1st Edition

The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566–1672 Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age

By Mia M. Mochizuki Copyright 2008
    424 Pages
    by Routledge

    Debunking the myth of the stark white Protestant church interior, this study explores the very objects and architectural additions that were in fact added to Netherlandish church interiors in the first century after iconoclasm. In charting these additions, Mia Mochizuki helps explain the impact of iconoclasm on the cultural topography of the Dutch Golden Age, and by extension, permits careful scrutiny of a decisive moment in the history of the image. Focusing on the Great or St. Bavo Church in Haarlem, this interdisciplinary book draws on art history, history and theology to look at the impact of iconoclasm and reformation on the process of image-making in the early modern Netherlands. The new objects that began to appear in the early Dutch Reformed Church signaled a dramatic change in the form, function and patronage of church art and testified to new roles for church, government, guild and resident. Each chapter in the book introduces a major theme of the nascent Protestant church interior - the Word made material, the Word made memorial and the Word made manifest - which is then explored through the painting, sculpture and architecture of the early Dutch Reformed Church. The text is heavily illustrated with images of the objects under discussion, many of them never before published. A large number of these images are from the camera of prize-winning photographer Tjeerd Frederikse, with additional photography courtesy of E.A. van Voorden. This book unveils, defines and reproduces a host of images previously unaddressed by scholarship and links them to more familiar and long studied Dutch paintings. It provides a religious art companion to general studies of Dutch Golden Age art and lends greater depth to our understanding of iconoclasm, as well as the way in which cultural artifacts and religious material culture reflect and help to shape the values of a community. Taking up the challenge of an unusual category of objects for visual analysis, this

    Contents: Introduction. The mythic vacuum; The gothic cathedral; Images of iconoclasm; The word made material; The word made memorial; The word made manifest; Conclusion. Material religion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

    Biography

    Mia M. Mochizuki was educated at Groton School, Vassar College, Yale University and Leiden University. She taught in the art history departments at the University of Chicago and Columbia University before coming to the Jesuit School of Theology and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, as the Thomas E. Bertelsen, Jr. Chair of Art History and Religion. She is Affiliated Faculty in the Department of the History of Art at the University of California, Berkeley. With Amy Golahny and Lisa Vergara, she edited In His Milieu. Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John Michael Montias.

    Prize: Winner of the ACE/Mercers' International Book Award 2009 Winner of the College Art Association Publication Grant, 2007 'Outstanding ... It sets one building - the Great Church at Haarlem - in an exceptionally broad context - as built form, as culturally symbolic artefact, and as a vehicle for didactic decoration ... Her story begins in the Roman Catholic era, examines the motives behind iconoclasm, its destructive force as well as its generative power, and then details the appropriation of the church by the local Reformed Community. All this is done with exceptional precision, imaginative insight and scholarly depth.' Graham Howes, ACE trustee 'The long-term impact of iconoclasm on the development of art in the Reformed Netherlands is one of the most urgent and least understood problems in our field. Mia Mochizuki's book gives us nuanced new answers, deftly combining concrete historical description and analysis with a sophisticated understanding of the theological, political and aesthetic issues at hand. Dutch Protestants cared about art. Mochizuki tells us why and how.' Mariët Westermann, New York University, USA 'Mochizuki has conclusively shown how artistic vision, like artistic style, is not only transitory in nature, but also how it is interwoven with theological insights and social circumstances. She has given art its place in society, indeed one that goes to the heart of the Church Masters’ and Church Council’s views on attracting viewer attention through design, by drawing well considered and profound conclusions from archival documents, abundant literature, artifacts and comparable examples. For the Netherlands, I am pleased our culture has been illuminated by such an impressive and knowledgeable scholar.' C.A. van Swigchem, Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands 'Mia Mochizuki's The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm is a highly original approach to the subject of art and the Reformation and a major contribution to our understanding of the e