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I15

Realismas a comic mode:

low-lifepaintingseenthroughBredero's yes*

SvetlanaAlpers

It is notorious hat thereis no contemporaryheoryto

explain what the great northern I7th-century genre

painterswereup to in theirart.Fromentin'spassionateevocation of the oneness of Dutch art and life, the

notion that instead of talkingor even thinkingabout

whathe wasdoingthe Dutch artistsimplyset himselfthe taskof describingall of the world aroundhim, dies

hard.Its pointwould seemto be thatDutch artistsdid

not make art, they rendered life. One of the many

problems with this conception is the selectivity the

Dutch artist exercised. In art, for example, peasantscelebratewith drinking, ightingandmaking ove (andthere are separateworksdevoted to each activityand

combinations hereof),labor n the context of seasonal

landscaperepresentations,or simply provide staffageforlandscapeor interior cenes of theirdwellings.With

veryfew exceptions,the actualexperienceof the peas-

antor the poorwhich we find later n Courbet'sStone-breakersrvanGogh'sPotatoeaters s impossible n the

I7th centurywhen in art, at least, such peopleneither

suffer normal human ills nor die natural deaths. The

problemwe facein interpretingI7th-centurynorthern

* I want o thank heJohnSimonGuggenheimMemorialFoundation

whosesupportduringI972-73 enabledme to do the research or and

write this article.My thanks also go to JerroldLanes who as editor

of the ArtQuarterlymadeseveralhelpfulsuggestionsabout he article

which he planned o publishin that temporarily I hope) suspended

publication.I T.J. Clark n his fine revisioniststudy of Courbet,Imageof the

people:GustaveCourbet nd the1848revolution,Greenwich,Connec-ticut1973, mplies hat he realistbiasandmanifestoes f themid-I9th

century,such as we find,forexample, n the writingof Champfleury,did not do justiceto the kind of social realitiesdealtwith by Courbet

in his works.Nevertheless,the issue of realismwas a matter of dis-

cussion at the time. See Linda Nochlin, Realism,Harmondsworth&

BaltimoreI97I, for the best surveyof 19th-century exts on realism

in art, which she summarizesas presentinga "program n contem-

poraneity" p. 28).2 Far frombeingunique, this situation n the northof Europeex-

actly parallels hatin the southwhere,as has beenpointedout before,

realism s no differentreallyfrom the problemwe face

in understandingheadmittedlyessfrequentexamplesof such realism n Italian,Frenchor Spanishart of the

time. The peasantfamilies of the Le Nains, or the so-

called Egg-cooker f Velazquez,like Ter Brugghen's

musicians or Brouwer'sfighting peasants,remain ad-mired and yet puzzlingworks:it is hard to equatethe

artistic mpressivenessof such imageswith the goalof

simplyimitatingnature.

The basic problem,of course, is that I7th-century"realists,"unlikethose of the Igthcentury,drewup no

program or their realism.' All the theoreticalwritingof the period,from let us sayKarel vanManderto Jande Bisschop,is broadlyclassicistic n its assumptions,for this wastheonlyvocabulary vailableor nstructing

paintersand describingtheir paintings.2The verbal

formulathat comes closest to describingthe obvious

concernsof Dutch and Flemish paintings s "naer hetleven" (from life), the phraseused sometimesby the

artists hemselvesandby theoristssuch as vanMander

to designatethose works drawndirectlyafter nature.3

But while Fromentin saw "naer het leven" as the

there is a striking alling-offof theoreticalpublicationson art in thefirsthalf of the i7th century,startingat the time of what wemightcallthe"return o nature" fAnnibaleCarracci ndCaravaggio.My pointis that herewasno available ocabularyither nthe northor thesouthforputting orth heassumptions f theessentially mitativeaspectsofa pictorialart. In retrospect,as I hopeto show in thisarticle,contem-

porary iterary heoryandpracticecanhelp us fill in this verbalgap.

3 While the evidenceofferedby draftsmen'snotationsandwrittenaccountsdemonstrated hatportraits ndlandscapeswereoften done"naerhet leven,"there s a problemas to who did the firstdrawingsafter activities of daily life. E.K.J. Reznicek,Die ZeichnungenonHendrikGoltzius,vol. I, Utrecht I96I, p. I74, gives the honor to

Jacquesde Gheyn;whileJoaneathAnnSpicer,"The 'Naer het leven'

drawings:byPieterBruegelorRoelandtSavery?,"MasterDrawings(1970),pp. I6-17, counterswithSavery.Of course,aswecannothelpremarkingsinceGombrich'sArt and llusion), vendrawing he activ-ities of daily ife after ife involvesartisticchoices andconventions,asconcernsbothwhat s imitatedand how this is done.



SVETLANA ALPERS

guiding principleof Dutch art, modern studies have

had the effect of setting this concern in appropriatecontexts.Few, if any, life-like paintingswereactuallyexecuteddirectly romlife, andstylisticstudiessuchas

that of Reznicekon Goltzius haveemphasized hecon-

tinuing importanceof imagined elements ("uit den

geest"). Meanwhile, iconographicstudies, the most

thoroughbeing those by E. de Jongh, have demon-

strated that moral meaningsare hidden beneath the

realistic urfaceof manyworks.4 t is surelyparadoxicalthatbeneath heseductiverendering f themiddle-class

world as we find it, for example, n Vermeer's amous

Love letter n the Rijksmuseum,urkwarningsagainstthe seductions of the world. But it remains to be

explained,I think, why the new, realisticrepresenta-

tions of middle-class ife serve as moralexamples.Toputitanotherway, whyand how arethe moral eachingsof I6th-centuryart now transformed nto a realistic

mode of representation?Is it, perhaps, owing to a

Calvinistimpulse (such as we find in New England

puritanism) o lookforspiritualmeanings n everyob-

ject of the world?But althoughwe cannotyet answer

thisquestion, t is alreadyclearthat the relationshipde

Jongh has been able to demonstratebetween genre

paintingsof middle-class ife and the illustrationsand

meaningsof contemporary mblembooks can be used

to compensate ignificantlyor the absenceof anycon-

temporary heoryaboutthe rationale or a realisticart,so much so that there is a tendency todayto conclude

that if a 17th-centurypaintingis realistic,it must be

teachingus a lesson. We look, in other words, for the

moral essonin every painting.The purpose of this paper is to call attention to

another context in which we can consider northern

realismand specifically he so-called "low-life"works

4 See E. deJongh,Zinne-en minnebeeldenndeschilderkunstande

zeventiendeeuw,AmsterdamI967, and E.K.J. Reznicek,"Realism

as a 'side roadorbyway' n Dutchart,"ActsoftheXXth Art Historical

Congress,ol. 2, Princeton1963,pp. 247-53. Sincethe completionof

this article threeyearsago, this mode of interpretingDutch realismhasproliferated ndbeen furtherdeveloped.See forexampleHessel

Miedema,"Overhet realismen de Nederlandse childerkunst ande

zeventiendeeeuw," Oud-Holland 9 (I975), pp. 2-i8. While I still

stand by my proposalof a comic interpretationof certain Dutch

peasantpictures,I have now come to think that in our attemptsto

explain he artwehavetended o underestimate,o lookright hroughas it were, tsdescriptive oncerns.Dutchart s moreanartof descrip-

tion,artfunctioningasdescription, han scholars odayallow t tobe.

5 G.A. Bredero,Grootied-boeck, msterdam 622; I havemodern-ized the spellingwhen not referring o theoriginaledition.A modern

that depict peasantsand poorer elements of society.Sincewe lackany contemporaryheoreticaldiscussions

of the nature and meaningsof such realism, I have

turned nstead o oneof the fewavailable ontemporarydiscussions of the peasantin art, namely the preface

("Voorrede"n Dutch) to the firstsectionof the Groot

lied-boeck y G.A. Bredero(I585-1618), best-known

among 17th-centuryDutch writers for his realistic

poetryand farcicalplays(kluchten).5he poet proposes

"boertige vermakelijkheid"1. 9)-literally broad or

rustic comic amusements-as the rationale orhis real-

istic poems aboutpeasants n a way that is suggestiveforthe understanding f peasantsas they appear n art.

The parallelthat can be drawn between some of his

"boertige iedkens"(literallysongs "comic in a rustic

way"-though, as the poems and the preface makeclear, the connectionwith peasants s foremostin the

poet'smind)and particular ypes of peasantpaintingsconfirms he pertinenceof this text forthe studentand

viewerof art.

Let us startby examiningBredero'sprefaceand the

explanationt offersof therealistic epresentation f the

peasant.Then we shall turnto the working-outof these

views as we find it in some of the poems themselves,andfinally o some worksof art whichI hope will seem

more intelligibleas the result of our preparation or

them.

BREDERO'S PREFACE

The prefaceby Bredero hat s printedat the beginningof the 1622editionof his Groot ied-boecks known to-

dayto arthistoriansbecauseof a singlephrasereferringto "the painter'sadagethat those are the best painterswho come closest to life," (1.73).6What we wish the

paintershad comerightout andsaidthemselves s here

edition is in print,editedby A.A. vanRijnbach,Groot ied-boek an

G.A. Brederode,RotterdamI971 (first publishedin this edition in

I944),hereafter o be cited as "Rijnbach,Bredero."A new editionis

presentlybeing prepared, spartof the editionof Bredero's omplete

works, under the general editorshipof Garmt Stuiveling. As anappendix othis article haveprinted he Dutch text of thepreface nd

an Englishtranslation.Line references n my articlewill be madeto

the Dutch text. My thanksto David Freedbergof The Courtauld

Institute,LondonUniversity,and oGarySchwartz f Maarssen,The

Netherlands, or theirhelpin providinga translation f thiscomplexandwittytext.Professor ohannSnapperof theUniversityof Califor-

nia, Berkeley,also came to my aid on a moment's notice with someadviceaboutDutch usageandspelling.

6 Foracharacteristiceferenceo thisphrase, eeS.J. Gudlaugsson,"Bredero'sLucelle,"NederlandsKunsthistorischaarboek (I947), p.

I72.

II6



Realism as a comic mode

casuallyattributed o themasacommonplace.Further,Brederogoes on to put this praiseof the imitation of

natureinto the context of the conflict between those

painterswho arguefor beingclose to natureandthose

whoprefer"thetwistingandbendingof joints... posi-tions and attitudesoutsideof nature"(1.76). We have

in these wordsa summaryof the conflict between real-

ism and mannerism hat is commonlyseen todayas a

major ssue in Dutch and Flemish art in the yearsjust

priorto the writingof the preface.Fromthis statementand from the poemsit is meant

to introduce, we tend to conclude that Bredero was

simply a realist,and it is for this reasonthat he is so

often cited as the closest parallel to artists such as

BruegelorOstadeandthus asthe mostDutch of Dutch

poets.It is

importanto

sayat the outset that this does

not give a justpictureof him. Bredero waspartof the

renaissanceof Dutch literatureat the startof the I7th

century and, like other writers of the time, such as

Hooft,he was attracted o the greatexampleof aliteraryrenaissancen France,the poetryof the Pleiade,itself

a vernacular esponseto the achievementof Rome, if

you will. AlthoughBrederowrotesongsand farces n a

realisticmode, he also, in his short life, tried his hand

at elevated ovelyrics, spiritual ongsandatragedy.Far

fromsettinghis sightsonly on the commonpeople,he

dedicated his plays to men of wealth (Rodd'rickand

AlphonsusI616] to Hugo de Groot, and TheSpanishBrabanderI6I8] to the Swedish ambassador o The

Hague), thoughat the same time he made much both

of his lack of education in foreigntongues and of his

being a simple, native Amsterdamer(he signed his

song-book"BrederoAmsterdammer").notherwords,Bredero lirtedwith theexampleofferedbythe Pleiade,but he was specialamongthe leadingDutch poets of

his time for not accepting it as his touchstone. The

conflict between a native realism and a foreign high

style is, of course, an issue in contemporarypaintingalso and makes the example of Bredero particularly

interestingfor the student of art.

7 Althoughnone of his worksseem to be preserved,Bredero,who

was bornin I585, worked or a time under the Italianatepainterof

Flemishorigins,FrancoisBadens.The will listingBredero's ather's

effectsmentionspaintingsby his son of David andBathsheba,David

and Abigail, Pyramusand Thisbe and a Fortune. Brederohimself

wroteto Badensabouta copyhe had made aftera workby Sebastian

Vrancx;andhe must have knownPieterLastman,as Bredero's ister

was engaged n a law-suit(perhapsovera brokenengagement)with

that well-knownAmsterdampainter.On Bredero's ife see J.A.N.

Brederohadunique authority o providean analogybetween his poetryand art, since, as he saysearlier n

the passagequotedabove,he had been a painterhim-

self.7 But we must not forget that here he speaksas a

poet and thatthe reference o paintingafter life standsas an explanationof the languagehe employs in his

"boertige"poems. Though real and low were bound

by an age-old link, the natureof this link was rather

different, think, nthe I7thcentury romwhat tmightbeto ustoday.Forus,as heirsto the Igth-centurynovel

andto critics likeAuerbach, t seemsnatural hatreal-

ism should deal with simple, ordinarypeople.8 For

Bredero and the I7th century, the reasoningworked

in just the other direction:it was only appropriate o

representordinarypeople in a realistic manner. And

ordinary life, realisticallyrendered,was

specificallyconceivedof as the stuff of which comedy was made.

Hence, Bredero'sremark, n the context of the prefaceas a whole, is a defense not of realism as such, but of

realism as the poet employs it in a specificallycomic

mode of poetrydealingwithpeasant ife andhabits.Bredero'spreface, o summarize t briefly,begins by

describing his poems as entertainment suitable for

festiveoccasions,whatwe mightcall light verse.Next,he defends at somelengthhis attemptto employactual

speech-that is, not just the vernacularn contrastto

Latin, but the speechof particularpeasantsfrom Old

Amsterdamand Waterland an areajust north of thecity); it is in this context that Bredero offerspaintingafter life as an analogyto his verse. He then proceedsto suggest a moral purpose for clothing city sins in

countrydressand concludesby claimingthat he never

wantedeven to publishthese dittiesanyhowandis only

bowingto the pressurebroughtto bear on him by the

popularity f earlier,unauthorized ditions 1.135).The

preface s written,then, as a kindof rhetorical our de

force, full of gaiety,wit and art, casual and yet with a

clearpurpose.In effect it sets forth the rationaleof a

professional oetforhaving akenupas a formof poetrywhat had beenoriginallya kindof song,anonymousby

Knuttel,Bredero, oeet nAmsterdammer,msterdam 968, pp. 9-28.This articlewascompletedbefore the interesting tudyof Moeyart'spainting based on a Brederoplay appeared:PieterJ.J. van Thiel,

"MoeyaertandBredero:a curiouscaseof Dutch theatreas depictedin art," Simiolus 6 (1972/73), pp. 29-49.

