2.naturalism and allegory in flemish painting

8/6/2019 2.Naturalism and Allegory in Flemish Painting

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DAVID CARRIER

Naturalism and Allegory in FlemishPaintingCONSIDER THE CHANGING STYLES of interpretation ofone picture, Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Marriage(Fig. 1). For Ruskin it is a marvelous exampleof the "ingenuity" of the inventor of oil painting:

eminently remarkable for reahty of substance, vacUItyof space and vigor of qUIet colour exhibitmg, evenm its quamt and mmute treatment, conquest over manyof the dlfficultles which the boldest practice of artinvolves I

The inscription, "Johannes de Eyck fuit hic,1434," Sir Charles Eastlake notes, can betranslated, "this man was here"; possibly "theportraits are of van Eyck and his wife. " 2 Butsince this couple does not resemble other images of them, it is best that this "question besubmitted to those who have given much attention to the history of John Van Eyck."3 Croweand Cavalcaselle (1872) praise

the sense of depth and atmosphere; [van Eyck] nowhereblended colours more carefully, nowhere producedmore transparent shadows.... On the other hand. thedrapenes are angular m places 4

In 1902 Aby Warburg briefly discusses theinscription:Jan van Eyck e state qUI m questa stanza; come se IIpittore volesse dIre' "Vl ho ntratt l megho che potevoperche ml fu consentito dl essere teslJmone ocularedella vostra intimlta domeslIca. " 5

Brockwell describes elements which are laterre-interpreted (1912): the six-armed chandelierwith one candle burning; the armchair with thedepiction of St. Margaret; the reflections of twopersons, one "apparently" van Eyck, in theDAVID CARRIER i.< associate professor ofphilosophy atCarnegie-Mellon University.

mirror. 6 A 1921 book speculates about thecouple. "As for Arnolfini ... The Lord deliverus from being caught as debtors to the like ofhim. " The wife of another man depicted by vanEyckWIll probably be a happier woman than Amolfini', .Each pIcture tells its story so plainly that any competentnovelIst could set all these individuals talkmg for usWithout the least difficulty. 7

Huizinga's The Waning of the Middle Agesevokes such a novella:"Jan van Eyck was here." Only a moment ago, onemIght think. The sound of hIS vOIce stili seems to lingerin the Silence of thIS room. That serene twilighthour of an age . . suddenly reveals Itself here. ROn the whole, these comments, though moredetailed, do not differ greatly from those of aQuattrocento commentator on Flemish naturalism. Bartholomaeus Facius praises one picturefor lacking "only a voice," and says of anothervan Eyck: "Nothing is more wonderful ...

than the mirror painted in the picture, in whichyou see whatever is represented as in a realmirror."9 The one text which perhaps anticipates modem accounts of Flemish allegory isHegel's. Without analyzing individual picturesat any length, he does suggest that Flemishpainting is not just an art of naturalism:many artISts have proceeded to mtroduce symbolIcalfeatures . . For example. we often see COOstlying. . under a dilapidated roof, ... and. roundabout, the ruins of an ancIent building, while in thebackground is the begmning of a cathedral. 10

And Friedlaender effectively summarizes boththe traditional praise for van Eyck's naturalismand anticipates the modem concern with allegory. Van Eyck "offers us a kind of snapshot, 1987 The Journal of AesthetIcs and Art Criticism


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238glvmg a certain event-the betrothal-in acertain place at a certain hour;" thus "the mosttrifling things are depicted with grave andinward-looking scruple, investing them with thevalue and meaning of ritual objects. "IIWithin this tradition, Panofsky's justly famous 1934 article marks a sea change in interpretative style; most later accounts accept hisgeneral viewpoint, whilst usually arguing withhim about some points of detail. Since thepainting, he demonstrates, is a "pictorial marriage certificate,"the question anses whether thiS marvellous mterior . .IS sull rooted m some extent m the medieval tendencyof mvesting vISIble objects wIth an allegoncal orsymbolic meamng 12

The dog is "here indubitably used as a symbolof marital fai th;" the burning candle symbolizes "the all seeing wisdom of God"; the "fruiton the window sill" reminds of our innocencebefore the Fall; the discarded shoes at the lowerleft, referring to God's command to Moses onMt. Sinai, show that the setting is sacred. 13Once given, such an allegorical interpretationis readily supplemented. The mirror has beenvariously interpreted. "On peut ajouter queJean van Eyck a superpose ici au sacrement dumarriage l 'idee de la redemption ... Ie petitmiroir convexe, symbole du monde terrestre." 14Alternatively, the mirror is "a symbol of theVirgin, and at the same time, through the reflection appearing in it, a model of painting as apetfect image of the visible world." 15 It may bean additional witness to the marriage, or perhapsvan Eyck's "intention was . . . to introduce intothe world of God a painted world which would bean infinitesimal reflection of its proportions." 16But a more mundane view of the mirror is alsoconceivable:

The convex dimlmshing mirror IS there In order that thewhole of the room may be seen.... Convex mirrorsare always round, for which reason the roundness inthiS case IS not to be interpreted as a symbol of theworld 17One detail in Panofsky's interpretation hasoccasioned debate:van Eyck took the liberty of joining the right hand ofthe bnde with the left of the bndegroom. contrary tontual and contrary. also. to all the other representationsof a marnage ceremony. 18

