The beeldenstorm, or the Iconoclastic Fury, that raged throughout the Low Countries in 1566 is a key concept in Netherlandish history. This popular uprising, which was partially grafted on Protestant ideas, has traditionally and unquestioningly been considered a turning point in the history of the Low Countries. It is all the more striking, therefore, that this occurrence has received scant attention in art history and that there has been little interest in the development of painting just after the beeldenstorm and before the advent of the great Baroque masters.
Featuring previously unpublished materials, Antwerp Art after Iconoclasm investigates how the esteemed painters of the period—including Adriaen Thomasz Key, Maarten de Vos, Frans Pourbus the Elder, and Michiel Coxcie—sought a new visual idiom. This study explains why this period of Netherlandish history should be considered an important turning point in the broader context of art history. It demonstrates that the era's paintings represent a subtle but nonetheless important reinterpretation of the traditional, religious iconography and style, which served as the starting point of Netherlandish Baroque style.

Antwerp Art after Iconoclasm: Experiments in Decorum, 1566-1585

Arts & Photography

Jonckheere, Koenraad

History & Criticism

Mercatorfonds

A radical re-examination of 2,500 years of European art, deconstructing and demystifying its long history from ancient to present\nHow has art evolved from the pursuit of the ‘ideal’ human form to a black square on a white canvas? Why is a banana duct-taped to a wall worth more on the art market than a beautiful seventeenth-century landscape?\nBy taking art for what it actually is — a piece of stone or wood, a sheet of paper with some lines drawn on it, a painted canvas — this lively and accessible account shows how seemingly meaningless objects can be transformed into celebrated works of art. Breaking with conventional notions of artistic genius, Koenraad Jonckheere explores how stories and emotions give meaning to objects, and why changing historical circumstances result in such shifting opinions over time. Tracing its story from ancient times to present, A New History of Western Art reframes the evolution of European art and radically reshapes our understanding of art history.\nPublished in association with Hannibal Books

A New History of Western Art: From Antiquity to the Present Day

Hannibal Books

Art history has not given Adriaen Thomasz Key's legacy its proper due. After a short and successful artistic career in a turbulent period, Thomasz Key vanished from the stage for centuries. Barring his art, he left few other traces behind and over time even this came to be riddled with the most far-fetched attributions. In the past, connoisseurs were often at a complete loss. Adriaen Thomasz's pictures were ascribed to a host of painters from numerous countries and periods. The names of Frans Pourbus the Elder and Willem Key, for instance, were linked to several of Adriaen Thomasz's panels. Other works had to endure attributions which had nothing in common with the quality, let alone the art, of the master. Dozens of inferior portraits were given to Adriaen Thomasz and many of his altarpieces and devotional scenes were not recognised as such because he was considered solely as a portraitist. Consequently, up until now the image of Adriaen Thomasz's art has been clouded and inconsistent. Adriaen Thomasz Key richly deserved his reputation as a portraitist. Some ninety percent of his preserved oeuvre consists of likenesses of the Antwerp and the Dutch elite. Adriaen Thomasz's skills as a portraitist were and are generally acknowledged. With a finesse and sobriety recalling that of Flemish Primitives such as Jan van Eyck and Hans Memling, he recorded his sitters with ruthless objectivity. The same sobriety and objectivity are to be found in his altarpieces and devotional paintings, a less known facet of his art. Often incorrectly ascribed as a lack of ingenuity or understanding of the Italian Renaissance and typified as archaising, Key's history and devotional paintings prove to be of a huge intellectual resourcefulness and artistic talent. His art was a conscious, reformatory and humanistic intellectual discourse with his famous predecessors and contemporaries. The striving for photographic realism and sobriety in the oeuvre of the painter is tackled in this monograph, bearing in mind Adriaen Thomasz.'s humanistic concerns with iconography. This richly illustrated monograph brings to light, for the first time, the oeuvre of a painter, called the most talented of his generation by David Freedberg. It consists of portraits and altarpieces, devotional paintings and chiaroscuro prints. The rediscovery of Adriaen Thomasz Key's art will be a eye opener to all scholars interested in the Netherlandish Renaissance and will hopefully induce new research into Adriaen Thomasz Key and his contemporaries.

