Die Predigt des Täufers

A single theme can invite fundamentally different

interpretations within the same cultural milieu.

Take, for instance, the subject of John the Baptist

preaching, and compare the present drawing with

the version by Chrispijn van den Broeck (1530–

1590/91) [46]. Both picture the cousin of Christ calling

for repentance.1 However, in the present sheet,

John is not the central motif, to put it mildly. His

role is usurped by the foreground figures: a lady

in a sun hat contemplating the sermon; two men

in turbans seen from behind; and, most notably, a

nude man, a woman, and a child. Placed at the very

threshold of the composition, these three invite the

beholder to enter the stage.

While typical of Mannerist imperatives to

introduce the unexpected, for example, by

obscuring the key scene with an anecdote, in the

case of Karel van Mander’s (1548–1606) drawing

we need to go one step further. The clue to the

drawing’s context lies in the autograph inscription,

written in Italian and dedicated to Van Mander’s

friend, the “Signor Theodoro Gallo,” the engraver

Theodoor Galle (1571–1633). Galle was born in

Antwerp, and as such, a Dutch inscription would

have sufficed. Yet Van Mander chose Italian, as he

shared firsthand knowledge of Italy with Galle,

who in 1595 had returned from a three-year Roman

sojourn; Van Mander’s own visit occurred back

in 1573–77.2 Scholars assume that there was some

exchange of information between Galle and Van

Mander. Perhaps young Galle provided Van Mander

with fresh material from the Eternal City,3 which

may explain the Roman feel of the nude foreground

figures.4 For Van Mander, Italy served as a beacon,

the touchstone for Netherlandish production,5 and

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) the artist’s role model as

author.6

The present drawing was not the only one by

Van Mander dedicated to Galle. The Fall of Man

(fig. 1), of approximately the same size, bears a

similar inscription.7 It is too divergent in style to

call it a companion piece, but thematically it is the

antithesis of the present drawing, showing Adam

and Eve’s transgression, leading to humankind’s

universal state of sin. An antidote to this state was

exactly what John the Baptist prophesied in his

preaching, announcing Jesus Christ as the “Lamb of

God who takes away the sin of the world.”8 Perhaps

for that reason, Van Mander positioned a family

in antique nudity in the foreground of the present

composition, hinting at original sin and

humankind’s need for salvation.9

 

1. Matthew 3:1–3; Mark 1:1–8; Luke 3:2–18; John 1:15–18.

2. Leesberg (NHD) 1999, xv.

3. Noë 1954, 202.

4. See Valentiner 1930, 40; Noë 1954, 203.

5. Italy as touchstone as encountered in Van Mander’s writings

and how it inspired his Haarlem contemporaries to work in the

“Italian manner” is discussed in the present author’s master’s

thesis on Hendrick Goltzius’s (1558–1617) Disgracers, a summary

of which may be found in Lincke 1993, 4–7, 9.

6. In Van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck (1604), the lives of Italian

artists are translated from Vasari 1568.

7. 1579/KvMander fec. per il suo Amicho Sr. Theod. Gallo.

Van Mander 1994–99, 2:117, no. D1.

8. John 1:29.

9. While Valentiner 1930, 139n76, aligns the presence of naked

and clothed figures with passages from Van Mander’s Schilder-

Boeck, 5:22, Noë 1954, 202, also explores a possible allegorical

subtext, with the naked figures representing humankind

stripped of all outward appearance and longing for the cleansing

offered by baptism.

 

Emily J. Peters, Laura M. Ritter (Hg.), AK Tales of the City. Drawing in the Netherlands from Bosch to Bruegel, Cleveland Museum of Art 9.10.2022 - 8.1.2023, New Haven 2022, Kat. Nr. 47