De ontwikkeling van de kunsttheorie in de Hollandse Gouden Eeuw I. Het begin; de Zuidelijke Nederlanden

Abstract

The development of art theory in the Dutch Golden Age was preceded by its introduction in the southern Netherlands in the sixteenth century. A survey of that area inevitably begins with the views of Leon Battista Alberti, which were elaborated upon at the beginning of the century by Francesco Lancilotti. Leonardo da Vinci's Libro della Pittura, which was not published until 1651, and then only in a mutilated French translation, must have been passed on and filtered down in many manuscripts in the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. German treatises like Albrecht Diirer's show that the evolving ideas also permeated northern Europe. In Liege, in particular, it was the painter Lambert Lombard who mastered the theoretical knowledge and passed it on to several of his pupils. As a result, the ideas also spread to Antwerp, most notably in the circle of Frans Floris. It must have been from the Ghent tapestry designer and poet Lucas de Heere, a pupil of Floris's, that the Fleming Karel van Mander learned of the prevailing ideas. Van Mander developed them further during his stay in Italy, and it was this that enabled him to write his didactic poem, 'Den grondt der edel vry schilder-const", in the North Holland city of Haarlem.