the

learned eye
Regarding Art,
Theory, and the Artist’s
Reputation

amsterdam university press

The Learned Eye
 the learned eye
regarding art, theory, and
the artist ’s reputation

Essays for Ernst van de Wetering

edited by
Marieke van den Doel, Natasja van Eck, Gerbrand Korevaar,
Anna Tummers & Thijs Weststeijn

amsterdam university press

23 Ripa, idem, p. 484.
24 The identification of Gesina in these paintings is based on Gerard’s drawing of her
from the mid 1650s. See Kettering Ter Borch Studio Estate (note 5), vol. 1, p. 142
(Gjr 78).
25 Kettering, idem, vol. 2, p. 440, fol. 39v of Gesina’s Poetry Album.
26 For further discussion of this painting, see Wheelock, Gerard ter Borch (see note
14), cat. no. 30.
27 For further discussion of this painting, see Wheelock, idem, cat. no. 34.
28 For further discussion of this painting, see Wheelock, idem, cat. no. 39.
29 A number of correlations can be made between the character and mood of Ver-
meer’s compositions and the colour of the dress of his main female protagonists
(generally red, blue or yellow). For a discussion of Steen’s use of colour in Bath-
sheba Receiving David’s Letter, ca. 1659, private collection, see H. Perry Chapman,
Wouter Th. Kloek, Arthur K. Wheelock, Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller, Was-
hington (National Gallery of Art) and Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1996-1997 (exh.
cat.), pp. 132-134.
30 I would like to thank Anneke Wertheim, Aneta Georgievska-Shine, Molli Kuenst-
ner, and Adriaan Waiboer for their thoughtful comments on this text. I would also
like to thank Alison Kettering for her many contributions to Ter Borch studies.

110 the learned eye

 Thijs Weststeijn

Rembrandt and Rhetoric

The Concepts of affectus, enargeia and ornatus in
Samuel van Hoogstraten’s Judgement of His Master *

In this essay I will try to shed new light on the period appreciation of Rembrandt
departing from rhetoric. The view that Dutch art theory was essentially in favour
of a ‘classicist’ doctrine, and critical towards Rembrandt as a painter who puta-
tively did not obey to the ‘rules of art’, can be substantially modified.1 From my
analysis of Samuel van Hoogstraten’s treatise, the Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der
Schilderkonst, Rembrandt emerges as a ‘rhetorical’ painter. As is well known, Van
Hoogstraten’s treatise probably contains vivid reflections of the practises of
speaking and thinking about art in Rembrandt’s studio, where he was a pupil;
these practices can be clarified from the context of seventeenth-century rhetoric.2
The relation between rhetoric and painting has been studied extensively,
although mainly in the context of Southern European art. Dutch art has escaped
much of this analysis, which is remarkable because the Netherlands knew a rhetor-
ical tradition which was widely and commonly popular,3 and developed into a very
general and indispensable skill in all branches of professional life.4 When exam-
ining Rembrandt and Van Hoogstraten, one has to take into account that both
painters probably had some rhetorical training, which was an essential part of the
curriculum of the Latin school.5 Probably set off by the example of Rembrandt’s
studio and its ‘coterie’ of learned art lovers such as Huygens, Van Hoogstraten
shortly after his teaching period became a prolific author of various literary works
himself.6
In his painting treatise, which was to a large extent didactic in scope, Van
Hoogstraten deploys several rhetorical strategies, for example transferring the
ideal education of the orator as outlined by Quintilian to the education of young
painters.7 In doing so, he cites not only the classical texts which shaped early mod-
ern rhetoric such as the works of Cicero and Quintilian,8 but also modern authors,
such as Gerardus Vossius who wrote several very commonly used schoolbooks on
rhetoric and a small treatise on painting, and Julius Caesar Scaliger, whose Poetices

111
libri septem were widely influential.9 He also drew eagerly from Franciscus Junius’
De Pictura Veterum, in which the classical theory of rhetoric had been adapted to
painting, often simply by changing the word ‘orator’ to ‘painter’.10
Within the scope of this article, my analysis of Van Hoogstraten’s views
will focus on three rhetorical terms that are explicitly used in connection to
Rembrandt’s painting. The first is passio or affectus; the second is enargeia; and the
third is ornatus.11

Rembrandt and the passiones animi

or ‘lijdingen des gemoeds’
Van Hoogstraten divides the art of painting in distinct parts or kunstdelen: an
adaptation of Junius’ Latin formulation partes pingendi which was in its turn
derived from the partes orationis.12 Van Hoogstraten elucidates this by identifying
exemplary painters with each of the different parts. Strikingly, when Rubens has
been allotted ordo or dispositio (ordinantien), Van Dyck gratia (bevallijkheid) and
Goltzius selective imitation or imitatio auctoris (eenige groote Meesters hand eigentlijk
na te volgen), Rembrandt is listed as epitome of the passiones animi or ‘lijdingen des
gemoeds’.13 This remark was interpreted by Jan Emmens, who coined the termi-
nology concerning the supposed ‘classicist criticism’ of Rembrandt, as essentially
pejorative: as a ‘pictor vulgaris’ Rembrandt would ‘only’ occupy himself with the
passions, to the detriment of classical beauty and the rules of art.14
Van Hoogstraten devotes a chapter to the depiction of the passions or
hartstochten, which literally means ‘movements of the heart’, a term which is still in
use in modern Dutch in poetic language. He uses the passions for example to pro-
mote his equation of painting with poetry or drama, and calls them the ‘most noble
part of painting’, het alleredelste deel der kunst.15 He echoes Van Mander who called
the depiction of the passions the ‘soul’ of painting, as well as older Italian authors.16
The theory of the passions was developed in classical rhetoric, following
the rhetorical tradition’s emphasis on persuasion by moving the feelings.
Especially the Roman texts on rhetorical theory, which were used in particular by
seventeenth-century authors such as Van Hoogstraten, put the greatest stress on
emotion for winning an audience’s ear.17 In the threefold function of rhetoric,
next to delectare and docere, movere was deemed most important.18 These three
functions corresponded to the three rhetorical genera dicendi, the grand, the medi-
um and the low style, a triad which Van Hoogstraten introduced into the Dutch
literature on painting. Van Hoogstraten speaks about the three ‘degrees of art’ or
graden der konst: his adaptation of the genera pingendi.19 When one follows Emmens’
division and takes mainly the two functions of teaching and delight into account,
it is clear that ‘imitation of the ancients’ is connected to teaching, to the detri-
ment of ‘imitation of nature’ which can only cause delight. But it is this third
function of movere to which Van Hoogstraten pays particular attention and which
he connects to Rembrandt’s name.

