Skip to content
Home/ Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt
Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt

Insect Artifice: Nature and Art in the Dutch Revolt

by Bass, Marisa Anne
No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780691177151 Princeton University Press

How the nature illustrations of a Renaissance polymath reflect his turbulent age

This pathbreaking and stunningly illustrated book recovers the intersections between natural history, politics, art, and philosophy in the late sixteenth-century Low Countries. Insect Artifice explores the moment when the seismic forces of the Dutch Revolt wreaked havoc on the region's creative and intellectual community, compelling its members to seek solace in intimate exchanges of art and knowledge. At its center is a neglected treasure of the late Renaissance: the Four Elements manuscripts of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), a learned Netherlandish merchant, miniaturist, and itinerant draftsman who turned to the study of nature in this era of political and spiritual upheaval. Presented here for the first time are more than eighty pages in color facsimile of Hoefnagel's encyclopedic masterwork, which showcase both the splendor and eccentricity of its meticulously painted animals, insects, and botanical specimens.

Marisa Anne Bass unfolds the circumstances that drove the creation of the Four Elements by delving into Hoefnagel's writings and larger oeuvre, the works of his friends, and the rich world of classical learning and empirical inquiry in which he participated. Bass reveals how Hoefnagel and his colleagues engaged with natural philosophy as a means to reflect on their experiences of war and exile, and found refuge from the threats of iconoclasm and inquisition in the manuscript medium itself. This is a book about how destruction and violence can lead to cultural renewal, and about the transformation of Netherlandish identity on the eve of the Dutch Golden Age.

About the author

Product details

BrandPrinceton University Press
Pub dateApr 9, 2019
ISBN-100691177155
ISBN-139780691177151
LanguageEnglish
Dimensions10.2 × 1.2 × 8.3 in
Weight3 lb
Last updated 2026-09-07 06:01
$91.55
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Monday, September 14, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from History - Renaissance
See all
Marks of Opulence: The Why, When and Where of Western Art 1000-1914
Platt, Colin
$9.17
Mona Lisa: The History of the World's Most Famous Painting (Revised)
Sassoon, Donald
$9.17
On Painting
Alberti, Leon Battista
$12.09
Eccentric Renaissance: El Greco, Michael Damaskenos, Georgios Klontzas
Barber, Charles
$104.54
Northern Renaissance Art
Nash, Susie
$24.55
Painting in Britain 1500-1630: Production, Influences and Patronage
<p>This book is the first major essay volume in over a decade to focus on Tudor and Jacobean painting. Its interdisciplinary approach reflects the dynamic state of research in the field, utilising a range of methodologies in order to answer key art historical questions about the production and consumption of art in Britain in the 16th and early 17th century. <br> The introduction sets the tone for the interdisciplinary approach that is taken throughout the volume .It brings together a discussion of the context for the production of painted images in Tudor and Jacobean England with a selection of technical images of twenty paintings that span the period and demonstrate the information that can be gained from material analysis of paintings.<br> In further chapters, leading exponents of painting conservation and conservation science discuss the material practices of the period, using and explaining a range of analytical techniques, such as infrared reflectography and dendochronology. Questions of authorship and aspects of workshop practice are also discussed. As well as looking at specific artists and their studios, the authors take a broader view in order to capture information about the range of artistic production during the period, stretching from the production of medieval rood screens to the position of heraldic painters. The final section of the book addresses artistic patronage, from the commissioning of works by kings and courtiers, to the regional networks that developed during the period and the influence of a developing antiquarianism on the market for paintings.<br> The book is lavishly illustrated in colour throughout, with reproductions of whole paintings and many details selected to amplify the text. It will be an essential source for those working in the fields of art history, conservation and material science, and of interest to lovers of British Tudor and Stuart painting.</p>
$289.05