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Since in general deviations from petfect orplausible naturalism are read as carrying symbolic meanings. is this consistent? Panofskyargues that this hand position "is an anomalyoften found in English art with which Jan vanEyck was demonstrably familiar," referring toan article which notes that such handpositionings, rare on the Continent, were common in English art; possibly the artist saw thoseworks when sent to England on a secret mission. 19 But Schrabaker rather sees an image of"a morganatic. '" i.e., left-handed marriage" in which "while the bride as usual offersher right hand. the groom now takes it in hisleft;" and this is a non-trivial point since, ifcorrect. it "forces us 'to abandon the identification of the sitters that has prevailed.' "20Held defends Panofsky. Schrabacker fails toconsider the importance of the groom's raisedright hand, which seems "expressive of thesacred commitment of the matrimonial vow";the usual joining of right hands has been modified to emphasize 'the gesture. Since morganatic marriages were not known in the Netherlands, this symbolic reading of the gesture ismore plausible than Schrabacker 's literal account. 21 And Schrabacker's own illustration ofa couple holding right hands illustrates thisclaim: in that image, the man's gesturing lefthand is less aesthetically convincing than isArnolfini's gesture. But Rosenau, whose textwas one major source for Panofsky, argues that

the nght hand of Amolfini IS raised not so much m agesture of prayer. as Panofsky thmks, but of speakmg._ . . The intimacy of the ceremony IS thus enhanced_. . It IS the anticipatIOn of actIOn. rather than theaction, which commands attenuon.22

As Harbison notes, Schrabacker's interpretation"is based on a literal (realistic) reading" whilePanofsky sees the gesture "as attributed toartistic [symbolic] license. "23 The relation herebetween realism and symbolism becomes complex. Friedlaender earlier described the handswithout raising these questions:

Amolfim is reachmg out to her WIth his hand.agamst which she shyly and reluctantly lays her own.HIS other hand IS raised m an "eloquent" gesture. . .the master's mstinct foruncovenng the hidden IS wiselytempered. 24


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Naturalism and AllegoryOnly once Panofsky made the opposition be-tween realism and symbolism so important wasthere reason to examine so closely this detail ina painting which had long been well known andon public display.The questions raised by this example can begeneralized. Allegorical interpretations makepaintings seem more deeply meaningful than doearlier naturalistic descriptions; still, since notext contemporary with the works supportsthose interpretations, why have they only beendiscovered so recently? Suppose a visuallysensitive, historically naive student notes that

converging lines can be drawn on photographsof many quattrocento frescos; her argumentthese painters knew perspective-is so wellsupported by contemporary texts that we neednot seek the precise source of any given artist'sknowledge of that system of representation. Bycontrast, the claim that van Eyck painted allegories may seem more problematic. Perhaps hisintentions were so obvious that when verbalcommentaries on art were terse, there was nofelt need to identify those allegories; alternatively, since-as Gombrich reminds us-whatwe see in pictures is always dependent upon ourprior beliefs, maybe our allegorical interpretations project modem concerns into his work.Gombrich has asked whether there are suchlevels of meaning in Renaissance art. "I knowof no medieval or Renaissance text whichapplies this doctrine to works of pictorialart. , '25 This simple-seeming claim is tricky.The inscription within the Arnolfini Marriageand words on the original frames of otherpaintings may show that these works containlevels of meaning. What Gombrich means, Ibelieve, is that though St. Bernard compareslight passing through a window to the Virgin'simmaculate conception of Christ, no text of vanEyck's time says that flemish painters madeimages of such a scene. Still, there is somecontemporary evidence. The original frame,now stolen, of a van Eyck Annunciation contained the words:

As the sunbeam through the glassPasseth but not stainethThus, the Virgm, as she was,Virgin still remaineth.26

Even if van Eyck did not make the frame, it

239would be remarkable did he not apply thosewords to his image. More generally, Gombrichallows that "religious pictures do embodythings as symbols"; then "the symbol functionsas a metaphor which only acquires its specificmeaning in a given context. The picture has notseveral meanings but one." This surely begsthe question, for what justifies speaking ofliteral and symbolic meanings in the ArnolfiniMarriage is that the depicted dog symbolizesfidelity and the fruit, innocence. After quotingwhat I would call an allegorical account ofLeonardo's St. Anne. "St. Anne stand(s) for theChurch that does not want to have the passion ofChrist prevented," Gombrich argues that wehave no two meanings here because such agrouping "had never been conceived as a realistic representation. "27 But how then can wedistinguish realistic and allegorical Christianscenes? Elsewhere Gombrich himself takes theMourning ofChrist as a paradigm of a realisticscene: "We seem to witness the real event as ifenacted on a stage. "28Gombrich asks how an allegorical readingcan be justified. To answer that question, consider another famous example, MeyerSchapiro's exceedingly skillfully motivated account of the Merode Altarpiece (Fig. 2). Thedevil, as Augustine put it, is trapped by thecross; here mice are caught in the trap made byJoseph. The "tiny naked ... child bearing across" in the central panel emphasizes that here"metaphor and reality are condensed in a singleobject. " And the late medieval fantasy thatJoseph helps deceive the devil, preventing himfrom recognizing Christ's divine paternity, fitsnicely into this analysis; Joseph traps mice andthe devil too. This religious symbolism overlaps with the sexual symbolism of the mousetraps, candles, lilies, windows, and fireplace."They are drawn together in our minds assymbols of the masculine and feminine."Given Christian legends about lascivious, destructive mice, seeing "the mousetrap ofJoseph as an instrument of a latent sexualmeaning . . . is therefore hardly arbitrary."That trap, "a female object," is also "themeans of destroying sexual temptation. "29This allegorical interpretation differs in important ways from Panofsky's account of theArnolfiniMarriage. Since the inscription in thatpainting is discussed by earlier interpreters,