112 the learned eye

For a good understanding of Van Hoogstraten’s views on the affective qualities of
painting, one has to acknowledge how his theory is greatly determined by the
early modern conception of the narrow relationship between body and mind. As
the body was deemed to echo directly the diverse mental ‘movements’, so the
mind putatively responded directly to sensual impressions. Van Hoogstraten elab-
orates on the famous formulations in Horace’s Ars Poetica: 20 ‘It is not enough,
that an image is beautiful, but there has to be a certain movement in it, that has
power over the beholders; like Horace says about poetry: “A beautiful poem will
not lightly move me, but friendliness can perturb heart and soul. One laughs, one
cries, and the spectator will follow: So if you want me to cry, cry first in front of
me” (wilt gy dat ik schreye, schrey my voor).’ 21
Van Hoogstraten states that the painter should ‘learn to entirely imitate
the actor’, and practice by using a mirror, in order to be ‘at one time both the one
who represents, and the spectator’.22 Quintilian formulates the rhetorical convic-
tion that the orator who wants to move his public should first be moved himself.
Rembrandt must have taken this to heart, when he made studies of his own face
in different expressions.23 In order to provide his pupils with experience in this
matter, Van Hoogstraten let them perform dramatic plays, in which he may have
continued a practice that had originated in Rembrandt’s studio.24 Van Hoog-
straten urges his readers to take his advice very literally: ‘when you have experi-
enced something negative, you may console yourself with art; or when something
pleasing happens to you, it is time to notice what internal sensibilities and exter-
nal movements are caused by these affections’.25
The depiction of the passions requested a very naturally inclined soul of the
painter; something not every dozijnwercker, making paintings in mass production,
could achieve; a receptive soul easily moved by the passions, although not letting
one’s behaviour be influenced by them. Quintilian states the orator must be of a
noble spirit.26 Van Hoogstraten: ‘Since these are subjects which imply more than
an animal-like movement [beweeging], the artists who have the right capacity to this,
are the very most sparsely dispersed’.27 This ideal artist would pair a great imagi-
nation and memory to an ability to experience the passions without being disturbed
by them, and represent them on canvas. Van Hoogstraten, following this tradition,
describes this ability as a divine gift, an instance of poetic furor (Poëtische geest).28
The depiction of the passions was closely related to the faculty of the
painting to convince the spectator, or, to use an anachronistic term, to successful
pictorial illusionism. The faculty to make a ‘lifelike’ image was most importantly
connected to the depiction of the passions, which literally gave ‘life’ to otherwise
inanimate objects.29 The aspects of evocation of space were united with this affec-
tive power in Van Hoogstratens well-known definition of the perfect painting: it
evokes, just like the theatre, a ‘mirror of Nature’, and ‘deceives’ the spectator ‘in
an admissible, pleasing and laudable way’.30 Van Hoogstraten’s appreciation of
the deceiving skills of the painter reflects the rhetorical tradition in which these
were positively evaluated.31

thijs weststeijn 113

 fig. 1 – Rembrandt, Judas Repentant, Returning the Pieces of Silver, panel, 79 x 102.3
cm, England, Private Collection (Compare fig. 4)

As has been noted by Eric Jan Sluijter, the expression of the passions is connected
by Van Mander closely to the painter’s faithful imitation of nature, for example
when he closes his chapter on the passions with a reference to the painter Eupom-
pos, who supposedly said that one ought not to follow the example of the ancients
but rather study the people around one.32 Also Van Hoogstraten stresses that in
order to gain knowledge of how passions develop into bodily movements, one
shouldn’t turn to books, but only to nature itself: ‘to arrive at the right path, and
go with certainty, a practitioner of art has to turn to living nature, and observe how
far he is allowed to go in the movements [beweegingen]’.33 Junius describes the per-
fect painter as someone who derives his knowledge of the passions from diligent
observation of nature, not from theory. The artist is not obliged ‘to examine [...]
the severall opinions of naturall and morall Philosophers about these affections and
passions of man [...] for it sufficeth that he doe but learne by a daily observation
how severall passions and affections of the minde doe alter the countenance of
man. [...] To a learned and wise imitator every man is a booke: he converseth with
all sorts of men, and when he observeth in any of them some notable commotions
of the minde, he seemeth then to have watched such an opportunitie for his studie,
that he might reade in their eyes and countenance the severall faces of anger, love,
fear, hope, scorn, joy, confidence, and other perturbations of our minde’.34

114 the learned eye

This connection between the passions and lifelikeness is stressed in classical poet-
ics by the conjunction of the concepts affectus and varietas. Authors are praised,
who are able to conjure up a vision of a multitude of persons showing their indi-
vidual emotions.35 Van Hoogstraten refers to the praise for Timanthes’ painting
of Iphigenia, in which the different kinds of sorrow in the bystanders are dis-
cerned,36 and also praises Rembrandt in this respect: ‘I recall having seen in a cer-
tain characteristically composed piece by Rembrandt, representing John the
Baptist preaching, an admirable attentiveness in the listeners of different moods:
this deserves the highest praise’.37 This praise probably referred to Rembrandt’s
grisaille John the Baptist Preaching, now in Berlin.
When he praised Rembrandt for his experience in the passiones animi, Van
Hoogstraten was not an exception. Huygens too praised the master exactly for his
skill in the depiction of the passions and in ‘moving’ the beholder, and applauded
especially Rembrandt’s painting of Judas repentant in this context. He writes that
Rembrandt especially by focusing on the ‘liveliness of the passions’ (affectuum
vivacitas) has surpassed the ancients and Italians (fig. 1).38 As is well known, the
image of Rembrandt as someone who works from ‘nature’ with neglect of the
‘rules’, is a returning issue in the Dutch tradition of art theory. I stress here that
this same tradition often speaks of Rembrandt’s ‘lifelike’ images that, indeed, by
convincingly depicting the passions enrapture and ‘deceive’ the spectator into
thinking he is confronting a virtual reality. So De Piles writes in 1699 that Rem-
brandt ‘knew very well that in painting one can, without much effort, deceive the
eye by representing motionless and inanimate objects; and not satisfied with this
quite common artifice, he endeavoured with an extreme diligence to impress
one’s eyes with living figures.’ 39 And Lambert ten Kate in 1720 puts Rembrandt
not in the highest degree of painters but in the genus medium, because of his sup-
posedly common subject matter, but still praises him for adding to these common
and ‘lifelike’ figures ‘eloquent spiritualities and passions’.40
The ability of the painter to ‘move’ the audience in an affective way was
given great theoretical appreciation in art literature from the Netherlands. Vos-
sius even gives the painter the epithet pathopoios, maker or designer of the pas-
sions; a qualification subordinated to the painter’s being an ethopoios.41 Clearly
this, derived from the classical authors on rhetoric, was the highest form of praise;
the ultimate scope of rhetoric being none other than moving an audience in order
to be able to influence their ethos. Rembrandt may have self-consciously modelled
himself after the ideal of the painter of the passions who works principally from
nature, when he painted his Self-portrait as Zeuxis, as Van de Wetering concludes
in part IV of the Corpus.42 Van Hoogstraten describes Zeuxis as a painter skilled
in, among other virtues, his depiction of the passions.43

thijs weststeijn 115

 Painters Do Not Touch the Soul If They Omit enargeia:
‘de Schilders, zy beroeren ’t gemoed niet, zooze deeze
beweeglijkheyt overslaen’

