Insect artifice : nature and art in the Dutch Revolt /

Insect artifice : nature and art in the Dutch Revolt /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Bass, Marisa, 1981- author.
Imprint:	Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2019] ©2019
Description:	xi, 297 pages : illustrations (some color), plates ; 27 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Hoefnagel, Joris, -- 1542-1601. -- Four elements. Natural history -- Netherlands -- History -- 16th century. Natural history illustration -- Netherlands -- History -- 16th century. Art and science -- Netherlands -- History -- 16th century. Arts, Dutch -- 16th century. Philosophy of nature -- Netherlands -- History -- 16th century. Science -- Social aspects -- Netherlands -- History -- 16th century. Science and state -- Netherlands -- History -- 16th century. Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11807063

Hidden Bibliographic Details
Varying Form of Title:	Nature and art in the Dutch Revolt
ISBN:	9780691177151 0691177155
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 247-289) and index.
Summary:	This pathbreaking and stunningly illustrated book recovers the intersections between natural history, politics, art, and philosophy in the late sixteenth-century Low Countries. Insect Artifice explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dutch Revolt wreaked havoc on the region's creative and intellectual community, compelling its members to seek solace in intimate exchanges of art and knowledge. At its center is a neglected treasure of the late Renaissance: the Four Elements manuscripts of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), a learned Netherlandish merchant, miniaturist, and itinerant draftsman who turned to the study of nature in this era of political and spiritual upheaval. Presented here for the first time are more than eighty pages in color facsimile of Hoefnagel's encyclopedic masterwork, which showcase both the splendor and eccentricity of its meticulously painted animals, insects, and botanical specimens. Marisa Anne Bass unfolds the circumstances that drove the creation of the Four Elements by delving into Hoefnagel's writings and larger oeuvre, the works of his friends, and the rich world of classical learning and empirical inquiry in which he participated. Bass reveals how Hoefnagel and his colleagues engaged with natural philosophy as a means to reflect on their experiences of war and exile, and found refuge from the threats of iconoclasm and inquisition in the manuscript medium itself. This is a book about how destruction and violence can lead to cultural renewal, and about the transformation of Netherlandish identity on the eve of the Dutch Golden Age.

Table of Contents:

Introduction. Antwerp in metamorphosis
Part I. The hammer and the nail. Hoefnagel's shoes ; The good herb patience ; The genius of place ; Monuments of friendship
Part II. Nature's unmasterable elements. Animal ingenuity ; Fossil forms ; The insect as artifex
Epilogue. The font of everything.