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Iconoclasm and the Creation of Images in Emanuel de Witte's Old Church in Amsterdam
Vanhaelen, Angela. The Art Bulletin 87.2 (Jun 2005): 249-0_6.
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Abstract
De Witte's painting of 1660 presents a visual paradox, for it reintroduces into this Calvinist
interior a number of images that had been banned or destroyed during and after the
sixteenth-century iconoclast movement. Different modes of picture making are not simply
opposed here. Rather, the powers of the old religious image are linked with the generation of
new kinds of secular images, pointing to a larger contradiction: the often fraught dynamic
between Calvinism and visual culture emerges as a force that not only provoked iconoclastic
destruction but also had the potential to initiate the creation of new images. [PUBLICATION
ABSTRACT]
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Full Text
Nothing disappears completely ... ; nor can what subsists be denned solely in terms of
traces, memories or relics. In space, what came earlier continues to underpin what follows.
The preconditions of social space have their own particular way of enduring and remaining
actual within that space.-Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, 19741
At the center of Emanuel de Witte's painting Old Church in Amsterdam, South Aisle to the
East is a representation of the renowned icon of the Holy Face (Fig. 1). It is displayed on a
black marble epitaph-the type of monument typically used to memorialize military heroes and
prominent citizens within the Dutch Republic's churches. At the base of this monument, a
woman sits to nurse a child, while two men, apparently deep in conversation, stroll along the
aisle. Absorbed in their activities, all of these figures seem oblivious to the image of Christ
and thus to the striking paradox that it presents. For in 1660, when de Witte painted this
work, Amsterdam's Old Church, or Oude Kerk, had been purged of icons and religious
imagery for almost one hundred years. In this painting, therefore, the cultic image of the face
of Christ reappears within a distinctly Calvinist religious interior: clearly a space where it no
longer has a place.
This conspicuous inconsistency thus confronts the viewer with a visual puzzle. By situating
the icon within a recognizably contemporary space, de Witte located the sacred art of the
past in the midst of the new visual and material culture typically found within a seventeenth-
century Dutch Protestant church. Such a juxtaposition clearly is linked to the workings of
memory. It endows the painting with the capability to prompt contemplation about the
radically changed status of religious spaces and images in the post-Reformation Dutch
Republic. At the heart of the painting's enigma, however, is its refusal to segregate the past
from the present. Here the ideas of Henri Lefebvre offer some insights into what might lie
behind the seemingly incongruous reappearance of the forbidden image. "In space," as
Lefebvre reminds us, "what came earlier continues to underpin what follows." According to
this formulation, a place's history never disappears, nor does it merely leave its traces;
rather, the past actively continues to impact the present.
This is particularly relevant when considering the visual paradox of de Witte's painting of the
Amsterdam Oude Kerk, for the multitemporality of this image has the potential to enhance
our understanding of an issue that has long intrigued art historians: What were the
connections between the sixteenth-century iconoclastic prohibition of church art and the
subsequent proliferation of so many new visual genres in the seventeenth century? As a
secular painting of a Calvinist space of worship in which the banned religious image
reappears, Old Church in Amsterdam seems to take up this question, which means that it
functions as a self-reflexive work. The pictorial complexities of this painting therefore merit a
close reading, for the work opens up a consideration of the complex and sometimes
surprising connections between the destruction and creation of images and, ultimately, of the
place of the realistic oil painting within the history of Dutch art.
The Realistic Imaginary Church Interior Painting
While Old Church in Amsterdam clearly is a realistic painting, the interior depicted both is and
is not Amsterdam's Oude Kerk. The pulpit and the organ are recognizable, although the artist
has altered their actual positions.3 The gallery and colonnade at left, the epitaph, and, of
course, the icon are all alien to this space. This representation accordingly fits Walter
liedtke's definition of a "realistic imaginary" church interior painting.4 In liedtke's usage,
"realistic imaginary" is a stylistic category that highlights some of the innovations of the
seventeenth-century Dutch architectural painters, who frequently borrowed and combined
motifs from more than one existing church or introduced invented elements into otherwise
accurate portrayals of actual interiors. As a result, it often is difficult to distinguish between
fact and fantasy within such paintings. Indeed, the bounds between the two usually are
blurred by the painter's craft; through the technical mastery of light and shade, texture,
modeling, color, and perspective, the depiction of the realistic imaginary church is made
plausible to the viewer.0
De Witte was not the inventor of the realistic imaginary church interior, and it is useful to
contrast this painting to previous architectural paintings of churches in order to understand
how he seized and elaborated on the possibilities of the genre's paradoxes. In the process, I
wish to appropriate the term "realistic imaginary" from the history of style and expand on its
possible meanings, particularly the potential of this type of church interior painting to function
as a selfaware image, which draws attention not only to its own style but also to its place
within the changing history of Dutch art.b
The work of Pieter Saenredam is particularly relevant in this regard. Saenredam usually is
credited as the first painter of actual churches, in opposition to the fantasy church interiors
previously done by sixteenth-century artists working mainly in Antwerp.' The accuracy of
Saciiredam's "church portraits" continue to be debated, however, complicated by the fact that
a number of his pictures of existing churches contain unmistakably fictive elements.8 A case
in point is his Si. Bavokerh with Fictive Bishop's Tomb of 1630 (Fig. 2). Here the artist-who
did many paintings and drawings of Haarlem's Bavokerk-depicted the church building as it
must have looked in the seventeenth century. Saenredam, in fact, has been described as an
archaeological painter, who in his extraordinarily meticulous images frequently strove to
document church buildings that had been altered, even ravaged, by the radical religious
changes brought on by the Reformation.9 Yet the tomb in the foreground of St. Bavokerk
seems to contradict this thesis somewhat, for such a tomb never did exist in the Bavokerk,
even during the short time that it served as the seat of a bishop.10
The anomalies of Saenredam's painting have been addressed by Gary Schwartz and Marten
Jan Bok, who link the themes of the work with the interests of Haarlem's influential Catholic
minority, a group that longed to see the city's bishopric restored.11 Although the evidence
remains somewhat inconclusive, the hypothesis is nevertheless convincing and certainly is in
keeping with the social, religious, and artistic context of the time. In spite of the dominance of
the statesanctioned Calvinist church in the social and political life of the republic, its
membership was not large, and a great number of Roman Catholics persisted in the
everyday practices of their faith. Saenredam, it would seem, was willing to introduce
theologically inconsistent motifs into his Dutch Protestant church interiors in order to appeal
to a wide range of patrons with divergent religious interests. If so, the realistic imaginary
church interior painting may have been designed, at least in part, in accordance with the
religious convictions of patrons.
Saenredam's well-crafted paintings certainly appealed to aesthetic and artistic interests as
well. In fact, the buyers of architectural paintings often were collectors and connoisseurs of
art-a group whose concern with subject matter was interconnected with the appreciation of
formal qualities.12 This elite group of art lovers may have been attracted by the religious
content of church paintings not only for personal reasons but also because knowledge of the
tumultuous history of religious space was integral to any understanding of the history of the
visual arts in the Netherlands.13
Many architectural church paintings address the place of visual imagery within the religious
interior; indeed, it seems to be one of the key interests of the genre. In an earlier Antwerp
fantasy church interior painting, for example, Interior of a Church by Hendrick van Steenwijck
the Younger and Frans Francken II, the church is presented as a place filled with images
(Fig. 3).14 In such a painting, the viewer becomes aware of the prominent role that visual
imagery played within Roman Catholic worship practices, and the church emerges as a
central site for the display of art. What is often pointed out about Saenredam's many
Protestant church interior views, by contrast, is the conspicuous absence of religious
imagery. The whitewashed walls of Saenredam's Calvinist churches vividly call up the
historical re-formation of religious space, signifying paintings that have been painted over
and statues that have been removed. This type of space has been purified; as past visual
practices were redefined as idolatry or superstition, it has been emptied of images,
circumscribed by Calvinist prohibitions against the para-aesthetic reception, or veneration, of
imagery.15
Saenredam's painting of St. Bavokerk and de Witte's painting of the Amsterdam Oude Kerk,
by comparison, display impure spaces-spaces that are not completely purgedwhere the new
and the old appear simultaneously. While memory probably played a powerful role in this
type of imagery, it cannot be attributed solely to the workings of nostalgia. For, as the past
reinfiltrates the present, the religious space, its history, and its meanings come under
scrutiny. Here it is useful to consider Lefebvre's triad of perceived, conceived, and lived
space.16 In paintings of this kind, perceived space, that is, material, sensory, realistic space,
is combined with conceived space, that is, theoretical, metaphoric, or imaginary. This duality
of perceived and conceived, or realistic and imaginary, which is peculiar to these paintings,
opens up a consideration of lived space-a space that struggles with the paradoxes and
ambiguities of its own history and, notably, with the contested role of representations within
the history of religious space. By drawing attention to the image question, this type of real
imaginary church interior effectively provokes an inventive dialogue with the historical
conditions that generated both the spatial and the pictorial changes that are represented.