There is one aspect in which the classical authors themselves stress the similarity
of rhetoric and painting. It is connected with the faculty of the orator to conjure
up a very vivid image. Quintilian speaks about the virtue of ‘enargeia, what Cicero
calls illustratio and evidentia, that does not seem to speak, but to show’.44 Junius
quotes Quintilian in this way: ‘Whosoever therefore conceiveth these images
aright, propounding unto himselfe the truth of things and actions, the same is
likely to be most powerfull in all manner of affections: seeing his endeavors shall
bee waited upon by a vertue knowne by the Greeke name Energia. Tully [Cicero]
calleth it Evidence and Perspicuitie. This vertue seemeth to shew the whole matter;
and it bringeth to passe, that the affections follow us with such a lively represen-
tation, as if we were by at the doing of the things imagined.’ 45 The classical
authors distinguished between energeia and enargeia, which are etymologically not
related. However, early modern rhetorical and artistic theories often did not make
this distinction, and the meanings of the terms became fused; Junius uses the term
energia both for forcefully ‘moving’ aspects of a painting and for rhetorical evi-
dentia, a typical adaption of the classical terminology to his own theory.46
This notion of enargeia is already prominent in Aristotle’s theory of the
tragedy. Only a vivid image was able to evoke the dramatic experience of peripety,
and move the spectator to one of the contrary emotions of empathy (compassio) or
terror (horror). These notions were actualised in the seventeenth century in the
works of Heinsius, and have clearly left their mark on Van Hoogstraten’s theory
of painting.47 I quote:
‘Be it that one conceives of a single-figure piece, or a many-figured piece,
one has to see to it that one displays only an instantaneous movement [oogen-
blikkige beweeging] which mainly expresses the History’s action; like Horace says,
“Make every piece of work, just like it should be, self-standing and with unity”. In
order for a piece to enchant the beholder, with one distinct style of voice, like
someone who is present in the painting himself, and terrify him with a horrific
action, and make him rejoice in seeing something of gay spirit: or that he is
moved to compassion by some afflicted injustice; and finds himself delighted in a
just action.’ 48
The terminology used by Van Hoogstraten is significant. The uncommon
term ‘eenweezich’ literally means ‘of one nature’: the eenweezich image answers the
demands of the rhetorical perspicuitas; a related adjective is eenstemmich, litterally
‘with one style of voice’.49 The quoted passage has the scholium: ‘the depiction of
a single and momentaneous action’ (Een enkele en oogenblikkige daet uit te beelden).
Van Hoogstraten refers in this last sentence to the functions of the tragedy, hor-
ror (doen schrikken) and pity (met medelijden bewegen).

116 the learned eye

Eenweezig, eenstemmich, oogenblikkig all refer to the orator’s virtue of evidentia: the
ability to conjure up a lifelike image, related to the original Greek term enargeia,
which was necessary to move the spectator of tragedy to one of the two cathartic
emotions.50 The related term energeia meant moving the affects of the beholder
by the lifelikeness of the presentation; in Junius’ words, ‘as if we were by at the
doing of the things imagined’. Van Hoogstraten connects the virtue of energeia,
in his terminology ‘beweeglijkheid’, closely related to the ‘beweegingen des gemoeds’
or movements of the soul, to the painting’s prowess to move and deceive the spec-
tator: ‘It is not enough that a painting is beautiful, but there has to be a certain
movement or energy [beweeglijkheid] in it [...] Painters [...] do not move the soul
when they don’t apply this beweeglijkheid.’ 51
The term energeia is used close to the original Greek in Italian art theory.52
Junius has the term ‘beweghelick’; an exemplary image of energeia which moves the
spectator he deems an image of Abraham’s sacrifice: ‘Saint Gregory Nyssen after an
ample and most patheticall [beweghelick] relation of Isaac his sacrifice, hath added
these words; “I saw often in a picture”, sayth he, “the image of this fact, neither
could I looke upon it without teares, so lively did Art put the historie before my
eyes.”’ 53 Elsewhere, Junius refers also to the two functions of the arousal of emo-
tion: pity or hatred.54
The various endeavours undertaken in Rembrandt’s studio to evoke an
image of Abraham’s sacrifice in an ‘oogenblikkelijk’ way – Rembrandt’s painting has
such a degree of it that the knife falling from Abraham’s hand is depicted hanging
in mid-air – are probably directed at the effect of ‘oogenblikkige beweeging’ or
enargeia, focusing on the moment of sudden insight in a situation: the moment of
peripety of the tragedy (fig. 2).55 Van Hoogstraten connects the virtue of per-
spicuitas especially to Rembrandt, when he calls the Night Watch an exemplary ‘een-
weezich’ work, repeating Horace’s verses about the instantaneousness of a paint-
ing. He recalls that Rembrandt to the opinion of some even took this concept too
far, ‘devoting more work to the large vision of his choice than to the diverse por-
traits that were commissioned’.56
The momentaneous emotional change or Staetveranderinge was a popular
issue in the history painting that originated in Rembrandt’s studio, as Blankert has
indicated.57 It was also given the greatest theoretical appreciation: the depiction
of different, possibly contrary, emotions in one figure. The art theoretical tradi-
tion has countless examples of this; such as the dying mother, who also tries to
care for her baby, showing both sorrow and maternal care, to which Van
Hoogstraten also refers.58 Huygens praises Rembrandt’s Judas exactly because the
‘diverse passions are put together in one figure and expressed in a unity’.59
The effect of calculated ‘horror’ in the violent histories which Rembrandt
painted in the 1630s – possibly appealing to the courtly public of The Hague –
might be glanced from a passage in Huygens’ autobiography, when he praises a
Medusa by Rubens for the emotion of subitus terror it causes, but remarks that he
wouldn’t like to have it in his personal collection.60 This conviction has been con-

thijs weststeijn 117

fig. 2 – Rembrandt, Abraham’s Sacrifice, canvas, 193.5 x 132.8 cm, Leningrad,
Hermitage Museum, cat. no. 92