8 By "mimesis"Auerbachactuallyrefers to the serious treatmentof the life of the common people-to be realistic about the upperclasses s almosta contradictionn terms orhim. See ErichAuerbach,Mimesis: herepresentationf reality n Westerniterature,rans.Wil-

lardR. Trask,Princeton1968.

117



SVETLANA ALPERS

its very nature, which had first been collected and

published in the mid-I6th century and had a great

voguein the spateof song-bookspublishedaround he

turn of the I7th century n the north Netherlands.

Here we must stop for a moment,beforediscussingthe comic context of the preface,to untanglethe com-

plex bibliographical toryof Bredero'ssongs, because

this has some bearingon our understandingof it. No

copies remainof the first two editions of the poemsmentionedby Brederoin his prefaceas having been

published n Leiden andAmsterdam,nor are thereanyof thethirdedition,forwhich theprefacewasoriginallywritten.The earliestedition that is extant today was

actuallythe fourth to be printed,that of 1621 (it ap-

peared posthumously, three years after the poet's

death), a tiny volume the only copy of which is pre-servedin the KoninklijkeBibliotheek n The Hague.9It wouldappear, rom whatBredero aysin hispreface,that the lost third edition (and presumablythe two

earlieronesaswell)containedonlycomicsongs,entitled

"geestig,"or witty, by the editorrather han"mal,"or

crazy,asthe poetwould havepreferred.10t is forthese

comic poems that the prefacewe are consideringwas

prepared.The 162I edition,thoughentitled"Geestig"on the titlepage, ncludes, n addition,sections entitled

"Bron derminnen"(Sourceof love) and "Aandachtigliedboek"(Spiritualsong-book), following the tradi-

tionalI6th-centurydivisions of rederijkers' erse. It is

important o remember,however, hat both the generaltitle, Geestig,and Bredero'spreface,referonly to the

first section. In the splendidly produced volume of

1622, the publishernot only added some previously

unpublishedpoems by Bredero,but also retitled the

entire book Groot lied-boeck Great song-book); the

poemspreviouslyentitled"geestig"nowappear or the

first time as "boertig." Once again, of course, the

prefacerefersonlyto the poems n the firstsectionand,

owingto the melangeof different,unpublishedpoemsthe editor

added,by now only to a certain numberofthose.1

9 G.A. Bredero, Geestigh iedt-boecxken,Amsterdam I621, de-

scribedas a smalloctavo(7.5 x 9.9 cm. by my measurements).Io Rijnbachdoesnot make his clear,but Bredero ells his readers

in thepreface hat "before ongI propose o devotea biggersongbookto you to be namedBronder minne"1.181),thusrevealing hatthis,the secondsection(likethe third),wasyet to be written.

1 For a discussionof theseproblems eeRijnbach,Bredero, p.cit.

(note 5), pp. xix, xx.12 Woordenboeker Nederlandscheaal, The Hague, I882-

Now toreturn otheprefaceofthe 622edition tself.

The term "boertig," although actuallythe choice of

Bredero'spublisherafterthe poet's death, has an ad-

vantageover the previoustitles given to these poems

(Bredero's"malle" and the first-used"geestige"),in

that it suggestsjustthatplayon words betweenboertig,

meaning unny n abroad,rusticway,andboer,peasant,which is centralto the prefaceand the poems them-

selves.12Brederobeginsby offering hepoemsassome-

thingto be enjoyedat feast times ("banquets, eastsor

weddings")andhalf-way hroughreturns o thistheme

in slightlydifferentwords,moving abruptlyfrom his

discussionof the elementof moral nstruction ontained

inthem to reiteratehattheyare o beenjoyedwithgoodcheerand entertainment1. I6).This linkingofcomedy

and the feast has a venerablehistory.WhatbeganwithPlato'sSymposium as stressedagain,mostparticularly

by the humanists in the Renaissance. Rabelais ad-

dressedhis Gargantua I533) to "most nobleboozers"

and describeshimself ashavingbeendrinkingwhile he

wrote.AndwhileRabelais haracteristicallymphasizesthe physicalfact of bodily refreshmenton the partof

thewriterand thereader, t is perhapsmorecommon o

emphasizethe occasion of the feast as such: works as

dissimilar as the Diversjeux rustiques f Du Bellay

(1558) and Ben Jonson'sEpicene1609) are offeredin

just these terms.13The recreativenatureof the feast

providesajustificationorthecasual erms n whichthework s composedand meant to be received.

Anotheraspectof the recreative, ven informalcon-

dition of the composition s the repeatedclaim of the

writersof comic works that they had no intention of

publishing hem, thatit was all done against heir will.

The most famousof such disclaimers s surelythat of

Erasmus,who in hisprefaceclaimsto havewrittenThe

praiseoffolly while travelling by horse from Italy to

Englandand in the letter to Dorp furtherelaborates

this account nto theclaim that he wrote t with no idea

of publication, implyas distraction romthe painof akidney attack when caught without his books at the

(hereafter itedas WNT), s.v. boertig,whichrefers n turn o the root-wordboert romthe Old Frenchbourde,meaningplayor joke.

13 FrancoisRabelais,The histories f Gargantua nd Pantagruel,trans.J.M. Cohen,Harmondsworth& Baltimore1957,p. 37;Joachimdu Bellay,Diversjeux ustiques,Geneva1965,pp. 3-4; "Epicene," nBenJonson, Works, d. C.H. Herford& PercyandEvelynSimpson,vol. 5, pp. 163-64,hereafter o be citedas"Jonson,Works." wanttothankJonasA. BarishandPaulAlpersforhelpingme to understandBredero'snotion of comedyfroma literarypointof view.

II8




houseof Sir ThomasMore. Friendssimplytwistedhis

arm, as it were, to make him let them publish it.14

Predictably,we find Brederoplacinghis book of songsin thisverytradition,claiming hat not once, buttwice,these "capriciousfantasies"(1. 140) were publishedwithout either his desireor his permission.15

The notion of writingcomedies on vacation,so to

speak(oratandforfeasts), s subtlyboundup with the

notion of the license permittedto such occasionsand,

by analogy, to such writings. Erasmus, himself the

creatorof literarybanquets,providesan instanceof this

view in his letter to Dorp, where he introducesPlato's

approvalof "fairly avishdrinkingmatchesatbanquetsbecausehe believes herearecertain aults hatausteritycannot correctbut thatthe gaietyof wine-drinking an

dispel."16But there are certain limits to this license.Here, as in the influential Tabletalk, where Plutarch

argues hat freedomof speechandwit, like a brawl,are

all rightat a banquetif they arisenaturally, he imageis one of the license permittedto a groupof friends.17

Wit is appropriate-decorous,to use the more technical

word-to such a group because it involves, perhaps

implicates,them all in some similarway.

Thus, it is not only the certain pleasuresthat are

suggestedby the imageof the banquetbut, further, he

assumptionof familiaritywith his audience who are

sitting down with him at the same table (compare

Bredero'saddressof the songsto "mijen mijnevrien-den en vriendinnen,"myselfandmy friends,bothmale

and female(1. 18), with Erasmus'sdedicationof The

14 Erasmus,Praiseoffolly, trans.BettyRadice,Harmondsworth&

Baltimore1971,pp. 55, 217-18.

15 Formyattempt o demonstrateherelevance fBredero'snotion

of comic literature o art,it is significant hathis reference o "grillige

grilletjes" whichwe have translatedas "capricious ancies")echoes

Pliny'shumorousartisticcategoryof Grilli,whichterm wasappliedin turnby Don Felipede Guevara o Bosch andin vanDyck'sIconog-

raphie o AdriaenBrouwer,who is called"grillorumpictor":seeE.H.

Gombrich,Normandform, London 1966, p. 15I, note 30. Since I

completed hisarticleanexchange nthesubjectof low-lifedepictions

as grilli, and hence as comic, appeared n Proef,Februaryand MayI974. Though Bredero was appropriatelymentioned, the general

emphasisof the exchangewas on the etymologyof the wordand the

categoriesof art worksto which it was appliedrather hanon inter-

pretationwhich is my main interest here. I want to thankEddy de

Jonghfor firstpointingout the relevanceof this term to me and also

for the helpful suggestions hathe made when he read this article n

an earlier orm. This is also the placeto thankHessel Miedema whointroduced he topicof "grilli" n Proef)forsharingwith me some of

his wideknowledgeof the peasantas a subject n Dutch art.

I6 Ibid., pp. 2I5-i6.

praise of folly to More, or Rabelais's dedication of

Gargantua o "most noble boozers and you my most

esteemedpoxy friends-for you and you alone aremy

writings dedicated") hat marksBredero's Voorrede s

beingwell within this comic tradition.

Forthese reasons hepeasantsBredero ntroducesus

to in the prefaceare not meant to evoke a censorious

response,nor to encouragemockinglaughter;rather,

they appeal to our instinct for feasting and physical

pleasure.This is what has been justly termed festive

comedy,as contrastedwith a moralisticone, althoughthe two are best thoughtof not as contradictorybut as

differingin emphasis.18Bredero, as we shall see, is

concernedwith moral ssuesin hiscomicverse,but in a

particularlyfestive mode. Though it is quite clear

throughoutthe prefacethat the poet is not a peasant(asneither,ofcourse,werehisreaders),heplacesstrong

emphasison the communityof humanpleasures hared

by both: how easily the convivial image of the poet

offeringentertainment o his reader(in the first sen-

tence)slides ntoBredero'smemoryof hisownyouthfulhours spent with a company of peasants. What the

peasantonce did forhim, hispoemswill nowdo forhis

audience.This is, in Bredero'sview, the purposeof his

comicverse,and it is fullyandmostsplendidlyrealized

in the poemsthat follow.

Inbothliterary heoryandpractice, omedyhadbeen

since antiquitythe low genreand as such the realisticone. The issue of the decorumof imitating ow speechin artwas the subjectof livelydiscussionin i6th- and

17 Plutarch,Quaestiones onviviales,2.1.634. I found Mary A.

Grant,Theancient hetorical heories f thelaughable,Madison(Uni-

versityofWisconsinStudies nLanguageandLiterature,nr.2 ) 1924,a helpful guideto ancientwriterson the subjectof humor.

18 See C.L. Barber,Shakespeare'sestive comedy,Princeton1959,for the identification ndanalysisof thiscomic mode n Shakespeare'scomedies.It is interesting hat in the 17th-centuryNetherlands he

popularfestivities that Barbersuggests Shakespearedrewon in his

comic plays emerge primarily n artrather han in literatureas theydid in England.Thus Bredero's ongsare,I believe,an exception.A

similar kind of festive invitation and address, without, however,reference o peasants,turns up in other contemporary ong-books;see, forexample,Dennieuwenust-hof,Amsterdam1602,whosetitle

page ntroduces hesongsas"Mey,bruylofts,TafelendeNieuvv-jaersliedekens." See below, note 45, for more on this song-book.JoelLefebvre,Lesfols et lafolie, Paris1968,tracesa similarcomic strainin 16th-centuryGerman iterature ealingwithfools.His emphasis nthe artisticbasis of this comic mode is complemented,as it were,byBakhtin's tudyof Rabelais,whichassumes hatthis kind of comedyis native to and thus a productof the commonpeople themselves:

MikhailBakhtin,Rabelais ndhisworld,rans.HeleneIswolsky,Cam-

bridge,Massachusetts 968.

IIQ



SVETLANAALPERS

17th-centurycomic theory. In theoreticalstatements,at least, the rule of decorumin languageand action

generallyprevailed-it wasTerence, not Plautus,who

washeld up as a model.19 n this context,whatis most

interestingabout Bredero is his argumentfor actual

low speech: "It is all the same to me if I learn the

knowledgeof my mother tongue from a mighty kingor a poorbeggar, f the wordscome from the rubbish

bin or from he mostelegantandgreatest reasurehouse

of the world:eachmustprovideme withgold,silverand

coppermoneyaccording o theirproperworth"(1.55).While the imageof languageas minted coin is a con-

ventionalone, Bredero'sappeal or the useof tarnished

coins, "old and mouldyand square,"with the added

filip"from he rubbishbin,"is not.Onemight compare

his view to BenJonson'smiddle-of-the-roadargumentfor the best of the new andthe best of the old coinage,as he states it in his Discoveries, or example.20But

perhapsmoreunusual s Bredero'sargument or the use

of the particularAmsterdamand Waterlanddialects:

few if anycomic writersof the timeargue n thiswayfor

a particular ocabulary ndwayof speech.The nation-

alism common to all Renaissanceargumentsfor the

vernacular,which is revealed in Bredero's defence of

Dutch againstthe Latinizers,is distinguished by his

emphasison the actual speech of a specificgroup of

peasants.If we consider this attitudein the context of Dutch

literature, ather han aspartof comictheoryandprac-

tice, wefind that lowness seems to have beenpracticed,on occasion,even bya writerasdifferent rom Bredero

asP.C. Hooft. We recallHooft's statement n a letter of

I630, to Huygens, "To pick up outcastwords off the

streetandmake hem do such serviceas suitsthem,even

thoughit wereamong nobility,is a thing one can take

creditfor."21But it has beenpointedout that Bredero's

insistenceon and use of Amsterdamdialect s aprotest-a radicalprotest, n fact-from withinthe vernacular

movementagainstthe hegemonyof the Brabant(i.e.southern)dialect, which was the establishedliterary

languageof the Netherlandsat the time.22

19 MarvinT. Herrick,Comicheorynthesixteenth entury,Urbana

(IllinoisStudies n LanguageandLiterature,nr. 34, I-2) I950, is the

standard urveyof Renaissance omictheory.20 Jonson, Works, p. cit. (note 13),vol. 8, p. 622, lines I926-44.21 P.C. Hoofts,brieven: ieuwe, ermeerderde,n naardenoorspron-

kelijkenext herziene itgave,mettoelicht,aanteekeningenn bijlagen

[byJ. vanVloten],vol. 2: 163o-34,Leiden I856, p. I.