Icons and Iconoclasm
De Witte's painting of the Oude Kerk certainly seems to prompt these sorts of questions, for it
is a multitemporal and multispatial image, and it calls up the disruptions and compromises of
this specific church interior. The portrayal of the Holy Face especially brings these issues to
the fore, for it initiates speculation about the contested history of the religious image within
the church (Fig. 4). Imagery of the face of Christ was quite widespread in the Netherlands
before the Reformation, in many variations. This particular depiction of a thorn-crowned
Christ, whose head floats free of a body, evokes the Passion legend of Saint Veronica, in
which she wiped the tears, sweat, and blood from the face of Christ as he carried the cross to
Calvary. In return, Veronica received a perfect imprint of Christ's features, which miraculously
stained the cloth.17
For a seventeenth-century viewer of de Witte's painting, the cloth with the face of Christ
would not only have called up this ancient story, but it also would have linked the Oude Kerk
with another church-St. Peter's basilica in Rome.18 The cloth of Veronica, or Vera Icon, was
one of St. Peter's most significant relics. The extensive veneration of this image undoubtedly
lay in its healing powers, and the miraculous capacities of the Veronica in turn guaranteed its
efficacy as a powerful indulgence image. In fact, it was the first image to be given indulgence
functions.19 In the thirteenth century, those who prayed in front of it earned forty days of
indulgence, and the value of these indulgences increased exponentially over time.
Eventually, spurious promises of up to thirty thousand years of indulgence were linked with
the Vera Icon.20 Moreover, it was not necessary to travel to St. Peter's, as these indulgences
were granted to those who prayed in front of a representation of the Vera Icon as well. As a
result, the many paintings and prints of this image that circulated, particularly in the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, had powerful devotional functions. As they were understood to be
true reproductions of the relic, they shared in its authority."1
Such imagery has, of course, long since disappeared from view in Amsterdam's Oude Kerk.
However, during the restoration of the building in the 1970s, a number of images of the face
of Christ were uncovered. Two unusual printed images of the Holy Face appear in one of the
chapels of the Oude Kerk, where they are pasted high up on the vault bosses (Fig. 5). No
other examples of these prints, almost certainly pulled from the same woodblock, seem to
survive.22 Probably fifteenth- or sixteenth-century woodcuts of the Vera Icon, they may have
been printed in Amsterdam as devotional prints or in Rome as pilgrimage images.'" In
addition to these images, a small painting of the Vera Icon can be seen near the top of one of
the twelve tapestry-painted columns in the choir, which originally served as backdrops for
statues of the Apostles."4 A fragment of a fifteenth-century stained-glass window depicting a
cloth with the face of Christ also survives. Thus, there is evidence to suggest that imagery of
the Holy Face was prevalent within Amsterdam's Oude Kerk-as in so many European
churches-prior to the Reformation.
Whether or not de Witte knew of these specific images is less certain. When the Calvinists
gained control of Amsterdam's town council in the Alteration of 1578, the Oude Kerk's
connections with Rome were severed and the building became the property of the city. At
this time, civic magistrates would have hired painters to cover over the wall and vault
paintings in order to accommodate the new worship practices of the Reformed congregation.
It is probable that the woodblock prints and painted column image were not visible in 1660.
By referencing the Vera Icon, de Witte calls up the suppression of previous visual practices
of devotion, which-as these images attest-once were central to that space.
The perceived power of the religious image is evidenced by its very removal from the church.
In 1566, when iconoclasm swept from the southern Netherlands to the cities and towns of the
north, the Oude Kerk was one of the first buildings to come under attack. The Amsterdam
merchant Laurens Jacobsz Reael left a written description of the event. According to this
account, a grain handler named Jasper entered the church at about three o'clock in the
afternoon on the twentythird of August. Pointing to the ostensorium, which housed the holy
sacrament, he exclaimed, "Look, hanging in that receptacle is that gruesome and
blasphemous poem."2b He picked it up in his hands and read the poem out loud: "Here,
locked in this case is Jesus Christ, true man and God, who was born of Mary; Whoever does
not believe this is lost."27 The grain handler then read twenty or twenty-four more verses
before smashing the monstrance to pieces under his feet. As the sound of shattering glass
reverberated throughout the church, the iconoclast riot broke out, as those gathered began to
throw stones at the altars and statues and to pull them down.28
It is intriguing that the iconoclastic cleansing of the Oude Kerk was instigated by the reading
of a text. The offense given by the poem, in fact, goes to the heart of Reformation debates
concerning the status of material objects within the church. "Here, locked in this case is
Jesus Christ." Calvin and his followers did not take the bread of the Eucharist literally as the
body of Christ; it could only signify Christ. The Vera Icon was analogous, for Christ was
thought to be actually present in it as well. Calvin's stance hinged on his insistence that "the
finite cannot contain the infinite."29 Because the reality of God is transcendent, immaterial,
and therefore invisible, God cannot be accessed through material props.80 For this reason,
Calvin found all image veneration misguided, as God's divine power could not be harnessed
through visual representations: "For God forbade . . . the making of any images representing
him, since they would falsify his glory and change his truth into falsehood."'11 What
reformers and iconoclasts were asserting, then, was the inability of a sign to mean literally
what it appeared to represent.32 As the gap between signs and their referents widened,
images and material objects were stripped-sometimes violently-of their status as powerful
points of contact with the divine, and their place within the religious interior was radically
redefined.
Significantly, Calvin's theology of Christ asserts that Christ is one with God-the true Christ is
not the incarnate Christ but the resurrected Christ who has returned to God. He is spiritual
rather than corporeal.83 By contrast, it is the corporeal Christ that is so forcefully asserted by
the Saint Veronica image. Produced through direct contact with Christ's face and its bodily
secretions, this cloth was thought to display a true image of Christ during his incarnation. The
icon of the Holy Face is an acheiropoetos: an image not made by human hands. As such, it
exemplifies the ideal of an autonomous, self-created, original image. seen in this light, the
cloth of Veronica conveys a theology of the sign that is quite different from Calvinist theology.
A perfect representation, bestowed by God, the Vera Icon imparts the conceit of a complete
equivalence between the image and its model.34 Through the denial of its status as a sign, it
could thus make Christ present to its viewers. Theologically, this meant that the powers of
the prototype were contained in the sign, and the honor shown to the image was transferred
to the person depicted.35 Moreover, because the maker was thought to be Christ himself,
acheiropoelic imagery of the Holy Face often was taken up as divinely sanctioned justification
for artistic production. Consequently, representations of the face of Christ played a key role in
the image debates and iconoclastic controversies of both the Byzantine and the Reformation
eras.36
It is important to note, however, that the Vera Icon certainly was never a site of common
thinking.'" A growing body of literature explores the paradoxes and the recalcitrance of the
acheiropoetic image.38 The Vera Icon clearly shows the humiliation and abjection of the
incarnate Christ. While the prototype of the image is Christ himself, the true nature of Christ
is not really captured, for his majesty and divinity are concealed.39 Because of its inability to
picture the dual nature of Christ-that is, to represent the unrepresentable-the Vera Icon can
also be understood as a broken image, in which truth and appearance are at odds. In this
way, this type of icon has iconoclasm already built into it.'10
Evidently, the links between icon and iconoclasm were complex, and it is precisely these
relations that de Witte's secular painting seems to probe. Contemplation of the status of the
icon is prompted further by de Witte's signature, set directly underneath his portrayal of the
face of Christ (Fig. 4). The placement of the artist's name appears to press for a
reconsideration of the truth claims of the acheiropoetic image. Clearly, it indicates that this
particular depiction of Christ was not made directly by God but created by the human hands
of Emanuel de Witte.41 The inscription of the artist's name here becomes akin to an act of
iconoclasm, for it forcefully desecrates the assertions and the functions of the religious
image. Evidence from the history of the reception of the image supports this claim, for the
signature came to light only recently, when the painting was cleaned and put on the market in
1958.42 Presumably, one of the painting's previous owners had been troubled by the
audacity of the signature, and-in an ironic effacement of the visual traces of de Witte's
iconoclastic act-had it painted over.
