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Doubtful Images

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2009

W. M. H. Hummelen
W. M. H. Hummelen
Affiliation:
W. M. H. Hummelen is Emeritus Professor of Dutch Literature, University of Nijmegen.
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Extract

The earliest Dutch illustrations of indoor theatrical performances date from the seventeenth century, and portray the activities of itinerant professional actors or plays performed in fixed areas, in chambers of rhetoric (Het Wit Lavendel in Amsterdam) and in what may be classed as their successors: the Nederduytsche Academie (1617–37) and Jacob van Campen's Theatre (1637–65). There are also between thirty and forty illustrations of open-air theatre performances given by non-professional actors (mostly rhetoricians), in paintings and prints of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Sometimes one cannot be entirely sure as to whether the illustrated scene contains a theatrical performance or even a stage. These are the ‘doubtful images’ of my title.

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Theatre Research International , Volume 22 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1997, pp. 202 - 218
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 1997

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References

Notes

1. Hollstein, F. W. H., Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts. (Amsterdam: Herzberger, 46 Vols., 1949–95), Vol. XV, No. 405, p. 178.Google Scholar

2. Hollstein, , Vol. XV, No. 513 p. 191.Google Scholar

3. Hollstein, , Vol. XV, No. 410, p. 178.Google Scholar Reproduced in Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Illustrations of Stage Performances in the Work by Crispijn de Passe the Elder’, in Essays on Drama and Theatre. Liber Amicorum B. Hunningher (Amsterdam: Moussault, 1973), pp. 67–84, Fig. 3.Google Scholar

4. Hollstein, , Vol XXV, No. 519, p. 192.Google Scholar Reproduced in Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Illustrations of Stage Performances’, pp. 67–84, Fig. 6.Google Scholar

5. Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Illustrations of Stage Performances’, pp. 71–8.Google Scholar

6. Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘The Boundaries of the Rhetoricians Stage’, in Comparative Drama 28 (1994), 2, pp. 235–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Hollstein, , Vol. V, No. 227, p. 59Google Scholar

8. Friedländer, M. J., Early Netherlandish Painting, (Leiden: Sijthoff, 14 Vols., 1967–1976), Vol. XIII, p. 153.Google Scholar

9. Bruegel's tower is a civic guard's watchtower, whereas that of Frans Floris (in the engraving showing a guard at the entrance at the foot of the tower) may serve as a prison. Maria Ines Aliverti drew my attention to the fact that the architecture surrounding the stage recalls some buildings in Ferrara. That does not mean that the stage is Italian. The stage performance in the context of Rhetorica can only be understood if one takes it as an allusion to the actor-rhetoricians, (‘rederijkers’ in Dutch), and their opinion that the morality play is the highest form of rhetoric.

10. Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘The Stage in an Engraving after Frans Floris' Painting of Rhetorica (c. 1565)’, in Chiabó, M., Doglio, F., & Maymone, M., eds., Atti del IV Colloquio della Société Internationale pour l'Etude du Théâtre Médiéval, Viterbo 10–15 07 1983 (Viterbo: Centre Studisul Teatro Medioerale e Rinascimentale, 1984), pp. 507–19.Google Scholar

11. Hollstein, , Vol. XXII, No. 548, p. 155.Google Scholar Reproduced in Sterck, J. F. M., Van Rederijkerskamer tot Muiderkring (Amsterdam: Van Kampen, 1928), Fig. I.Google Scholar

12. Hollstein, , Vol. XI, No. 114, p. 160.Google Scholar Reproduced in Hummelen, , ‘Toneel op de kermis, van Bruegel tot Bredero’, in Oud Holland 103 (1989), pp. 1–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Fig. 18.

13. Hollstein, , Vol. IV, No. 462, p. 204.Google Scholar

14. A unique example is found in Franchois Machet's play Sodoma (1619), in which the character Wulpscheijt uses a bellows (‘blaesbalck’) as an instrument. See Hüsken, W. N. M., ‘Franchois Machets Tragedie Sodoma’, in Dibbets, G. R. W. & Wackers, P. W. M., eds., Wat duikers vent is dit! Opstellen voor W. M. H. Hummelen (Wijhe: Quarto, 1989), pp. 219–35Google Scholar (225). Hüsken is of the opinion that this bellows is to be regarded as a bagpipe, but no such an interpretation is to be found in any of the relevant dictionaries.