118
 fig. 3 – Rembrandt, The Blinding of Samson, canvas, 236 x 302 cm, Frankfurt am Main,
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. no. 1383 Photograph © Joachim Blauel – Artothek

nected by art historians to Huygens’ refusal of Rembrandt’s Blinding of Samson

(fig. 3).61 In Scaliger’s poetics ‘the stabbing out of eyes’, an event which was
painted by Rembrandt in a very oogenblikkelijk way, is brought forth as an exem-
plary theme in tragedy; it is a very fit subject for demonstratio.62
That Van Hoogstraten may have taken these notions of the rhetorical
virtue of energeia from his master Rembrandt, might be concluded from Rem-
brandt’s letter to Huygens in which he recommends his Passion-series by stating
to have committed himself to ‘die meeste ende die naetuereelste beweechgelickheyt’, the
greatest and ‘most natural’ energy or movement.63 My analysis of the rhetorical
roots of the concept of beweeglijkheid adds to the discussion on this remark that it
not only refers to the affective powers of Rembrandt’s painting, but as well to the
depiction of a specific dramatic moment with particular rhetorical acumen.64 In
the painting Rembrandt refers to he has not only painted affectively agitated fig-
ures, as part of a Passion-series, he has also painted an oogenblikkige daad, an
instance of demonstratio in which the moment when one of the soldiers drops his
sword is being depicted: in Van Hoogstraten’s words, ‘a certain beweeglijkheid, that
has power over the spectators’ (fig. 4). Rembrandt’s letter testifies to his self-pre-
sentation as pathopoios, a sensitive mind who possesses a combination of a knowl-
edge of man’s inner life, the affective powers of painting, and faithfulness to nature,
and who moreover may be himself ‘moved’ by a poetic inspiration when painting.

thijs weststeijn 119

 The Ornate Rembrandt: ‘den verzierlijken Rembrandt’
There is a third term from rhetoric that Van Hoogstraten uses in relation to
Rembrandt, when he calls him ‘den verzierlijken Rembrant, after my father’s death
my second master’.65 The adjective verzierlijk deserves closer scrutiny. The verb
versieren in modern Dutch still means to ornament (hence the substantive versie-
ring, ornament); it also occurs several times in Van Mander’s Schilder-boeck.66 The
meaning of the adjective in this context is, however, not at all obvious to the mod-
ern reader. The Latin ornatus has been the subject of study in an art-theoretical
context, and it is first of all to classical rhetoric that one has to look.67
The virtue of ornatus should not be connected too hastily to ‘ornament’ as
mere amplificatio of style. In classical rhetoric, it was, next to ‘pure’ and ‘clear’ lan-
guage, the most important part of speaking commandingly.68 In artistic theory,
clearly ornament and beauty are distinctly separated. The beauty of a painting
results largely from the beauty of the human figure that is depicted (either from
nature or derived from the imagined ideal), and also from the variety in the rep-
resented objects. Ornament, on the contrary, is an added value, which is skilfully
bestowed by the painter’s artifice and which can be best understood in terms of
style (the rhetorical stilus).69 I quote a long part of Cicero’s De oratore, where per-
spicuitas and ornatus are presented as the two main constituents of elocutio:
‘Whom do people stare at in astonishment when he speaks? Whom do they
applaud? Whom do they regard, as I might put it, as a god among men? Those
who speak distinctly, explicitly and copiously, whose words and arguments are
presented with complete clarity, and who in delivering a speech are able to attain
a kind of rhythm, speaking in the manner I call ornate.’ 70
Quintilian echoes this sentiment in stating that ornatus is the climax of the
orator’s skills. It is with rhetorical ‘colours’ or figures of speech (colores rhetorici),
that he has to ‘ornament’ his work to conquer the beholder’s attention. In rhe-
toric ornatus is explained by the metaphor of colour that renders something ‘lively’,
vivid to the eye, and pigment as it is used in cosmetics. Quintilian warns, for
example, that the orator’s use of ornatus should not produce the kind of colour
which is the result of the use of deceptive dyes, in a passage which is repeated by
Junius.71 The most telling adaptation of the formula ‘ornament’ for painting I
find in a late sixteenth-century adaptation of the classical theory: a literary trea-
tise by George Puttenham (1589), which I quote mainly as an illustration:
‘This ornament we speake of is given to it by figures and figurative speech-
es, which be the flowers as it were and colours that a Poet setteth upon his lan-
guage by arte, as the embroderer doth his stone and perle, or passements of gold
upon the stuffle of a Princely garment, or as th’excellent painter bestoweth on
the rich orient coulours upon his table of pourtraite. [...] If the same coulours in
our arte of Poesie (as well as in those other mechanicall artes) be not well tem-
pered, or not well layd, or be used in excesse, or never so litle disordered or mis-
placed, they not onely give it no maner of grace at all, but rather do disfigure the

120 the learned eye

fig. 4 – Rembrandt, The Resurrection, canvas, 93 x 69 cm, Munich, Alte Pinakothek,
Inv. No. 397 (compare fig. 3 in the article of E. Haverkamp Begemann)

121
stuffe and spill the whole workmanship, taking away all bewtie and good liking
from it.’ 72
The quotation indicates the dangers that lie in the application of orna-
ment: like make-up colours, it should be applied carefully, and not show its arti-
ficial character.73 Possibly Van Hoogstraten when using this term refers to Rem-
brandt’s numerous depictions of brocade and jewellery. But ornatus has a wider
meaning. The positive function of ornament in classical oratory, for instance by
using metaphor, was not only to enliven one’s speech, but to imitate the ‘bright-
ness’ of life itself. Cicero states that the ‘ornament’ of metaphor is ‘a method of
adding brightness [lumen] to our speech’ 74, and adds that ‘this makes it possible
in the highest degree to mark out and illuminate what we are saying with stars of
light’.75 For the orators it is clear that this putting of arguments in a clear light
meant. It enhanced their power of persuasion.
In art theory ornament is not especially connected to light; but it often
occurs in relation to colour. Colour is deemed to ‘ornament’ the framework laid
by drawing; Van Hoogstraten calls colours the ornaments (verzieringen, opsmuk)
of the art of drawing.76 As opposed to drawing, the ornament of colour has a
greater affective power. Van Hoogstraten quotes Plutarch that, ‘mere drawing
never has such a moving power [bewegende kracht] as colours; because only those
are able to move our soul, by the deceit of a vivid likeness’;77 Junius, who also
quotes Plutarch’s line, continues: ‘coloured pictures for all that, as they shew a
more lively force in the severall effects and properties of life and spirit, so doe
they most commonly ravish our sight with the bewitching pleasure of delightsome
and stately ornaments’. The Dutch edition speaks of veruw-cieraeten.78
So the most likely way in which I can interpret the use of the term ‘verzier-
lijk’ in Van Hoogstratens qualification of his master, is an associative but lexically
very rich combination of a deliberative use of powerful colouring (the colores
rhetorici or ‘rich orient colours’) and lighting (lumen) which in its extremity does
not exceed nature’s norms, and the persuasive prowess this colouring possesses to
have the beholders ‘stare in astonishment’ at the works. As is well known, Van
Hoogstraten speaks in positive terms about Rembrandt’s attention to colouring,79
his use of lighting,80 and the ‘arranging of shadows and light tones (schikking van
schaduwen en lichten)’.81 The use of the term ornatus or verzierlijk in connection to
tonal values, is corroborated by Vondel’s remarks which have in the past been
connected to Rembrandt’s painting.82 Slive ascribes to Vondel the ‘classicist’ con-
demnation of obscuritas, when the poet writes: ‘Who follows life can do without
ornate [verzierde] shadow’, confronting this painter to the ‘sons of darkness’ who
‘prefer staying in shadows’.83
Colour and tonal values appear as an essential aspect in the painter’s
‘rhetorical’ ability to conquer the spectator’s attention. This ability is described
by Van Hoogstraten and other authors in terms of power or force (kracht). So Van
Hoogstraten calls the Night Watch as ‘so powerful [krachtig] that, as is the senti-