Aside from the issue of decorum,the other majorissue facing the writer of comedy was naturallythe

moralone: to whatpurposeis comedy written? Most

Renaissancewritersclaimedforcomedythe samemix-

ture of delightingandteaching hatwasclaimedfor the

highergenre, tragedy.But the answers o the questionextendedfrom an extremeof the notion of the elevated

comic moralist tocontinueourearliercomparison, ne

might example the prefaceof Ben Jonson's Volpone

[i6o3])23to the extreme of the entertainer Jonson's

actualwritingof Bartholomewair [I614]). Bredero's

prefacedoes mentionthe moralpurposeof his poems:"I describe the follies of some people in a ridiculous

manner .. I haveput many thingsin a rusticwaythat

none the less takes into accountcity dwellers"(1.99).

He aims to makepalatablean exposureof the folliesofhis middle-classaudiencebydisguising hem n peasantdress. But I think it fair to say-though previouscom-

mentatorswouldperhapsnotagree-that this is hardlymore thanpro orma.Bredero n fact could(anddid on

occasion)speakmorestronglyon this issue. The con-

trastbetweenthis mildand casualreference o teachingandhispreface o TheSpanishBrabander,where moral

instruction s a seriousissue, is striking.Here, in the

preface o hisBoertigiedboek, redero,after endingoff

the anticipatedaccusationof beinga satirist,switches

his fast-movingchatterfrom moralsto entertainment,

declaring hat he has writtenthese poems more from

delight than with troublesome ntentions (the Dutch

"meer uit lust als uit laster" [1. II5] is succinct and

witty, as the Englishis not).Bredero'spointis well taken.The notionof comedy

in his preface s dominatedby the notionof "lust,"as

it is gailypresented o us in the conventional mageof

the banquetor feast.

THE POEMS

Afterthe author'svehementdefenceof the principleof

realisticrenderingof peasant anguage, t is surprisingto turn to the "boertige"songsthemselves,whichare

conceived-as the two additional books of the Great

22 See A.A. Verdenius,"Bredero's ialectkunst ls Hollandsereac-tie tegenZuidnederlandseaalhegemonie,"n Studiesoverzeventiende

eeuws,Amsterdam1946,pp. 3-I8. As Dr. SonjaWitstein of Utrecht

rightlypointedout to me, in comparisono the Netherlands,England(andcertainly he othermajor iterarycountries-France, Italy and

Germany)did not havesucha greatnumberof distinctregionaldia-lects on which to draw.

23 Jonson, Works, p. cit. (note 13),vol. 5, pp. 17-21.

I20



Realismas a comic mode

song-bookwere to be-in the frameworkof the i6th-

century rederijkerraditionof the humorous,amorous

andspiritual yric.24 n keepingwith this tradition, he

twenty poemsin the first sectionof the book,which are

properlycalled"boertig,"renderstock situations rom

the life of the commonpeoplethat hadalreadybeenthe

choice of poets and, probably following their lead,

painters nthe i6th century.25t is certainpleasuresand

entertainments f the peasant,not at all the livingand

workingconditionsof his existence, that are at issue.

Peasantshereoccupythemselveswith aparty,akermis,the celebrationof St. John'sEve,or elsetheyhavetime

to stand, arranged n conventionalpairings-age and

youth, uncle andniece, aunt andnephew,mother and

daughter,and so on-to discuss the stateof their loves

and possible marriages.We must keep in mind, tocontinueourmajor heme,that at the time such scenes

were recognized, at least in contemporaryliterary

theory,as beingthe stuffof whichcomedyis made. So

strong were these artistic conventions that Martin

Opitz, writing n 1624,got himself into the positionof

speakingof weddings,partiesandgamesasif theywere

peculiarto low people: comedy, he says, is concerned

only with "low beings and persons"and with events

thatcommonlytakeplace amongthem, such as "wed-

dings,parties,games, he deceitandtrickery fservants,boastfulservants, lirtations, he frivolityof youth, the

avariceof old age, impingand such things."26But the results that come fromBredero's reatment

of theseconventional omicscenesaresurprising.Take,for example,the old man courtingthe young woman,

offeringher his riches,both literallyandfiguratively-his money alongwith the wisdomandexperienceof his

years.Brederouses the predictablerejectionof his suit

by the girl not just as a device to point up the folly of

24 Although herearemanyseparate tudiesof thetradition f such

songs, the best summary reatment have found thatplacesthem in

the contextof literaryhistory s inJanteWinkel,De ontwikkelingsgangderNederlandscheetterkunde,nded., 7 vols., Haarlem1922-27, vol.

2, p. 244ff.

25 In the introduction o his editionof the Groot ied-boeckRijn-bachargues hatonly abouta quarterof the 82 songsincludedamongthe songs groupedas boertigwereproperlycalled so. The rest were

simply included by the editor, who aimed to fit into the tripartiteformatof the bookall the unprinted ongs of the recentlydead Bre-

dero.Rijnbach,Bredero, p. cit. (note5), p. xix.

26 MartinOpitz,BuchvonderdeutschenoetereyI624),ed.Richard

Alewyn, Tiibingen 1963, p. 20. The passagereads in the original:"Die Comedie bestehet in schlechtem wesen unnd [sic] personen:redet von hochzeiten gastgeboten spielen/ betrugund schalckheit

the aged lover, but also to arguethat it is satisfaction

that is true wealth. As the youngwomansays close to

the end of the poem, "Don't you know that who is

satisfied s rich?"27The passionof the old man'sinsis-

tent suit is, in effect,refashionedby the youngwoman,whoargues hat what her suitorwants,she wantsalso:

the refraingoes, "Whatyou seek, I also seek."28She,

too, wants love andpassion,but an ill-matchedcoupleis not the way to get such satisfaction.Bredero's as-

sumption about the necessity of equality of age in

marriage ("gelijkheid n den echten staat"),29 tated

directly n the companionpoemwith the samerefrain,which presentsthe wooingof a young man by an old

woman,is hardlyan innovativemorality.However, it

is characteristic f thesepoemsthattheydo not use the

stock comicsituations ustto showup the agingsuitorand, by implication,to makefun of and condemnhis

passions, but rather to reveal such passions as the

commonhuman lot. There is a fine sense here, andin

all the poems, of the necessaryplayingout of human

passions n the world,with no impulseto turn againstthem as a wayout of the situationsthey get men into.

It is inthis sense thatthe"boertige"poemsunabashedlyinvite us, the readers,to partakeof what, with frank

reference o the preface,we can call a pleasurableeast.

The most strikingexampleof this comic mode at

work s, in fact, the veryfirstpoemof the book,which

describesapeasantparty.30 he peasantsgather,slowlyatfirst,dressed n brightcolors.By the sixthstanza he

tempo quickens-they aredrinking, ingingand indeed

roaring,dancing;a couplein the seventh stanza make

love in the hay;a fighteruptsforno clearreason n the

eighth, a man is killed in the ninth, and the peasantsscatter.The touch is lightand the moodlivelyandgay;the killing is not anticipatedby poet or reader. The

der knechte ruhmratigenLandsknechten buhlersachen leichtfer-

tigkeitderjugend geisstedes alters kupplerenund solchensachen

die taglichuntergemeinenLeuten vorlauffen." firstcameuponthis

passagequoted n theunpublishedmanuscript f a bookon caricature

byErnstKris and E.H. Gombrich.Mythanks o ProfessorGombrichforlettingme read his study,which s oneof the raregeneral tudies

of comedy n art.

27 "Weetjijniet, zaligebestvaar, Dat wie genoegt s rijk?,"Rijn-bach,Bredero, p. cit. (note 5), p. 43.

28 "Dat jijzoekt,zoek ik mee."

29 Rijnbach,Bredero, p. cit. (note 5), p. 45.

30 Although his articlewill deal at somelengthwiththe represen-tation of kermises, I am intentionallyconcentratingon Bredero's

Peasantpartyor Boeren ezelschap ather hanhis kermispoem, Van

Gijsjen n TrijnLuls,since the formerengagesmoreof the issues we

findin art.

121



SVETLANAALPERS

moralseemsunambiguous,and it is statedby the poetat the beginningof the finalstanza,where he saysthat

fine andcheerfulburghersshould not get mixed up in

peasantpartiesbecausethese are not sweet occasions:

people often get killed. But, concludes the speaker,

quiteunexpectedly,come and drinka jugof winewith

me, it will do you good! Through the poem, the poetcatches himself and the readerup in the party onlyto reveal the dangers-drunkenness and death; yet,even as he directsour attention o the outcome of such

festivities,he encouragesus to indulgeourselves. The

festivemood is sustainedatthe end,although,asin the

poems about love, we are now awareof the human

conditionsof suchdelights.Andhere,asin the preface,the comic attitudedependson the engagementof the

poet, and in turn his engagementof the reader,withthe distinctly separate, distinctly lower world of the

peasant,to whom suchpleasurescome naturally.It is

preciselythe ambiguous mplicationsof that relation-

ship-can we indulge n such naturalpleasuresandnot

act and be likepeasantsourselves?-that is leftopenin

the invitation o the reader n the last line to come and

drink with the poet. We may contrast all this with

Rotgans'sBoerekermisf I708, which npartadaptsand

expands hisparticularpoemby Bredero,but in which

the poet-narrator eats a quickretreatas a fight heats

upat theend of BookOne andclearlyrevealshisgeneraldetachment romthe peasantsbyhisabruptretirement

to bed at the end of the poem.31Of course,a good numberof the I6th-centurysong

booksthat Bredero s imitatingmadea similarappeal,but it is of their essence that they, with apparent

innocence, do not acknowledgethe moral issues in-

31 LukasRotgans,Boerekermis, orinchem 968, pp. 40, 74. If the

readerdoubts hatafightcould be takenasfun,perhaps hisitem from

a recentnewspaper olumnwillhelppersuadehim.Oneofthe answers

to a street interviewerwho asked,"What s the best party you have

everbeen to?" went as follows:"A rowdyparty.One wherethere'sa

lot of tension,a lot of energy.Wherepeopledon't ikeyouat firstand

then you havea big fight and afterwards ou wind up likingthem.You alwaysknow somebodyprettywell after a big fight." TheSan

FranciscoChronicle,May 29, I974.

32 See Het Antwerpsiedboek, d. K. Vellekoop& H. Wagenaar-

Nolthenius,Amsterdam 972, vol. i, nr.26,"Ghi Sottenende sottine-

kens."This editionreprints ndanalyzes selectionof songsfrom his

famouspublication-the firstof themanysong-books o be published-which todayexists nonlyonecopy n theHerzogAugustBibliothek

in Wolfenbiittel.

33 JeanClaudeMargolin,Erasmet la musique, aris1965,p. i6ff.,

analyzes his passage n the contextof Erasmus's erycriticalattitude

volved.The song aboutthe kermisof the fools in the

1544 Antwerp song-book, or example, presents the

goings-onasthe actionsof fools,butallowsthe listener

or readerimply

to be entertained:oursuperiority

ets

us be vicariouslyamusedby actions for whichwe take

no responsibility.32f contemporaryconfirmation s

needed of the kind of moralappealthese songs were

feared to have, we may find it in Erasmus'sfrontal

attackon what he considered o be the blatant mmo-

ralityof the printingof such songs, and of the custom

of encouragingyounggirlsto learnto sing them.33

It is, I trust, unnecessary-and in fact would risk

seemingoppressive,becauseso out of keepingwith the

light touch of both the prefaceand the poems them-

selves-to belabor this point about Bredero's comic

view any further. Let us just conclude merely bystressingfor a moment not what these poems do re-

present,but what they do not. They do not representthe peasantsas ridiculous creatures whose behavior

stands as an exampleof the sins that othermen are to

avoid.34

SOME KERMIS PAINTINGS AND LITERATURE

Verywell,but what does Bredero's omicmode have to

do with the artof his time? Trained as we have been,in recentyears,to readi6th- and I7th-centuryrealism

as moralexemplum,Bredero'scomic views seem far-

fetched indeed. I think, however, that they are most

suggestiveof the wayin whicha largenumber of low-

lifegenreworkswereconceived.Let us takeas aparalleltothepoemwe havejustdiscussed,KarelvanMander's

I592 drawingof a peasantkermis(fig. i), which was

engraved by Nicolas Clock in 1593 (fig. 2).35 Drinking

toward music in churches. Erasmus'sclear antagonism oward and

suspicionof music and art seemin striking ontrast o his muchmore

ambivalenteelingsabout iterature.

34 See SvetlanaAlpers, "Bruegel's estive peasants,"Simiolus6

(1972/73),pp. 163-76,in whichI argued orthecomictone and ntent

informingBruegel'sdepictionof peasants.Since it wasBruegelwho

establishednot only the compositional nd figural ormulasbut alsothe basic nature of the I7th-century treatmentof the peasant in

Netherlandish rt,there s a certainoverlappingn thesetwoarticles.

35 The drawing s in the collectionof Prof.Dr. J.Q. vanRegterenAltena,Amsterdam. t was not known to ElisabethValentinerwhenshepublishedher Karelvan Mander lsMaler,Strassbourg 930, butwasmentionedby Hollsteinin connectionwith the Clockprint; seeF.W.H. Hollstein,Dutch and Flemish tchings, ngravings ndwood-

cuts, ca. I450-I700, Amsterdam I949ff., vol. 4, p. 172, nr. I , and vol.

I, p. 163,nr. 55. The drawingmeasures28.4 x 40.6 cm., pen andwash n greyandbrown nk, signedKvMander 592 at the left, with

122




I KarelvanMander,Thepeasantkermis.

Prof. Dr. J.Q: van

RegterenAltena,Amsterdam photo:

? Universityof

Amsterdam)

2 NicolasClock,afterKarelvan

Mander,Der

bouwren ermis.

Oxford,Ashmolean

Museum

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rr? i*?I- I?*2?C, Br?.; ??:: ,?r . ... ??r.1?1?I*?