The signature suggests that, unlike Saenredam's Si. Bavokerk with Fictive Bishop's Tomb,
this particular realistic imaginary painting may not have been designed to appeal to the
specific religious convictions of a patron or potential buyer. A devout Protestant, after all,
surely would not have approved of the reappearance of the Vera Icon within the Oude Kerk.
Amsterdam had a sizable Roman Catholic population, but the hypothesis that de Witte,
employing a strategy similar to Saenredam's, sought a patron from among this group is
contradicted to some extent by the placement of the signature, for a sincere Catholic may not
have accepted the somewhat sacrilegious claims that it makes.
An alternative interpretation argues that the placement of de Witte's signature indicates his
awareness of his own mortality and his desire to give himself to the mercy of Christ.43 Such
an explanation of the painting as a statement of personal confession-which often appears in
the literature on church interior paintings-is difficult to prove and tends to be based on a
somewhat circular argument. The character of the artist is derived from the painting's
religious subject matter, and the painting is then interpreted in light of this understanding of
the artist's personal beliefs. Moreover, in the case of de Witte, the evidence seems to
contradict this interpretation, for Arnold Houbraken's biography, written twenty-six years after
the artist's death, implies that de Witte was anything but an orthodox Christian.44
Speculation about the personal faith of the artist or his patrons, therefore, does not take us
very far in the analysis of this painting.
Instead, it is my contention that the key interest of the work lies in its exploration of the
impact of religion on the history of art making. To go further with this issue, it is useful to
contrast de Witie's painting with an earlier depiction of a Roman Catholic church interior by
Pieter Brueghel the Elder. In Brueghel's Allegory of Faith of 1559, the Vera Icon hangs from
a cross set up in the middle of the church (Fig. 6). Here it resonates with the empty tomb and
symbols of the Passion in the foreground, with the sacraments that are being administered
throughout the church, and with the Word of God being preached from the pulpit and held up
by a female personification of the Law who stands on the tomb's lid. In this context, the
image of the Holy Face appears as a proof of Christ's physical existence.45 Representing
faith in what cannot be seen, it points to the beyond of belief.
The same image opens up a different path in the de Witte painting. Here the icon can be
seen, but it does not provide visual access to spiritual revelation. Where once there was a
Presence, now there is an absence. The image of Christ has been separated from its
prototype, emptied of its former meanings. While this is a realistic copy of the cloth of
Veronica, it does not share in the powers of the original. Set within this skillfully rendered
illusion of Amsterdam's Oude Kerk, the face of Christ redirects sight away from the spiritual-
as if that path has been blocked by the opacity of paint.46 Instead, viewers are confronted
with a visual puzzle, prompting meditation, not on the reality of Christ but on the complex
interplay between the different types of spaces and images that the painting evokes.
The historical desacralization of formerly powerful religious imagery also is suggested by the
motif of the nursing woman who sits beneath the epitaph (Fig. 7). A young boy stands at her
left and her basket and staff lie at her right. Many scholars have noted that the image of
mother and child, which occurs repeatedly in church interior paintings, calls to mind the Virgin
and Child.47 To quote Simon Schama, "In one of the most telling inversions of icons and
objects . . . the Dutch abolished images of the Madonna and Child from their churches, only
to reinstate them surreptitiously as simple nursing mothers in paintings of church interiors."48
There are multiple historical connections between the ache.iropoe.tic image of the Holy Face
of Christ and the legendary first portrait of the Virgin and Child, thought to be painted by Saint
Luke.49 Both were miracle-working icons with indulgence functions. Both also shared the
status of divinely sanctioned imagery and thus could bestow religious credibility to artistic
activity.80
Significantly, after the Reformation, when artists began to break free of the religious power of
images, their traditional identification with Saint Luke began to loosen. As sacred justification
for art became less crucial, imagery of the Evangelist painting the Virgin often was reworked
or replaced with new allegories for artistic production.51 In de Witte's painting, the image of
mother and child is not obviously identifiable as the Virgin and Child. In fact, this motif has
been interpreted as a personification of Bounty or Charity, a symbol of Ecclesia, or simply as
a poor Dutch woman who seeks shelter for herself and her children in the church/'2 In a
seemingly contradictory move, the traditional motif of mother and child is both impoverished
and made prolific. Drained of its former powers, it is transformed into a realistic portrayal of
an indigent family within a sacred space-an ambiguous image capable of generating multiple
meanings. Like de Witte's representation of the Holy Face, this constitutes not so much a
recovery as it is a rethinking or reassessment of previous pictorial practices. The former truth
claims of these images no longer have credibility within the context of this particular space.
As meaning becomes unfixed, the imagery itself becomes more open and undecidable.
Subsequently, the gap between these motifs and their various possible prototypes could call
up the distance between the artist and past visual justifications for the production of religious
art.
The Powers of the secular Monument
Another indication of the historical shift away from sacred art comes from the juxtaposition of
both icon and signature with the black marble epitaph (Fig. 4). This epitaph, which does not
correspond to any found within the Oude Kerk, resembles monuments to the republic's naval
heroes and leading citizens that were erected in many Calvinist churches after the
Reformation.:> In the de Witte painting, the image of Christ covers the part of the epitaph
where an inscription detailing the accomplishments of the individual usually would be
placed.04 At the same time, the epitaph frames the image of Christ, holding it up and
presenting it to the viewer. Neither epitaph nor religious image has a clear priority; rather,
they seem to meld with each other.
Memorials to military heroes and prominent citizens are constant motifs in church interior
paintings. In order to explore some of the links between these secular monuments, their
religious settings, and their place within these paintings, it is useful to consider Hendrick de
Keyser's monument to William I (1614-21) in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft, for there are over fifty
extant architectural paintings that portray this tomb.55 Paintings of this theme came to
prominence about 1650, during the political upheavals that accompanied the death of William
II.5fa Imagery of the tomb of the "father of the fatherland" often has the effect of negotiating
the political and social crises of the time by picturing diverse groups of spectators who look
on the effigies of William I with deference, suggesting how the monument to the legendary
William the Silent, prince of Orange, could have worked to smooth over conflicts and effect
consensus.
However, the tomb of William the Silent also reveals contradictory traces of former meanings
and practices.57 As a number of contemporary "tomb tourists" noted with some
astonishment, the monument is in the choir of the church, where it replaces the former high
altar.58 Thus, by featuring William as the martyred savior of the nation, the tomb of this
military leader had the potential to elicit the very practices of veneration that his supporters
so often fought to repress.
If William of Orange was the savior, many other martyrs to the cause emerged after his
death. And, in the course of the seventeenth century, Dutch churches filled with monuments
to military and naval heroes of the republic. This certainly played a role in the secularization
of formerly sacred spaces and contributed to the creation of a male-centered cult of national
heroes. Moreover, it meant that the space of the church was partly defined by the military
history of the republic. To this day one can read an inscription in the choir of the Amsterdam
Oude Kerk that celebrates the destruction of the Spanish fleet in 1588 as a religious victory
of the godly over the godless.59 Until 1795, the armor that the naval hero Jacob van
Heemskerk wore when killed in the Battle of Gibralter in 1607 was hung, as a sort of secular
relic, on a column next to his epitaph in the Oude Kerk.00 This potential object of veneration
attracted the attention of the artist, and de Witte depicted a similar suit of armor hanging on a
column in the background of his painting (Fig. 8).bl In fact, this may have been part of the
appeal of the Oude Kerk for de Witte. More than just a Calvinist space of worship, it was also
a central civic space that contained many visual references to the history of the republic.62
The presence of military armor, monuments, and inscriptions within the church were all linked
to the transformation of this space from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism, for they
indicate that such a shift did not occur smoothly but resulted after a long period of military
conflict with the Spanish.63 The contradictions of social space are of interest here, for this
ostensibly peaceful, lucid, and silent space of worship is underpinned by a turbulent, often
violent history that seemingly resists erasure.
In a second and related contradictory move, the honor bestowed on the secular citizen-hero
who gave his life for his country often was conceived, at least in part, in terms of the
adoration of saints and martyrs.64 In De Hollandsche Spectator of 1732, author Justus van
Effen vividly described the type of response that the display of secular relics was designed to
elicit in the viewer:
When we are shown the military arms of a famed deceased military hero, or even a goblet
from which he quenched his thirst, even if there is nothing special to perceive, we are
involuntarily carried away by a natural passion to regard these with reverential attention; they
awaken in our soul the image of the service of the Great Man who used them, and it seems
as if his magnanimity is attached and bonded to them.65
Writing from the perspective of the eighteenth century, van Effen focused on the irrationality
of such displays of arms. It is the passion, rather than the reason of the viewer, after all, that
triggers the intuitive linking of the sacrifices of the military hero with the objects that he once
used and touched. While van Effen does not press the point further, such a response is
dangerously close to the banned practice of image veneration, for the very sight of these
secular relics seemingly has the power to provoke a quasireligious reverence of the
deceased man himself.
The fear that the placement of tombs within Protestant churches could invoke forbidden
religious practices was expressly stated by the anonymous author of an article in De
Nederlandsche Spectator in 1752, who indignantly claimed:
. . . and it is very possible that the idolatry of image worship, the invocation of the saints, and
the praying for the souls of the deceased arose from this custom of burial within the
churches. It is astonishing that the impassioned reform of the Christian church, which
diligently purified the worship of God, did not go further, and that this unseemly custom was
not banned from the church along with all of the other superstitious beliefs.66
Like van Effen, this author was engaging with the concerns of a later-eighteenth-century
context, but the insights of both probe a paradox that must have been evident to
seventeenthcentury viewers as well.67 The reverence accorded deceased military heroes
and prominent citizens within the churches had the potential to advance a new type of image
worship and create a new class of secular saints. The depiction of the monument and the
armor in de Witte's painting underlines the fact that the Calvinists did not succeed in
completely purging religious space of imagery and material objects that could potentially be
venerated in a somewhat religious fashion. Rather, it seems more accurate to state that the
secular memorial actually drew on the powers of the old religious image. In the monuments
to fallen heroes in particular, the authority of the sacred and the sacred aspect of military
power appear to work together and mutually reinforce each other.68
While the placement of such tombs within Calvinist churches clearly was contradictory, the
oft-repeated justification given for this practice was that in honoring distinguished citizens and
their deeds, the funerary monument could transform death and even violence into splendor
and enduring fame. These epitaphs acted as focal points within the church interior, attracting
viewers to stand before them in order to contemplate and possibly emulate the notable lives
of those commemorated.69 With the conceit of his signature, de Witte seems to trade on
these functions. For his name is rendered in gold, and painted to look as if it is inscribed into
the black marble-at the very place where one expects to see the name of the distinguished
person (Fig. 4). And, in lieu of a text describing the individual's achievements, we see instead
the painted face of Christ: the authority of the written word does not supersede the image
here. De Witte here lays claim to the creative powers of Christ while simultaneously usurping
the fame given the secular hero.70 As the powers of religious image and worldly monument
intertwine, it is the authority of the artist that we see emerging from within this Reformed
space.
Perspectives
This realignment of the relation between artist and image is interconnected with the changing
status of the viewer. Because impressed images of the Holy Face shared in the powers of
Christ, they were thought to be omnivoyant.71 Transcending human vision, such an image
channeled God's vision-it was considered capable of actively gazing at whoever stood in
front of it.72 De Witte's painting, by contrast, asserts a different kind of power dynamic
between the image and its beholder. While the icon actively gazes at the viewer, in
perspectival paintings like this, the viewer gazes into a manufactured image of illusionistic
space.73 Many of de Witte's paintings include the oft-repeated motif of a figure positioned in
the foreground who actively looks at what is represented. This kind of figure offers a point of
visual entry into the picture.74 It seems to call attention to the fact that although these
churches have been cleansed, they have not been stripped of all visual interest. At the same
time, this type of beholder registers a shift in the history of seeing, demonstrating how
spiritual, emotive investment in the religious image has been sacrificed for a more detached
way of looking.
In Old Church of Amsterdam, however, de Witte does not include his customaiy motif of the
figure that looks. Rather, he repeats three times the motif of men whose gestures indicate
speech. In the left background are two men who walk together beneath the elevated pulpit. In
the right middle ground, a group of men have gathered in the pews and a standing figure with
hat gestures to one of the others. In the foreground is the twosome that strolls toward the
viewer. None of these men looks out of the painting, nor do they look at what is depicted
within the painting. Absorbed in their conversation, the foregrounded pair seems to pause for
a moment in the sunlight, their shadows merging as they turn to each other. The inclusion of
figures that speak, rather than figures that look, resonates with the shift from an intensely
visual religion to a religion centered on the Word. The spoken word does not completely
repress the image, though; instead, speech and icon are juxtaposed, possibly in order to
encourage viewers outside the painting also to debate.
Central to the mode of looking that de Witte's painting prompts, of course, is its perspectival
illusionism. Arnold Houbraken stated in his early-eighteenth-century biography of
Netherlandish artists that Emanuel de Witte was "renowned for his mastery of perspective"
and that he used to brag of his geometry. In fact, Houbraken claims that when it came to
rendering church interiors, de Witte had no equal.75 Seventeenth-century art commentators
frequently lauded the masterful use of perspective, light, and color in the fabrication of
convincing constructions of illusory space. Isaac de Ville, for instance, asserted that painting
was a nobler art than sculpture or architecture because of the training and skill needed to
create a three-dimensional scene on a flat surface.76 Since the artist's ability to fool and
please the art lover's eye was considered the consummate pictorial achievement, the
mastery of illusionism and the status of the painter became intertwined.77 Evidently, the
representation of three-dimensional space was regarded as the defining feature of church
interior paintings, for in seventeenth-century inventories, these were most commonly
classified as "perspectives."78
Perspectives were highly prized. Produced by a fairly small group of artists, these relatively
expensive works, as noted above, were owned mainly by wealthy and distinguished
collectors, many of them Calvinist.79 A significant body of visual evidence links de Witte's
paintings to this audience of elite connoisseurs. This evidence takes the form of two
paintings: Jacob Maurer's The Committee of Taste, from about 1760 (Fig. 9), and Emanuel
de Witte's Family in an Interior of 1678 (Fig. 10). In both, a recognizable work by de Witte
appears as a painting within the painting. And in both, the possession and display of a de
Witte painting seems to add to the prestige of the group depicted. In the family portrait, the
painting of a church interior hanging on the back wall may be an allusion to the religious
affiliations of the sitters. Indeed, there exists another painting by de Witte, also done in 1678,
of the same family, showing them listening to a sermon in Amsterdam's Oude Kerk.80 While
the portrait may tell us something about the family's faith, it also focuses on their wealth and
taste, for their de Witte church interior is displayed together with antique sculpture, ceramic
vases, and other luxury objects. In the later painting by Maurer, the de Witte is even more
emphatically located within a carefully selected art collection, and here the main theme is the
taste and expertise of the connoisseurs.
Notably, both of the paintings embedded within these paintings picture congregations
listening to sermons in whitewashed churches. These visual representations of the Calvinist
worship service-a social practice that, after all, was centered on the authority of the Word and
the repudiation of the image-seem somewhat incongruous. Yet this imagery of the public
religious space hangs on the walls of the private collector's space, acting as a reminder that
while the verdict against images was potent in the church, it did not extend to the cabinet or
to the home.81
The very format of the images pictured serves to underline such distinctions. In Maurer's
painting, the de Witte church interior is shown in an ebony frame with shutters, while in the
family portrait the de Witte is partly concealed by the curtain that hangs in front of it. Both of
these devices are derived from traditional methods used for the display of liturgical
imagery.82 By the seventeenth century, such means of veiling and unveiling were adapted
for the presentation of the artistic masterpiece. Not only did the curtain or shutter protect the
painting, but it also increased the viewing pleasure by heightening the effect on the viewer.83
Within the collector's space, devices for the display of the image as an object of adoration
became a means of vividly calling attention to the representational status of illusionistic works
of art. In this way, the family in the portrait can be depicted, without any apparent
embarrassment, as lovers of art and as good Calvinists.
