Dominicus Lampsonius, The Life of Lambert Lombard (1565) transed. by Edward H. Wouk, and: Effigies of Several Famous Painters from the Low Countries (1572) transed. by Edward H. Wouk

Abstract

Reviewed by: Dominicus Lampsonius, The Life of Lambert Lombard (1565) transed. by Edward H. Wouk, and: Effigies of Several Famous Painters from the Low Countries (1572) transed. by Edward H. Wouk Ethan Todd Krenzer Edward H. Wouk, ed. and trans., Dominicus Lampsonius, The Life of Lambert Lombard (1565); and, Effigies of Several Famous Painters from the Low Countries (1572) ( Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2021), 176 pp., 18 color plates, 64 b/w ills. Edward Wouk's summary of the world inhabited by Lambert Lombard (1505–66) and Dominicus Lampsonius (1532–99) and his translations with Helen E. B. Dalton and Julene Abad Del Vecchio of the Life of Lambert Lombard (1565) and [End Page 284] of the Effigies of Several Famous Painters from the Low Countries (1572) demonstrate what can be accomplished through collaboration and teamwork. Available in English for the first time, the translation of Dominicus Lampsonius's Life of Lambert Lombard reintroduces an influential text from sixteenth-century Belgium to modern audiences. Written for Giorgio Vasari (1511–74), this document discusses the early life of Lambert Lombard and what influenced his art before and after his journey to Rome in 1538. Building on Jean Puraye's Dominique Lampson (1950) and Colette Nativel's translation of the Life from Latin to French (2018), the present edition from Wouk and Dalton makes accessible the differing attitudes toward artmaking in the sixteenth century. In addition to translating the Life of Lambert Lombard, Wouk and Abad Del Vecchio translate and include notes on Lampsonius's first edition of the Effigies of Several Famous Painters from the Low Countries. Part of a collaborative project between Lampsonius and draftsman and print publisher Hieronymus Cock (1518–70), this document was meant to cater to the tastes of patrons who wanted to collect objects from specific artists native to their region of Europe. The Effigies, like the Life of Lambert Lombard, occupies an important place in understanding sixteenth-century attitudes on art, showcasing the development of artmaking in the Low Countries, the growth of the art-consuming community, and appraisals of which artists were the most influential at the time of its publication in 1572. Wouk, Dalton, and Abad Del Vecchio have performed a great service to modern audiences by making the Life and Effigies accessible—two texts that help explain the differences in art styles found in sixteenth-century Belgium and Italy. Lampsonius's biography of Lombard's early life, training, and trip to Rome was a response to Vasari's The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550). Sent in 1565, the Life of Lambert Lombard was delivered at a time when art made by masters from the Low Countries (present-day Belgium) had improved through developments in independent design. When reflecting on media found in the region during the middle of the sixteenth century, Wouk emphasizes that "Lampsonius introduced a novel paragone—not between painting and sculpture, as the debate had often been framed in Italy, but rather between Italian and Netherlandish art on the one hand and between painting and engraving on the other" (6). Working during the first half of the sixteenth century, Lampsonius selected Lombard as the subject for the author's letter to Vasari, reasoning that: No other Netherlandish artist better exemplified the ideal of a self-consciously northern humanist painter that Lampsonius could hold up as a counterexample to Vasari's Italian model of the great artist; Four factors made Lombard an ideal subject for Lampsonius's aims: his patronage from illustrious clerics, his trip to Rome, his establishment of a school to train artists, and, lastly, his oeuvre. (10–11) Hoping that the Life of Lambert Lombard would show Vasari the artistic talent that existed in the Low Countries both before and after the artist's return from Rome in 1539 and the influence that contemporary and antiquarian art from Italy had on artists from that region, Lampsonius wrote this text to the Italian author and artist. The first document of its kind to come out of Belgium that contrasted the kinds of media found in its region of Europe to those found in Italy, the Life [End Page 285] is significant for...