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240Panofsky's allegorical account adds to, but isnot absolutely essential for, his explanation ofthose words. By contrast, the distinction between naturalistic and allegorical interpretationsof the Merode Altarpiece is more dramatic.Friedlaender says that the artist "outdoes himself in representing everything with the utmostrealism. . . . He revels in depicting still lifeelements and becomes almost obtrusive in hisnaturalism.' '30 Huizinga, similarly, sees Joseph"occupied with making mousetraps.... all thedetails are 'genre,' with an almost imperceptible flavour of the comic about them. ,,31A later commentator who generally acceptsSchapiro's account asks a good question: since"there is no known reference, either scripturalor exegetical, that links St. Joseph specificallyto this unusual carpenter's product," how canwe validate that interpretation?32 CertainlyAugustine's text, cited by Schapiro, was influential, and a contemporary writer, Schapironotes, wrote of "the fishhook and bait," arelated image. Schapiro's links between mousetraps, the devil, Joseph the deceiver, and lascivious mice depend, then, upon gatheringdiverse Christian texts which the painter mighthave known. By contrast, the psychoanalyticobservations need no such support. "We lack... all knowledge of the life history of both theartist and the donor . . . but the process ofsymbolization is a general one. . . . " Still,weaving together Christian and psychoanalyticinterpretations is tricky. Identifying the pointedand hollow things "as symbols of the masculineand feminine," Schapiro creates an image of ahappy bourgeois household. The surrealists,whom he knew, might have described differently the perhaps frustrated, continent Josephwho, set apart from his virgin wife, drills holes;his carpenter shop is filled with instruments thatbore, cut, slice and pierce. So, "the differentlayers of meaning sustain each other" onlywhen the psychoanalytic interpretation is madeconsistent with the Christian reading.The relation Panofsky and Schapiro findbetween realistic images and symbols is in partopposed. 33 For Panofsky, in Flemish art "medieval symbolism and modem realism are soperfectly reconciled that the former has becomeinherent in the latter"; for Schapiro, that realism involves the secularizing tendency to makepainting "a vehicle of personal life, and hence

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of unconscious demands" which ultimately areopposed to religious values. Instead ofPanofsky's perfect harmony, Schapiro sees a"combat" between religion and "the new secular values, " as when in the Arnolfini Marriagereligious images are literally in "a marginalposition . . . a secondary reality forming aborder around the reflecting glass.' , ForPanofsky, "reality itself" gives' 'rise to a flowof preternatural associations." For Schapiro,the "development of realism, ... the imagining of the world for its own sake, as a beautifulfascinating spectacle," is one step towardssecular art.In part, this disagreement reflects differingart-historical perspectives. For Schapiro, themousetraps are forerunners of Bosch's instruments, which more openly manifest this conflict; for Panofsky, Bosch is at the margin ofEarly Netherlandish Painting, beyond "thescope of this volume, . . . also . . . beyond thecapacity of its author. "34 Schapiro's characterization of Cezanne-whose "conception of apersonal art rested upon a more general ideal ofindividual liberty"---


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Naturalism and Allegory in Flemi5h Painting 241

Figure 1: Jan Van Eyck, Arnolftni Marriage, 1434. Reproduced by courtesy of the Trustees.The National Gallery, London.


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Figure 2: Robert Campin, Triptych of the Annunciation, 1425-1428: central panel, The Annunciation: left wing, KneelingDonors: right wing, Joseph in His Workshop. Reproduced by courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The CloistersCollection.

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Naturalism and Allegoryshow an unreasonably large Madonna in achurch?38 Just as we explain word slips, thelives of exotic peoples, and crazy behavior byattributing to the actors beliefs which explamtheir behavior, so we understand van Eyck's artby assuming in such cases that his images areintended to be allegorical. I f someone says"mother" instead of "mistress"; if a tribe tellsus that hyenas are Orthodox Christians andtherefore fast on feast days; if a man asserts thathe is God's son: then we rationalize theiractions by attributmg to them beliefs which byour lights make sense of those actions. 39 But weneed not suppose that these agents accept, orcould even recognize, our interpretation. Interpreting Flemish allegories involves an additional constraint: we seek the original intendedmeaning of the image.Consequently, the art historians' procedurecontams a possible paradox stated by Panofsky,who fails, I believe, to acknowledge its fullimplications. A van Eyck "possibly meant toexpress an allegorical meaning" at the sametime appears perfectly naturalistic. 40 But if thenaturalism is perfect, how can we detect theallegory? Since dogs, light rays, mousetraps,windows, doors and almost anything elseshown in Flemish paintings are discussed insome Christian text, it is therefore alwayspossible to construct an allegorical interpretation. Critics who propose the parallel betweenthe allegorists' passion for details and the obsessional neurotic point to a real issue: surelythe erudite art historian can find textual evidence for symbolism in any naturalistic scene.41Perhaps it is wrong to think of this as a paradox.If Flemish artists believed that God manifestsHimself everywhere, why should they not putsacred symbols everywhere in their pictures?What at any rate is a problem for the writer isdetermining how to interpret such pictures; ifevery picture element is potentially meaningful,where can the analysis stop?Craig Harbison offers a highly ingeniousresponse to this dilemma.42 Let us understandthe opposition between realism and allegory bycontrasting van Eyck and the painter of theMerode Altarpiece, Campin. Van Eyck manipulates ,. realistic objects to form religioussymbols"; Campin distinguishes between opposites which' 'van Eyck was intent on blending and at t h same time transcending." Since

243usually the perfect unity of form-and-content ofsymbols has been contrasted with the inherentdualism of allegories, It may seem strange tothink that van Eyck is both allegorist andobliterates "the purely worldly distillction between sacred and secular. "43 But Just as astructuralist anthropologist might understandthe meaning of a ritual by understanding how itis performed differently by two neighboringtribes, so describlllg the contrastlllg modes ofsymbolization within Flemish culture permitsus to understand these two artists.