These images therefore suggest the interconnected status of patrons, paintings, and artists.
They resonate with the oft-cited words of the seventeenth-century artist and writer Samuel
van Hoogstraten, who claimed that "such artful deceptions are marvelled at by the whole
world and ensure that the maker is held in high esteem."84 Surely this is what de Witte was
indicating by quoting his own work in the family portrait. In fact, after about 1640, works of art
listed in probate inventories increasingly were identified by the name of the artist rather than
by subject matter.85 With the greater emphasis on authorship, the signature of the artist
came to the fore, signaling to art collectors the painting's worth as the unique creation of an
individual (Fig. 4).86 The evocative placement of de Witte's signature in Old Church in
Amsterdam thus resonates with the interests of the type of patron he may have been
attempting to attract in 1660-a connoisseur who valued skillful artistry and appreciated the
metapictorial play at work in the painting.87
In light of this, it is difficult to know what to make of an obvious perspectival distortion in the
rendering of the column capital in the left foreground of Old Church in Amsterdam (Fig. 1). It
has been proposed that de Witte's use of a perspective device produced this distortion.88
Even so, it is curious that he did not correct the rather jarring disruption of the painting's
perspectival illusionism, especially in a painting that employs so many strategies to
accentuate the name, skill, and changing status of the artist. De Witte, after all, was
recognized as one of the foremost perspective painters of his day.89 This constitutes another
of the painting's anomalies that is not easily resolved. The impact of the skewed perspective
is clear, however, for it certainly destroys the illusion of the artist's mastery of space. By
disclosing the limits of perspectival seeing, it contradicts the painting's status as a
simulacrum of the prior world.90 Moreover, it is intriguing that the distortion appears in the
depiction of the gallery, one of the architectural fantasy elements in the painting, which draws
attention to the act of depicting-to the interventions of the artist's hand.91
By its very nature, the realistic imaginary church interior always presents itself as an
untrustworthy image, for in its juxtaposition of the real and the imagined, it simultaneously
asserts and denies its claims to truth and objectivity. The inclusion of so many fantasy
elements in these types of paintings distracts the viewer from questions of fidelity to actual
space, making evident instead the critical mind at work in the manufacture of the image. As a
result, the revelation of the artist's hand in this painting provokes mistrust about two very
different modes of picture making. It destroys the truth claims of the sacred acheiropoetic
image and the sanctity of the objective perspectival image. The artist's hand both creates
and destroys. While it composes the representation, it also commits acts of iconoclasm and
exposes the limits of representation, revealing in the process the very tenuous relations
between images and the realities that they claim to represent.
The Iconoclast Painter
With this notion of the painter as iconoclast, an incongruous hybrid emerges. The goal of the
iconoclast, after all, is the absence of painting. Remarkably, de Witte actually depicts such an
iconoclast painter in a painting entitled Interior of a Protestant Gothic Church (Fig. 11). In the
right middle ground of this painting there hangs a basket holding a small figure who busily
whitewashes the wall of the nave of a church that resembles the Amsterdam Oude Kerk. Like
de Witte, this painter would have been a member of the Guild of Saint Luke, but, needless to
say, their activities as painters cannot be equated.92 The man who paints the wall conceals
the images that formerly decorated the church; his very presence emphasizes the potentially
ephemeral nature of visual imagery. De Witte, on the other hand, brings the forbidden image
back into view.
In fact, in Old Church of Amsterdam, the artist seems to work rather insistently against the
efforts of the whitewasher, for not only does de Witte reintroduce the familiar motifs of the
Holy Face of Christ and the Mother and Child, but he also includes one of the church's
former vault paintings-an image that would have been painted over by 1660.93 This vault
painting, depicting a type of boat called the koggeschip, is visible in the interior of the chapel
just beyond the organ at the right of the painting (Fig. 12). An early form of cargo vessel, the
koggeschip played a key role in Amsterdam's expansion into a sea-trading center, as well as
in founding myths of the city.94 Notably, an image of the koggeschip actually was painted on
the vault of one of the Oude Kerk's chapels in the fifteenth century (Fig. 13).95 While the ship
in de Witte's painting is not located exactly in the place of the original vault painting, the
similarities are nevertheless remarkable, and it is possible that he somehow knew of the
former appearance of this image within the Onde Kerk. Here, he seemingly attempts to strip
away the layers of paint that had been deliberately applied over the course of the century. In
undoing the work of the iconoclasts, this painting thus heralds the return of the image.
Like the icon of the Holy Face, however, the koggexchip painting comes back into view as a
sort of apparition. Reappearing in spite of their erasure, present in spite of their absence,
these paintings-within-the-painting vividly indicate how the historical preconditions of the
Oude Kerk continue to underpin what follows. In the process, they point to the fragility of
images while simultaneously calling attention to their forceful persistence. For this is not a
simple reinstatement of the old image; instead, this painting signifies the return of something
that does not truly come back. The old image may reappear, but it does so in a new guise,
demonstrating how the destruction of images could generate new types of representations.
Old Church in Amsterdam evidently concerns more than iconoclasm and its aftermath;
rather-to borrow the title of a recent exhibition-it brings about "iconoclash."96 Images that
mediate reality in very different ways collide in this painting, and enter into a series of
sometimes unexpected alliances. As a result, the dualities of realistic and imaginary, iconic
and perspectival, sacred and secular, and copy and prototype begin to break down. De
Witte's work portrays a Calvinist space of worship that struggles with its own role in the
history of art, emerging-surprisingly enough-as a force that was as creative as it was
destructive. In the final analysis, it serins that it is the peculiar paradox of this struggle that is
conveyed by a painting that conveys distrust of images even as it celebrates the new status
of pictures, their makers, and their viewers.
Sidebar
De Witte's painting of 1660 presents a visual paradox, for it reintroduces into this Calvinist
interior a number of images that had been banned or destroyed during and after the
sixteenth-century iconoclast movement. Different modes of picture making are not simply
opposed here. Rather, the powers of the old religious image are linked with the generation of
new kinds of secular images, pointing to a larger contradiction: the often fraught dynamic
between Calvinism and visual culture emerges as a force that not only provoked iconoclastic
destruction but also had the potential to initiate the creation of new images.
Footnote
Notes
This article incorporates material presented in a paper at the Courtauld Institute of Art
conference "Double-Sight: Copies, Likenesses and Translations in Early Modern Visual
Culture" in December 2002. Many thanks to the conlerence organizes and participants for
their insightful comments and suggestions. I also would like to thank my research assistant
Jim McLean for his diligent and enthusiastic help with this project. The research and writing
of this paper were funded by grants from lbe Social Sciences and I lumanilics Research
Council of Canada and the Luther College President's Research Fund. Unless otherwise
indicated, translations are mine.
1. Henri I Lefebvre. The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith (Oxford: Blackwell,
1991), 229.
2. Ibid.
3. The small organ is actually in the north aisle of the church.
4. Walter Liedtke, Architectural Painting in Delfi: Gerard Houckgeest, Hendrick van Vliet and
Emanuel de Witte (Doornspijk: Davaco. 1982). esp. chap. 2.
5. Ibid., 23-24. Paintings that combine Protestant and Roman Catholic motifs are thus
included within the larger category of realistic imaginary painting. On de Witte's manipulation
of actual architectural spaces, see Ilse Manke, Kmimuel de Wille, 1617-1692 (Amsterdam:
Menno Hertzberger, 1903), 39-44; Arnoldus Noacb, De Oude Kerk te Amsterdam: Biografie
van een Gebouw (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1939), 116-27:
and E. P. Richardson, "De Witle and the Imaginative Nature of Dutch Art," Art Quarterly 1
(1938): 4-17.
6. On the functions of the self-aware image, see Victor Stoichita, The Self-Aware Image: An
Insight into Early Modern Meta-Painting, trans. Anne-Marie Glasheen (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997).