15. See the stage façade in Mostaert, Gillis's Jahrmarkt auf dem Dorfe (Kunsthalle Bremen)Google Scholar, reproduced in Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Toneel op de kermis, van Bruegel tot Bredero’, in Oud Holland 103 (1989), pp. 1–45, Fig. 6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16. Hollstein, , Vol. III, No. 207, p. 300.Google Scholar

17. See te Winkel, J., ‘De kwakzalver op ons toneel in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw’, in Netherlandsch Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde, 58 (1914), I, pp. 1915–1923.Google Scholar

18. See Gudlaugsson, S. J., De komedianten bij fan Steen en zijn tijdgenoten ('s-Gravenhage: Stols, 1945), p. 54.Google Scholar For the two figures in the foreground (left) I have no explanation.

19. Most rhetoricians' blazons were diamond-shaped, but some were round or oval, for example that of Het Mariacransken of Brussels. The first part of Molinari's caption: ‘Strolling Players giving a Performance in the Country’, is incorrect (see Molinari, C., Theatre through the Ages. London: Cassel, 1975), p. 170.Google Scholar

20. At most, the quack and his servant may play an instrument themselves. See van Foquenbroch, W. G., Klucht van Hans Keyenvretser, Medicijnen Doctoor (Amsterdam, 1663)Google Scholar, Act Three: ‘Hans met fan in hanssopkleêren op de stellagie uit, elk met een viool’ (Enter Hans and Jan, wearing a buffoon's costume, each carrying a violin.)

21. M. A. Katritzky has shown me several examples of stands like the one of Valckenborch. They seem to be common in Italian or Italianized paintings. In the Netherlands, illustrations of such stands are very rare. I can only name the large construction of stands on the Groote Markt at Antwerp on the occasion of the triumphal entry of Philip II (1549), reproduced in von Roeder-Baumbach, I., Versieringen bij Blijde Inkomsten, gebruikt in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden gedurende de 16e en 17e eeuw (Antwerpen: De Sikkel, 1943).Google Scholar At the contest in Ghent (1539) the jury was sitting on a stand.

22. From 1626 until his death in 1631, the German Reifenberg was professor at Franeker (The Netherlands). His Emblemata politica, published posthumously, with an ode by Caspar Barlaeus, was primarily intended for the Dutch market. The engravings, therefore, probably were designed by a Dutchman; not being an art historian myself I will not venture to suggest his name. Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn later borrowed the pictura in question for his Emblemata politica accedunt dissertationes (Amsterdam: Janssonius, 1651), p. 134, (in which it has an entirely different caption). The other two emblems with stage performances, —see Henkel, A. and Schöne, A., Emblemata: Handbuch zur Sinnbildkunst des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1976)Google Scholar, —show an indoor performance of actors in costumes of the Italian masked comedy drawing attention to a puppet show (reproduced in Hummelen, W. M. H. ‘Toneel op de kermis, van Bruegel tot Bredero’, in Oud Holland, 103 (1989), pp. 1–45, Fig. 1)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and a performance of the rhetoricians (reproduced in Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Sinnekens in prenten en op schilderijen’, in Oud Holland, 106 (1992), pp. 117–42, Fig. 26).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Kamerspelers: professionele tegenspelers van de rederijkers’, in Oud Holland, 110 (1996), pp. 117–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Robert Erenstein has drawn my attention to this character's resemblance in mask, clothing, carriage and role to the Turlupin of the French masked comedy.

25. Revue d'Histoire du Théâtre, 2 (1950), pp. 191–2.

26. [de Gryse, Michel], Honor S. Ignatio de Loyola, Societatis lesv Fundatoris et S. Francisco Xaverio, Indiarum Apostolo, per Gregorium XV, inter Divos relatis, Habitvs a Patribus domus Professae et Collegii Soc. lesv Antwerpiae 24. Iulij, 1622 (Antwerpen: Plantijn, 1622), pp. 27–39.Google Scholar

27. According to De Gryse's description this must be the fourth ‘theatrum’. To the right of the heaven there is a painted piece of cloth, showing St. Ignatius kneeling before a statue of Our Lady, ‘quasi in campo silvestri’.

28. Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Der Buhnenwettstreit in Gent (1539): Zusammenhang zwischen Buhne und Spielen’, in fahrbuch für die internationale Germanistik, Reihe A, 2 (1976), No. 3, pp. 47–56, Fig. 1.Google Scholar

29. Reproduced in Hummelen, W. M. H., ‘Types and Methods of the Dutch Rhetoricians' Theatre’, in Hodges, C. Walter, Schoenbaum, S., & Leone, Leonard, eds., The Third Globe: Symposium for the Reconstruction of the Globe Playhouse Wayne State University 1979 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 164–89, Fig. IX, 11.Google Scholar

30. See von Roeder-Baumbach, I., Versieringen bij Bhjde Inkomsten (see note 21), pp. 98, 106, 127, & 148.Google Scholar