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123



SVETLANA ALPERS

andeating(with urinatingandvomitingas the natural

results),kissing, dancingand fighting,are all here, asin the Bredero, with the additions of those specificaccoutrements f thekermis

tself,thesaint's

lag flyingat the left, the flag on the churchsteeple, the market

boothsin the distanceand a sampleof varioussportingevents. Not only is thereno attemptto gloss over the

roughandvulgaraspectsof thepeasantkermis, hevery

pointseems to be to assemblepictorialemblemsforthe

deadlysins, emblems that can be traced backthroughthetraditionof suchrepresentationsnitiated n monu-

mental artby, or at least at aboutthe time of, Bosch's

famous able-top n the Prado.The gluttonyof thepigswho lap up the vomit of someone who has over-in-

dulged,the angerof thoseengaged n the fight,the lust

of the frenzieddancersand the embracing oupleshereandthere,theslothof thepeople oungingatthedistant

table-the moralof all these would seem to be drawn

by the non-peasantcouple who converse at the rightside of the drawingwhile gesturingtoward the scenebeforeoureyes.

Butwhatseems,is not so. For if onereads he legendunderneath-written in vanMander'sownhandon the

drawingand presented n a slightlyaltered Latin ver-

an inscription of whichmore in a moment)underneath. t was soldoutof theC.Ploos vanAmstelCollection, MarchI8ooandfollowing

days,Albumoo, nr. I, for fl. I2 to Ph. van derSchley. Subsequentlyit was in the Lord NorthwickCollection.It hasbeen exhibitedat the

Rijksbureau oor KunsthistorischeDocumentatie,The Hague,in anexhibitionentitled Hollandseekeningenond 600, 20 July-I August

1952, nr. 55, and in the van Manderexhibition of the Koninklijk

OudheidskundigGenootschap n I936. My warmest hanks to Prof.Dr. van RegterenAltenafor the informationhe gaveme about this

drawingand for his permission o publish t here.

36 The two inscriptionsare as follows:

(I) Siet hierde boeren, n haermayesteytcoen

De kermisvieren met gietenen gapenSij houden wel vele vangoet bescheytdoen

Maerweynichbescheytcanmendaerbetrapen

Deen singthdanderspringhtde derde wil slapen

Of de papegaei chieten,voorslechtenbuytDaer de verkenscommende pijlenrapenDan compthet nochdiewijlsop een vechtenuyt

(2) En leti celebrantEnceniaRurisAlumniEt ThymeleMopso post puculaBasiafigit.

Hinc CanitAtquesalit Chromiset Mnasyluset AegleEst vomitu nstauret purcisqui praudiaPorcis.

Mos uterinflaturmiserIrus Cormia umit

sion signed by F.E. (FrancoEstius)on the engraving

(fig. 2)-the point seemsto be that such a celebration,with all its fighting, drinking,vomitingandso forth,is

justwhat

peasantswilldo.36 t is not

inappropriatehat

a second, undatedengraving,attributedto Gillis van

Breen,37adds to the Latin inscriptionof Estius the

Dutch legend which can be loosely translated,"Now

let us put on our Sunday best and wash our faces

because t is not a kermisevery day"-or, as a current

Dutch-Englishdictionaryhas it (fortheexpression till

lives), "Christmas omes but once a year,"or, "life is

not allbeerand skittles."38 his defenceof thepeasant's

periodic letting-go supplements,but in no way con-

tradicts, he legendon van Mander'sdrawingof 1592.

It was, in fact, takenby the publisherfrom a closely

relatedworkby vanMander,a 1588drawing certainlyintended for engraving)of a couple off to a kermis

(fig. 3).39 This couple,who firstappear n 1588, romptheirway throughvanMander's wolaterkermisdraw-

ings, carryinghefestivemood with them.They appearin the center of the I592 vanRegterenAltenadrawingwith which we beganour discussion,and at the left of

a I590 or 1591 drawingformerly n the Masson Col-

lection,Paris.40

ClassicaPost mangnosblateratTraso sevalCulullos.

37 Hollstein,op. cit. (note 35), vol. 3, p. I60, nr. 60, and vol. iI,

p. I63, nr. 33.38 The inscription n Dutch reads"Nu laetons wesenfraeyen fris

want ten is alledagegeenkeremis."This translation tands as a cor-rectionto that which I offeredof the same passage n my article nSimiolus (1972/73),p. I71. For the modem versionsof it see K. ten

Bruggencate,Engelswoordenboek,roningen 97I, s.v. kermis.

39 Prentenkabinet,Rijksmuseum,Amsterdam,nr. Fv 31, 24.7 x

I9.2 cm., penand wash.The inscriptionn vanMander'shandreads,"Nu benick ustich ijnende fris maer enis niet allendachkerremis."This drawingwas engravedat least twice. One is by an unknown

engraver, ppearingn reverse,Hollstein,op. cit. (note35),vol. x , p.

I65, nr. 175, with the original inscriptionslightly altered and anadditionalineemphasizinghesexualdimensions f theday,"Je ievehannenmen seyt ghewis/ Waervrucht n hys, daer druckvoordueris."It isquitecharacteristichat n its secondappearance,nJ.Th. and

J. de Bry,Emblemataaecularia...,Frankfurt1596,nr. 35 (listed byHollstein,op. cit. [note35],vol.4, p. 38, nrs.240-87),a Latin,moral-istic inscriptionreplaces he festiveDutch one.

40 ElisabethValentiner,KarelvanManderalsMaler,Strassbourg1930,cat. nr.32,pl. 28. I havebeen unable o trace hepresentwhere-aboutsof this drawing,whichneitherwasgivento the AcademiedesBeaux-ArtswithmanyotherMassondrawingsnorappearsn the sales

cataloguesof the remainder f his collection. It would be interestingto know if it alsoboreaninscriptionby vanMander. It sharesmanymotifs with the van RegterenAltena drawingbut lacks the well-dressedcoupleat the left.

124




Recent studies, most prominentlythat of Konrad

Rengeron the so-calledprodigalson paintingsof the

I6th century, have emphasized the cautionary-or,

better,the hortatory-tone of worksdrawingon rather

similar magery o represent he evil results of drink.41

But must we not take nto accountthe contextin which

such imagesor activitiesoccur?Wasthe effect of wine

alwaysclearlycondemned?Or, to put it in terms of the

pictorial mage, napaintingdodrinking, ighting, ove-

makingand pigs always simply convey sinfulness?42

One need not dismissout of hand the possibilitythat

representationsf thesevendeadlysinswere the source

of thedepiction

ofparticular

actions andobjects-which are not just common, but quite predictable n

kermissettings-in orderto admit the changeof em-

phasisto whatI think could be termed a comic view of

41 KonradRenger,LockereGesellschaft:ur Ikonographiees ver-

lorenen ohnesundvonWirtshausszenenn derniederlandischenalerei,BerlinI970. Similarmaterials rebrought o bearon the analysisof a

paintingby Jan Steen, with similarmoralizingresults,by Axel von

Griegern,"Abfahrtvon einem Wirtshaus,"Oud-Holland 6 (1971),pp. 9-3 . For a subtlecorrective o this view see the articleby Wolf-

3 KarelvanMander,Peasant ouple.Amsterdam,Rijksprentenkabinet

the events at hand. Afterall, what is it like to view a

kermis during which peasantsvomit, urinate, fight,

dance, make love and so on? Not unexpectedly,the

proverbial ayingscurrentat the time presentthe ker-

mis in justthis light.Far fromcondemning he kermis

they testifyto its socialfunction,as a kind of measure

of a townor district. "It is a poortownwhich does not

havea kermisoncea year" s one such saying.43As the

proverbquotedby van Mandersays rightly,it is not a

kermisevery day.This is a holiday,an exceptionfrom

regular ife, anoccasionwhichpermitsunusualbehav-

ior, even including laws of its own (facilitatingfree

trade and leadingto free behavior),as is traditionally

proclaimedby the flagflown from the churchsteeple.I am not claimingthat van Mander was an enthusiast

about drink and its effects,and it wouldbe an errorto

gangStechowdiscussedbelow,note 43.

42 WhenRenger,op.cit. (note41),pp. 89-90, turnshis attention o

Hans SebaldBeham'swoodcutDasgrosseKirchWeihfest, e doesjustthis, interpretinghe inn scenein thecenteraspartof the traditionof

representinghe consequencesof drinkingor the sin of drinking.

43 WNT, s.v. kermis.

I25

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- 1C*'3*s.. af*-J-;

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SVETLANA ALPERS

do so. In Den grondt,his long verse treatmentof art

theory and the trainingof the artist, he specificallycomments on the dangersof intemperance, he fightsand

killingsthat result (Het schilder-boeck...Haarlem

I604, Aiiv andAiii). But here,as in his accountof the

lives of thosepainters forexampleAertgenvanLeydenand Frans Floris) who he feels sacrificed heir art to

wastefuldrinking,vanMander'semphasis s on habit-

ualdrinkingas destructive orartists,not on the party-

ing of peasantson a dayof celebration.

Threeyearsafter heappearance f the printof 1592,vanManderreturnedbriefly o the kermissubject,this

timein writing.In a passageof hispoemin praiseof his

adoptedhome, Haarlem,he revealsmoreof hisassump-tions aboutthe kermis,proposing t as a kindof model

for the behaviorof the rest of society. Describingthewoods south of Haarlemwherethe townsfolk,youngand old, go to "eat, drink, play, read, sing and drive

awaymelancholy,"van Manderconcludes,"It is justlike a kermis,people like clothingmust sometimesbe

aired."44The peasant holidayis simply and naturallyintroduced to explain, perhapsa bit to excuse, the

goings-on in the Haarlem woods. I think that it is in

just this way that van Mander'sdepictionsof peasant

kermises,as well as those of other artists of the time,weremeant to be understood.

There is, however, a problem that van Mander

chooses to ignorein the passage ustquoted. Althoughthepleasuresof theHaarlemwoods offerrecreation ike

(in the sense of "as does," "even as") the villagefair,the pleasuresof the woods are not like (in the sense of

44 Karel van Mander,Beeldenvan Haarlem n Drie lofdichten pHaarlem, ed. J.D. Rutgers van der Loeff, Haarlem 191I, p. 22. This

publication includingtwoHaarlempoems byvanManderandonebyan earlierauthor)was done froma manuscript, s no copiesexist of a

I6IOpublication f vanMander'spoem.The editordatesthepoemto

justbeforeI596.Sincethepublications hard o comeby, I shallquotethe stanzareferred o (stanza9) in full:

Noch Zuijdvan der stat soo men gaetna Leijden

Langhsde groene weijden st Haerlems oreest,Daer hem joncken out machgaen vermeijden,

Kuijeren,spatseeren,hieren daerverscheijden,Int groenhen spreijden,om verheughenden geest;

Eten, drincken, pelen, lesen, singhenonbevreest,'t Welckveel tempeestvandroefheijtvluchten doet.

Het schijntdaer recht te weseneen kermisfeest:

Den mensch-als een kleet-hem somtijtsverluchtenmoet.

45 In thisconnection, t is interesting o compare heseworkswitha groupof middle-class estivescenes, variously itled ProdigalSon,

MerryParty,GoldenAge, Feast of the Gods,or Bacchanaldiscussed

identicalwith) those of the fair-far fromit, for quitedifferentpeopleare nvolved.While theHaarlemyoungand old eat, drink,read and sing, the peasants,as we

see in van Mander'sprint,get drunk,vomit,

dance and

fight,withnota book to be seenanywhere.Thereis, in

otherwords,a real differencebetween the pastimesof

the townspeopleout in the woods and the cruderplea-sures of the peasant.So, to return o the poemand the

print(fig.2), what s the assumedrelationshipbetween

the presumablynon-peasantreaderor viewerand the

peasants depicted at their kermis? Are we expected

(invited) o act like them orjustto feel like them? Is the

secondpossiblewithout the first? The problem s that

of the relationshipbetweenhigh and low, one that, in

the verbalusagecommon to both van Mander'stime

andours,engagesboth social andartisticconcerns.The vanManderengraving,ike thepoemofBredero,

deals with this problem directly. It is not only comic

attitudes that these workshave in common, but the

artisticdeviceoftheviewerorwitness o the kermiswho

is not a peasanthimself. What Bredero does with his

voicein the laststanza,vanMander riesto do with the

two well-dressed iguresstandingat the left anddirect-

ing our attentionto the kermis. In each case the peas-ant'ssuperior s helpingus, alsohis superior, o take n

the scene.But while in vanMander'sprintthe viewers

remain curiously separate, observing and observed

(noticethechildren ookingup at them and the dancingman n thecenterwhoappears operform orthem)but

not takingany partin the kermis,Bredero'spoem, as

we have seen, invitesparticipation f a kind.45

by WolfgangStechow.Havingidentified he subjectof severalsuch

paintingsas Life Before the Last Judgment, certainlya moralizingscene,Stechowpointedto a surprising egendon a Galleengraving fonesuch workbySweelinck Hollstein,op. cit. [note35],vol.7, p. 61,nr. 376),which s nothingelse than an invitation o jointhe party or"Verum .. nostrocarpitemore ocos... Verumadsit usus aetitiaequemodus." One might havethoughtthat the distanceor lower class ofthepeasantwould make he depictionof letting-gomorepermissible,

butherewe find tpresenteddirectly n termsoftheviewer'sownclass,withnointermediarieseemednecessary. t seems o methat he Galle

engraving nd otherworks ikeit are bestunderstoodn thecontextoftheillustrations orcontemporaryong-books,whoseprefatorywordsoften ssuea similar nvitation o partypleasures.See, forexample, heDavid Vinckboonsdesign for the frontispieceof the i602 Nieuwen

lust-hof,mentionedabove,note18,whichappears imilar o the Swee-linck paintingand, like the Galle engraving, s accompaniedby theinvitation o enjoythe songsat parties,weddings,New Year'sdays,and so forth. See WolfgangStechow, "Lusus laetitiaequemodus,"Art Quarterly 35 (1972), pp. I65-75.

I26




At thispointa word ofexplanationmaybe needed to

lay to rest any uneasiness the readermight feel about

reachingback some twentyyearsfromBredero to van

Mander,andin addition orparalleling,

sI havedone,verbaland pictorialworks. To take the second point

first, n spiteof whatappears o be the unliterarynature

of their subject-matter, t is nevertheless rue that the

practitioners f the lowestgenreof painting,thosewho

paintedpeasantsand andscapes,werefrequentlymem-

bers of the rederijkerocieties-we couldname, among

others,Peter Baltens n Mechelen and laterBrouwer n

Haarlem.Bruegel'scontactwith the world of the intel-

ligentsia,of whichwe have readmuchrecently,wasnot

unusual orapainterof peasants.This is notsurprising,

perhaps, fweremember hat at therederijkers'estivals

songsandplayswereperformedwhichofferthe closestanalogy o the comicpeasant hatwe have foundin art.