122 the learned eye

ment of some people, all the other pieces stand like playing cards next to it’; in
other words, while Rembrandt’s work evokes a virtual reality, the other paintings
only present lifeless figures.84 This term would be parallel to the praise Rem-
brandt is given in other contemporary art literature; De Lairesse reports the gen-
eral public’s liking of Rembrandt, ‘both in respect to his naturalness, and in
respect to his protrusive power [uitstekende kracht] [...] [there are people who ask:]
was there ever a painter who came so near to nature in power of colouring [kracht
van coloriet], because of [among other things] his beautiful light tones [...] and is
such not enough to seduce the whole world?’ 85 Just like the almost magical vis
verborum, the orator’s charming ‘power’ to persuade his audience, Rembrandt’s
kracht van coloriet manages to seduce the beholder into believing his pictures are
‘close to nature’, which means, first of all, that they seem ‘alive’.86

Conclusion
When approached from the point of view of rhetoric, Van Hoogstraten’s judge-
ment of his master Rembrandt appears in a new light, contrary to the older view
towards Dutch art theory of the second half of the seventeenth century as deter-
mined by ‘classicist’ critical attitudes.
Van Hoogstraten’s view of Rembrandt as a painter who was a paradigm for
someone devoting himself to the depiction of the passions, should certainly not
be taken as an instance of negative criticism, as it was regarded by Emmens. As
Van Hoogstraten uses the terms I have analysed to describe Rembrandt as a
painter devoted to capturing and moving the beholder, he uses a terminology in
which Cicero and Quintilian would have praised the perfect orator, whose main
virtues were exactly perspicuitas and ornatus, and whose powers were directed at
one main point: to move the audience. This terminology was eagerly taken over
by learned writers on painting in the seventeenth century such as Junius and
Vossius, whose words Van Hoogstraten could borrow to express his experiences
in Rembrandt’s studio.
In the outline of a rhetorical approach of seventeenth-century art, the
terms I have selected appear to function in a vivid theory incorporating elements
such as emotion, movement, and colour, and stressing the persuasive character of
both pictorial illusionism and painted physical movements.87 Rhetoric, obvious-
ly, could by moving the masses fulfil an essential ethical and political function in
society; that is why moral philosophy of the early modern period put such weight
on the formula vir bonus dicendi peritus, the ‘good man’, embodying the ideals of
civic humanism, ‘skilled in speaking’.88 Ellenius adapted this phrase to the seven-
teenth-century theory of painting by changing it to vir bonus pingendi peritus.89
Seen in this context, Van Hoogstraten, when conferring the virtues of the ideal
orator to Rembrandt, gave his master the highest compliment.

thijs weststeijn 123

 notes
* This article is a spin-off from my dissertation research on Van Hoogstraten’s Inley-
ding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst (1678) funded by NWO (the Netherlands
Organisation for Scientific Research). For their comments on my use of rhetoric,
I thank Lex Hermans and Caroline van Eck; for any possible mistakes, I am the
only one responsible. For a first reading of this article I thank Eric Jan Sluijter.
1 For Van Hoogstraten as an exponent of ‘classicism’ see J.A. Emmens, Rembrandt
en de Regels van de Kunst (diss. 1964), in: Verzameld Werk dl. 2, Amsterdam 1979;
this view of Van Hoogstraten as a ‘classicist’ and therefore not representative of
the older masters of the ‘Golden Age’ has proven very tenacious and was still
recently expressed by Christopher Brown in his The Dutchness of Dutch Art. First
Golden Age Lecture, 26 sept. 2002, Amsterdam 2002, p. 22: ‘At the end of the seven-
teenth century Samuel van Hoogstraten, Gerard de Lairesse, Andries Pels and Jan
de Bisschop all attack the popular art of the earlier part of the century and pro-
mote classical ideas in art [...] they were attacking the prevailing conventions in the
name of a new movement, classicism.’
2 Van Hoogstraten describes in his treatise how discussions in the studio took place
between the master and his pupils, as well as between his pupils. As he describes
this, the discussions largely followed rhetorical topoi. Van Hoogstraten’s discus-
sions with Fabritius, that the painter should be in love with the art of painting (Inl.
p. 11), Furnerius’s remark on the painter’s knowledge of history (p. 95), and
Fabritius’s sentiments on the selective imitation of most noble parts of nature
(p. 181), are all topoi recurring in poetics and rhetoric. On the title page of chapter
II, devoted to the Muse of Rhetoric, Van Hoogstraten depicts two persons dis-
cussing a painting. For Van Hoogstraten’s experiences in Rembrandt’s studio, see
the in many respects still valuable article of W.R. Valentiner, ‘Rembrandt and
Samuel van Hoogstraten’, Art in America, 18/3, (1930), pp. 123-143.
3 The main study addressing the issue of rhetoric in the context of Dutch art is
G.J.M. Weber, Der Lobtopos des ‘lebenden’ Bildes. Jan Vos und sein “Zeege der Schil-
derkunst” von 1654, Hildesheim 1991; for rhetorical aspects of art theory see in
particular Miedema’s commentary on Van Mander’s works in H. Miedema (ed.),
C. van Mander, Den grondt der edel vrij schilder-const, Utrecht 1973.
4 See for the situation in the Republic: J. Jansen, ‘Het geslaagde spreken: welspre-
kendheid als beroepsbekwaamheid in de zeventiende eeuw’, De zeventiende eeuw 1
(2002), pp. 31-42. On rhetoric in education, see P.N.M. Bot, Humanisme en onder-
wijs in Nederland, Utrecht & Antwerpen 1955.
5 Van Hoogstraten may, just like Rembrandt, have visited the Latin school. It is like-
ly that Van Hoogstraten was, together with his brother Frans, trained in the prin-
ciples of humanist education and had at least an elementary knowledge of Latin,
although his education is not to be established with certainty. Samuel stayed in con-
tact with many of the members of the Latin school in Dordrecht, who went to the
university in Leiden when he set out as an apprentice in Rembrandt’s studio, and
he was an important figure in their literary experiments; see M. Spies, Dordrechtse
‘roman’-tiek in de zeventiende eeuw, lecture Amsterdam Center for the Study of the
Golden Age, March 7th, 2002 (see: cf.uba.uva.nl/goudeneeuw/archief/2002/colloquium-
7mrt2002.rtf). Van Hoogstraten’s painting treatise may have developed from the
collection of quotations he already started on during his years at the Latin school.
For earlier work on Rembrandt and rhetoric see, mainly on the concepts of aemu-
latio and the affects, S. Grohé, Rembrandts mythologische Historien, Köln 1996, esp.
pp. 64-73, and the essay on Rembrandt’s use of the genera dicendi, as reconstructed
by Ernst van de Wetering in his essay on Rembrandt’s self-portraits in A Corpus of
Rembrandt Paintings, vol. IV (forthcoming).

