Stumme Boten. Jacques de Gheyns schriftliche und zeichnerische Geste

Abstract

This paper analyses a pen and brown ink drawing by Jacques de Gheyn II (circa 1565-1629), which is preserved in the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, in relation both to written and drawn gestures, explicating the connection between image and word. Through the bodily articulation of the artist as well as through the gestural presence of the figure (“Handeling” meaning manner and action) the sheet addresses a co-productive act of making by various forces. The boy in the drawing salutes the beholder, simultaneously gesturing toward himself: he is a delegate in an act of communication between the artist (De Gheyn) and his patron-friend (Willemsen). The mute messenger is identified via his own portrait on the letter to Willemsen. He is hence a part of what he delivers. In de Gheyn’s work, both the sensibility and materiality of the media (drawing, letter) as well as their tensions and interdependencies, are illuminated and placed within a specific sociohistorical context of human communication, namely the Netherlands in the late sixteenth century.