The Modeller

Adriaen de Vries in Search of the Viva Figura
Erscheinungsjahr 2025
ISBN: 978-90-04-73732-7
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 19, 382 Seiten, Format (B × H): 170 mm x 240 mm

Reihe: Studies in Netherlandish Art and Cultural History

“In these days the most famous modeller”: this is how the Dutch sculptor Adriaen de Vries (1556-1626) was characterised in 1621. A virtuoso modeller, De Vries explored new ways to enliven his art. His bronze sculptures were made in a radically new, sketchy style, with free figure compositions and a vigorous treatment of human anatomy, often balancing on the border between realism and distortion.

This book explores how and why a Late-Renaissance sculptor broke so drastically with the prevailing stylistic paradigm of his time, in search of vivezza, natural liveliness, and the viva figura, the statue on the brink of coming to life. Adriaen de Vries aimed to create sculptures that move in the metaphorical no-man's land between death and life, back and forth from inert bronze to apparent vitality, as this study will argue.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scholten, Frits

Weitere Mitwirkende

Bouvier, Pierre

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunstformen, Kunsthandwerk Bildhauerei, Plastik, Denkmäler
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Einzelne Künstler: Biographien, Monografien
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein Biographien & Autobiographien: Historisch, Politisch, Militärisch

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

Preface

Prologue

List of Figures

1 Introduction: Turbulent Times, a Restless Life and a Dynamic Style

2 Orefice to sculptor nuovo 1 Stopover in Rome? 2 Florence 3 Disegno: the Craftsman Becomes an Artist 4 Collaborations 5 De Vries as Artist-Goldsmith 3 Wax: ex caera formatas 1 Symbolic Notions 2 Sculptors’ Wax 3 Making the Modello 4 Sketching in Wax: der meister erste hand

4 A Loose and Careless Style 1 An Unorthodox and Exclusive ‘Hand’ 2 A Style for virtuosi 3 quella esser vera arte, che non appare esser arte

5 Imperfetto and non-finito: Perfection in the Imperfect

6 Vivezza, Skin and Touch: between the Seen and Unseen

7 Pose and Movement: the viva figura

8 Turning the Farnese Bull 1 Revolving Sculptures 2 Turning and Modelling 3 Molte vedute 4 Machina, Movement and Theatricality 5 Architecture, Lighting and Turning

9 Living Bronze 1 Alchemy, Mining and Bronze Casting 2 Resurrection 3 Aus einem Guss 4 Kunststücke machen

10 Epilogue: Plasticity, Movement, and the Loose Style as a Sign of Modernity 1 Painterliness 2 Ein malerische Spätstil?

Notes

Bibliography

Über Autor(innen)

Frits Scholten (1959), Ph.D., is Senior Curator of Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and holds the Chair of the History of Western Sculpture at the University of Amsterdam. He has published widely on Late Medieval and Early-Modern Sculpture.