Expertly researched and elegantly presented is Weet, of Rest – Rest Elsewhere, the current exhibition feature from The Prints, Drawings, and Photography Department at the Worcester Art Museum. David Acton, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photography tells the story of the rise of the Mannerist style in the Netherlands – the regions known as Flanders and Holland – commonly referred to as the Dutch. In an impressive collection of rarely exhibited prints from the sixteenth century we see the growth and transformation of Italian Renaissance imagery into a fashionable style in Northern Europe with its own distinctive cultural characteristics.
Acton will host a discussion “Engraving a Line Over the Alps” on Sunday, November 20, about the expansion of the printmaking industry in the Netherlands highlighting how the Italian styles were adopted to suit specific economic, cultural, and political circumstances.
Hieronymus Wierix, Flemish, 1553 - 1619, Allegorical Figure of Prudence, about 1575, engraving on cream laid paper, 26.3 x 19.8 cm (plate), Sarah C. Garver Fund, 1991.29
This was a time of important changes in the Netherlands as the regions became great trading nations with large merchant and shipping fleets distributing goods throughout the known world. It is estimated that the Dutch as this time had more ships than England, France, Germany and Portugal, Spain combined. The printed image became critical in the distribution of information both commercially and socially. A busy printing and publishing industry with workshops in Liege, Antwerp, Haarlem, and Amsterdam developed rapidly because of the flow of financial support from the prosperous merchant class.
Because of its dramatic stylized figures and theatrical presentations dominated by literary and symbolic themes and stories Mannerism was a very popular visual mode. Appreciated not only by the growing powerful and wealthy merchant class, during a transitional political time, it was easily accessible to all economic classes who understood the visual language.
Powerful figurative forms, bucolic and ancient landscapes, and well understood classicized Biblical themes of both Catholic and Protestant viewpoints had a broad appeal which served to unify the population for the purpose of greater economic and political stability. In the exhibition statement, Acton points out “to capture the broadest market possible print publishers issued works of varied quality.”
The exhibition presents a fascinating view of a little known yet extremely important time in the history of art. Provocative images such as the Flemish engravings, Allegorical Figure of Prudence, by Hieronymus Wierix provides us with a understanding of the social ideals and cultural dynamics of the time. Prudence is often associated with the traits of wisdom, insight, and knowledge; the virtue to be able to judge between virtuous and dangerous actions. The Wierix brothers, for example, were skilled and popular printmakers with dramatic personal lives. They were known for their unruliness and their employers had to forcefully remove them from taverns and pay their debts.
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