CampIn seems drawn to a form of symbolism Ihat doesnot compromise the Integnty of the viSIble world. vanEyck. on the other hand. attempts to grasp In a Singleimage the way the Spmt penetrates and transformsthe world through lIme.

We can see van Eyck overcoming the splitbetween realism and symbolization because wecontrast hIS works with Campin's, whIch make"the transition from earthly object to sacredsymbol ... distinct and disturbing."This strategy is perhaps a natural development of the older allegorical readings. Just asPanofsky and Schapiro translate the synchronicopposition between earlier naturalistic accountsand their allegorical interpretations into adiachronic opposition between two kinds ofreference present simultaneously in one artwork, so Harbison contrasts his oppositionbetween van Eyck and Campin to earlier. simpler discussions of visual allegory. "The waysimages operate seem much freer and moresuggestive than that indicated by the notion of awork intentionally illustrating an abstruse intellectual speculation."Consider here some details raised followingSchapiro's article. He suggested that Josephmakes a bait box, a marine equivalent to themousetrap. Panofsky saw that board as "theperforated cover of a footstand mtended to holda warming pan"; Margaret Freeman thinks thatJoseph makes spike blocks to drag on theground between Christ's feet as He carries thecross. 44 Zupnick argues against all of theseinterpretations. A warming pan cannot be madeof wood, a combustible material; it is "far-fetched" to think Joseph prepares "instrumentsof torture for his son"; Schapiro's analysis istoo distantly related to his account of the


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244mousetraps.45 Rather, since the holes in thatboard fall into random patterns and a nearbydowel would, if cut, fit into those holes, Josephmakes a maze to lure mice. The disadvantage ofthis interpretation, in tum, is that many piecesof this trap are not depicted; not only mustJoseph construct another plank, as Zupnicknotes, but he must also build ends and sides forhis instrument. Heckscher sees "yet anotherdevil-deceiving, . . device": a version of thefirescreen in the central panel. 46 Minott interprets the board as " a holder for the rods" ofMary's suitors, the dowel being Joseph's rod. 47Lavin, who has been to Italian grape harvests,sees "the centerboard of the strainer of a smallwinepress. ' '4 8 Winemaking was not a Flemishactivity, but Augustine calls Christ' 'the grapeof the promised land," and in Bruges there wasa Confraternity of the Precious Blood.Bait box; warming pan; spike-block; maze;firescreen; rod holder; winepress centerboard;each interpretation claims to be appropriate andfinds some visual precedent. Given the difficulty of finding a knock-down solution here, itis predictable that once Schapiro produced hisallegorical reading, other interpreters wouldpropose other such accounts. Describing another element, the tiny figures in the streetscene, Freeman says: "one can find no hiddenmeaning here. "49 After arguing with Gottlieb'sinterpretation, De Coo concludes: "there can beno justification for attributing any symbolicvalue to the bench. "50 But there is no longsequence of allegorical interpretations of theseelements. Concluding that Joseph's board isjust a board would be more provocative-adisappointing non-solution to a longstandingpuzzle.Compare Minott's interpretation to Schapiro'saccount. Focusing not on the mousetrap, but onthe ax, saw, and rod beneath Joseph's feet, Minottturns to a commentary on Isaiah sufficiently obscure to be worth quoting here:

Shall the ax boast itself agamst him that heweththerewith? or shall the saw magnify Itself agamst himthat shaketh it? as If the rod should shake itself againstthem that hft it up, or as the staff should lift up itself asIf it were no wood. 51

This text does not obviously relate to Joseph,and it leads to an interpretation of the mousetrap

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only via reference to a citation from Augustine:"The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords;they have spread a net by the wayside; theyhave set gins for me" (Psalm 140:5). There aretwo ways to compare this analysis toSchapiro's. Schapiro's analysis is a model interpretation, and Minott's account is substantially less plausible by comparison. Alternatively, precisely because Minott is less skillful,he shows the problems presented by all allegorical readings. Just as Schapiro begins with themousetrap, so Minott starts with the ax, sawand rod; just as Schapiro weaves together Christian and psychoanalytic texts, so Minott linksIsaiah and Psalm 140. The fact that texts canthus be matched to the work in differing wayscan undermine our confidence in the validity ofany given interpretation.Biblical interpretation may offer one usefulparallel:

The Jews then Said to him, "You are not yet fifty yearsold, and you have seen Abraham?" Jesus said to them,"Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, Iam." (John 8:57-8).52

Christians recall Exodus 3:14: "And God saidunto Moses, I AM THAT I AM," or in HaroldBloom's preferred translation: " I will bepresent wherever and whenever I will bepresent. ' ,53 This passage, he notes, not "o f theslightest interest or importance to any of thegreat rabbinical commentators," became important when Christians sought to reduce "theHebrew Bible to that captive work, The OldTestament." Rabbi David Kimhi found Jesus'words nonsensical: "there can be no father andson in the Divinity . . . a father precedes a sonin time." Rudolf Bultrnann writes: "The Jewsremain caught in the trammels of their ownthought.... They cannot understand, becausethe notion of the Revealer's 'pre-existence' canonly be understood in faith."Like the Christian, the allegorizing art historian seeks texts to interpret the van Eyck orCampin image; like the rabbi, the skeptic aboutthat procedure asks if so doing tells us themeaning of the picture. The Christian believesthat matching Old Testament with New is possible; given that belief, what happens, almostinevitably, is that successful matching occurs.The rabbi finds the success of this procedure


