys (also spelled Thijs, Thyssen or Tijssens) (1617- ca. Thus, the fire of war and destruction is contrasted with the creative fire of Antwerp art and the ability of its inhabitants to value such ardent inspiration. Whereas so-called iconoclastic donkeys set the world ‘outside’ ablaze with their torches, the connoisseurs inside the constcamer demonstrate their admiration for the artists’ ability to kindle fires with their brush. This is exemplified by the very first paintings of constcamers by members of the Francken family. As argued by Göttler, seventeenth-century constcamers (both real and painted) not only attest to the high value of Mostaert’s paintings, but also to the ‘vernacular awareness’ of their owners. In the art literature these subjects or genres were considered as the products of a local or vernacular ingenium. Mostaert’s variations and transformations of subjects deeply linked with the art of Antwerp and Flanders – night scenes, scenes of war and fire, markets and fairs – epitomized the city’s reputation for inventive imitation in the arts. In her chapter on Gillis Mostaert’s (1528-1598) depictions of fires, the art historian Christine Göttler discusses this artist’s pictorial language as part of a common interest in (contemporaneous) history, shared among merchants, humanists, antiquarians, artists and art collectors.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |