The Erotics of Looking: Early Modern Netherlandish Art Edited by Angela Vanhaelen & Bronwen Wilson

The Erotics of Looking

Early Modern Netherlandish Art

Edited by: Angela Vanhaelen, Ph.D., Bronwen Wilson, Ph.D.

Published: July 15, 2013
Format: Paperback, 218 pages
ISBN-10: 1118465253
ISBN-13: 978-1118465257
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell










"The emphasis of the essays is on the methodological implications of paying close attention to sensual encounters with pictures", write Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History and Communication Studies at McGill University, Angela Vanhaelen, Ph.D.; and Professor and Head of World Art Studies and Museology at the University of East Anglia, Bronwen Wilson, Ph.D., editors of the provocative and insight filled book The Erotics of Looking: Early Modern Netherlandish Art . The editors present a series of essays by internationally renowned authorities on early modern Dutch art that challenge the traditional interpretations of the works, and offer an alternative approach to the paintings based on sensuality and real lifeand away from the standard religious and ideological viewpoints.

Angela Vanhaelen (photo left) and Bronwen Wilson understand that the impact and power of paintings reach beyond the canvas to incorporate the beholder in the process of creation and recognition. Because every artist, work, and viewer are different, and bring different backgrounds and perspectives to the art, the interaction becomes one of complexity and uncertainty.

The editors include contributions that examine this challenging aspect of sensuality on the one hand, and extreme boredom and ambivalence on the other. Overall, the essays provide for a fresh viewing or early modern Dutch art beyond symbols, ideology, and motifs, and into the world of the senses, real life, and very human activities.

Bronwen Wilson (photo left) and Angela Vanhaelen recognize that the selections are controversial and bring forth both questions and challenges. To address these questions and queries, the editors offer four essays that respond to these concerns and expressions of sensual dynamics. The inclusion of such a wide variation of ideas, interpretations, and perspectives invites conversation and further inquiry.

As the editors point out, the artists themselves were reticent about sharing their motivations and personal meanings of their works. While the Dutch artists described the mechanics of their art making, they shared little about either surface or hidden meanings of their works. They did tantalizingly offer their ideas of the seductiveness and impact of sensuality of paintings on the viewer. The resulting work transformed the viewer from observer to sensual participant in the work itself.

The editors provide the following essays for interpreting and better understanding early Dutch modern works of art:

* The erotics of looking: Materiality, solicitation, and Netherlandish visual culture
* Beer and loafing in Antwerp
* Entropic Segers
* The turn of the skull: Andreas Vesalius and he early modern Momento Mori
* Laying the table: The procedures of still life
* Boredom's threshold: Dutch realism
* Response: Art/matters
* Response: On the impulse of mapping
* Response: Reflections of temporality in Netherlandish art
* Response: The work of realism

For me, the power of the book is how Angela Vanhaelen and Bronwen Wilson provide a wide range of concepts and perspectives on the vision and concepts sensuality portrayed by early modern Dutch artists. The various contributors are leading authorities on the subject matter who, regardless of their point of view, cause the reader to think and to rethink their own ideas about the artistic creations of that era. The essays begin with the theoretical frameword devised and presented by the editors. The central theme is that the artists created worlds on the canvas that were social objects that invited engagement by the viewer.

The earl modern Netherlandish artists offered a sensual vision that drew on the emotional response of the beholder, drawing the person into the work itself. With this critical pleasure based engagement in place, the artist and the beholder are then able to open up a social and political discourse grounded in and connected to the real world. The editors include numerous full color and other reproductions of the artworks under consideration, offering the reader the opportunity to consider the perspectives and viewpoints provided in the essays themselves.

I highly recommend the ground breaking and landmark book The Erotics of Looking: Early Modern Netherlandish Art edited by Angela Vanhaelen, Ph.D., and Bronwen Wilson, Ph.D., to any students of art and art history, academics in the field, art gallery owners and managers, art collectors and dealers, and to anyone interested in the power of the senses and sensuality found in the interaction between artist and viewer. This book will transform the way the artists of the early modern Dutch period approached their vision, their works, and their engagement with the viewer of the paintings.