7. Hans Jantzen, Das Niederlndische Architekturbild (1909; Braunschweig: Klinkhardt und
Biermann, 1979) remains the standard work on this genre. See also the more recent
exhibition catalog, especially the introducrory essay by Jeroen Giltaij, "Perspectives:
Saenredam and the Architectural Painters of the Seventeenth Century," in Perspectives:
Saenredam and the Architectural painters of the Seventeenth Century, ed. Giltaij and Guido
Jansen, Museum Boymans-van Benningen, Rotterdam, 1991, 8-17. On Saenredam's
specific contributions to the genre, see P. T. A. Swillens. De Spieghel Saenredam: Schilder
van Haarlem, 1597-1665 (Amsterdam: De Spieghel, 1035), xi; and Gary Schwartz and
Marten Jan Bok, Pieter Saenredam: The Painter and His Time (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1990), 52.
8. For a recent analysis of these debates, see Arie de Groot. "Pieter Saenredam's Views of
Utrecht Churches and the Question of Their Reliability," in Pieter Saenredam, the Utrecht
Work: Painting and Drawings by the 17th-century Master of Perspective, ed. Liesbeth M.
Helmus, exh. cat., Centraal Museum, Utrecht, 2000, esp. 33-49. The incongruous mixing of
Roman Catholic and Calvinisl elements in Saenredam's paintings has been explored by Ivan
Gaskell, "Pielet Janz Saenredam and the Great Church of 's-Hertogenbosch," in Bilder und
Bildersturm im Sptmittelalter und in der frhen Neuzeit, ed. B. Seribner and M. Warnke
(Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990, 249-61; and E. Jane Council, "The Romanization of the
Gothic Arch in Some Paintings by Pieter Saenredam: Catholic and Protestant Implications."
Rutgers Art Review 1 (January 1980): 17-35.
9. I. Q. van Regteren Altena. "Saenredam Archaeoloog," Oud Holland 48 (1931): 1-13; and
Swillens, Saenredam: Shilder van Haarlem, xi. These issues also are taken up in Peter
Kidson's fascinating essay "The Mariakerk ut Utrecht, Speyer, and Italy," in Utrecht: Britain
and the Continent: Archaeology, Art and Architecture, ed. Elisabeth de Bivre (Leeds: Maney
and Son, 1996), 123-36.
10. St. Bavokerk had only two bishops during the brief period from 1561 to 1578, when it was
a cathedral. Schwartz and Bok, Saenredam: The Painter in His Time, 74.
11. Ibid., 71, 74-76. Schwartz and Bok link it specifically to the activities of members of
Haarlem's Roman Catholic chapter.
12. On questions of patronage, see the important contribution of John Michael Montias,
'"Perspectives' in 17th Century Inventories," in Giltaij and Jansen, Perspertives, 19-30. The
aesthetic appeal of these paintings is emphasized by Martin Kemp, "Mute Signs and Blind
Alleys," review of Saenredam: The Painter and His is Time by Schwartz and Bok and
Perspectives, by Giltaij and Jansen, Art History 16 (September 1993): 475-79.
13. I am presently preparing a book-length study provisionally entitled Reforming Art:
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Depictions of Religious Space, which explores these issues.
14. Jantzen's attribution of this painting to Hendrick van Steenwijck the Elder has been
questioned. Jantzen, Das Niederlndische Architekturbild, 29-30. The date therefore is also a
matter of debate; if it was done by Steenwijck the Younger, then it can probably be dated to
sometime after 1602. While the church depicted bears a resemblance to the cathedral of
Onze Lieve Vrouw in Antwerp as well as the Church of St. Peter in Louvain, the architecture
as well as the altarpieces within it probably are all imaginary. See Giltaij and Jansen,
Perspectives, 73, cat. no. 5.
15. Victor Stoichita's discussion of these images is particularly relevant. Stoichita, Self-Aware
Image, 89.
16. While the term "realistic imaginary" was coined to describe the particular style of these
paintings, it strikes me that the interests of this imagery also work in terms of Lefebvre's
definitions of realistic and imaginaiy space. For these definitions, See Lefebvre, Production of
Space, 38-39.
17. On the complex history of imagery of the face of Christ, see the essays in Herbert L.
Kessler and Gerhard Wolf, eds., The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation: Papers
from a Colloquium Held at the Biblitheca Hertziana, Rome, and the Villa Spelman, Florence,
1996 (Bologna: Nnova Alfa, 1998); as well as Ewa Kuryluk, Veronica and her Cloth
(Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1991).
18. Numerous pilgrims' badges from St. Peter's, which bear the image of the cloth of
Veronica, have been found throughout the northern Netherlands. H. J. E. van Bcuningen and
A. M. Koldeweij, eds., Heilig en Profaan: 1000 Laatmiddleeuwse Insignes uit de Collectie H.
J. E. van Beuningen, exh. cat., Stichting Midclelceuwse Religienuze en Profane Insignes,
Cothc-n. 1993. 133. 186-87. Ko, examples, see cat. nos. 73-77A and 303-10.
19. Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans.
E. Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 221; and Sixten Ringbom, Icon to
Ninrnlive: The Rise of the Dramatic Close-Up in Fifteenth-Century Devotional Painting (1965;
Doornspijk: Davaco, 1984), 24.
20. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative. 23. The indulgences were linked to the prayers Salve sancta
facies and Ave facies praeclara, which were repealed in front of the image. see John Oliver
Hands. "Salve Sancta Fades: Some Thoughts on the Iconography of the Head of Christ by
Petrus Christus," Metropolitan Museum Journal 27 (1992): 14-16; and J. J. M. Timmers,
Symboliek en Iconographie der Christelijke Kunsr (Roermond-Maaseik: J. J. Romen en
X.onen, 1947), 91.
21. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative., 30; Henk van Os, The Way to Heaven: Relic Generation in
the Middle Ages, exh. cat., Nieuw Kerk, Amsterdam, and Museum Catharijneconvent,
Utrecht, 2000, 43.
22. They appear in the Huiszittenkapel. Both of these heads were cut out, pasted onto the
bosses, and had greenish yellow rays painted around them. In one, the crown of thorns can
be made out; in the other, drops of tears, sweat, or blood can be seen on the face. see the
discussion in Wouter Kloek, Gewelfschildmngen in de Oude Kerk te Amsterdam
(Amsterdam: Stichting Oncle Kerk te Amsterdam, 1975), 25; and Pieler van Dael, "De Oude
Kerk te Amsterdam," in Vroomheid op de Oudezijds: Drie Nicolaaskerhen in Amsterdam, ed.
Marco Blokhnis et al. (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 1988). 27. On the history of this
chapel, and the unusual nature of this type of decoration, see B. M. Bijtelaar, "Oe
Huiszittenkapel van de Oude Kerk te Amsterdam," Jaarboek van het Genootschap
Amstelodamum 62 (1970): 14-36.
23. Kloek, Gewelfschilderingen, 25. This is also the opinion of J. M. Baart, "Pelgrimeren:
Mobiliteit en economie," in Beuningen and Koldeweij, Heilig en Profann, 93.
24. Kloek, Gewelfschilderingen, 35; and Dael. "De Oude Kerk," 23.
25. Kloek, Gewelfschilderingen, 7-8; Dael. "De Oude Kerk." 30; and I. C. Wegener Sleeswijk,
Vijjtien Jaar Restauratie in de Oude Kerh if Amsterdam (Amsterdam: Paardekooper, 1970),
27-28.
26. Read's account of these events has been published in J. C. Breen, "Uittreksel uit de
Amsterdamsche Gedenkschriften van Laurens Jacobsz, Reael, 1542-1567," Bijdragen en
Mededeelingen van het Historisch Genoolschap te Utrecht 17 (1896): 26: "Siet daer hanct in
dat glasen bordeken dat gruwelijcke en godlasterlijcke gedicht."
27. Ibid.: "Hier leyt besloten in dit slot, Jesus Christus, waerachtich niensch en Godt, Alsoo
hij van Maria is gebooren; Die dit niet gelooft, die is verlooren."
28. Ibid.: ". . . maekende door tglas so grooten geluit door de gansche kerck. Hierdoor
hebben sornmige jongens met steenen begonnen te werpen op de altaren na de beelden . . .
dat zij also aen de beelden van boven neder te warpen sijn getegen."
29. Calvin, quoted and translated in Carlos M. N. Eire, War against the Idols: The
Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1986), 3: "Finitum non est capax infiniti."
30. Ibid., 197-99, 217.
31. Calvin, quoted and translated in Sergiusz Michalski, The Reformation and the Visual Arts:
The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe (London: Routledge, 1993),
63.