The painterandsinger, hewriterof farcesandcollector

of folksongs,hadclose contact n the i6th centuryand

in more than one instancewere, in fact, one and the

same. (This does not mean that their traditions were

one-we donot, forexample,specifically indweddingsand kermisesas thesubjectof anyfarcesormany songs;nor do the tales of the singers,such asthat about Claes

Molenaer, urnupin painting.Renger'sexampleof the

parallelverbaland pictorialtreatmentof the prodigalson is unusual.)

To take up the first question raisedabove, we can

trace a traditionof similar attitudestowardsand pre-sentations of the peasantin the Antwerpsong-book f

1544,theworksofBruegel,Baltens,MaertenvanCleef,and van Mander'sKermis,Bredero'sprefaceand the

worksofVinckboons,Ostadeandotherpeasantpaintersof the I7th century.The anonymousifeof van Mander

that appearsat the end of the I6I8 edition of his

Schilder-boeck escribes his early days as a theatrical

designer and producerand specificallymentions the

farces kluchten)hat he wrote withpeasantsasthe butt

46 "Soote-kluytenvaneenigheboertenvande boerenbedreyen ..

ende Liedekens so in't gheestelijck lsin't vroede n't sotte/ oftein't

minne...," Karel van Mander,Het schilder-boeck..., nd ed., Haar-

lem 1618,R iiiv, col. i. It has beensuggested, houghnot proven, hat

Brederowasthe authorof this accountof van Mander's ife.

47 The publication f the songsseemsdirectly ied to religiousand

political history, althoughthis does not explain their characteror

popularity.The Antwerpsong-bookof 1544wasput on the Index in

1546 but by 1569 was so completely eradicatedthat it no longer

appeared n the Duke of Alba's ist of bannedbooks.The publication

of his humor"as well as songshumorous,amorousand

spiritual.46 hus, in vanMander's iteraryactivitiesof

theyears ustbefore1568(born n 1548,helefthishome

in I568), werecognize

agood generaldescription

of

Bredero'sconcerns some forty years later. AlthoughBrederowas born ntoanothergenerationandalthoughhispoemsdate sometwenty yearsafter he vanMander

Kermis,both are properlyseen as part of the greatrevivalof songsand farcesat theend of the I6thand the

beginningof the i7th centuries.47 t is not only con-

venient to relate these works,but quite fitting. It was

perhapsBredero'ssense of this shared cultural back-

ground hatdrew himto vanMander, n spiteof all the

differencesbetweenthem as men and as artists,andled

to Bredero'swritingthe celebratoryverse to the dead

van Mander hat closes the 1618 editionof the Schilder-boeck.

But, the readermight object, though it is true that

these particularworks,the Kermisof van Manderand

the poemsof Bredero,are comparable, hey are, after

all, not equallyrepresentative f the worksof the two

artists.Whileit is quite customary o introduceBredero

intoa discussionof realistic ow art-he is the poetwho

is consistently cited as a parallel for Ostade-van

Manderspokeup in oppositionto the minorgenresof

Dutch art,arguing orthe virtuesof the Italianconcern

with the nude andthe highthemes of history painting.Van Mander'skermisesmust be seen as displayingan

uncharacteristic spectof his art that seems to lead to

the future-to the art, say, of his most famouspupil,FransHals.

Such a view of bothmen results fromemphasizinga

realisticrevolution n Dutch art shortlyafter the yearI600. In an importantsense, however,Bredero's ow-

life realism takes a traditional,not a revolutionary,stand. In writinghis songs, and the prefaceto them,Brederowasofferingan alternative,albeitin a Renais-

sancerhetoricalmode,to theFrench-inspiredpoetryof

of song-books picks up again,with a greatnumber coming out in

Holland in the i58os, and the revivalcontinues through the I7th

century.Brederowas not the only professionalwriter o drawon thistraditionduring heseyears:SamuelCoster's arceTeeuwis eboer, or

example, is based on a song in the Antwerp Song-Book. See P.F.

Scheurleer, Nederlandsche liedboeken,The Hague I912, suppl. I923,

for a list of all song-bookspublished n the Netherlandsat this time,which makesthis historyclear.A good, brief account of the natureandhistoryof song-books s given by D. Bax,"Hetwereldlijkeied inde xvIe eeuw," in Geschiedenisan de letterkunde erNederlanden,vol. 3, ed. G.S. Overdiep,Antwerp1944,pp. 242-75.

127



SVETLANAALPERS

4 AdriaenPietersz. van de Venne,PrincesMauritsand FrederikHendrik t the Valkenburgorseair. Amsterdam,Rijksmuseum

Hooft, by reachingback nto anddevelopingout of the

realistic,comic traditionof the previouscentury.VanMander'skermisesaresimilarly raditional; he differ-ence is-and it is of coursea greatdifference-that van

Mander,unlike Bredero,seems to have thought thatthis nativetraditionwas not the pathto a greatDutchart or literature,but ratheronly an admirablepast.

If we consider the historyof Dutch literature n the

I7th century,we findthat vanManderwas, in a sense,

proved right: it was the Renaissancerevolution thattookover; whilein the historyof Dutch painting,Bre-

dero'sproposal-of makingnew the past-triumphed.Understood in the context of the tradition of peasantthemes, at least, the triumphof 17th-centuryrealistic

painting, like Bredero'spreface and poems, appearsmore properly a conservatively-basedmaking new,ratherthan a radicalbreakwith the past.

SOME KERMIS PAINTINGS AND LIFE

Let us returnnow, aware of the justnessof its com-

parisonwithBredero, o the engravingdesignedby van

Mander(fig. 2). It should be noted that the largefore-

groundfigures,placedto one side,negotiatingbetween

48 See F.J. Kalf, "Drie tekeningenvanB. vanOrleyof zijnomge-ving?,"in De bloeitgd an de vlaamse apjkunst conferenceof I961),Brussels KoninklijkeVlaamseAkademievoorWetenschappen,Let-

teren en SchoneKunsten)1969,p. 260. This drawing s the basisfor

a tapestry n the series knownas the Lucas vanLeydenMonths; see

LudwigBaldass,Die WienerGobelinsammlung,iennaI920, nr. II4.

the mainsceneand the viewer,belongto an established

I6th-centurypictorial radition:adrawingof oneof the

seasons attributed to van Orley, for example, shows

peasantsworking n thefields to the rightand anaristo-

craticcouple who point them out to the viewer as an

exampleof summer's abors.48Here not only the size,and the position,but also the socialrelationshipof the

figuresarelike thosein van Mander'scomposition.

However,in the case of the kermisthe relationship

between high and low, between the non-peasantandthe peasant, has not only an artistic, but an actual

dimension. We should not forget that, although the

kermis was primarilya peasantcelebration(note that

likemanyotherworksof this type the Clockengravingafter van Mander's drawingis entitled Der bouwren

kermis)herewerecommonlyoutsidevisitors;forin the

16th and I7th centuries as from time immemorial, t

was an occasion for the mingling of rich and poor,townsmanandvillager.It is, as it were,symbolicof this

situation hat thePrinceRegentof the Netherlandswas

expectedto put in an annualappearance t the HagueKermis and was even criticizedseverelywhen he didnot.49Adrianvan de Venne,best-knownas the illustra-

49 This is referred o by G.A. Wumkes n the usefulcompendiumstudy "Kermissen," n Uit onzenbloeitijd, d. S.D. vanVeen, Baarn

9Io0,ser. 2, nr. 8, p. 15.Wumkes's ource was the veryuseful foot-notes by R. Fruin to his edition of CoenraetDrost, Overblyfselsan

geheugenis,vols.,LeidenI897.This longautobiographical oem,first

published n I723,is aninteresting ource or Dutch life, in particularcourt ife, in the laterI7thandearlyi8th centuries.

128




5 DavidVinckboons,Kermis.Munich, BayerischeStaatsgemaldesammlungen

tor of Cats,but also a painterattendanton the court at

the Hague,recordeda similarvisit of FrederickHenryin i6i8 to the horse-fairat Valkenburg fig.4)-one of

those unusual works n which this artistcombines his

interest n the moralsandmores of the peoplewith his

courtly commitment.50The great majorityof kermis

paintings nclude well-to-donon-peasants easily den-

tifiableby their clothes) alightingfrom their wagons,

50 Rijksmuseum,Amsterdam, at. nr. 2488. There are other pic-tures of this type showing royalty at peasant fetes-for example,Esaiasvande Velde'sPrinceMauritsand FrederickHenryat theRijs-

wijkfair,of 1625, Six Collection,Amsterdam,and alsoseveralworks

or sometimesboats,and strollingamongthe revellers.

It is true thattheyareneverdepictedas gettingdrunk,

vomiting,defecatingorfightingas the peasantsdo, but

they occasionallyjoin the peasantsin a dance, as in

Vinckboons'sKermisnMunich(fig. 5),andin onerareinstance a gentlemaneven tries a tune on a bag-pipeofferedhim by a peasant.51Often, a few of the non-

peasantvisitors o the kermisareplacedprominentlyn

by JanBruegelshowingAlbertand Isabellaat a peasantweddingand

dance: see below,note 62.

5i Bayer.Staatsgemaldesammlungen, unich, nv. nr.4927,pres-

entlyon depositatSchleissheim,and LukasvanValkenborch,Village

festival,Hermitage,Leningrad, nv. nr. 396.

129



SVETLANA ALPERS

6 HansBol, Kermis.Antwerp,KoninklijkMuseumvoor SchoneKunsten(photo:ACL, Brussels)

the foreground(fig. 6), as if posing for the painter.52On the basis of suchvisualevidence,one is temptedto

guess that a number of such paintingsdid in fact re-

present particular people-the commissioner of the

workand his family,perhaps,attendingakermis.Aside

from the royalvisitors mentionedabove, I have so far

comeuponone contemporary escriptionof a paintingwhich appears o substantiate his possibility.A work

by Gillis van Mostaert s describedby van Manderas a

52 See, forexample,HansBol, Villagekermis,KoninklijkMuseum

voor SchoneKunsten,Antwerp,cat.nr. 5020.53 Karel van Mander,Het Schilder-boeck...,Haarlem i604, fol.

26Iv.

54 SanderPierron,Les Mostaert,Brussels& Paris I912, p. 137.Kunsthalle,Bremen,cat. I939,nr.93. Unfortunately,hepicturedoes

good-sized,many-figuredworkdepictingthe Schetsen

brothers,bankersof Hoboken,beingfetedby the peas-ants of the town.53Even if Pierron was incorrectin

suggestingthat Mostaert'sKermisof 1589in Bremen,which featurestwo portraitsat the left, is the work

describedby vanMander,still we have a clear nstance

in van Mander'saccountof a paintingorderedwith theaim of celebrating he presenceof particularpeopleat

a peasant fete.54

not seemto be identicalwith van Mander'sdescriptionof a presenta-tion scene. But at least van Mander's ext substantiates his kindofcommission.Of course, the question should also be raised,exactlywhat was the relationshipbetweenpeasantand middle-classpatronthatthey should wantto be depicted n this way.ProfessorHermannvander Wee of the CatholicUniversity,Louvain,suggested o me in

130




_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.k ' %

7 DavidVinckboons,Kermis.Dresden, Gemaldegaleriephoto:Deutsche FotothekDresden)

In short,the non-peasantwentto and,what is more,wanted to be depicted going to kermises,while clearly

observinga certaindecorum,a certaindistance, f you

will. If this social situation, like its renderingin art,appearsanobvious and naturalone, we shouldperhapsremind ourselvesthat it was not always necessarily o.

On this very point it is fascinating o read of the objec-tions raisedby the father of David Wilkie, the early

1gth-centuryScottishpainter, o being depictedin the

crowd of his son'sPitlessiefair.55Wilkie,whowascon-

cerned nmanyofhisworkswithScottish ife and mores

in conscious mitationof 7th-centurypainters,seems

to have done the Dutch one better by depicting his

family, friends and neighborsalongwith the peasantsat thevillage air;but,accordingoWilkie'sbiographer,

conversation hat in mid-i6th-century Flandersmiddle-classentre-

preneurs romthe cities set up cottage ndustries orspinning n the

countryside,and perhapsthe contact between peasantand middle

classwhich we see depictedin kermises rom this time reflects this.

The actualeconomicrelationship eems,however,morerestrictedas

to time andplacethan the conventionof the kermisas a placefor such

mixing.55 NationalGalleryof Scotland,Edinburgh,nr. 1527,dated I804.

See A. Cunningham,Life of Sir David Wilkie,vol. I, London I843,

this practice was not well received: "Some district

worthies affecteddispleasureand ... even his father,who isrepresented tandingconversingwithapublican,

looked graveat this until someone suggestedthat heseemedin the actof warning he other to keepa deco-

roushouse."The evidenceofferedby the kermispaint-

ings is that Dutch and Flemish citizens did not stand

so muchon their dignityon such occasions.

The vulgarity,or natural behavior of the peasant,

dependingon how it is interpreted,was not hidden

from the 17th-centuryviewerby the artist. In Vinck-

boons's Kermis n Dresden,56a vomiting man and a

urinating hild frame he scene ntheforeground,while

dancing,eatingandlusty embracinggo on in-between

(fig. 7). If one lookscarefullyat the middle and back-

pp. 62-63, for this anecdote.It is a remarkableestimony o the per-sistence of the traditionsthat we are tracing-the relationshipof

peasants n song, poetryandpaintingand the interestof royaltyand

the upper classes in such subjects in paint-that Wilkie's famous

depiction of a peasantwedding (The penny wedding,BuckinghamPalace,London, dated i8i8) was orderedby the PrinceRegentand

wasbasedon a ballad enttothepainterbyanadmiring ontemporary,the poet John Gait, himself an enthusiastabout the descriptionof

peasant ife in art.

56 Gemaldegalerie,Dresden,cat. I930, nr. 937.

I3I



SVETLANA ALPERS

ground iguresone findspeople urinating,a fightcom-

plete with ladders and chairs traditionallyused as

batteringrams and defensiveweapons,and for goodmeasurea

meanderinghogor two. The

legendsunder

kermisengravings n the I6th and I7th centuries re-

peatedlyrefer n general erms to such goings-on:that

under Bruegel's Hobokenkermis,57which speaks of

peasantsdancing, springingand drinkingthemselves

drunk ikebeasts s typical.But whetherthe words are

presentedascomingfrom the peasants hemselves58r

from an outsider,the concern is alwayswith how the

rest of societycomes to terms with such behavior;and

the commoncounsel is to accept.Thus, the inscriptionon theBruegelHoboken ermis ndsby arguing hatthe

peasanthas his kermis no matter what it costs him in

hunger he rest of the year."Let thepeasantshave theirkermis,"proclaimedon the flag flyingin Bruegel'sSt.

