Historians of Netherlandish Art and Lund Humphries: Resonances

Commissioning Editor for Art History, Erika Gaffney, draws out the connections between this year's HNA conference sessions and the recent and forthcoming books from Lund Humphries' Art History list... 

 This June, Historians of Netherlandish Art holds, for the first time since 2018, an in-person conference! It has been a long wait, including not only the usual few years between meetings, but a further year-long, pandemic-induced delay.

While I regret that I cannot attend the meeting, I’m excited about the resonance between the HNA conference programme and Lund Humphries’ emerging art history list. Among the very first books to appear in this new segment of our list — published in December 2021 — is Rembrandt’s Hundred Guilder Print, by Amy Golahny, a Past President of HNA.

Focusing on the tradition of printmaking as well as the reception of the print in Rembrandt's time, Amy explores the ways the artist made visual references to the work of such masters as Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, while uniquely combining aspects of Christ's ministry. Placing the work within its wider cultural and historical context, her book offers an original and engaging approach to current Rembrandt scholarship 

Rembrandt’s Hundred Guilder Print is the inaugural volume in the new art history series Northern Lights, of which the General Editor is current HNA President Walter Simon Melion. Though the series is not limited to early modernity or to Dutch and Flemish subject matter — it is expansive in terms of both geographic and chronological coverage — Netherlandish art is well represented within it. A number of recent and imminent titles touch on topics near and dear to the hearts of HNA members:

• Woodland Imagery in Northern Art, c. 1500–1800: Poetry and Ecology, by Leopoldine van Hogendorp Prosperetti, the first book to explore the concept of 'lyrical naturalism' within an art historical study of tree imagery, uniquely combines an exploration of woodland imagery with ecological poetry and aesthetics
  
  
• Vermeer and the Art of Love, by Aneta Georgievska-Shine, explores the theme of love in Vermeer's oeuvre, not merely in a romantic sense but also as a spiritual attitude towards the visible world, uncovering the ways in which Vermeer challenges the dichotomies between 'good' and 'bad' love
  
  
• Europe Views the World, 1500–1700, by Larry Silver (forthcoming in October 2022) examines the wide diversity of images that Europeans produced to represent the wide variety of peoples and places around the globe during and after the so-called 'Age of Exploration.' With his 'In Response' sections, Larry also presents views of Europeans from the indigenous peoples across continents
  
  
• Godefridus Schalcken, by Wayne Franits (forthcoming in Spring 2023) is first book in English dedicated to the entire artistic output of the seventeenth-century Dutch artist. It examines the artist’s paintings and career trajectory against the background of his ceaseless pursuit of fame and fortune, and provides an authoritative overview of Schalcken’s production as an artist
  
  

I was delighted to see in this year’s HNA programme a number of sessions touching on the topic of women and/or gender. In this regard there is resonance with another series in the Lund Humphries art history list: Illuminating Women Artists. And among this year’s conference participants are one of the series editors, as well as Advisory Board members and authors of contracted volumes. Although neither of the volumes so far published in this series is about Dutch or Flemish artists, there are books under contract about Judith Leyster, Maria Sibylla Merian, Rachel Ruysch, Clara Peeters, Joanna Koerten, and Gesina ter Borch.

Happy conferencing to all the HNA participants. I hope to be present at the next HNA gathering. But meanwhile, look to Lund Humphries for authoritative — and beautifully illustrated! — new books in the field of Dutch and Flemish art history.

Find out more about our Art History titles  HERE.

And find out more about all of our series, like Northern Lights and Illuminating Women Artists HERE.