The Amsterdam Town Hall in Words and Images
The Amsterdam Town Hall in Words and Images

Author: Stijn Bussels

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-05-20

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1350205354

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The most famous monument of the Dutch Golden Age is undoubtedly the Amsterdam Town Hall by architect Jacob van Campen inaugurated in 1655. Today we stand in awe confronted with the grand Classicist façade, the delightful horror of the sculptures in the Tribunal, and the magnificence of the huge Citizens' Hall. In the period of its construction, many artists and writers tried to capture the overwhelming impact of the building by, among other comparisons, relating it to the ancient Wonders of the World and by stressing its splendour, riches, and impressive scale. In doing so, they constructed the Town Hall as the ultimate wonder, thus offering a silent, but very powerful testimony to the power and position of the City of Amsterdam and its rulers as equals of the other European regimes. To fully understand these mechanisms of power, this book relates the Town Hall to other, impressive buildings of the same period-the palace of the Louvre, Saint Peter's Basilica, and Banqueting House-and their visual and textual representations. Thus, this book gives a broad audience of readers new insights into the agency of magnificent buildings. The Amsterdam Town Hall in Words and Images does not restrict itself to a national scope or a purely architectural analysis, but clarifies how artists and writers all over Europe presented buildings as wonders of the world. This book is pioneering in its analysis of seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings, prints, drawings, poems, and travel accounts and offers a new understanding of how the wondrous character of these grand buildings was constructed.

The Sublime in the Visual Culture of the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic
The Sublime in the Visual Culture of the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic

Author: Stijn Bussels

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-11-21

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1003803490

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Contrary to what Kant believed about the Dutch (and their visual culture) as “being of an orderly and diligent position” and thus having no feeling for the sublime, this book argues that the sublime played an important role in seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture. By looking at different visualizations of exceptional heights, divine presence, political grandeur, extreme violence, and extraordinary artifacts, the authors demonstrate how viewers were confronted with the sublime, which evoked in them a combination of contrasting feelings of awe and fear, attraction and repulsion. In studying seventeenth-century Dutch visual culture through the lens of notions of the sublime, we can move beyond the traditional and still widespread views on Dutch art as the ultimate representation of everyday life and the expression of a prosperous society in terms of calmness, neatness, and order. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, architectural history, and cultural history.

The Monument’s End
The Monument’s End

Author: Marisa Anne Bass

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2024-10-15

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0691240051

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How today’s questions surrounding monuments and the ways we commemorate our past first arose in Rembrandt’s time Monuments occupy a controversial place in nations founded on principles of freedom and self-governance. It is no accident that when we think of monuments, we think of statues modeled on legacies of conquest, domination, and violence. The Monument’s End reveals how the artists, architects, poets, and scholars of the early modern Netherlands contended with the profound disconnect between the public monument and the ideals of republican government. Their experiences offer vital lessons about the making, reception, and destruction of monuments in the present. In the seventeenth century, the newly formed Dutch Republic dominated world trade and colonized vast overseas territories even as it sought to shed the trappings of its imperial past. Marisa Anne Bass describes the frustrated attempts by figures such as Rembrandt van Rijn and playwright and poet Joost van den Vondel to reimagine public memory for their emergent nation. She shows how the most celebrated age of Dutch art was more an age of bronze than of gold, one in which the pursuit of freedom from domination was constantly challenged by the commercial ambitions of empire. Exploring how the artists and intellectuals of this vibrant century asked questions that still resonate today, this beautifully illustrated book discusses works by contemporary artists such as Spencer Finch and Thomas Hirschhorn and offers new perspectives on monuments like the 9/11 Memorial and Museum and events such as the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Imago and Contemplatio in the Visual Arts and Literature (1400–1700)
Imago and Contemplatio in the Visual Arts and Literature (1400–1700)