Adriaen Thomasz Key (ca.1545- ca.1589). Portrait of a Calvinist Painter (Pictura Nova)

Brepols Publishers

Willem Key was one of the leading portrait and history painters in sixteenth-century Antwerp. He was born in Breda in 1516. Following in his older brother Wouter's footsteps, Willem went to Antwerp to become a painter. He studied under Pieter Coecke (1529) and later, like Frans Floris, apprenticed in the workshop of Lambert Lombard in Liege before becoming a free master in 1542. In 1568, just when he had reached the top of his abilities and enjoyed the patronage of outstanding individuals and institutions, Willem Key died suddenly. The artist's biographer and painter Karel van Mander tells us that Key was blessed with 'Sulcke edele gheesten,' such a noble mind. And, he had a 'Docta manus,' a learned hand, as the Bruges humanist and painter Domenicus Lampsonius phrased this topos in 1572. This is the first monograph to place Willem Key and his oeuvre in a historical framework. It demonstrates why the nobility, including the Duke of Alba and Cardinal Granvelle, considered him the best portrait painter of his day and why leading humanists viewed his many history paintings as eloquent visualizations of contemporary art theory. The reason why Willem Key's peers regarded him as such an exceptional painter lay in his creative ability to do battle on an uneven playing field with the artists who had been to Italy. In his reconciliation of the Netherlandish tradition with the rapidly advancing Italian manner, Key grasped the spirit of the Renaissance as formulated by Alberti. The quintessence of Key's art inspired numerous artists in his own time and later, including the grandmaster of the Baroque, Pieter Paul Rubens. By shedding light on this amazing confrere of Pieter Bruegel, Pieter Aertsen, Anthonis Mor and Frans Floris and placing him in the highly complex and fascinating time he lived in, this monograph and catalogue raisonne of the art of Willem Key restores the artist to his rightful place in sixteenth-century Antwerp art. The book also contains an appendix of the many new works by Adriaen Thomasz Key that have been discovered since the publication of the catalogue of Adriaen's oeuvre in this same series in 2007.

Willem Key (1516-1568): Portrait of a Humanist Painter (Pictura Nova)

The Auction of King William's Paintings 1713: Elite International Art Trade at the End of the Dutch Golden Age (OCULI: Studies in the Arts of the Low Countries)

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Another history of art: 2.500 jaar Europese kunstgeschiedenis

HANNIBAL

- From Antwerp to Amsterdam/ is a timeless reference work containing unique paintings by outstanding masters such as Joos Van Cleve, Pieter Aertsen, Maarten De Vos, Frans Floris, Frans Hals, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens, Jan Steen and Rembrandt Van Rijn- Publication accompanying the exhibition Ode to Antwerp, The Secret of the Dutch Masters at the Museum Catharijneconvent from 14 May-17 September 2023 Seventeeth-century Dutch art is famed throughout the world. Yet how 'Dutch' are those paintings in actual fact? Did the countless history pieces, landscapes, portraits, still lifes and scenes from everyday life truly originate in cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem, Delft and Leiden? Or might the cradle of these genres actually be located somewhere else?This book presents over 90 masterpieces by Flemish and Dutch artists to show how 17th century Dutch painting could never have flourished the way it did without the foundations laid in 16th century Antwerp. Thoroughly researched, it tells the story of the talented and accomplished artists and merchants who migrated north in search of religious liberty and new commercial opportunities after Antwerp fell to Spanish Catholic troops in 1585.With text contributions by Koenraad Jonckheere, professor of art history at Ghent University and author of the bestseller A New History of Western Art, Micha Leeflang, curator at the Museum Catharijneconvent, and Sven Van Dorst, head of the restoration studio at The Phoebus Foundation, and others.

From Antwerp to Amsterdam: Painting from the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Leeflang, Micha

Van Dorst, Sven

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