At 10:47 PM +0100 23/10/03, Martin Shepherd wrote: > ><snip>> > >Yes, I was thinking of that intarsia, too, but I can't remember >which one it is - any suggestions? I'm going to try this stringing >and see what happens...
The one I was thinking of is in the Met and is an intarsia from Bologna, not the better known Gubbio studiolo. I have no inventory number for it and the Met's otherwise wonderful website doesn't show it. I have just a poor B&W photocopy of it which shows two huge, but broken [or at least undone], bass strings of the fifth and sixth courses with their octaves [unbroken] clearly on the bass side of them. Do let us know what the result is. ><snip> > > It is also worth remarking that these important points are >> vanishingly unlikely to have come from Holbein himself. They will >> have been an explicit part of the commission from the two sitters >> [standers!] and will have been designed to show their cleverness and >> piety in equal measure. In fact a round dance in which their >> cleverness shows their piety which shows how they devalue cleverness! >Yes, though I think Holbein was clever enough to have thought of >some of the symbolic content of the painting himself, even if he did >have to be careful not to upset his patrons in the process. In the >matter of whether there was an implied contradiction between piety >and cleverness, I'm not so sure. Is it not a 19th/20th C view that >"simple" piety is good and intellectual grasp of theology bad? I'm >sure you can enlighten me on that one! No, I didn't quite mean that the piety had to be simple. Perhaps piety was the wrong word as it carries the connotations you note. I meant that the enjoyment of the vanitas theme involved the use of clever, modern and scientific perspective while its message suggested that the results of clever, modern and scientific endeavours [as represented by the objects on the table] were devalued by death. This might just be a case of having your cake and eating it, but the painting seems much more knowing than that. My Phd research topic [never completed!] was puritan influences on English literature in 16/17th centuries and alas involved much reading of dreary theological minutiae, I wouldn't dream of boring you all with those! But there certainly was such a feeling even then. And, then as now, it keeps back-firing because of the need to supply arguments for it! Best wishes, David -- The Smokehouse, 6 Whitwell Road, Norwich, NR1 4HB England. Telephone: + 44 (0)1603 629899 Website: http://www.vanedwards.co.uk