124 the learned eye

6 Van de Wetering draws an outline of the learned coterie of humanists and their
intellectual ideals surrounding Rembrandt’s studio in Leiden in E. van de Wete-
ring, ‘Rembrandt’s Beginnings – an Essay’, in: E. van de Wetering & B. Schnack-
enburg (eds.), The Mystery of the Young Rembrandt, Kassel, Amsterdam & Wolf-
ratshausen 2001 (exh.cat.), pp. 22-57, esp. pp. 27-32. That Van Hoogstraten felt
attracted to these ideals is also testified in his early self-portrait, now in Rotter-
dam, where he has depicted himself while reading. On the intellectual culture sur-
rounding Rembrandt see also A. Golahny, Rembrandt’s Reading. The Artist’s Book-
shelf of Ancient Poetry and History, Amsterdam 2003. For Van Hoogstraten’s literary
achievements, see Thissen, P., Werk, netwerk en letterwerk van de familie Van Hoog-
straten in de zeventiende eeuw: sociaal-economische en sociaal-culturele achtergronden van
geletterden in de republiek, Amsterdam & Maarssen 1994, esp. pp. 52-71.
7 On the rhetorical framework applied in the Inleyding see H.-J. Czech, Im Geleit der
Musen. Studien zu Samuel van Hoogstratens Malereitraktat ‘Inleyding tot de Hooge
Schoole der Schilderkonst: Anders de Zichtbaere Werelt.’ (Rotterdam 1678), Münster
2002, esp. pp. 208-209, 222-225. Van Hoogstraten compares painting to the dif-
ferent liberal arts, among which rhetoric, Inl. p. 346; he compares composition in
rhetoric and painting on pp. 190-191.
8 Van Hoogstraten refers in his Inleyding to several of Cicero’s works, among whom
Orator, De Oratore, De Officiis, Tusculanae Disputationes, and to Quintilian’s Institu-
tio Oratoriae; but also to the Orationes of the Greek rhetorician Dio Chrysostom
(1st c. AD).
9 Van Hoogstraten refers in the Inleyding, p. 42, to Julius Caesar Scaliger, Exote-
ricarum exercitationum, Paris 1652, CCLXVII, pp. 339-340, 347-350; for the other
authors see the apparatus in Czech, Im Geleit der Musen (see note 7).
10 Van Hoogstraten probably used Junius’ own Dutch translation, De Schilder-konst
der Oude, Middelburg 1641. On Junius’ adaptations of classical rhetoric, see C.
Nativel (ed.), De Pictura Veterum. Edition du livre I, Genève 1996. I will cite from
the English edition of 1638: Aldrich, K., Fehl, P. & Fehl, R. (eds.), Franciscus Junius,
The Literature of Classical Art: Vol. 1. The Painting of the Ancients: De Pictura Veterum,
According to the English Translation (1638), Berkeley, Los Angeles & Oxford 1991.
11 Other rhetorical terms like imitatio, varietas, gratia, and modus will be treated in my
dissertation. For a first result of my research see my ‘Schilderkunst als “zuster van
de bespiegelende wijsgeerte”: de theoretische status van het afbeelden van de
zichtbare wereld in Samuel van Hoogstratens Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der
Schilderkonst, De zeventiende eeuw 2 (2002), pp. 172-184, and ‘Imitatie in Samuel
van Hoogstratens Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst’ (publication
in consequence of the congress Imitation in the Renaissance, Amsterdam, April 23rd
2004), in De Zeventiende Eeuw 2 (2oo5).
12 For an elaboration on this theme see C. Nativel, ‘Partes orationis et partes pin-
gendi: Rhétorique antique et peinture au XVIIe siècle dans le De pictura veterum
de Franciscus Junius’, Acta Conventis Neo-Latini Torontonensis, Proceedings of the
Seventh International Congress of Neo-Latin Studies (Toronto 8 August to 13 August
1988), Binghamton 1991, pp. 529-538.
13 Inl. p. 75.
14 Emmens, Rembrandt (see note 1), p. 89, pp. 119-120.
15 Inl. p. 109.
16 Van Mander calls the passions ‘rechte Kernen oft Siele die Const in haer heeft
besloten’, and adds the scholium: ‘D’Affecten uytbeelden, Siele der Consten’; Van
Mander, Den grondt (see note 3), VI, 55. Junius also calls passions the ‘soul of art’,
Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 221, p. 281, p. 289. Leonardo already spoke
on the passions in a comparable way; see Weber, Lobtopos (see note 3), p. 196.
About the significance of the passions for early modern art theory, from Alberti to

