Description:
family portrait; mother and child; father; religion-Christian
Label Text:
This tender image of the Holy Family displays the increasing secularization of religious images during the seventeenth century. Not only do the individuals lack halos, but the focus of the image is on the personal interaction between mother and child rather than on religious iconography.
Chiaroscuro woodcuts are typically associated in the Netherlands with the great sixteenth-century Mannerist printmaker Hendrik Goltzius (1558–1617) and his followers. This technique involves several blocks in which one or more of the blocks are used to print large areas of tone. Typically, a chiaroscuro woodcut will involve a line block to indicate the outlines of the composition and tone blocks with areas carved out to allow the white of the paper to show through. The final effect is similar to an ink with highlights and line drawing. Eighteen chiaroscuro woodcuts were made after Abraham Bloemaert’s designs, nine as book illustrations, and nine as single sheets. This image is presumed to have been cut from Bloemaert’s original drawing by Ludolph Büsinck, a German artist influenced by Goltzius’s innovations in the medium. Bloemaert’s use of high levels of contrast produced by chiaroscuro woodcuts also reflects his interest in the work of Caravaggio during this period.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/test/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+1994.20.1 |
