| This investigation of the use of image and text in the art of Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder (ca. 1525--ca. 1603) draws upon an interdisciplinary approach to understand the function and purpose of these art works. A map-maker, printer, book illustrator, designer and painter, Gheeraerts worked in the southern Netherlands until exiled for heresy, whereupon he moved to England. His work thus provides an opportunity to examine the cultural relationships between England and the Netherlands during the Elizabethan era. Increasingly, scholars are recognizing that the Netherlands played a significant role in the shaping of Elizabethan culture, while in turn England provided a stimulating environment in which intellectual and artistic exchange could flourish. Gheeraerts's relationships with leading humanists, authors, publishers, and other artists from both England and the Netherlands demonstrate the complexity and variety of the milieu in which he worked. Theatre, allegory, literature, religious issues, nature and anatomy studies, vernacular proverbs, mythology, foreign lands and the status of the artist are but a few of the subjects explored in his imagery. His combination of image and text was a deliberate strategy to ensure the simultaneous viewing and reading of pictures, each action reinforcing the other, and can be connected to a Netherlandish cultural heritage. His impact upon the artistic community in England was significant: not only was he the first etcher to work in England, but he also created the first emblems published in that country. In addition, his son Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger became one of the leading portrait painters of the late Elizabethan/early Jacobean period, incorporating typical features of his father's works into his own compositions. Using this combination of visual and verbal language, Gheeraerts created works of art for a specific audience of well-educated humanists, who would appreciate and engage with his allegorical structures and symbolisms. |
