The Creation of the World by Virgil Solis
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Irina Chernetsky
Abstract
Virgil Solis (1514 – 1562), a prosperous artist and printmaker from Nuremberg, dedicated his final major work to an illustration of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Although the designs of most of the woodcuts for this first extensive German series were borrowed from the Metamorphoses series of the French artist Bernard Salomon (c. 1508 – 1561), a closer study reveals several notable differences in the details of individual scenes, among them The Creation of the World. Placing Solis’ work within the tradition of the printed illustrated editions of Ovid’s magnum opus, which had by then crystallized mainly in Italy and France, the article argues that Solis’ illustration drew not only on the earlier Metamorphoses, but also on printed German Bibles, following the parallels taken up at the time between the Creation story in the Metamorphoses and the Creation story in Genesis.
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Photo Credits: 1, 6 München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. – 2 © The British Library Board. – 3 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France. – 4 Mannheim, Universitätsbibliothek. – 5, 8 Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, the scans were made by Google. – 7 New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
© 2016 Irina Chernetsky, published by De Gruyter
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Debatten/Debates
- Zur Lage der Kunstgeschichte Fortsetzung der Debatte aus Heft 3/4, 2015
- Kunstgeschichte und Digital Humanities Einladung zu einer Debatte
- Art History and the Digital Humanities
- Wechselkurse der Form
- Aufsätze
- Joseph christophore dans la Fuite en Egypte: transmission d’un schéma iconographique spécifique à travers le Moyen Age
- Nachrichten aus Nürnberg: The Annunciation as an Epistolary Address
- The Creation of the World by Virgil Solis
- Die Renaissance des Epos im romantischen Fresko
- Art Is Still Not Enough. Bilder von AIDS im Spannungsfeld zwischen Kunstanspruch und politischer Mobilisierung
- Miszellen
- The So-Called Sainte-Chapelle Windows of Soissons Cathedral: Another Look
- Buchbesprechungen
- Mapping Spaces. Networks of Knowledge in 17th Century Landscape Painting
