Home Arts Monumente niederländischer Geschichte. Der Hercules Gallicus in der frühneuzeitlichen Druckgraphik und Festkultur Antwerpens
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Monumente niederländischer Geschichte. Der Hercules Gallicus in der frühneuzeitlichen Druckgraphik und Festkultur Antwerpens

  • Sophie Rüth
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill
Andere Ästhetik meets Andere Ästhetik
This chapter is in the book Andere Ästhetik meets Andere Ästhetik

Abstract

In the context of the political, confessional, and social conflicts that escalated in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years’ War, contemporary ceremonial stages and prints used the image of the Gallic Hercules - known from an ekphrasis by the ancient Greek writer Lucian - to visually create a monument to local history. Focusing on selected works of art, such as the print Emperor Charles V Amidst his VanquishedAdversaries (1555/1556) by Maarten van Heemskerck, the anonymous engraving The Throne of the Dukeof Alba (1569), and an ephemeral object from Antwerp that was re-staged in Johannes Bochius’ festival book on the Joyous Entries of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia and Archduke Albert VII (Historicanarratio profectionis et inaugurationis serenissimorum Belgii principum Alberti & Isabellæ, Austriæ archiducum, 1602), the chapter will outline their different visual conceptions of the Hercules Gallicus and discuss how they each emphasised the traditional economic and cultural autonomy of the Netherlandish cities. The Hercules Gallicus, I argue, became, particularly in the southern provinces, a visual archetype for a specifically Netherlandish understanding of sovereignty, which could, through the creative appropriation of northern Alpine antiquity, not only be legitimised as a Gallo-Burgundian heritage but was also declared to be an expression of a natural political disposition of the local population.

Abstract

In the context of the political, confessional, and social conflicts that escalated in the Netherlands during the Eighty Years’ War, contemporary ceremonial stages and prints used the image of the Gallic Hercules - known from an ekphrasis by the ancient Greek writer Lucian - to visually create a monument to local history. Focusing on selected works of art, such as the print Emperor Charles V Amidst his VanquishedAdversaries (1555/1556) by Maarten van Heemskerck, the anonymous engraving The Throne of the Dukeof Alba (1569), and an ephemeral object from Antwerp that was re-staged in Johannes Bochius’ festival book on the Joyous Entries of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia and Archduke Albert VII (Historicanarratio profectionis et inaugurationis serenissimorum Belgii principum Alberti & Isabellæ, Austriæ archiducum, 1602), the chapter will outline their different visual conceptions of the Hercules Gallicus and discuss how they each emphasised the traditional economic and cultural autonomy of the Netherlandish cities. The Hercules Gallicus, I argue, became, particularly in the southern provinces, a visual archetype for a specifically Netherlandish understanding of sovereignty, which could, through the creative appropriation of northern Alpine antiquity, not only be legitimised as a Gallo-Burgundian heritage but was also declared to be an expression of a natural political disposition of the local population.

Downloaded on 30.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111359076-012/html
Scroll to top button