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Naturalism and Allegoryunconvincing. Believe that the New Testamentfulfills the Old and you will look for propheticpassages; reject that belief. and such a practiceseems full of contradictions. What for therabbis is a paradox-how could Jesus have seenAbraham?-is for Christians a sign that Jewsare bad and biased interpreters.This analogy admittedly elides one distinction between art history and theology. Arthistorians argue for their conclusions; appealsto faith carry no ultimate weight. But pointingto this fact may not be helpful. Panofsky,Schapiro, and their successors believe thatFlemish art should be interpreted allegorically,and that assumption determines how they argue. I f earlier discussions of flemish naturalismmake the paintings seem simpler, that-anallegorist would s a y - i s because those writersfailed to look closely enough. Like the Christian who believes that his account of John8:57-8 makes sense of words which the rabbisthink absurd, the allegorist trusts a method ofinterpreting which is not really open to counterargument. Any given interpretation might ofcourse be rejected; but what would constitute ademonstration that allegorical interpretations,as such, are mistaken?What seems seductive about allegory, suchsuspicious interpreters as Nietzsche, Foucault,and Nehamas have emphasized, is the beliefthat through it hidden meanings, present in textor picture but accessible only to those who readand look deeply, are revealed.54 Drawing attention to the ways that such interpretation is aninstitutionalized enterprise, we may ask: whatconstitutes a tradition of interpretation? Whodetermines what are acceptable interpretations?How are deviant interpretations dealt with?Held usefully suggests that the motto for EarlyNetherlandish Painting should be one sentencefrom that book: "There is ... no other answerto this problem" of identifying allegory "thanthe use of historical methods tempered . . . bycommon sense. "55 This common sense is defined by professional consensus. Thenineteenth-century commentators would be as-tonished by Panofsky's text, and today it wouldseem crazy to relate van Eyck to Buddhistwritings, or Campin to the Koran. We can givegood arguments for these beliefs. It is plausiblethat Flemish artists expressed Christian doctrines in thei:' work, and unsurprising that be-

245fore the invention of modern art history suchsymbolism was undetected. But since thesecommon sense views rely on a consensus created relatively recently, it seems over-optImIstic to be certain that our allegorical interpretations correctly identify the artists' intentions.A possibly useful parallel is offered by twoallegorical readings of more recent art. ForRuskin, in Turner's Apollo and Python the"dragon was a treasure-guardian.... Apollo'scontest with him is the strife of purity withpollution, of life with forgetfulness; of lovewith the grave ... 56 Color, especially scarlet,stands for dignity and power; it is "the greatsanctifying element of visible beauty inseparably connected with purity and life." But adarker message is also presented, since a smallserpent crawls from the dymg Python. "Alas,for Turner! This smaller serpent-worm, itseemed, he could not conceive to be slain."Ruskin interprets in relation to his more generalpessimism: "men ... destory all beauty. Theyseem to have no other desire or hope but to havelarge houses and to be able to move fast. ..Turner scholars are divided about the valIdityof this interpretation. Perhaps "Ruskin had nocomprehension of Turner's vision" and so in-terpreted him in terms "wholly alien to a manwho was a poet In paint"; alternatively,although the painter may not have known or drawnupon the precise texts RuskIn Cited . there IS littledoubt that Turner knew a great deal of mythology andthat he understood it essentially the way hiS Interpreterclaimed.57

The artist and his commentator talked and dinedtogether; Ruskin read part ofModern Painters.By comparison. interpreters of van Eyck andCampin are historically distant from theirflemish culture, and know little about theirpersonalities. Still, maybe differences betweenRuskin's and modern uses of allegory make ourart historians' interpretations more reliable. ForRuskin,What counts ... IS not the illuminatIOn of a particularpicture,. . but our understanding of the Image.whose meanIngs are greater than and mdependent ofany particular picture . . . in which they occur 50

In his text it is difficult to separate the accountof Apollo and Python from the more generalremarks on color, nature and society. By con-


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246trast, Panofsky and Schapiro say nothing explicit about social problems, nor do they aspireto a free play with symbols.Rauschenberg's collages of old master images also involve allegory; indeed, one work istitled Allegory. Some interpreters treat him likea Flemish master. I f "the utilization of everydetail" carries "both formal and thematic significance within the work," then Female Fig-ure (Blueprint), made by placing the model onphotographic paper, is ..a witty example ofthose reclining females so dear to the Romantictradition"; the rooster in Odalisk is .,a parodyof Ingres's Grande Odalisque"; and in Rebusthe wings of "the photograph of the flyinginsect ... rhyme with those of the wind deitiesin the neighboring Botticelli. "59 On the otherhand, it is "difficult, if not impossible," todiscover in such works ..any common propertythatmightcoherently link these things. "60Rauschenberg's allegories could be intentionally unmtelligible: "only the blind application of traditionalart-historical methodologies to contemporary art"leads critics to interpret his works thus.This is a political dispute about the "end ofpainting. " If Rauschenberg can be interpretedlike van Eyck, putting both into the samemuseum is appropriate; but if "Rauschenbergenacts a deconstruction of the museum," that ismisguided. 61 That Rauschenberg himself is"little inclined" to agree with the later viewdisturbs its proponents not at all; should heunderstand the real meaning of his art of the196Os, it is unlikely that he would pursue hispresent career. Perhaps, then, randomness itselfconstitutes a statement about the impossibilityof achieving aesthetic coherence; alternatively,beneath apparent randomness, a deep order maybe found. To interpret Rauschenberg, we mustchoose between these views, and it is notcertain that anything he says need influence ourchoice.Such an argument might also be applied toFlemish painting. Since we are in many waysignorant of the culture of van Eyck and Campin;since allegorical interpretations are a recentcreation; since those accounts are often debatable, we could question their general validity.Recent studies of Titian and seventeenthcentury Dutch art offer a precedent for such askeptical argument, which is sure to appear insome forthcoming account of Flemish art. 62

