< Back to previous page

Project

Drawing and Dissent: Pictorial Notebook Culture and the Efficacy of Art in the Dutch Revo

This research project explores a neglected treasure-trove of early modern visual culture: the vast store of images found within commonplace books, private journals and related forms of selfwriting. The practice of keeping pictorial notebooks caught on all over northern Europe in the late sixteenth century and flourished particularly in the war-torn Low Countries during the Dutch Revolt (1568-1648). At the center of this study are the diary-notebooks of the Protestant polymath Paulus de Kempenaer (ca. 1554-1618) and the hundreds of unpublished drawings contained within. The exceptionally rich case of de Kempenaer is used to examine how in times of conflict and censure the manuscript medium became a fascinating space of refuge for dissident views and artistic experimentation. The little-studied phenomenon of Netherlandish notebook culture sheds important new light on the everyday significance of image-making for individuals working outside the conventional confines of art history. The hitherto untapped source material offers surprising perspectives on the emotional efficacy of art and provides a thought-provoking lens through which to explore the intersections among art, society and the self in early modern Europe. The genre of “domestic” draftsmanship encourages us to rethink the traditional boundaries of Netherlandish art as well as the conditions under which free-range creativity could thrive.
 

Date:1 Nov 2020 →  15 Nov 2020
Keywords:Visual thinking in early modern Europe, Post-medieval manuscript culture, Intersections among art, society and the self
Disciplines:Iconology, Transregional studies, Cultural history, History of art, Visual cultures