Description
Book SynopsisExplores the relationship between art and religion after the iconoclasm of the Dutch Reformation. Reassesses Dutch realism and its pictorial strategies in relation to the religious and political diversity of the Dutch cities.
Trade Review“Seventeenth-century Dutch church paintings have been the subject of much art-historical inquiry, and this handsomely produced volume makes a valuable contribution to the discussion. . . . Vanhaelen, a recognized specialist in this area, explores the connection between church paintings and contemporary religious thought—not just Calvinism, but also Roman Catholicism and even Islam. She brings out the significance of the works’ beautiful whitewashed walls; graffiti on those walls; the power of the word and the book; the political overtones of the invasion by Louis XIV and the reconsecration of the Utrecht cathedral; and the implications of the common theme of the open grave in church floors, among much else. The book includes over 50 fine illustrations (most in color), excellent footnotes, and a full bibliography.”
—F. W. Robinson Choice
“The Wake of Iconoclasm: Painting the Church in the Dutch Republic . . . tacks a high-stakes course for the pictorial repercussions of iconoclasm: in place of the triumphant confidence, joy, even pink-cheeked bluster we have come to expect of Dutch art, Vanhaelen gives us a church interior–based realism founded on the volatile ambivalence of an age of anxiety beneath the sunny veneer of convivial charm.”
—Mia M. Mochizuki Oxford Art Journal
“[Vanhaelen] intensively and insightfully investigates the interstice between the past and present faiths and art. . . . The book is amply illustrated, with most of the key paintings reproduced in color, some accompanied by exquisite full-page color details. Some of the included illustrations are rarely reproduced in the earlier literature, particularly in such high quality.”
—Historians of Netherlandish Art
“Supported by numerous color illustrations and a healthy bibliography, this volume is certain to be an enlightening and thought-provoking read for historians and art historians of the early modern era.”
—Jacquelyn N. Coutre Sixteenth Century Journal
“This book is a significant contribution to the field of Dutch art and religious culture. Angela Vanhaelen looks closely and with fresh eyes at the images of Dutch church interiors, and with the close observation of each detail, their architectural spaces and church-attending inhabitants come alive to the reader.”
—Shelley Perlove,University of Michigan–Dearborn
“A creative and fresh approach to the study of seventeenth-century Dutch architectural paintings of church interiors.”
—Prof. dr. Mia M. Mochizuki,Jesuit School of Theology, Santa Clara University, and Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley
“[Vanhaelen] brings out the significance of the works’ beautiful whitewashed walls; graffiti on those walls; the power of the word and the book; the political overtones of the invasion by Louis XIV and the reconsecration of the Utrecht cathedral; and the implications of the common theme of the open grave in church floors, among much else. The book includes over 50 fine illustrations (most in color), excellent footnotes, and a full bibliography.”
—F. W. Robinson Choice
Table of ContentsContents
Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Part 1: Painting the Church
1 Time-Stained Walls
2 The Forbidden Image
Part 2: The Transformation of Public Space
3 The Contradictions of Church
4 Monumental Space: Reforming the Body Politic
Part 3: The Work of Mourning
5 Unresolved Histories
6 Death and Dutch Art
Notes
Bibliography
Index
