(gentle piano music) - [Beth] We're in the Morse Study Room at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. We're looking at a book
that put the artists of the Northern Renaissance
into a long tradition of writing about the lives of artists. - [Christopher] In 1604
Karel van Mander published "Het Schilderboek", most
famous for the lives of Netherlandish and German painters. But it situates them alongside
lives of ancient artists, as well as the artists of
the Italian Renaissance. - [Beth] Beginning in the
ancient world with Pliny, we learn about the great
artists of antiquity. Vasari in the 16th century in Florence, picks up this tradition
and writes his book, the "Lives of the Artists". So van Mander's continuing this tradition. - [Christopher] And
he's thinking very much in geographic terms as
well as historical terms by trying to valorize and
legitimize what for him was his local artistic tradition. - [Beth] So van Mander
wants to continue this idea of recognizing the achievements
of artists in history, but now wants to include
artists of Northern Europe. - [Christopher] And he
begins his narrative with Jan van Eyck. - [Beth] Beginning with
van Eyck makes sense as this starting place in the early 1400s for a new kind of art, which
is based on intense realism, an observation of the
world, and also an assertion of the status importance of the artists, van Eyck signing his name. - [Christopher] There's
a reason why van Mander begins with Van Eyck,
because he's one of the earliest artists in the Northern tradition who we know by name. - [Beth] And one of the legacies that we have from van
Mander is that he writes not only about Jan van Eyck, but also about his brother, Hubert. - [Christopher] He credits the creation of the Ghent Altarpiece and
some other works as co-creations by Jan and Hubert van Eyck. Today we know of works by Jan van Eyck, but we continue to search
for the creations of Hubert. - [Beth] One of the other
ways that van Mander has left art historians with a conundrum is in his discussion of
the invention of oil paint. - [Christopher] Van Mander
credits the invention of oil paint to Jan van Eyck. We of course know that
there was oil paint before, but he famously sets the story, which for generations of
art historians and scholars have left the image that van
Eyck invented this medium, which in so many ways defines the Northern approach to painting. - [Beth] This edition of van Mander includes portraits of the artists. There's this interest in
what artists look like. - [Christopher] Portrait series of artists speak to a phenomenon
of privileging the role of the individual creator,
knowing them by name, knowing them by face,
knowing of who they were and their biographies. - [Beth] I think about
the tremendous interest in paintings in the
17th century in Holland and people who are buying
still lives and landscapes and commissioning portraits. It makes sense to celebrate the
artists who are behind that. So this particular volume is unusual in that it includes
portraits of the artists made for other purposes that have
been inserted into this volume. - [Christopher] When van Mander published "Het Schilderboek" in 1604,
it did not include portraits. A later owner meticulously
inserted portraits from other print series
in the appropriate spots to make a new creative
volume in and of itself. - [Beth] If we take a look
at the image of van Eyck, who starts the book. - [Christopher] This portrait
print is based on the man with the red turbine. (indistinct) portrait
of Rogier van der Weyden looks very much like the
depiction of Saint Luke that Rogier van der Weyden painted that also hangs in this museum. - [Beth] And then we come to the great German
artist, Albrecht Durer. - [Christopher] The portrait
of Durer inserted here is from the print by Wenceslaus Hollar, which in turn is based on
Durer's self-portrait from 1498. - [Beth] So it's giving us some idea of the circulation of
images around Europe, in the 17th century, and the
way that artists across Europe could have know of one
another's work through prints. And I think it's also
important to recognize the way that Vasari and van Mander
have helped to structure the discipline of art history,
created a canon of artists that we look back to to research, and their influences hard to escape, even in the 21st century. - [Christopher] Many of
our university classes, our gallery setups follow
much of the organization that van Mander set up, and
the artists that he devotes the most attention to continue
to be among the artists that we today also
study in greater detail. - [Beth] Creating a canon
means necessarily some artists are omitted like women artists, who were excluded from these lives. (gentle piano music)