Glass, Darkly Allegory and Faith in Netherlandish Prints from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt

Michael C. Carlos Museum  of Emory University

 

August 31 - December 1, 2019

 Jan Sadeler (Flemish, 1550-1600), after Dirck Barendsz. (Netherlandish, 1534-1592). The Last Judgment, late 16th century. Engraving. Gift of Walter Melion and John Clum.

 
Dirk Vellert (Flemish, 1480-1547). The Calling of Saints Andrew and Peter, 1523. Engraving. John Howett Fund and museum purchase in honor of Margaret Shufeldt. © Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University. Photo by Bruce M. White, 2011.

Jan Sadeler (Flemish, 1550-1600), after Dirck Barendsz (Netherlandish, 1534-1592). Hell, late 16th century. Engraving. Gift of Walter Melion and John Clum.

Dirck Voklertsz Coornhert (Netherlandish, 1522 - 1590), after Martin van Heemskerck (Netherlandish,  1498 - 1574). Man Protected by the Shield of Faith ,  1559. Engraving. Gift of Walter Melion and John  Clum

The Michael C. Carlos Museum presents  Through a Glass, Darkly:  Allegory and Faith in Netherlandish Prints from Lucas van Leyden to Rembrandt , on view from August 31  through De cember 1, an exhibition of  90   prints  from artists such as Lucas van Leyden, Hendri ck Goltzius,  Jan Sadeler, and Rembrandt .    

From 1500 -1700, printmakers in the Low Countries were, as a group, the most skilled and prolific in all  of Europe , and prints, often combined with text,  played an important role in Netherlandish religious  culture during this period. Printmakers utilized allegory , the metaphorical substitution of one set of  images, objects, and ideas for another , to    address the most f undamental issues binding the human and  the divine —love, virtue, vice, sin, death, and salvation —as well as the post -Reformation religious  turmoil that consumed the Low Countries. 

Through a Glass, Darkly  will be the first major exhibition to systematically consider the form, function,  and meaning of allegorical prints produced in the Low Countries  during the  16th and 1 7th centuries .  Contemporary viewers will find themselves face to face with highly affecti ve allegorical images,  on the  same journey  towards understanding that the images’ intended audience would have undertaken.  Though  specific to the Low Countries during the 16th and 17th centuries, a period  when understanding  allegory was crucial to knowing God’s truth,  Through a Glass, Darkly speaks more broadly to  the  communicative power of allegory and  the way  meaning is generated, conveyed, and interpreted . 
 A fully illustrated catalogue with essays by exhibition curators Walter S. Melion, Asa Griggs Candler  Professor of Art History  and director of the Bill and Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry at Emory  University, and James Clifton, director of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation and curator of  Renaissance and Baroque painting at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will be avai lable for purchase  at the museum bookshop.