32. The impact of the Reformation on the semiotic status of objects has been explored by
Stephen Greenblatt, "Remnants of the Sacred in Early Modern England," in Subject and
Object in Renaissance Culture, ed. M. de Grazia et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1996), 340.
33. Michalski, Reformation and the Visual Arts, 63-66.
34. See the important analysis of imagery of the Holy Face in Joseph Leo Koerner, The
Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1993), 84-85.
35. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative, 12; and David Freedberg, "The Hidden God: Image and
Interdiction in the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century," Art History 5, no. 2 (1982): 139.
36. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative, 12; and Kessler and Wolf, The Holy Face, ix. see also Marie
Jos Mondzain, "The Holy Shroud/How Invisible Hands Weave the Undecidable," in Bruno
Latour and Peter Weibel, eds., Iconodash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion, and
Art, exh. cat., ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
2002), 324.
37. Mondzain, "The Holy Shroud," 335; and Michalski, Reformation and the Visual Arts, x.
38. On these issues, see especially the essays in Kessler and Wolf, The Holy Face; as well
as Koerner, Moment of Self-Portraiture; and idem, "The Icon as Iconoclash," in Latour and
Weibel, Iconochish, 164-213.
39. This is the insight of Koerner, "Icon as Iconoclash," 193. see also Hans Belting, "In
Search of Christ's Body: Image or Imprint?" in Kessler and Wolf, The Holy Face, 11.
40. Koerner, "Icon as Iconoclash," 193, 196-98.
41. Indeed, the image is somewhat ambiguously rendered, making it difficult to discern
whether it hangs or is painted on the marble epitaph.
42. "Notable Works of Art Now on the Market," Burlington Magazine 100 (December 1958):
n.p.
43. See the museum catalog entry in Edeltraud Rettich et al., Alte Meisttr (Stuttgart:
Staatsgalerie, 1992), 475.
44. Houbraken in fact contrasts the seeming piety of de Witte's paintings with the chaos of
the artist's life as well as his death by suicide. Arnold Houbraken, De Groote Schouwburgh
der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen (1718), ed. P. T. A. Swillens, 3 vols.
(Maastricht: Leiter-Nypels, 1943), vol. 1, 222-26.
45. On the status of the Holy Face image as proof, see Belting, "In Search of Christ's Body,"
3-4.
46. Important to my thinking about these issues is the work of Bruno Latour, "How to Be
Iconophilic in Art, Science and Religion?" in Picturing Science, Producing Art, ed. Caroline
Jones and Peter Galison (New York: Routledge, 1998), 421, 428-30.
47. Beverly Heisner, "Mortality and Faith: The Figurai Motifs within Emanuel de Witte's Dutch
Church Interiors," Studies in Iconography 6 (1980): 111. Approximately 50 percent of late
medieval church art was of the Virgin and Child. Eire, War against the Idols, 315.
48. Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the
Golden Age (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 540. Schama's focus here is on the
semisacred nature of nursing mothers in Dutch society, rather than on the artistic
transformation of the Virgin Mary, however.
49. Belting, Likeness and Presence, 57-59; and Colin Eisler, "Portrait of the Artist as Saint
Luke," Art News 58 (December 1959): 27.
50. See Zirka Zaremba Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp, 1550-1700 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1987), 26-27; Eisler, "The Artist as Saint Luke," 30; Lyckle de Vries, Gerard
de Lairesse: An Artist between Stage and Studio (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press,
1998), 21; and David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of
Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 205-6.
51. See Filipczak, Picturing Art in Antwerp, 23-28; Stoichita, Self-Aware Image, 228; and H.
Perry Chapman, "A Hollandse Pictura: Observations on the Title Page of Philips Angel's Lof
der Schilder-konst," Simiolus 16, no. 4 (1986): 233-48.
52. Heisner, "Mortality and Faith," 111; and T. T. Blade, "Two Interior Views of the Old
Church in Delft," Museum Studies: Art Institute of Chicago 6 (1971): 43. It also retains some
resemblance to imagery of the Madonna of Humility, who often is shown seated on the
ground nursing the Christ Child. See Marina Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the
Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Quartet Books, 1976), 202-3.
53. This monument strongly resembles (but is not identical to) the epitaph of Gerard Welhouc
in the Old Church of Delft-a church that de Witte painted often. Manke, Emanuel de Witte,
95. The Delft monuments are cataloged by E. A. van Beresteyn, Grafmonumenten en
Grafierken in de Oude Kerk te Delft (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1938), 22-23. The Amsterdam
Oude Kerk monuments are described in Casparus Commelin, Beschryvinge der Stad
Amsterdam Desselfs Eerste Oorspronk uyt den Huyse der Heeren van Aemstel en
Aemstellant met een Verhaal van Haar Leven en Dappere Krijgsdaden, 2 vols. (Amsterdam:
Wolfgang, Waasberge, Boom, van Someren en Goethals, 1693), vol. 1, 433.
54. These sorts of epitaphs are pictured and discussed in C. A. van Swigchem et al., Een
Huis voor Het Woiyrd: Het Protestantse Kerkinlerieur in Nederland tot 1900 (The Hague:
Staatsuitgeverij, 1984), 260-61.
55. Rob Ruurs, "Functions of Architectural Painting, with Special Reference to Church
Interiors," in Giltaij andjansen, Perspectives, 43.
56. See the important article by Arthur K Wheelock Jr., "Gerard Houckgeest and Emanuel De
Witte: Architectural Painting in Delft," Simiolus 8 (1975-76): 167-85.
57. Here I am drawing on Lefebvre's significant discussion of the contradictory status of
monuments. Lefebvre, Production of Space, 220.
58. On the accounts of tomb tourists, see Frits Scholten, Sumptuous Memories: Studies in
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tomb Sculpture (Zwolle: Waanders, 2003), 216. See also
Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, Church Art and Architecture in the Low Countries before 1566,
Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, vol. 37 (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century Journal
Publishers, 1997), 190.
59. This text, which describes how God himself destroyed the fleet with fire and might, also is
quoted in Commelin, Beschryvinge der Stad Amsterdam, vol. 1, 438.
60. Ibid., 432. Van Heemskerk's armor is preserved in the collections of the Amsterdam
Rijksmuseum. see R. van Luttervelt, "De Wapenrusting en het Zwaard van Jacob van
Heemskerk," Maandblad Amstelodamum 40 (1953): 73-74. On the veneration and display of
"secular relics" after the Reformation, see Wim Vroom, Het Wonderlid van Jan de Witt en
Andere Vaderlandse Relieken (Nijmegen: SUN, 1997), esp. 12-13.
61. A seventeenth-century viewer familiar with the Oude Kerk would lind this armor
reminiscent of but not the same as van Heemskerk's armor, which lacks the left thigh piece,
destroyed by the Spanish cannonball that killed him. In a move typical of this painting, the
sign and its referent do not quite align.
62. In this regard, it is similar to the Oude and Nieuwe Kerken in Delft, which de Witte painted
frequently before he moved to Amsterdam.
63. When the threat of Spain receded, it was soon replaced by the French quest for military
and religious domination in the Netherlands. Connections between Saenredam's depictions
of religious space and military violence have been made by Carol Janson, "Public Places,
Private Lives: The Impact of the Dutch Revolt on the Reformed Churches in Holland," in The
Public and the Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock fr. and
Adele Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), 191-205.
64. In fact, these tombs to secular heroes often were located at the sites of former altars. A.
van Rooijen, De Oude Kerk te Amsterdam in Vogelvlucht (Amsterdam: Stichting De Oude
Kerk te Amsterdam, 1985), 54. Also see Cynthia Lawrence's important article, "Hendrick de
Keyser's Heemskerk Monument," Simiolus 21 (1992): 272. The focus on the male hero may
have played a role as well in the increasing masculinization of CaIvinist religious space, as
feminine elements such as the Madonna and Child were suppressed. see Eire, War against
the Idols, 315-16.
65. Justus van Effen, De Hollandsche Spectator, 8 februari 1732-23 mei 1732: Aflevering 31
t/m 60, ed. E. Groenenboom-Draai (Leiden: Uilgeverij Astraea, 1998), 207-8: "Wanneer men
ons een krygs-wapen van een beroemd overleden krygsman, en zelfs een schaal daar hy
zyn dorst uit gelaaft heeft, hoewel 'er niets byzonders in bespeurd word, ter hand steld, zo
worden wy as door een natuerlyke drift gedwongen en weggerukt, om dezelven met een
eerbiedige aandagt te beschouwen; ze wekken in onze ziel het denkbeeld op van de
verdienste des Groten Mans die ze gebruykt heeft, en 't schynt dat zyne grootmoedigheid 'er
aan gehegt, en verbonden is."
