1983 Chapters (Layout Features)

Prints and the Status of Images in Flanders

Freedberg, David A.

The role of the print in the transmission an diffusion of images and styles has not in general, been overlooked. Prints have always been acknowledged - often by those whose starting point is painting and sculpture - as providing important information about the ways in which particular images and styles may be transmitted. In the specific fields of Dutch and Flemish art of the seventeenth century, recent research has examined the topic in a variety of new and fruitful ways, with some notable results. Christian Tümpel has revolutionalized Rembrandt's debt to sixteen century Netherlandish prints - particularly after artist like Marten van Heemskerck and Marten de Dos - may illuminate some of the more puzzling aspects of his iconography.