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Portrait of the Artist as a Landscape Portrait of the Artist as a Landscape An Inquiry into Self-Reflexion Inaugural lecture Delivered upon the installation as Professor of Art History (Modern and Contemporary Art) at the University of Amsterdam on Saturday 14 December 2002 By Dario Gamboni Vossiuspers UvA is an imprint of Amsterdam University Press. This edition is established under the auspices of the Universiteit van Amsterdam. Cover design: Colorscan, Voorhout Lay-out: JAPES, Amsterdam Cover illustration: Carmen Freudenthal, Amsterdam ISBN 90 5629 257 9 © Vossiuspers UvA, Amsterdam, 2002 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of this book. Mijnheer de Rector Magnificus, leden van het College van Bestuur van de Universiteit van Amsterdam, monsieur le Consul général de Suisse, zeer gewaardeerde collega's en studenten, ladies and gentlemen, chers amis, I. Images and Projection It is a pleasure to speak in the Lutherse Kerk, a hallowed and beautiful place, but it is not an easy task. For one thing, I shall not refer to revealed truth, but propose personal and tentative interpretations. In addition, my comments will be devoted to images. In the Netherlands as in my native country, Switzerland, images were expelled from churches a long time ago, in a dramatic turn that has had long lasting consequences. It comes therefore as no surprise that it is difficult to reintroduce images within these walls. However, this is a Lutheran church, and Luther’s position in this matter was tolerant. According to him, images were neither good nor bad in themselves, but depended on the use to which they were put, on the words employed to interpret them. There is, on the predella of the main altar of the parish church of Wittenberg, an image of Luther preaching, painted in 1539-47 by Hans Cranach’s studio. Luther is pointing with his hand to Christ on the cross, a figure that does not represent a crucifix but a mental image appearing to his audience as a result of the sermon. Erhard Schön, a pupil of Dürer, visualized Luther’s point of view on images in a pamphlet of c. 1530 (ill. 1). It shows on the left iconoclasts removing altarpieces and statues from a church to store them away or burn them. In a text accompanying the engraving, the images complain that they are being destroyed by the very same men whom had turned them into idols in the first place, and who continue to sacri- 5 DA R I O G A M B O N I Ill. 1: Erhard Schön, Complaint of the Poor Persecuted Idols and Liturgical Images..., c. 1530, woodcut, 12.9 x 35 cm. Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg fice to more powerful idols such as money, food, and lechery. We see indeed, in the upper right corner, a rich man surrounded by a bag full of coins, two women, and a waiter carrying wine. The object protruding from his eye alludes to the Biblical parable: he sees a mote in his neighbour’s eye but not the beam in his own. In other words, he claims to detect a vice that is really his own, just as the iconoclasts attribute their own idolatry to the images. To free images from the accusation of fostering idolatry, a greater control had to be exerted upon them as well as upon the imagination. When in 1628 an anonymous print advertised the images of Roman Catholic priests miraculously discovered in the core of an apple tree near Haarlem, Pieter Saenredam replied by demonstrating that these were only chance images, due to a mistake in interpretation.1 He made this point by giving a more accurate rendering of the exact s