Publication details
Їжа, сім’я та Реформація: від родинного портрету до застілля в мистецтві ранньомодерних Нідерландів
| Title in English | Food, Family, and the Reformation: From Family to Banquet Portrait in the Art of Early Modern Netherlands |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Ukrainian Historical Review |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | https://uhr.ucu.edu.ua/index.php/chasopys/article/view/38 |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.47632/2786-717X-2023-2-61-80 |
| Keywords | family portrait, the Reformation, the Humanism, Food, Banquet, the Netherlands |
| Description | The emergence of a tradition of artistic depiction of a family banquet in the Netherlands dates back to the 1530s. This research aims to clarify the origins of a new type of portrait and explain the changes that led to artistic innovations. The source base consists of family portraits from the collections of world museums, cookbooks, and treatises of the ideologists of Humanism and the Reformation. Scholars such as Margaret Sullivan, Walter Gibson, Claudia Goldstein, and others have previously addressed the topic of family banquet pieces. In their opinion, portraits of the family at the table corresponded to the Protestant ethic (Sullivan) and social norms (Gibson, Goldstein). Such portraits were intended to strengthen the family’s status and create the desired image for descendants. During the study were used the iconographic and iconological analysis methods of Erwin Panofsky, who suggested interpreting iconographic shifts as symptoms of more profound transformations in society. The scholarly novelty is determined by the correlation between food images in portraits and that time cookbooks’ real recommendations. Banquet portrait combined elements of two genres. While the compositional division into the “female” and “male” halves of the image originates from the 15th century devotional portraits, the influence of Marian subjects, as well as representations of biblical scenes, such as the marriage at Cana and the Last Supper, simultaneously mark the continuity of the artistic tradition and social changes, which consisted in increasing the prestige of family life and the emergence of the need to demonstrate it. The more pragmatic medieval interpretation of the family as an instrument of controlling sinful desires and biological reproduction tolerated by the Church is replaced by the Renaissance ideal of a harmonious family united by empathy. |