GeorgeKermisandrepeatedas the legendon countless

other scenes of this kind, can be understoodin this

festive context.59

If, then, we standback,as we are meantto, froma

Vinckboonsand take an over-all view, the individual

vulgaritiesor sins are to be seen as partof a generalscene of human gaiety and letting-go. The festivitytakes in, rather than opposes, the church, which is

alwaysplacedat the rearwithits kermis lagflying.The

foundationof the churchand thedayof its patron aint,afterall,provide heoccasion orthekermis n Catholic

countries kermis= kirk-mass).The festivityalso em-

bracesthe barterof goods at the stalls. Vinckboons's

kermises in particularinvolve, to an extraordinary

degree,the mixingof social classes. While his drawingof I602 in Copenhagen,known throughthe print of

Nicolas de Bruyn and through painted versions in

57 LouisLebeer,Catalogueaisonne esestampeseBruegel'ancien,Brussels I969, nr. 30.

58 See theJanBothdrawing n the Kiiperferstichkabinett, erlin,Bock & Rosenberg,nr. 2265, with an inscriptionbeginning"lat ons

vrydrinken"or "let us drinkfreely" (or "at our leisure").59 Lebeer,op. cit. (note 57),nr. 52.A. Jans,"Enkelegrepenuit de

kerkelijkewetgeving entijdevanPieterBruegel," aarboekKoninklijkMuseum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, 1969-70, pp. 105-I i, demon-

strates hat the Bruegelkermisesdo not describebehavior hat goesagainstthe rulingsof the churchsynods in the previous years.Al-

thoughhe admits t is possible,he alsodoubts thatthe flagin the St.

Georgekermis epresentsa protestagainst he often-referred-to dictof Charlesv ten yearsbefore, imitingandcurtailingkermiscelebra-tions. It is significant hat so many proverbial ayingsabout kermisesshare his tone,e.g., "It is a poorland thatdoes not have a kermisat

Antwerp,Brunswickandelsewhere,60 resentsa tran-

sition fromrich burgerto peasantthroughthe line of

figuresstrungacross he foreground, he Munich Ker-

misof about I608(fig. 5)

showselegantpeople reallyjoining n thedancewith thepeasants.Vinckboons ven

modifies the figure-types,tending to merge high and

low in order to effect this union. A great part of the

artistic success and individualqualityof Vinckboons's

kermises s due to the factthathe dealsfullyandfranklywith theircrudeaspects,whileat the same time givingthe pleasurable spectsof the celebration heir due. He

putsthe festive occasionat the heartof the good cheer

and well-beingof the entiresociety.Ofcourse,arangeof tone,and ndeedofattitude,was

possiblein the presentationof such scenes; obviously,

they are not simply a direct renderingof life but aninterpretation f it. Thus, as we haveseen, the peasant

pleasures hat aresimply cataloguedand offered o our

view by van Mander, are actuallyassimilatedto the

reader's and viewer's experienceby the workingsof

Bredero'spoemand Vinckboons'spaintings.The per-

ceptionof bestialaspectsof peasantbehavior,often an

element n suchscenes,sometimesgetstheupperhand,as in the earliestkermisesattributed o Brouwer.One

is reminded of the disparaging one with which the

CardinalInfant Ferdinand, n a letter to his brother,

Philipiv, refers o the bestialeatinganddrinkingof the

Antwerpcitizenryduringthe Augustkermis.61Whata

different view of the peasantry-a decorous view-

PhilipIVgotfromJan Bruegel'spaintingsof Albertand

Isabella,Ferdinand'spredecessors, ttendinga peasant

weddingor dance(figs. 8-9). While Ferdinand's etter

contains he frankoff-the-cuffremarks f a rulerto his

brother,Jan Bruegel'spaintingsof Albertand Isabella

least once a year."60 For the drawing, see Korneel Goossens, David Vinckboons,

Antwerp1954,p. 65 andfig. 30; the engravings inHollstein,op. cit.

(note 35), vol. 3, p. 66, nr. 320; the paintingsare in the Koninklijk

Museumvoor Schone Kunsten,Antwerp,cat. nr. 495, and HerzogAnton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick,nr. 90. Of the severalpaintedexamplesof this composition hat exist, none has been conclusivelyacceptedasautograph.

6i "Ayerfu6 la fiestamayordeste lugarque llaman a caramesa, suna procesionbien largacon muchoscarros riunfales,a mi parecermejorque en Bruselas,y despuesque ha pasado odo, se van a comer

y i bevery para odo en emborracharse,ue sin esto no hayfiestaenestepais.Ciertoquevivencomo bestiasenestaparte."CorrespondancedeRubens, raduits,annot6sparCh. Ruelens et Max Rooses,vol. 6,

Antwerp 1909, p. 237.

132




8 Jan Bruegel, WeddingfeastwithAlbertandIsabella.Madrid,Prado photo:Mas,Barcelona)

9 JanBruegel,Country ancewith Albertand Isabella.Madrid,Prado photo: Mas, Barcelona)

I33



SVETLANA ALPERS

i_

rt..j ,

i,~q

;E,II Engravingxecutedby Michel Le Blon, Bredero,Geestighiedt-

cxken,1621

io Engraving xecutedby Michel Le Blon, Bredero,Groot ied-boeck,I622

seem to have representedthe public policy of their

regime.62Curiously enough, and completely out of

keepingwiththe character f the engraving llustratingthe poem,the inscriptionattached o the illustrationofBredero'speasantpartypoem in the I622 Groot ied-

boeck fig. io) is negative n tone, as it asksrhetorically

why one shouldnot loathe the drinkingand resultingfightbetween the peasants.63 side from this potentialfor a black,or perhapsa grey, comedy, there are, of

course,inscriptions or engravings pecificallydevisedto alertus to the dangersrather han to the pleasuresof

peasantentertainments.The deadlysins are at one poleof thiscomicpresentation-or rather, shouldsay, theylie justoutside it. Veryoften we find scenesoriginally

62 See Marcel de Maeyer,Albrecht nIsabellaen de schilderkunst,Brussels1955,whomentions he four workswhichtodayare allin thePrado:a Peasantdance Prado,cat. 1953,nr. 1439)with the Archdukeand Duchess in attendance, nd its pendant,a Peasantwedding, ated

1623 (Prado,cat. I953, nr. 1438); and a Peasantweddingwith the

Archduke ndDuchess nattendancePrado, at.1953,nr. 1442),witha Wedding rocessionPrado,cat. 1953,nr. I44I) as its pendant.I will

quotein full the passagede Maeyercites froma posthumouspublica-tionin honorof ArchdukeAlbert,whichpresents hismixingwith the

peopleaspartof hispublicpolicy:"... cestefamiliarite u'ilmonstraitau peuple se trouvanta leurs festes. Ainsy l'aves-vousveu tirer au

papegay, 'en allera lafoire desverres,assisteraux dansesvillageoiseset aux aultresexercicesdupeupleguayement.Et bienqu'entoutes sesrencontres e grandprincefust toujoursserieux,si ravaillait-il este

gravite et radoucissaitceste fermete parce qu'il voyait servir a larecreation e sacour et du peuple .. Tout cela e faisaitaimergrande-ment de sonpeuple."Lesoleileclipse u discoursur a vie et la mortdusirinissime rchiducAlbert,Brussels1622, p. 88.

comicin intent ratherunconvincinglyransformednto

didacticonesbymeansof aninscription.Van Mander's

1588 drawingof the couple off to the kermis,whose

inscriptionallows his occasion o be ahappyone forthe

peasant,appears n I596 as an engraving n a German

emblem book warningagainstgluttony.64Even works

thatarenegative nintent, however, eem toretain ome

impulseto entertainand thus, in spite of themselves,end up somewhatambiguously.We maycontrast hem

with certain preachersof the time who fulminatedagainst kermises. William Teellinck of Middelburg,whodedicated o Cats his little 1624 treatiseagainst he

kermis, refuses to shock or perhapsto entertainhis

readerswith the horrors of the occasion. Unlike the

63 This engraving, ne of the two whichappeared ven in the 1621

song-book seefig. II), wasexecutedandsigned n 1621by Michel eBlon (see J.Ph. van der Kellen, MichelLe Blon: receuild'ornements,The Hague1900,nr. 221). It has oftenbeenmistakenly ttributed o

Janvan de Velde, probablybecausehe did execute someengravingsafterdesignsby Buytewech or the new illustrations dded o the 1622

edition. We do not know whodesignedthis engraving.The interior

settingremindsone,as Prof.J.G. vanGeldersuggested o me,of I6th-

centurybrothelscenes, with, however,noneof the usualsinful over-tones.Perhaps, ndeed, t is Le Blon'scopyof anolderscene.Onlythe

pitchforks eaningagainst he wall,whichsuggesta peasant estivity,seemto fittheBrederopoem,and t seemsjustified o assume hat the

engravingwas notdesignedwith thepoem n mind.The rather evere,moralisticverses,which seem most inappropriateo the tone of the

poem,wereonlyadded nthe 1622 Grootied-boeck, here heoriginalengraving,much enlargedand without Le Bon's name, appears nreverse.

64 See above,note39.

I34

vuc;

i h

C:%

,!!r ??..?? .r i' ?* LIL,R I*Ji.n I;'/J s




12 KarelvanMander,Kermis.Leningrad,Hermitage

contemporarypaintings,he offers his readers no de-

scriptionof the celebration; nstead,he exhorts them

with lengthy scripturalexegesis.There is no placefor

ambiguityhereas to how we take he kermis: t is simply

sin, andboringat that.65

This range of tone and attitude sometimes makes

interpretation, particularlyof individual paintings,hard.Van Mander'sonepaintedKermis fig. 12), in the

Hermitage,his finalpresentationof the subject,seemsto me a work which neitherclearlyextols pleasurenor

clearlycondemnssins.66 suspectthat it revealsa con-

fusion on his own part.Generally,however,the comic

view is strongerthan the moralisticand didacticone,

65 W. Teellinck, Gesonde itterheyt oor denweelderighenhristen

diegeernekermisse oudt,Middelburg1624.

perhapsjust because it is the peasantsand not the

viewer,not the middle-class,that are at issue. Symp-tomatic of this is the uniqueness(as far as I know)of

the de Bry emblem book of I59667 n the number of

emblems(8 out of 48) which featurepeasants:for all

theirpopularityas a subjectforart,peasants implydo

not count in the i7th century at the life-and-death

level. It is for this reason hat death most literallydoes

not lurkin the scenes of entertainment.The figureofdeaththatappearsbehind the doomedearthly overs n

a print designed by Vinckboons,or the scene of the

crucifixionon the distant hill that tells us that Christ

forgivesthe transgressions f the noble participantsn

66 Hermitage,Leningrad,cat. nr. 3055, signedanddated i600.

67 J.Th. andJ. de Bry, Emblemataaecularia...,Frankfurt1596.

I35



SVETLANA ALPERS

the forestfete, arenotablyabsentfrom low-life enter-tainment scenes.68When we find the figureof deathwithhis hourglassas the lastina sequenceof woodcuts

makingup a broadsheet llustratingevents at the ker-

mis,it is bringingdownthecurtainon a humancomedyrather han servingas an exhortationagainstsin.69

RAMIFICATIONS

There is an importantsense in which the appealto a

comic understandingof low-life paintingsis far fromnew. It is perhaps he oldest viewof theseworks.Eversince the I7th century,when picturesof the common

peoplewerereferred o as drolleries, t has been com-mon to treat worksdepictinglow life as comical,withreactions othemranging romamusement odisgust.70

It is only in our own time that this view has been socompletely dismissed. As recently as Max J. Fried-

laender,one could write of the artist revealing"un-

pathetischeBetrachtungdesLebens ... die,dem harm-losen Inhaltegemassdem Beobachterseelischen Ab-stand sicherten und einen Standpunkt,von dem erduldsamvorurteilslosundschliesslichmit HumordemTreibendes Alltagszusah."71One of the constantele-ments in this once traditionalcomic view of low-life

paintings was its simple or mirror view of realism:whether depicted as funny, ugly or disgusting, thecommon people in art were consideredto have been

paintedas they are. The works testify to the artists'attentiveness o this,andcommentators,betheyadmir-

ing or condemningof low-life subjects,all testified totherealismof suchworks:vanManderpraisedBruegelfor, in effect,reallycapturing he funnypeasant,whilede Bisschopattacked hose workswhich depictedthe

68 Hollstein, op. cit. (note 35), vol. 4, p. 22, nr. 173, J. Bruyn sc.

I6oI. There areexceptions,of course.Vinckboons'sdrawing n theBritish Museum (nr. I847.3.I8.66) of peasants carousingoutside a

cottage eaturesa figureof deathrunning hrough he fieldbeyond-which s, however, eftout of the printmadeafter he drawing. havefoundatleast wodepictionsof low-lifefightswhich feature hefigure

of death and an inscriptionwarningof his swift arrival,but these areisolateddepictionsof brawls,not properlyscenes of entertainment:

Joos van Craesbeck, KoninklijkMuseum voor Schone Kunsten,Antwerp,cat. nr. 850,Rixedevant e cabaret, nd the engravingafter

Lievens, D. Rovinski,L'oeuvre ravede Rembrandt, t. Petersburg1890, i".

69 See LudovicusMeyere, L'artpopulaire lamande,Antwerp&Brussels 1934, p. 263, fig. I41.

70 WNT, s.v. drol;OxfordEnglishdictionary,.v. droll.Van Man-der in his Lives frequentlyuses the word to characterizepeasantsdepictedin art and at least once to characterize he art based on it.

gluttonouspeasant,despicable n everyway,"toofilthyeven to depict in words."72This simple approach orealismhasbeenarticulatelyquestioned n ourtime bythe search ordeepermeanings.KonradRengerrepliesto the passagefrom Friedlaenderquoted aboveby an

appealto the "tieferenSinnes" of picturesof drinkingand lovemaking,by which he means the morallessonabout mortal sins which they present.73But such an

interpretation,ikethe earliernotion of the drollpeas-ants,leaves out thatveryelement whichwe have foundto be so importantn ourdiscussionof the comicmode

-namely the attitude of the viewer,the nature of his

engagementwith whatis depicted,in other wordsthe

relationshipand attitude of the non-peasantto the

peasant.Whiletheearlier omic nterpretation ssumed

thatthenon-peasantwasjustseeingthepeasant teadilyand seeing him whole, finding him entertaining,thenewiconographyhas the non-peasant olemnly indinginstruction n the follies of the lower classes. Neither

view comesto termswith,or evenadmits,the possibil-ity of a rangeof attitudes owards he peasant.But theworksof art testify to this. Though the revolutionarysympathy orthe peasant hatwe find in a Courbetwas

impossibleat this time, the bond of humansympathyframed n laughterat our commonhuman ot was not.

