INTRODUCTION
Krista De Jonge
(Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
The reign of Charles
V saw some fundamental changes in the arts of the
Low Countries. In 1539, the publication of Serlio's Fourth Book translated into Flemish by Pieter
Coecke van Aelst and his publication of a Vitruvian-based,
pocket-size manual called Die Inventie der colommen marked the end of a first period of change. 'Architecture'
was now defined as an intellectual activity, which
a noble patron could now be interested in without
loss of status. 'Architecture' in the antique manner
was also subject to rules, which clearly set down
how to construct correctly the new forms in the antique
repertory.
This session wants
to have a closer look at that first period of creativity
coinciding with the first decades of the sixteenth
century, which has been all too often undervalued
in standard overviews of the Netherlandish Renaissance.
Twentieth-century architectural historians of the
period usually adopted the yardstick of Italianism
to judge these works, and sometimes even a truly inappropriate
Vasarian perspective. The question, however, is not
whether these first experiments in the 'antique manner'
were 'correct' according to the norms Serlio and Coecke
set out, or even according to contemporary Italian
practice, but whether the traditional concept of 'Renaissance'
is capable of encompassing the whole of the architectural
productivity and inventiveness in the Low Countries
at the time. There the answer must be a categorical
'no.' Nor does the label of 'Renaissance' adequately
cover the peaceful coexistence, or indeed the conscious
combination of the new-fangled 'antique' repertory
with the so-called Brabantine gothic A? a hugely successful,
regional variant characterized by its high level of
abstraction A? and the latest fashion in gothic, i.e.
the flamboyant with its elaborate geometric patterns
and complex decorative forms.
From the early 1520's
to the 1560's, many parts of Europe shared a strong
preference for 'antique' forms of North Italian provenance,
not yet subject to Vitruvian rule, and situated outside
the quest for archaeological 'correctness' which motivated
their Roman and Florentine counterparts. Similar experiments
in the 'antique' manner can thus be found close by
in Northern France, especially in Normandy, and in
Spain, which offered a privileged market for artists
and works of art from the North. The terms 'indigenous'
and 'national' should not be used overmuch when analyzing
the earliest experiments in Renaissance architecture
in the Low Countries, since these only take on their
full meaning within an international context of influence
and exchange, with the Low Countries at the crossroads.
This session is endebted
to the following events: the international congress
on 'Les dA(C)buts de la Renaissance en Europe,' organized
by Jean Guillaume in 1994 at the Centre d'Etudes SupA(C)rieures
de la Renaissance at Tours and the subsequent study
trip in Belgium in 1995; the session on 'Constructing
"Antique" and "Modern" in the
16th-century Netherlands', convened by Hans Van Miegroet
at the 16th-Century Studies Conference at St. Louis
in 1999; the symposium on 'ThA(C)orie des arts et crA(C)ation
artistique dans l'Europe du Nord du XVIe au dA(C)but
du XVIIIe siA?cle,' co-organized by Yves Pauwels and
FrA(C)dA(C)rique Lemerle at Lille in the year 2000, and
finally, zu den AnfA?ngen neuzeitlicher Kunstauffassung
im Rheinland und den Nachbargebieten um 1500.' This
session is also the coda to the 'Vlaams-Nederlands
ComitA(C) Research Project Unity and Discontinuity in
the Architecture of the Low Countries 1530-1700,'
led by Koen Ottenheym (Utrecht) and the convenor.
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