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Once we give up the belief that allegoricalmeanings are deeper than those shown by mereappearances; once we question Panofsky's vision of art history as a humanistic discipline,and Schapiro's dated view of psychoanalysis-then the suggestion that Flemish artists are"just" superb naturalists might again seeminteresting.This argument, which could be made by areader of Foucault, is supported also by onereading of Art and Illusion. Panofsky madefamous the distinction between what we simplyobserve in an artwork and symbols visible onlyto those who know texts. 63 A Buddhist seesmen sitting around a table where Christians seea Last Supper. In arguing that seeing representations always requires prior knowledge,Gombrich undermines this distinction betweennaturalistic images and visual symbols, and sosuggests that allegorical representations are notinherently deeper, or different in kind, thannaturalistic scenes.I myself have used the realism/allegory opposition without much critical examination.Following Gombrich, consider now how tomake that contrast more concrete. Chapter Fiveof Early Netherlandish Painting gives manyexamples; I list literal meanings on the left, andsymbolic equivalences on the right: 64

right/good: left/evil;monkey/undesirable;Mary/New Eve;three GOthiC wmdows/Trinity;laver and baSIn/the Virgin's punty.honsffhrone of Solomon;candlestIck/Virgin;Mary/the Church as a spiritual entity;Sunlight/Divine radiance.

Schapiro contrasts:mousetrap/Christ'S cross;utlhtanan objects/theological symbols.mice/womb; unchaste females. prostitutes/the deVil,white mouse/incarnation of souls of unborn children.mousetrap/female object. means of destroying sexualtemptation

The Virgin, Solomon's Throne and the Crossare objects; the Trinity, the Church as SpiritualEntity and souls of unborn children are harder topicture; good, evil, purity and means of destroying sexual temptation are properties of


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Naturalism and Allegorythings. So. to simplify, the realism/allegorycontrast really marks more and less obviousreferences; seeing sculpted lions requires lessknowledge, all things being equal, than identifying them as Solomon's throne. Christ's crossis not more difficult to identify than a mousetrap, but it takes more knowledge of texts toknow that a mousetrap symbolizes that cross.Allegory thus privileges texts over pictures,overruling the seemingly immediate presenceand unity of the image in favor of the system oftexts which are needed to identify objects in thatimage. 65 The traditional ideal of organic unity,which conceives of a picture as self-sufficient,no element of it either superfluous or missing, isreplaced by the transformation of that artworkinto a source for indefinitely many readings.Panofsky found charm in van Eyck because"the spectator is not irritated by a mass ofcomplicated hieroglyphs"; now that beliefseems questionable. 66Paecht asks a good question: is

the alleged sophIsticated planning of complex ailegones producmg m the picture a strew-pattern of allUSIvedetail . really consIstent with the stIlled life of Janvan Eyck's world['167

Interpreted allegorically, the picture becomesrebus-like, and therefore like a text:ObVIOusly we can only fonn a proper Judgment of therebus If we __ replace each separate element by asyllable or word that can be represented by that elementm some way or other. The words may fonn apoetical phrase of the greatest beauty and signiflcance 6 "

Held anticipated this situation when he worried that' 'with every object potentially a carrierof a concealed meaning, ... some triggerhappy iconologists may take this as an invitation to shoot from the hip. "69 As my account ofthe Arnolfini Marriage and the Merode Altar-piece shows, closing off this process is difficult. The more an art historian reads and themore visual sources he or she gathers, the moreinterpretations are possible, but once we discardthe belief that the unique, original meaning ofthe work is to be found, Held's worry may seemunreal. Interpretation is an open-ended processbecause the successors of Panofsky andSchapiro will treat every object as "potentially

247a carrier of concealed meaning." But this is agood thing, not a danger, since it means thatfuture art historians have much work to do. Andwe might understand this situation in two ways.Lacking enough information about the artistsand their times, we cannot definitively narrowdown the range of possibilities. Alternatively,however much we know-as the examples ofTurner and Rauschenberg may imply--differinginterpretations always are possible. ForSchapiro

the latent symbolism IS not consciously hidden by theartISt. _ but was impliCit for him and the contemporary spectator m the objects m questIon because acertam allegoncal meanmg was traditIonally assocIatedWith them 70

This lesson may be generalized.Having long pondered the methods of ourallegorical interpreters, I am now prepared toadd a modest novel example myself. SincePanofsky discusses the one lit candle in theArnolfini Marriage, and Heckscher the smouldering candle in the Merode Altarpiece, whatother candles are to be found in Campin'spainting? There are two candleholders abovethe fireplace, though only the one on theVirgin's right holds a candle. In a triptychwhose central panel of the Annunciation hasthree windows, it is easy to think that thesethree candleholders are meaningful. And gIvenPanofsky's remarks about the equation of"left" with what is evil, the absence of a candlein the holder on the Virgin's left easily appearsmeaningful; that side of the fireplace is closer tothe place where Joseph labors making his traps.As given, this remains an incompletely motivated interpretation. I lack a theological text tosupport my analysis, and visual parallels fromother Flemish paintings. Still, once attention iscalled to those two candleholders it is bothsurprising that they have not been discussedearlier and hard to believe that the differencebetween them is merely accidental. Sir CharlesEastlake or Crowe and Cavalcaselle would havefound my preoccupation with such a seeminglysmall detail puzzling. Present day art historiansmay find this detail worth further discussion. Inany case, I-like all modem viewers of Flemishpainting-thus am influenced by the work ofour great allegorical interpreters. 71


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2481 The Works of John Ruskin, ed. E. T. Cook and A.Wedderburn (London, 1909), 12:256.2 Sir Charles Locke Eastlake, Methods and Materials

ofPainting oflhe Great Schools andMasters (1847; reprint,New York, 1960), p. 185.3 Compare some earlIer accounts cited by W. H JamesWeale, The Van Eycks and Their Art (London, 1912), p.118 "the man is trying to read in the lines of the lady'soutstretched hand the future of the babe" (1853). Also,"The man IS solemnly holding up hiS right hand toattest . that the child whose birth the lady is evidentlyexpecting IS his" (1855).4 J A. Crowe and G B. Cavalcaselle, The EarlyFlemish Painters (London, 1872), p. 101.