When I speakof the peasantas comic, I mean that heis the source of an essentiallycomic understandingof

the worldon ourpart.The artistorviewer'srelationshipo hissubject s, of

course,an issue in anyworkof art.But it seemsto mea particularlypressing problem when we deal withworks of art whose appeal is necessarilybased on a

socialdistinctionbetweenthem and us. A just under-

See Lydiade Pauw-deVeen,De Begrippen schilder," schilderij,"n"schilderen"n dezeventiendeeuw,Brussels Verhandelingen an de

KoninklijkeVlaamseAcademievoor Wetenschappen,Letteren enSchoneKunsten vanBelgie,KlassederSchoneKunsten,vol. 31, nr.

22) 1969,p. 170, ortheuse of the similarword"boots"or"bootserij."71 MaxJ. Friedlaender,Diealtniederlindische alerei, ol. 12, Ber-

lin & Leiden 1924-37,p. 94, quoted by Renger,op. cit. (note41), p.Io6.

72 Jan de Bisschop, Paradigmata raphicesvariorumartificium,Amsterdam 670, fromthe dedication o JanSix. The completepas-sage-which, incidentallygives a classically-oriented iew of Dutchlow-lifepaintings-reads asfollows:"Mensachbynae nietandersals

geselschappen anbedelaers,kreepel,gebultenongehavent,bordelenvolslordigheyt, roncke elagenvangulsigeboerenopvelerleymanier

afsienelijck e vuyl om met woorden af te schilderen." See J.A.Emmens,Rembrandtn deregelsvan dekunst,Utrecht 1968,p. 56ff.for a discussionof this passage.

73 Renger, op. cit. (note41), p. io6.

I36




13 Theodorvan

Thulden, Flemish

wedding.Brussels,MuseesRoyauxdes

Beaux-Arts photo:ACL, Brussels)

standingof this relationship, n its various manifesta-

tions,withits variouscauses(forexample, s thechangein the depiction of the peasantfrom early works byOstade o late ones basedon artisticdevelopment,or on

social change, or both?) will help us to solve those

problemsabout low-life works which we now attemptto deal withby anappeal o "deeperhiddenmeanings"ortheapplication f ahistoryof style.Let megivesome

examplesof whatI mean.

There are numerousdevicesby which the artistcon-

trolstheviewer'srelationshipothe work.VanMander,as we haveseen,usedfigures nterpolated both sociallyand spatially)between us and the peasantfrivolities.

Normally he size andarrangement f figures napaint-

ing play a significantrole. The bird's-eye view from

which we see most kermispaintings we could also cite

here Callot'sImpruneta)emovessomethingof the bite

from the less attractivegoings-on, while at the same

time providing ways for us to accept the minglingof

the various classes of people depicted. It lessens the

unpleasantness f what is ugly in the behaviorof men.

It is, of course,possible,on theotherhand,to make he

74 See, forexample,MathieuSchoevaerdts,Lecortege uboeufgras,

Brussels,cat.nr.417.

figures o small n agivensettingthatthe viewer s made

to feel totallyuninvolved.74

Ourrelationshipsdetermined lsobythedescriptivetreatmentof the individual igures.If they areugly in

appearance, he viewer feels either disturbedby whatis revealed-as the expressiongoes, he is too close for

comfort-or so superior hat he is detached.Brouwer's

peasantspose real problemsin this respect. The fact

that the Haarlem school of low-life genre painters-Ostade,Brouwer,Dusart-did notpursue hedepictionof scenes such as kermises,which mix high and low,rich and poor,but rather endedto devotethemselves

to scenes exclusivelydevoted to peasants, is at least

partly understandablen terms of the style of their

figures-figures whose ugliness and whose lowness

assumes theirseparation rom,rather hantheir inter-

coursewith,gentlefolk.If, on the otherhand,the peas-ant figuresareprettied up, as in the laterpaintingsof

Teniers,ourrelationshipo themis, asit were,nullified

and neutralized-they becomethe peasantsof an aris-

tocrat'sdream,before which he can safely paradehis

family.A painting by Theodor van Thulden (fig. 13)

I37



SVETLANA ALPERS

offersan excellentexampleof the kind of artisticcon-

fusions that areproduced f our relationship o a work

is not controlledby descriptivemeans:takingoff from

Rubens'sKermis, isNoces mprobably ombinesscur-rilous-lookingpeasantsand noble aristocrats,and no

one knowsquite how to behave.Unless it is intended

as a spoof on previous works (which I doubt), the

paintingis unconvincingbecauseno one can thinkof

acircumstance, ealorimagined,whichwouldproducesuch a meeting-the peasantsare too low, the nobles

too highin appearance.75In appealing o the unimaginablecircumstancede-

picted n thispaintingof vanThulden,I want osuggestonce more that the relationshipbetween non-peasantandpeasantwhich is figured n the pictorialdevicesof

art is not only a problemin image-making.In otherwords,whilebearing n mind the artisticmanifestation

of certainattitudes owardthe peasant, t is, of course,essential that we investigateand keep in balance the

civic andeconomicsituationof the peasantatthis time.

We are dealingwith the artisticconventionsengagedin complex ways with socialrealities,and it is a hard

taskto sortout the partplayed by these factors n any

particularwork.Not only was the peasantthe subjectof social and economic concern for both the civil and

ecclesiasticalauthorities,but the evidence is that he

also was prominentlyon the minds of the leadingprincesas a sourceof entertainment or theircourts.It

is this, perhaps,which can be tied most clearlyto the

makingof art. Both Bruegel'sand Rubens's peasant

works, o takebut the two mostfamousexamples,were

hung in courts which not only had alreadyadopted

peasantdances for their own use in the I6th century,but which staged peasant weddingsand ftes, some-

timesbringing n peasants orthe occasion,sometimes

recruitingmembers of the court to play the peasant.I amspeakinghere not of the tastefor the figureof the

shepherd,butspecificallyhe simplepeasant.Although

the paintingsof BruegelandRubens were not initially

75 TheodorvanThulden, Unenoceflamande,russels,cat. nr.465.

76 For a representation f this peasant-weddingmasqueradeat

court,see the engravingby Le Pautreaftera Berlaindrawingrepro-ducedbyEmileMagne,LesetesenEurope uxXVII siecle,Paris 930.In this context,it is particularly nteresting hat Rubens's so-calledKermis s in facta representation f a peasantwedding,as was notedwhen it was first referred o in the French royalcollectionas "Lesnoces de village."I plan to publisha study of this paintingand the

variouscontexts n which it shouldbe seen.

commissionedby these courts,it would be instructive

to consider the ambiance in which they existed and

were admired within fifty years of their execution:

Rubens's Kermisin the Louvre, for example, wasbought by Louis xiv in 1685,and we haveknowledgeof a peasantweddingperformedat the court in honor

of the Dauphinonly two yearsbefore.76

It shouldbemadeclear, nconclusion, hat the comic

modesuggestedhere accounts oronlyacertainportionof the worksdealingwithpeasants n the I7th century;I hope that recognizing t will help us to sort out the

other modesin which the peasantswere treatedat the

time. Forexample, here s thepeasantasseeninnature,inalandscape etting,often athisseasonalabor, houghalso (so much for the separationof modes) likely to

break nto danceorfrolic-we think of the St. Martin's

Day frolickers n Bruegel'sGloomyday or those peas-ants who characteristically reak into dance for their

betters,asin somanyvillage andscapesby JanBruegel.Then there is a small but distinctivegroup of works

which chroniclethe conflictbetweenpeasantand sol-

dier-the subjectof elegiesin the literatureof the time

and also, as it were, in the painting.Finally, there is

whatmightbe calledthe somberpeasant,never more

strikinglysomber thanwhen appearing o at a time of

relaxation.Le Nain's monumental,serious figuresat

table or in the farm-yard eem lessunique,andperhapsless puzzling, when we start to assemble the Otium

printsof Bloemartor the peasantcelebrationsby Janvan de Velde(fig. 14), both of whichpresenta similar

imageof the peasant.77s this the laborerat his well-

earned est?Do we findhereanemphasison whatmightbe called the Georgic traditionof the laborer whose

feasting s seen as partof the yearlyround?78

But to return to the point and the works at hand. I

hopethatfocussingon a comic mode can serve to turn

us away romthe excessivemoralizing hat has affected

our viewof i6th- and17th-century enrepainting.The

pointis not thatmoralmeaningsare not to be foundin

77 Hollstein,op.cit. (note35),vol.2, p. 65,nrs.27-42 (fourof theseare llustrated n p. 77 of the samevolumeandmistakenlynumberedthereas212-i6), and L'oeuvre ejan vande Velde,D. Franken&J.Ph.van derKellen, Amsterdam& Paris1883,nrs. 97-98.

78 The presentationof the peasant n the Zede-printen1623)of

ConstantijnHuygens(character tudies of different ypes in society,basedrather enerally n theexampleofTheophrastus) onfirms hese

proposed ategories: ee C. Huygens, Zede-printen,d. H.J. Eijmael,Groningen 1891, pp. 23-27.

I38




1 a

Y-... .. . . .- . ..

Bacchanalneiaseicre apud rufticos nefaa eit,noiunt iliesrpus irrcparabile in hifee rebus contemni;fuie qucemo. operibus tra-

duc i diemn volnt ita ili du male fariunt. edunt bibunt,uid amplus. fi id ferre neqceant quod redundat cvoltunt. Au^-.,61y.ttl ,Clngbn,qi-d 1an-p .f ..............................'..t

14 Janvan de Velde,Greatvillagefestival.Amsterdam,Rijksprentenkabinet

the art of the time, but that they have dominatedour

sense of the art in a particular ashion: we have em-

phasized hemoralmessageat the expenseof thecomic

mode of presentation.To preach a sermon against

drinking,over-eating,dancingandlove-making,andto

producea paintingwhichencouragesus to laughat and

to live withthesehuman ndulgences,aretwo different

things,and thereare,of course,variouspositions pos-sible in-between. It is symptomaticof ourtime thatthecomic Bruegel has been supersededby the darkand

pessimisticone, yet it wascharacteristic f his time and

his art that the two aspectswere bound together.His

art is moreamusedand tolerantof thancondemningof

man'sneeds anddesires;vanMander's estimonythatthe most straightlaced f men cannothelp laughingata Bruegel paintingis justifiedby the works. It is an

attitude that does not, it seems to me, take Bruegel

lightly, but rather takes comedy seriously. I hope in

thispaper o haveat leastsuggested hedegree o which

I7th-century ow-life painterswere heirs to this comic

mode.

I39



SVETLANAALPERS

VOORREDE

VAN

G.A. BREDERO'S

GEESTIGLIEDBOEKSKEN,

BIJ HEM ZELVEN UITGEGEVEN.

Lustige en vrolijkmoedige Maagden en Jon-

gelingen, die uw geneugte en vermakinge in

zoete tijdkortinge neemt, ik offere ulieden op

mijne blijgeestige kindertjes, om te leren en

5 tot uwen dienst te gebruiken, hetzij in vrolijke

maaltijden, gezelschappen en bruiloftsfees-

ten, of om voor u zelven van zwaarmoedige

gedachten te ontledigen met hare boertigevermakelijkheid, want zij hebben voorzeker

o0een aardjen van mij, haar vader, die weleereen zonderlinge wellustigheid uit der boeren

ommegang haalde, welker boertige trekjes zij

op het levendigste naspelen en -spreken zul-

len, indien gij haar niet en steurt noch en ver-

15 kort in haar eigenschap van uitspraak: de

oude Aamsteldamse en Waterlandse taal

hebben zij zo nagekomen als haar onze, doch

te luttel, letteren toelieten. Veel oude en ge-

bruikelijkewoorden der

landluiden hebben20 zij innegenomen, die sommige Latinisten, die

doch eer en meer uitheems dan Duits geleerd

hebben, veroordelen en smadelijk verwerpen,omdat zij ze juist door onkunde niet en ken-

nen. Maar gij toetsers en proefmeesters van

25 ons goude Nederlands, die zo vrijpostig de

Hollandse woorden aan den steen van uw zin-

nelijkheid strijkt en daarenboven stoutelijkdezelve voor ongoed, vals of biljon verklaart,keurt ende markt verbiedt, omdat 't bij u niet

30 gangbaar noch bekend en is, is het daaromme

al in reden gegrond, dat men dat oude ver-schimmelde potgeld en de vierkante stukken

zal verachten, daar men nochtans door oudelieden haar waardije, ende aan haar zwaarte

35 en kracht, hare deugd wel kan gissen, bereke-nen en kennen? Voor mijn deel, ik beken 't,dat ik met dit nieuwe Leidse gevoelen nietovereen en kom en dat ik met een ketterse

stijfzinnigheid aan het oude hange, ja dat, al

PREFACE

TO

G.A. BREDERO'S

WITTY LITTLE BOOK OF SONGSPUBLISHED BY HIMSELF

Merryandhappy-heartedmaidsandyouths,who take

pleasureand amusement n sweet pastimes,I dedicate

to you my cheerfulchildrenwith theiramusingenter-

tainments,to learn and to put to yourown use, either

at happymeals,companies,or weddings,or to relieve

yourselvesof heavy-hearted houghts. For they cer-

tainly have a drop of me in them, who used to take

special delight in the company of peasants-whoserusticjokes heywill imitateand mimicat their liveliest

providedyoudon't disturborcurtail heirpeculiaritiesof speech.They havecome as close to the old Amster-

dam and Waterland peechas ourrather imitedlettersallow.They have taken over manyold and customarywords of the countrypeople,which somelatinists,who

have learnt rather more of foreign languages than

Dutch, condemnand disdainfullyreject,preciselybe-

cause, through lack of knowledge, they don't know

them.But you assayersand connoisseursof ourgolden

Netherlandish,who so

unashamedlytest the Dutchwordsaccording o the touchstone of your individual

preferences,and, what'smore,so boldlyadjudge hem

false,forgedoradulterated, ndprevent heircurrency,becausethey are neitherused by nor knownto you-do you thinkit is reasonable o despiseold and moldycoins and the squarepennieswhen it is possibleto telltheir value from old folk, and guess, estimate, and

know their true worth from their weight and vigor?For my part, I admit that I don't agree with those