thijs weststeijn 125

 LeBrun, a lot has been written. I refer only to N. Michels, Bewegung zwischen Ethos
und Pathos. Zur Wirkungsästhetik italienischer Kunsttheorie de 15. und 16. Jahrhun-
derts, Münster 1988, in which the author shows how the passions gained in impor-
tance in the art theory from Alberti onwards to the beginning of the seventeenth
century; his research did not cover the rest of this century.
17 B. Vickers, In Defence of Rhetoric, Oxford 1989, p. 37.
18 Quintilian, Inst. Orat, 3.5.2.
19 I borrow Philip Sohm’s phrase, in his Style in the Art Theory of Early Modern Italy,
Cambridge a.o. 2001, p. 137.
20 ‘Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum ipsi tibi’; Horace, Ars Poetica, 3.99-102. Com-
pare Alberti, Della Pittura, ed. Grayson, Bari 1980, 2.41: ‘Piangiamo con chi piange
et ridiamo con chi ride et dolianci con chi si duole’.
21 ‘’t Is niet genoeg, dat een beelt schoon is, maer daer moet een zeekere beweeg-
lijkheyt in zijn, die macht over d’aenschouwers heeft; Gelijk Horatius van het
dichten zingt: Een schoon gedicht zal mij niet licht beroeren,/Maer vriendelijkheyt
kan hert en ziel vervoeren./Men lacche, of ween’, d’aenschouwer raekt op’t spoor:
/Dus wilt gy dat ik schreye, schrey my voor’, Inl. p. 292.
22 ‘[G]eheel den komediant leeren nabootsen’, in order to be ‘voor een spiegel, om
te gelijk vertooner en aanschouwer’; Inl. p. 110. Van Hoogstraten gives the exam-
ple of the actor Polus, who when he had to play Elektra, first dug up the bones of
his own son; Inl. p. 109.
23 See C. White & Q. Buvelot (eds.), Rembrandt by Himself, London, Den Haag &
Zwolle 1999-2000 (exh.cat.), cat.nos. 20-23. The etchings are dated 1630.
24 S. Alpers, Rembrandt’s Enterprise, Chicago 1988, pp. 38-46.
25 ‘Zoo moogt gy ook, als u eenigen druk overkomen is, u met de konst troosten, en
als u iets behaeglijx voorkomt, zoo is’t tijdt, dat gy aenmerkt wat innerlijke
gevoelicheden en uiterlijke bewegingen deeze lijdingen veroorzaken’; Inl. p. 109.
26 Junius also regards painters that devote themselves to the passions as ‘rechte
Konstenaers’ or ‘gheleerde kloeckaers’, in contrast to ‘gemeyne dozijnwerckers’;
Junius, Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 222.
27 ‘Dewijl dit onderwerpen zijn, de meer dan een dierlijke beweeging in hebben, zoo
zijn de konstenaers, die hiertoe een rechte bequaemheyt hebben, alderdunst ge-
zaeyt’, Inl. p. 87.
28 ‘Maer hier is een Poëtische geest van noode, om een ieders ampt zich wel voor te
stellen. Die deeze niet en gevoelt, tree vry terugge; want hy en zal de zaek niet
machtich zijn; ten waer hem eenich Godt of Poëet de hulpige hand bood’, Inl. p. 110.
29 As Weber’s Lobtopos (see note 3) demonstrates, the rhetorical theory of the ‘living
image’ was largely based on the passions.
30 ‘[E]en volmaekte Schildery is als een Spiegel van de Natuer, die [...] op een geoor-
loofde, vermakelijke en prijslijke wijze bedriegt’; Inl. p. 25. The equation of the
theatre with a mirror occurs in Cicero, Oratio in Pisonem, 29.71, De finibus, 5.22.51,
en De re publica, 2.42.69. Its most famous repetition in the early modern period is
made by Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, 2.
31 For the confronting attitudes concerning rhetoric’s use see Vickers, In Defence of
Rhetoric (see note 17); for the appreciation of deceit in the early modern period in
general, I refer to G. Schröder, Logos und List. Zur Entwicklung der Ästhetik in der
frühen Neuzeit, Königstein 1985.
32 See E.J. Sluijter, “Horrible nature, incomparable art”: Rembrandt and the depic-
tion of the female nude’, in: J. Lloyd Williams e.a., Rembrandt’s Women, Edinburgh
2001 (exh.cat.), pp. 37-49, p. 41.
33 ‘Maer om op den rechten wech te komen, en zeeker te gaen, zoo moet een konst-
oeffenaer zich tot de leevende natuer keeren, en zien, hoe ver het hem in de
beweegingen geoorloft is te gaen’; Inl. p. 294.

126 the learned eye

34 Junius, Painting of the Ancients (see note 10), p. 208; compare the Dutch edition: ‘dat
een fijn ende bequaem Konstenaer boven alle dingen nae een natuyr-kondighe
ervaerenheyd behoort te trachten: [...] min dat hy ‘t ghevoelen van soo veele teghen-
strijdighe ghesintheden der naturelicker Philosophen in sijne eenigheyd besighlick
soude siften, om daer uyt den rechten aerd van allerly harts tochten ende beweghin-
gen volmaektelick te verstaen: Dit en is de meyninghe niet: Want wij het ghenoegh
achten dat hy door een daghelicksche opmerckinghe uytvinde hoe de menighvuldi-
ghe gheneghenheden ende beroerten onses ghemoeds ‘t gebaar onses aenghesichts
dus of soo veranderen ende ontstellen. [...] Een wijs ende verstandigh aenmerker
der dinghen diemen behoort nae te volghen, houdt sijne ooghen geduyrighlick ges-
lagen op die menschen onder welcke hy leeft; achtende dat hem de lesse, die hy te
leeren heeft, in elck bysonder mensche, als in een klaer en leesbaer Boeck, op’t aller
duydelickste voorghespelt is’, Junius, Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 221.
35 Compare Junius, Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 220.
36 Inl. p. 110.
37 ‘t Gedenkt mij dat ik, in zeker aerdich geordineert stukje van Rembrandt, ver-
beeldende een Johannes Predicatie, een wonderlijke aendacht in de toehoorderen
van allerleye staaten gezien hebbe: dit was ten hoogsten prijslijk’, Inl. p. 183.
38 C. Huygens, Fragment eener autobiographie, ed. J.A. Worp, s.l., s.a. p. 77. Huygens
composed the manuscript in the period 1629-1631.
39 R. de Piles, Abregé de la Vie des Peintres, Paris 17152 (16991), p. 423: ‘Il scavoit fort
bien qu’en Peinture on pouvoit, sans beaucoup de peine, tromper la vûë en repre-
sentant des corps immobiles et inanimez; et non content de cet artificé assez com-
mun, il chercha avec une extrême application celuy d’imposer aux jeux par des figures
vivantes.’
40 L.H. ten Kate, Verhandeling over het Denkbeeldige Schoon der Schilders, Beeldhouwers
en Dichters, Amsterdam 1720 (HS 1436 UBA), pp. 7-8: ‘[hij geeft] door een kun-
stige verdeeling van licht, om dezelven beter te doen uitblinken, gewoonlyk aan
zyne eenvoudige beelden spreekende vrolykheden en gemoedsbeweegingen,
verzeld van eene gemaklyke en ongemaakte houding’.
41 G. Vossius, ‘De Graphice, sive arte pingendi’, in: De Quator Artibus Popularibus,
Grammatistice, Gymnastice, Musice, & Graphice, liber. Amsterdam 1690 (16501), § 19,
p. 70, uses Pathopoios as a synonym for ‘Affectus effingens’: ‘Hinc Graphice Callis-
trato, ubi Aesculapii statuam describit, vocatur “ethopoios techne”, ars mores effin-
gens. Ac poterat similiter “pathopoios” (affectus effingens) dicere.’
42 See also White & Buvelot, Rembrandt by Himself (see note 23), p. 219.
43 Inl. p. 299, see also p. 110. Comp. Van Mander, Den grondt (see note 3), VI 65, p.
509, p. 511, with a reference to Pliny.
44 Quintilian, Inst. orat. vi.ii.32: ‘Intersequitur ‘enargeia’ quae a Cicerone illustratio
et evidentia nominatur, quae non tam dicere videtur quam ostendere; et adfectus
nonaliter, quam si rebus ipsis intersimus, sequentur.’
45 Junius, Painting of the Ancients (see note 10), p. 265. Junius translates Quintilian’s
Greek term enargeia by energia, making no distinction between the different, al-
though related, Greek terms enargeia and energeia. He thereby expresses his con-
viction that enargeia and energeia are overlapping concepts. In the Dutch version,
the problem is evaded by leaving out the term altogether: ‘Dies plaghten oock die-
ghene allerley herts-tochten te nae haeren eyghenen lust ghemackelick te ghe-
bieden, die dese verbeeldinghen recht-wel begrijpen, sonder yet te verswijmen ‘t
welck tot de waere omstandigheden behoort. Waer op dan d’uytdruckelickheyd
ofte duydelickheyd plaght te volghen, die ons de gantsche saecke soo blijckelick
voor d’ooghen stelt, als of wy de naeckte vertooninghe der dinghen selver aen-
schouden.’ Junius, Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 291. On the concepts of
enargeia and energeia see Michels, Bewegung (see note 16), p. 61, p. 182.