66. Dc Nederlandsche Spectator 4, no. 101 (1752): 187: ". . . en 't is zeer waarschynlyk dat
de afgodery van beeldendienst, aaroeping der heiligen, en het bidden voor de zielen der
overleden, door deze begraaving in de kerken heeft stand gegreepen. Wonder is het
derhalven, dat in de driftig hervorming van de Christen kerk, de yver om den Godsdienst te
zuiveren, zoo verre niet is doorgedrongen, dat men deeze zo onbetaamelyke gewoonte niet
te gelyck met al de rest der bygeloovigheid, ter kerke heeft uitgebannen."
67. On responses to these tombs, see Scholten, Sumptuous Memories, 211-31.
68. See Lefebvre, Production of Space, 225, for his insights on the functions of monuments.
69. See the important discussion of the concepts of memoria and exemplum as functions of
the post-Reformation Dutch tomb in Scholten, Sumptuous Memories, 15-22.
70. It is intriguing to note that the artist did not sign his name "E. de Witte," as he often did,
but wrote out his first name, "Emanuel," which resonates more strongly with the image of
Christ.
71. Jasper Hopkins, Nicolas of Cusa's Dialectical Mysticism: Text, Translation, and
Interpretive Study of "De Visions Dei" (Minneapolis: Arthur J. Banning Press, 1988), 113-19.
See the stimulating discussion of Nicholas of Cusa in Koerner, Moment of Self-Portraiture,
esp. chap. 6.
72. Brian Rotman, Signifying Nothing: The Semiotics of Zero (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1987), 21.
73. As Rotman, ibid., 27, puts it, while an icon presents, perspectival illusionism re-presents.
74. Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1983), 64.
75. Houbraken, De Groote Schouwburgh, vol. 1, 223: ". . . en tot het schilderen van Kerkjes,
waar in niemant hem gelijk was." See also Hendrik J. Horn's discussion in The Golden Age
Revisited: Arnold Houbraken's Great Theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses, 2
vols. (Doornspijk: Davaco, 2000), vol. 1, 98.
76. I. de Ville, T'samen-spreeckinghe Belreffende de Architecture ende Schilder-konst
(Gouda: Peiter Rammaseyn, 1628), 4.
77. Ou these issues, see the important contributions of Celeste Brusati, Artifice and Illusion:
The Art and Writing of Samuel van Hoogstraten (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995), 220, 258; Eric Jan Sluijter, De Lof der Schilderkunst: Over Schilderijen van Gerrit Don
(1613-1675) en een Traktaat van Philips Angel uit 1642 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993), 9-13;
and Paul Taylor, "The Concept of 'Houding' in Dutch Art Theory," Journal of the Warburg and
Courtauld Institutes 55 (1992): 210-32.
78. Montias, "'Perspectives' in Seventeenth-Century Inventories," 19.
79. Ibid., 25-28.
80. Ruurs, "Functions of Architectural Painting," 45. See also the discussion of this painting
and its patrician owners by Derk Visser, "Establishing the Reformed Church: Clergy and
Magistrates in the Low Countries 1572-1620," in Later Calvinism: International Perspectives,
ed. W. F. Graham Sixteenth Centuiy Essays and Studies, vol. 22 (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth
Century Journal Publishers, 1994), 406.
81. Belting, Likeness and Presence, 458.
82. Stoichita, Self-Aware Image, 60.
83. Ibid., 61.
84. Samuel van Hoogstraten, quoted in Brusati, Artifice and Illusion, 173.
85. John Michael Montias, Artists and Artisans in Delft: A Socio-Economie Study of the
Seventeenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 218.
86. Ibid., 318. see also Marten Jan Bok, "Society, Culture, and Collecting in Seventeenth-
Century Delft," in Vermeer and the Delft School, ed. Walter liedtke et al., exh. cat.,
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 206.
87. By 1660, the Amsterdam market for paintings was declining drastically. Thus, de Witte
may have been struggling at this time to find a wealthy patron for his works. see Marten Jan
Bok, "The Rise of Amsterdam as a Cultural Centre," in Urban Achievement in Early Modern
Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London, ed. Patrick O'Brien et al.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 209.
88. "Notable Works of Art," n.p.
89. A skillfully intuitive painter, de Witte tended to relax the rules of linear perspective in favor
of a more optical approach, which relied on the use of light, shade, color, and brushstroke to
produce a credible illusion. Therefore, this error must have been obvious to him, and he does
cover up the problem at the base of the column with the motif of the dogs. see liedtke,
Architectural Painting in Delft, 19, 76-78; and GiItaij, "Perspectives," 15. Perhaps it was the
want of a buyer that discouraged de Witte from making the effort to fully correct this error.
90. See the discussion of perspective in Rotman, Signifying Nothing, 41-44.
91. As Bruno Latour argues, the more that the hand of the artist can be seen, the weaker the
image's claim to offer objective or religious truths. Latour, "What Is Iconoclash? Or Is There a
World beyond the Image Wars?" in Latour and Weibel, Iconoclash, 16.
92. De Witte possibly is making a distinction between huisschilders and kunstschilders, or
housepainters and artistic painters. Attempts to differentiate between painters increasingly
were made in the course of the seventeenth century and served to elevate the status of the
artist. see Lydia de Pauw-de Veen, De Begrippen "Schilder, " "Schilderij" en "Schilderen" in
de Zevmtiende Eeum, Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke VIaamse Academie voor
Wretenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van Belgi, 31, no. 22 (Brussels: Paleis der
Academin, 1969), 16.
93. Kloek, Gewelfschilderingen, 7-8, 20-21; and Dael, "De Oude Kerk," 30.
94. The vault painting of a hoggeschip also appears in another painting by de Witte, entitled
Interior of the Old Church in Amsterdam (Instituut Collectie Nederland) of 1659. This image is
very similar to the 1660 composition. While both paintings reproduce the image of the
kogge.schip in the vault, the 1659 version does not include the image of the Holy Face. The
1660 painting also depicts a ceiling painting, possibly of an angel, which is just visible in the
nave of the church.
95. This vault painting originally appeared in the Buitenlandvaarderskapel, and has been
dated to about 1473. see the discussion in Kloek, Gewelfschilderingen, 8-10, 20-21. Many
images of the koggeschip were incorporated in the stained-glass windows of the Oude Kerk,
and its importance to the identity of Amsterdam is demonstrated by the fact that it was
reproduced on the official seals of the city.
96. As Bruno Latour argues, iconoclasm is a motivated act of destruction, while iconoclash
can be simultaneously destructive and constructive. Latour, "What Is Iconoclash?" 14-15.
AuthorAffiliation
Angela Vanhaelen teaches the history of art at McGill University. Her research centers on the
visual culture of the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, and she is the author of Comic
Print and Theatre in Early Modern Amsterdam (Ashgate, 2003) Deparment of Art History and
Communication Studies, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3A 2T6,
angela.vanhaelen@mcgill.ca].
_______________________________________________________________
Indexing (details)
Subject Visual artists;
Painting;
Catholic churches;
Religious icons
Location Amsterdam Netherlands
People De Witte, Emanuel
Title Iconoclasm and the Creation of Images in Emanuel de Witte's Old
Church in Amsterdam
Author Vanhaelen, Angela
Publication title The Art Bulletin
Volume 87
Issue 2
Pages 249-0_6
Number of pages 17
Publication year 2005
Publication date Jun 2005
Year 2005
Publisher New York
Publisher College Art Association, Inc.
Place of publication New York
Country of publication United States
Journal subject Art
ISSN 00043079
CODEN ABCABK
Source type Scholarly Journals
Language of publication English
Document type Commentary
Document feature References;Photographs
Subfile Visual artists, Painting, Catholic churches, Religious icons
ProQuest document ID 222981071
Document URL http://search.proquest.com/docview/222981071?accountid=15533
Copyright Copyright College Art Association of America Jun 2005
Last updated 2010-06-09
Database ProQuest Central
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