5 Aby Warburg, La RinasClta del Paganeslmo Antico.trans. E Cantlmore (Rorence, 1980), p. 152.o Weale, The Van Eycks, p. 1127 Sir Martm Conway, The Van Eycks and Their Followers (London. 1921), p. 688 J Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, trans.F. Hopman (London, 1927), p. 237. My source for many ofthese references is the National Gallery Catalogue' MartmDaVies, Early NetherlandIsh School, London, 1945, p. 39.9 Michael Baxandall, "Bartholornaeus Facius onPamting," Journal of the Warburg and Courtaull lnstltute27 (1964): 102.10 Hegel's Aesthetics. trans. T. J Knox (Oxford,1975),2:883,861. Compare Goethe's account of a work hethought a van Eyck: "The AnnunciatIOn takes place m anenclosed room lit by a row of windows high up.Everythmg m It is as clean and neat as befits that innocencewhich is aware only of itself and ItS immediate

surroundings." (Goethe on Art, trans. J Gage [Berkeley,1980], p. 143).I I M. J. Friedlaender, Early Netherlandish Painting(Leiden-Brussels, 1967), 1.41.12Erwm Panofsky, "Jan van Eyck's 'Amolfim'PortraIt," reprinted m Modern Perspectives in Weslern ArlHistory, ed. W. E. Kleinbauer (New York, 1971), pp.

198-201.13 The last detail added in Erwin Panofsky, EarlyNetherlandIsh Painting (New York. 1971), p. 203.14 Charles de Tolnay, Le maitre de Ftemalle et lesFreres van Eyck (Brussels. 1939), p. 33.15 Hemrich Schwarz, "The Mirror m An," Art Quar

terly 15 (1952). 100.10 Heon Focillon, The Art of Ihe West In the MiddleAges (London, 1965),2:169.

17 Ludwig BaJdass, Jan van Eyck (London, 1952), p.75, see also Elisabeth Dhanens, Van Eyck (New York, n.d[after 1977)), p 203.18 Panofsky, "Jan van Eyck's 'Amolfini' Pomait," p

19919 Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Paintlng, p. 439.20 Peter H. Schrabacker, "De Matrtmonro ad

Morganatlcam Contracto Jan van Eyck's "Amolfim"PomaIt ReconsIdered," Art Quarterly 35 (1972): 377.

21 Julius S. Held, Rubens and His Circle (PrInceton,1982), pp. 56-5722 Helen Rosenau, "Some English Influences on Janvan Eyck," Apollo 38 (1942): 126.

23 Craig Harbison. "ReaJism and Symbolism in EarlyRernish Painting," Art Bulletin 61 (1984): 602. In arguing

CARRIER

that "the rmrror establishes the sacramental connectionbetween PassIOn and marriage while pointmg to the latter'sanagogical value as It leads the soul upward toward the finalpurifying marriage in heaven, " Roger Baldwin offers a stillmore elaborate allegorical reading. HIS account dependsupon drawmg paraJlels between van Eyck's positioning "ona vertical axiS the crucified Christ, the mirror, the Joinedhands, and the dog, symbolIc of fai th" and a number ofearlier Images: see his "Marriage as Sacramental ReflectIOnof the Passion: The Mirror in Jan van Eyck's ArnolfiniWedding," Oud Holland 98, no. 2 (1984) 67.

24 Fnedlaender, Early NetherlandIsh Painting, 1:41.25 E. H. Gombnch, Symbolic Images (London, 1972),

pp.15-16.20 Millard Meiss, The Painters' Choice (New York,1976), pp. 10-11.27 Gombrich, SymbolIC Images, p 16.28 E. H. Gombnch, The Story of Art (London, 1966)p. 147.29 Meyer Schapiro, " 'Muscipula Dlaboli,' The Symbolism of the Merode AltarpIece," repnnted in hIS LateAntique, Early Christlan and MedIeval Arl (New York,1979), pp. I-II.30 Friedlaender. Early Netherlandish Painting, 2:37.31 Huizinga, The Waning of the MIddle Ages, p. 279.32 Irving L. Zupmck, ' 'The Mystery of the MerodeMousetrap," Burlington MagaZine 108 (1966): 126, the onetext maJang such a connection IS Peter Pindar's Lyric Odes

to the Royal Academicians.The humble Joseph, so genteelly made,Poor Gentleman! as If above hIS trade,And only fit to compliment his wife;So, delicate, as If he scarcely knewOak from deal-board, a gimlet from a screw,And never made a mouse-trap in his lIfe.

