On view
Duane Wilder Gallery
Apollo as Sol,
ca. 1591
This painting is paired with another artist’s translation of it into print, known as a reproductive print. The development of reproductive engraving in the sixteenth century is fascinating to me, not only because it allowed for the rapid dissemination of images and ideas to people who might have never seen a painting except in a church, but also because of the necessary element of interpretation that was involved in recreating the image in a different medium. For example, the intensely detailed mountains, sun rays, and multiplicity of muscles in Matham’s engraving, only vaguely hinted at in Van Haarlem’s painting, create the potential to beguile the viewer’s imagination by heightening sensory input in a way that the painting would not, leading to the prospect of multiple interpretations.
David Avery, Printmaker
More Context
Special Exhibition
This is one of five <em>modelli</em>, or preparatory studies, all dating from 1587 to 1600, that Cornelis van Haarlem made to be engraved. Instead of using a more usual working drawing, whose image could be mechanically transferred to the printing plate, Cornelis executed this design in oil on panel. He conceived this balletic <em>Apollo as Sol</em> as a pendant to <em>Diana as Luna</em> (the model for which is now lost), seen from the back. Cornelis’s Haarlem circle included artists like Hendrick Goltzius, whose work also appears in the Wilder collection. In this sophisticated milieu, depicting mannered nudes in a great variety of poses occupied pride of place, and mythological themes were all the rage. Italian Renaissance images, disseminated in ever greater numbers in the North through the medium of prints, provided inspiration to these artists. For Apollo’s pose, Cornelis adapted Michelangelo’s figure of Haman from a pendentive in the Sistine Chapel, likely known to him through one of these prints.<br>
More About This Object
Information
ca. 1591
