Thursday, January 4, 2018

Engravings in Series by Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617)

Hendrik Goltzius after Cornelis van Haarlem
Tantalus
ca. 1588
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Cornelis van Haarlem
Phaeton
ca. 1588
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Cornelis van Haarlem
Ixion
ca. 1588
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Cornelis van Haarlem
Icarus
ca. 1588
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

"Repressive desublimation accompanies the contemporary tendencies toward the introjection of totalitarianism into the daily business and leisure of man, into his toil and into his happiness.  It manifests itself in all the manifold ways of fun, relaxation and togetherness which practise the destruction of privacy, the contempt of form, the inability to tolerate silence, the proud exhibition of crudeness and brutality.  All this is release from repression, release of the body from the depravations of toil  it is even release of a quite sensuous body, which enjoys the achievements of physical hygiene and pleasant apparel.  But it is nevertheless the release of a repressed body, instrument of labour and of fun in a society which is organized against its liberation."

 Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (Vintage Books, 1961)

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius after Polidoro da Caravaggio-
Story of Niobe (frieze)
1594
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

"Freud thus opened new possibilities with regard to both content-analysis and technique-analysis in art.  But the exploitation of these new possibilities has been hampered by the absence of a general psychoanalytical theory of art.  Without such a theory, there is no way of estimating the importance of the discovery of the themes and techniques of the unconscious in art.  Trilling's essay 'Freud and Literature' illustrates how a good critic can recognize Freud's contribution to content- and technique-analysis in literature and still remain an orthodox critic.  The discovery of psychoanalytic themes in art is put in proper perspective, as we academics say, by the doctrine that 'there is no single meaning to any work of art'.  By means of this cliché the house that Freud built is absorbed into the stately mansion of traditional criticism.  We are free to recognize a psychoanalytic theme in art, but we are not compelled to; and if we do recognize a psychoanalytic theme, we need not be disturbed, because we are free to drown it in a rich orchestration of multiple meanings.  Similarly the possibilities opened up by the analogues between artistic technique and the processes of the unconscious are put in proper perspective by the traditional tribute to 'the formal control of the conscious mind'.  Thus no Copernican revolution takes place in the mind of Trilling, and business can go on as usual for professional critics.  The ego remains the master of the house of art." 

 Norman O. Brown, Art and Eros (Wesleyan University Press, 1959)

Hendrik Goltzius and Jan Muller
Day and Night
1589
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius and Jan Muller
Sun and Moon
1589
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Hendrik Goltzius and Jan Muller
Land and Sea
1589
engraving
Teylers Museum, Haarlem