([1785], quoted by Hamish MIles, "The MerodeMousetrap," Burlington Magazine 108 [1966] 32333 Panofsky, Early NetherlandISh Painting, p. 201;Schapiro, "Musclpula Diaboli," p. 934 Panofsky, Early NetherlandIsh Painting, p 35735 Meyer Schapiro, cezanne (New York, 1952), p 30.36 Carla Gottlieb, The Window in Art (New York,1981), pp. 114-9; see also her "Resplciens per Fenestras.The SymbolIsm of the Merode Altarpiece," Oud Holland

85 (1970): 65-84.37 MeiSS, p. 8.38 Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, p 14539 SeeRatIOnality and RelatIvism, ed. M. HollIs and SLukes (Cambndge, 1982); and Donald Davidson, InqUiries

Into Trulh and InterpretatIOn (Oxford, 1984)40 Panofsky, "Jan van Eyck's 'Arnolfini' Pomalt," p201.41 CraIg Owens, "The Allegoncal Impulse: Toward aTheory of Postrnodemlsm," October 12 (1980): 72; AngusRetcher, Allegory: The Theory ofa SymbolIC Mode (Ithaca,1964), p. 6.42 Harbison, "ReaJism and Symbolism," pp. 591-93.43 See aJso Paul de Man's lIterary examples m which"It is impossible to deCIde by grammatical or other linguistic devices which of the two meanings ... prevails..

This choice can be made only If one postulates the POSSI-bility of distinguishing the literaJ from the figural" (Alle-


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Naturalism and Allegorygories of Reading [New Haven, 1979], p 10,201)

44 Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting, p 164;Margaret Freeman, "The Iconography of the MerodeAltarpiece," Bulletin of the Metropoillan Museum ofArt 16(1957): 138.45 Zupmck, p. 130; Panofsky IS defended by Goesta

Berg, "Medieval House Traps," Studw EthnographlcaUpsollensia 26: 7-8.46 William S. Heckscher, "The Annunciation of the

Merode Altarpiece: An Iconographic Study," MIscellaneaJozef Duverger (Ghent, 1968), p. 48; also see MOJmir S.Fnnta, The Gemus of Robert Campln (Mouton, 1966),p.20.

47 Charles L Minott, "The Theme of the MerodeAltarpiece." Art Bulletin 51 (1969): 267-68.48 Marilyn A Lavin, "The Mystic Winepress In theMerode Altarpiece," Studies In Late Medieval and RenaIssance Painting In Honor of MIllard Meiss (New York1977), p 298.49 Freeman, "The Iconography of the MerodeAltarpiece," p. 13650 Josez De Coo, "A Medieval Look at the MerodeAnnuncwtlOn," Zertschrift fur Kunstgeschlchte 44 (1891)128.51 Minott, "The Theme of the Merode Altarpiece,"

p 267.52 Here I have been aided by Frank Kermode, TheGenesis of Secrecy (Cambndge, 1979).53 Harold Bloom, " 'Before Moses Was, 1 Am" The

anginal and Belated Testaments," In Notebooks in CulturalAnalysis, ed N. Cantor (Durham, 1984), p. 5, 13.54 See Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche Life as Literature (Cambndge, 1985.)55 Julius S. Held, review of Early NetherlandIsh PaintIng, Art Bulletin 37 (1955). 205. A further study of anhistorians' '. common sense" might explore the responses totwo deviant interpretatIOns. Maurice W Brockwell, ThePseudo-Arnolfim Portrait (London, 1952); ZdzlslawKepfnskl, " 'Amolfim Couple' or John and Margaret vanEyck as David and Bethsheba," Rocznik Hlstorii Sztuki 10(1974). 149-64. Like books proclaiming that Bacon is thereal author of Shakespeare's plays, these accounts are notreally taken seriously

24956 John Ruskin, Modern Painters lBoston, n.d),

SA0557 Joan Evans quoted In George P. Landow, The

Aesthetic and Crrtical TheOries of John Ruskin (Princeton,197\) , p. 433, pp. 436-7; see also Jack Lindsay, Turner,London, 1973, p. 285; and Elizabeth K. H e l ~ l n g e r . Ruskinand the Art of the Beholder (Cambridge, 1982)58 HeIsinger, Ruskin and the Art. p. 254

59 Charles F Stuckey, "Reading Rauschenberg, " ArtIn America 65 (March-April 1977).74-84

60 Douglas Crimp, "On the Museum's RUins," Ocro-ber 13 (1980). 68.61 ThiS argument IS anllclpated by Rosahnd Krauss,"Rauschenberg and the Matenahzed Image," Artforum 13(1974): 40-4L62 Charles Hope, Tinan (New York, 1980), CharlesHope, "Artists, Patrons, and AdVisers In the ltahanRenaissance," in Patronage In The RenaIssance. ed. GLytle and S. Orgel (Princeton, 1981), pp. 293-343;Svetlana Alpers, The Ar t of Describing (Chicago, 1983)63 Erwin Panofsky, Meamng In the Visual Arts (Gar

den City, 1955), p. 2764panofsky, Early Netherlandish Palming, pp 133,138, 143, 148, 147

65 See Fletcher, Allegory66 Panofsky, "Jan van E y c k ' ~ 'Amolfini' Portrait,"

p.20L67 Otto Paecht, "Panofsky' s 'Early N e t h e r l a n d l ~ h

Paintlng'-I," Burlington MagaZine 98 (1956) 2766IlFreud, The Standard Edillon (London, 1958\, 4 277My Italics

69 Held, review of Panofsky, p 213.70 Paecht, "Panofsky' s 'Early Netherlandish Palntlng'

1," p 27671 Even this modest proposal generates further debate

Craig Harbison questions whether such symbohsm IS intentional; Alexander Nehamas asks why the candle on thefrreplace is unlll 1 believe that the general approach of thISpaper suggests how these questions might be answered.Thanks are due to Craig Harbison, Alexander Nehamas

and, especially, Mark RoskilL

2.naturalism and allegory in flemish painting

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