Author: Stijn Bussels

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-01-22

Total Pages: 541

ISBN-13: 9004682643

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This volume contains twenty-four essays, which, in their subjects and methodology, pay tribute to the scholarship of Walter S. Melion. The contributions are grouped under three categories: “Devotion,” “Art and Image Theory,” and “Vision and Contemplation.” The Devotion section addresses votive practices, theological theory and polemic literature. The Art and Image Theory section focuses on Jesuit image theory, the reflexive dimension of works, and artists’ reflections on the function of images. Finally, the Vision and Contemplation section discusses the ‘early modern eye’ as a tool for thoughtful, prolonged looking to ascertain visual wit, deception, self-assessment and friendship, sacred and profane allegories.

The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture
The Quest for an Appropriate Past in Literature, Art and Architecture

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-10-16

Total Pages: 818

ISBN-13: 9004378219

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This volume explores the various strategies by which appropriate pasts were construed in scholarship, literature, art, and architecture in order to create “national”, regional, or local identities in late medieval and early modern Europe. Because authority was based on lineage, political and territorial claims were underpinned by historical arguments, either true or otherwise. Literature, scholarship, art, and architecture were pivotal media that were used to give evidence of the impressive old lineage of states, regions, or families. These claims were related not only to classical antiquity but also to other periods that were regarded as antiquities, such as the Middle Ages, especially the chivalric age. The authors of this volume analyse these intriguing early modern constructions of “antiquity” and investigate the ways in which they were applied in political, intellectual and artistic contexts in the period of 1400–1700. Contributors include: Barbara Arciszewska, Bianca De Divitiis, Karl Enenkel, Hubertus Günther, Thomas Haye, Harald Hendrix, Stephan Hoppe, Marc Laureys, Frédérique Lemerle, Coen Maas, Anne-Françoise Morel, Kristoffer Neville, Konrad Ottenheym, Yves Pauwels, Christian Peters, Christoph Pieper, David Rijser, Bernd Roling, Nuno Senos, Paul Smith, Pieter Vlaardingerbroek, and Matthew Walker.

City of Dreams
City of Dreams

Author: Beverly Swerling

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2011-05-31

Total Pages: 594

ISBN-13: 0743218450

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A sweeping epic of two families—one Dutch, one English—from the time when New Amsterdam was a raw and rowdy settlement, to the triumph of the Revolution, when New York became a new nation’s city of dreams. In 1661, Lucas Turner, a barber surgeon, and his sister, Sally, an apothecary, stagger off a small wooden ship after eleven weeks at sea. Bound to each other by blood and necessity, they aim to make a fresh start in the rough and rowdy Dutch settlement of Nieuw Amsterdam; but soon lust, betrayal, and murder will make them mortal enemies. In their struggle to survive in the New World, Lucas and Sally make choices that will burden their descendants with a legacy of secrets and retribution, and create a heritage that sets cousin against cousin, physician against surgeon, and, ultimately, patriot against Tory. In what will be the greatest city in the New World, the fortunes of these two families are inextricably entwined by blood and fire in an unforgettable American saga of pride and ambition, love and hate, and the becoming of the dream that is New York City.

Hidden Stories
Hidden Stories

Author: Ingrid Nolet

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13: 9789072080547

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Heroes of a golden age, gods and Titans, wise poets and foolish kings, powerful city maids, goddesses of the hunt or love, gods of trade or war. These are no ordinary residents of a town hall or a palace. In silence they tell their stories to those who want to hear. These are wise lessons from bygone ages, but still relevant to whomever recognizes them. Architect Jacob van Campen used images in marble and paint as a tool to tell two story lines to both the visitor and user of the building. Firstly, the glorification of Amsterdam as a center of the world. On the other hand, the symbolism of the Town Hall, which as the seat of order and authority needed to encourage good governance and good citizenship. The result is a building that can be read like a book. Exhibition: Royal Palace Amsterdam, The Netherlands (03.07.-27.09.2015)