Leidenishsentiments,and I cling to the old ones with

an hereticalstubbornness,even though I am no coin-

140



Realismas a comic mode 141

40 ben ik geen schrooier, geen goudsmid noch

muntmeester, die oude potpenningen met

voordeel opzoek om daar de ene tijd of d'an-

der ietsgoeds

namijn behagen

envermogenaf te maken. Het is mijn al goed, als 't hier-

45 landse, onvervalste, onvermengde munte is,als ik weet, dat het bij de gemene man in de

dagelijkse handeling en ommegang gewraaktnoch geweigerd, maar bij haarlieden voor

goed gekend en ontvangen wordt. Het is mij50 al eens of ik van een machtig koning of van

een arm bedelaar leer de kennisse van mijnmoeders tale en of de woorden uit het vuilnis-

vat of uit de sierlijkste en grootste schatka-

mers van de wereld komen: doch moet mij

55 elk na haar waarde goude, zilveren en kope-ren gelde verstrekken. Zekerlijk, ik en zal mijnimmermeer zo zeer niet binden an de een-

rinstigheid van sommige eenzinnige schrij-

vers, die meer der vreemdelingen boeken

60 doorsnoffelen als de gewoonte van 't sprekenhaarder medeburgeren en landsluiden door-

zoeken en op haar eigen invallen en inbeel-

dingen onverzettelijke kerken bouwen, die

dikwijls na wat ondergravens lichtelijk daar-

65 henen storten en vallen. Wat mij belangt, ik

heb andersgeen

boekgeleerd

als het boek des

gebruiks; zo ik dan door onwetenheid der uit-

landser spraken, wetenschappen en konsten

hebbe gedoold, verschoont mij, ongeleerde70 lekebroeder, en geeft den Duitse wat toe,

want ik heb als een schilder de schilderach-

tige spreuke gevolgd die daar zeit: Het zijn de

beste schilders die 't leven naast komen, en

niet degene die voor een geestig dingen hou-

75 den het stellen der standen buiten de nature

en het wringen en buigen der geleden en ge-

beenderen, die zij vaak te onredelijk en buiten

de loop des behoorlijkheids opschorten enommekrommen. Ik hebbe zo veel als ik ver-

80 mocht de boerterijen met de zoetste boere-

woorden uitgedrukt; hetgene hierinne door

verzuimelheid is mishandeld, overgeslagenofte vergeten, wilt dat met uw alwetende ge-leerdheid en gewoonlijke goedigheid verbete-

85 ren, zo zult gij alderbest betonen

clipper, goldsmith or mintmaker,who seeks out old

coins in anticipationof disposingof somethinggoodat

one time or anotheraccording o my pleasureor capa-

bility.For me

they'regoodif

they're indigenous,gen-uine and unalloyed, as long as I know they're not

objected to or refused by the common man in dailycommerce and intercourse,but are regardedas good,andacceptedas such. It is all the same to me if I learn

theknowledgeof mymother onguefromamightykingor a poor beggar, f the words came from the rubbish

bin or from the most elegant and greatest treasure-

house of the world: each must provideme with gold,silver and copper money according to their properworth.Certainly, willnevermoreattachmyselfto the

self-conceitof some one-trackwriters,whosnufflemore

throughforeigners'booksthaninvestigate he mannerin which their own fellow citizens and countrymen

speak, and build enormous churches-which often,aftera littleundermining,easily collapseandfalldown

-on thebasisof theirown brainwaves nd magination.When it comes to me, I have learntfrom no book but

the book of usage, so if I have gone astray through

ignoranceof foreign languages,sciencesandarts,par-don me, unlearned ay-brother,andallow the Dutch a

little.For, beingapainter,I have followedthepainter's

adage which says: The best paintersare those who

imitateife,

and notthose whoregard

asspiritual hingspositionsand attitudeswhich areoutsideof nature,and

the twistingandbendingof jointsandlimbs, which all

too often are unreasonable and foreshortened and

twisted round outside the bounds of propriety.I have,as far as I wascapable,expressed herusticpleasantrieswith the sweetest rustic words: whatever has gone

wrong in these, been passed over, or forgotten as a

result of oversight-will you correctit with your all-

knowing learningand usual good nature,so that youbest show



SVETLANA ALPERS

Dat hij is wijs en welgeleerdDie alle ding ten besten keert.

Enige neuswijze en nauwgezette lieden, meteen vooroordeel innegenomen zijnde, zullen

90 deze mijne liedekens van lichtvaardigheid

beschuldigen aleer zij de moeiten zullen doenvan te onderzoeken waarom, waartoe en hoe

die gemaakt zijn: zwaarlijk zullen zij konnen

geloven, dat ik de zottigheden eniger mensen

95 met een lachelijke manier beschrijf, zoetjes

berisp en haar dwaling voor de ogen hou,

straffe, en andere waarschouwinge doe omdie dwaalwegen bekwamelijk te vermijden.Veel dingen heb ik op zijn boerts gezet, die

100 nochtans voor ettelijke steelieden haar reke-

ninge zijn, die ik vermits ik hare ziekte, krank-heid en schurfte kende, aldus heb moeten

handelen, wetende dat 't anders al te korre-

zijvig, bitter en te scharp bijten zoude en om-105 dat het bij velen niet kwalijk genomen zoude

werden, gaan zij al vermomd, onder boeren-

gedaanten daarhenen met veranderde namenen bekledinge. De uitlegginge hebben som-

mige haar reukeloos genoeg onderwonden,1o maar mijns bedenkens nooit gevonden, daar

ik mij in verblijde, want ik en ben met eensanders schande niet verkuist en om de waar-heid te spreken, ik heb haast vijanden genoeg,al en maak ik er geen meerder. Ik hebbe deze

115 malligheidjes meer uit lust als uit laster ver-dicht om in banketten, gastgeboden, waard-

schappen en andere uitspanningen des ge-moeds mij en mijne vrienden en vriendinnenwat te verlustigen met de verkwikkelijkheid

120 der nieuwigheidjes, die ik voor deze van nie-mand anders veel gezien hebbe; nochtanswas ik nooit van zinne bekoord om deze gril-

lige grilletjes door den druk gemeen te ma-ken, want mij docht altoos dat er wispelturig-

125 heids en Druks genoeg in de wereld was, maariemand van mijn voortreffelijkste vrunden,die daar meer werks van maakten als ik zelve,heeft die naarstig en schriftelijk bekomen enmet een heerlijke en grote voorreden vereerd

130 en de naam van Geestig gegeven (of 't het-zelve verdient, laat ik de verstandige en die

That he is wise and learnedwell

Who turnseverything o the best.

Some hypercriticaland particularpeople, all takenbya prejudice,will chargethese little songsof mine with

frivolity,before heytake he trouble o investigatewhy,forwhat,andhowtheywere made:theywillhardlybe

able to believethatI describe he folliesof somepeoplein a ridiculousmanner,gently reprimand hem, and

hold their errorbefore their eyes, chastisethem, and

make other admonishments, n order that they mayavoid theirerroneouswaysin a properfashion.I have

put many things in a rusticpeasantway, which none-

theless takes some city dwellers into account. Beingawareof their sickness,disease,or scabbiness,I have

had to handle them in this way, knowing that theywould otherwise be too coarse, or bitter, or bite too

sharply,andthatnot manywould find it blameworthyif they went about disguised, in the appearanceof

peasants,withchangednamesandclothing.Somehave

rashlyattempted o findinterpretations,but havenot,in my opinion,found them-I'm pleasedat this, sinceI am not servedby someoneelse's shamefulness,and,to tell the truth, I alreadyhavequite enoughenemies

withoutmakinganymore.I havecomposed heselittle

follies moreoutof delightthan with troublesomenten-

tions; in orderto delightmyselfand my friends,maleand female, at banquets,feasts, weddings, and other

recreations, o delight with the refreshmentof littlenovelties (of which I have not seen many before by

others). Nonetheless, I was never tempted to makethesecapricious anciescommonby publishing hem-sinceI always houghtthat therewasenoughfickleness

and printed matterin the world-but one of my ex-

cellent friends-who made more work of them thanI myself-industriously got them in writing,andhon-

oredthemwith abigforeword,andgavethemthenameof witty.Whether heydeservethisnameI leaveto the

intelligent o judge,andthose who enjoymaking udg-

142




daar lust in hebben, oordelen, voor mijn, ik

heb ze altoos mijn malle Liedekens geheten)en zijn bij Govert Basson tot Leiden eerst-

135 maal gedrukt, die dezelvige in een heel zeld-

zame en ongelooflijke kortheid van tijd ver-zonden en verkocht heeft, en is in zulker voe-

gen begeerd geweest, dat ik zelver geen exem-

plaar en heb mogen behouwen om het de een140 of d'ander reis te doen herdrukken, doch is

het ten tweeden male t'Amsterdam van enige

gezellen zonder mijn weten gedrukt, met

sommige oneerlijke en ontuchtige Liedekens,die al op mijnen naam lopen, maar de eer die

145 mij daarmede geschied is, en de dankbaar-

heid die ik haar hierover schuldig ben, zal ik

haar ter gelegendheid met een vriendschapvergelden, die haar heugen zal. Want waarlijkalle zuiverhertige en edelmoedige mensen

150 zullen zich voortaan wachten iets geneuge-

lijks te laten uitgaan, nu de ongeoorlofd-heden zo groot zijn, dat men onder den dek-

mantel van iemand anders zijn vuiligheiduitstrooien mag.

155 Gij Rijmers en gij brave Dichtschrijversvan deze fraaiigheidjes, ik bedank u en bidde

u dat gij voorder mijn werken niet meerder

met de uwe en vermengelt, want ik ben tevre-

den dat gij al moogt maken wat u lust, maar160 ik en begeer niet, dat gij mijn deuntjens aan

de uwe koppelt en kettingt, ik en sta na nie-

mands onere en ik gunne u uit goeder herten

de lof die u toekomt, doch zijt gij heel eergie-

rig, betoont uw edele geest en klaarheid van165 uw verstand en schrijft zulke dingen die alle

mensen verschrikken en ontzetten en laat mij

bij mijn zoete zotternijen blijven en besteedt

uw medelijden en verkeerde bermhertigheidaan iemand anders armoede; voor mijn, ik

170 benuwe hulp voor deze tijd nog onbehoeftig,God dank, want ik laat mij voorstaan, al luidt

't wat verwaandelijk, dat ik er al heel veel

meer van die slag zou konnen voortbrengen,als 't mij eers genoeg was, gelijk ik met enige

175 nieuwetjes, hier ingevoegd, bewezen hebbe.

Maar wat is dit? Ik praat hemelval, ik springvan 't een op 't ander. Eerwaarde Maagdekensen lustige Jongelingen, ik stuur u dit kleine

ments. For my part, I alwayscalled them my crazylittle songs. They were firstprintedby Govert Basson

in Leiden, who distributed hem and sold them, most

unusually, n anunbelievably hortspaceof time.Theywere in demandto such a degreethat I was unable to

keepacopy myself, n order o have t reprintedat some

latertime.Yet somepeople printed t at Amsterdam or

a second time without letting me know, along with

severalunseemly and lascivioussongs-which all goundermyname.But the honorwhichwastherebydoneto me, and the gratitudewhich I owe to them for it, I

will in due course repaywith a friendlydeed, which

will pleasethem. Indeed, all pure-heartedand noble-

minded people will from now on be on their guardbefore they publish somethingwhich gives pleasure,

now that unlawfulness s so great that one can strewaboutone's filth undersomeoneelse's name.

You rhymersand you good poetry writers of thesefine ittlethings,I thankyou,andprayyouhenceforward

not to mix my wordswith yours-I don't mind if youmakeallyou fancy,but I don'twantyou to coupleand

chain my little songs to yours. I don't want to bringdishonorto anyone, and being a good heart, I grant

youthe praise hatis yourdue;althoughyouaregreedyof honor,showyournoblespiritandyourperspicacity,and writesuch thingsas shock and disturbeverybody,and let me staywith my sweet follies,and bestowyoursympathyand misdirectedcharityon the poverty ofsomeoneelse. For myself, I'm still for the time beingunneedfulof yourhelp, thankGod, since I takepridein thethought-even though t sounds a littleconceited

-that I couldhavebroughtoutmuchmore of this sortif I'd wantedto, as I've shownwith the few new little

ones addedhere. Butwhat's his?I'mtalkingnonsense,I'm jumpingfrom one thing to another.Dear maidsand merry youths, I send you this little foretaste in

I43



I44

voorlopertje vooruit, hetwelke u komt waar-

180 schuwen, dat ik u eerlang mene toe te eigeneneen groter Liedboek, genaamd Bron der

Minne,waarinne ik het meestendeel van alle

mijn Jammertjes, Klachten, Lijden en Ver-

makelijkheid aan den dag zal brengen, indien

185 gij dit naar uwe oude goedheid in dank ont-

vangen en aanvaarden zult, daar ik niet aan

en twijfel, vermits ik daar nu tot tweemaal

toe zo openbare proeven hebbe af gezien. Op

dit vertrouwen dan, zo werdt u, o zangerige

190 keeltjes! van gantsen gemoede toegeheiligd

en toegewijd de meer dartele als treffelijke

kinderen van de blijde geest, van uwen alle

advance, to advise you that before long I propose to

devote a bigger songbook to you, to be named Source

of love, in which, for the most part, I will bring to light

allmy

little sorrows, complaints, sufferings, and diver-

sions-provided, with all your old kindness, you grate-

fully receive and accept it. That I don't doubt, since

I've twice refrained from such public testimony. Trust-

ing in this therefore, O singing little throats, I whole-

heartedly dedicate and devote to you these frisky rather

than outstanding children of your

Honor and service-bound friend and servant,

G.A. BREDERO.

Eer, en dienst-schuldige vrund en dienaar

G.A. BREDERO.

alpers comic mode

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