thijs weststeijn 127

46 See the lemma on energia in the glossary to Junius, Painting of the Ancients (see note
10), p. 379. For the interrelationships between the concepts of enargeia and energeia
in the theory of painting, see V. von Rosen, ‘Die Enargeia des Gemäldes. Zu einem
vergessenen Inhalt des Ut-pictura-poesis und seiner Relevanz für das cinquecenteske
Bildkonzept’, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 27 (2000), pp. 171-206.
47 On Heinsius’ adaptation of Aristotelian poetics see J. Konst, Woedende wraakgie-
righeid en vruchtelooze weeklachten. De hartstochten in de Nederlandse tragedie van de
zeventiende eeuw, Assen 1993.
48 ‘Het zy nu, datmen een enkel beelt, of veele te zamen voor hebbe, men moet toe-
zien, datmen alleenlijk een oogenblikkige beweeging, welke voornamentlijk de
daed der Historie uitdrukt, vertoone; gelijk Horatius zegt: Breng yder werkstuk,
zoo ‘t behoort, slechts enkel een eenweezich voort. Op dat het werk eenstemmich
den toeziender, als een anderen omstander verrukke, van een felle daed doe schrik-
ken, en door het zien van iets blygeestichs doe verheugen: of dat hy door eenich
aengedaen ongelijk met meedelijden bewoogen worde ; en in een rechtvaerdige
daed zich vernoegt bevinde’; Inl. p. 116.
49 On the concept ‘eenweezich’, see also Van de Wetering, Rembrandt. The Painter at
Work, Amsterdam 1997, p. 253.
50 On the related concepts of enargeia, illustratio, evidentia see Quintilian, Inst. orat.
VI 2.32.
51 ‘[D]aer moet een zeekere beweeglijkheyt in zijn, die macht over d’aenschouwers
heeft [...]. Zoo is’t ook met de Schilders, zy beroeren ‘t gemoed niet, zooze deeze
beweeglijkheyt overslaen’, Inl. p. 292.
52 Dolce uses the term energia; see M.W. Roskill, Dolce’s Aretino and Venetian Art
Theory of the Cinquecento, Toronto 2000 (1968), p. 128. Gauricus uses energetiko-
teron to describe the ‘moving’ powers of vivid representation; Gauricus, P., De
Sculptura [1503], Introduzione, testo latino, traduzione e note a cura di P. Cutolo, saggi
di F. Divenuto, F. Negri Arnoldi & P. Sabbatino, Napoli 1999, De statua 1.3.
53 Junius, Painting of the Ancients (see note 10), p. 53; compare the Dutch edtion:
‘Greg. Nyssenus na een wijdtloopigh en gantsch beweghelick verhael van Isaacks
Offerhande, heeft dit daer en boven daer by gevoeght. Ick hebbe menighmael,
seght hy, d’af-beeldinge deser geschiedenisse in een Schilderye met weenende
ooghen aanschouwet, soo krachtighlick was de gantsche Historye door de Konst
voor ooghen gestelt.’ Junius, Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 49. He refers
to St. Gregorius Nycenus, De Deitate Filii et Spiritus Sancti Oratio; the topos was
repeated in the tradition of art theory and especially popular with authors of the
Counter-reformation such as Gilio, Paleotti and Molanus; compare e.g. G. Coma-
nini, Il Figino, Mantova 1591, p. 310.
54 ‘Tu Artifex, quid quaeris amplius? delectantur spectans multitudo, ducitur Pictura,
gaudet, dolet, ridet, miratur, et, Pictura quosuis affectus inspirante, ad misericor-
diam aut odium inducitur.’ Junius, De Pictura Veterum (ed. Nativel, see note 10),
book I, chap. 5, par. 4, p. 370. This passage is left out of the Dutch translation.
55 On the issue of the peripety in Rembrandt’s histories see A. Blankert, Ferdinand
Bol 1616-1680. Een leerling van Rembrandt, Den Haag 1976, pp. 41-45.
56 Inl. p. 75.
57 See note 55.
58 Van Hoogstraten describes the contrary emotions of a dying mother, still wanting
to take care of her child: both ‘moederlijke voorzorge’ and ‘kommer en droefheyt’,
Inl. p. 109. He praises the sculptor Demon who made the ‘Genius’ of the city of
Athens: an example of ‘strijdige driften’ in one statue, Inl. p. 111.
59 Huygens, Fragment eener autobiographie (see note 38), p. 78: ‘[Rembrandt] uno in
homine collegit singula et universa expressit’.
60 Huygens, Fragment eener autobiographie (see note 38), p. 7.

128 the learned eye

61 The RRP thinks that the offering to Huygens was the Samson (another possibility
would be the Danaë in the Hermitage). J. Bruyn e.a., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paint-
ings vol. III, Den Haag 1989, p. 192 ff.
62 J.C. Scaliger, Poetices libri septem, 1.6.
63 For the most recent discussion of this letter see J. Bruyn, ‘Wat bedoelde Rem-
brandt in zijn derde brief aan Constantijn Huygens over diens huis te zeggen?’,
Oud Holland 112 (1998), p. 251 ff.
64 Compare Miedema’s interpretation in Van Mander, Den grondt (see note 3), XII
2f, p. 495.
65 ‘[D]en verzierlijken Rembrant, nae de dood van mijn Vader Theodoor mijn tweede
Meester’; Inl. p.25.
66 See the index to Miedema’s edition of Karel van Mander, The Lives of the Illustrious
Netherlandish and German Painters, Doornspijk 1995.
67 M. Hazard, ‘An Essay to Amplify “Ornament”: Some Renaissance Theory and
Practice’, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900, 16 (1976), pp. 15-32; and by
V. Biermann, Ornamentum. Studien zum Traktat ‘De re aedificatoria’ des Leon Bat-
tista Alberti, Hildesheim/Zürich/New York 1997. The interpretation of the term
ornament as a fundamental category for Italian art theory of the Cinquecento, as
undertaken by H. Wohl, The Aesthetics of Italian Renaissance Art. A Reconsideration
of Style, Cambridge/New York/Melbourne 1999, is not relevant to this discussion.
68 The four virtutes dicendi are latinitas, ornatus, perspicuitas (or evidentia), and decorum.
69 Alberti: ‘ornamentum autem afficti et compacti naturam sapere magis quam innati’,
quoted in Biermann, Ornamentum (see note 67), p. 144.
70 ‘Quem deum, ut ita dicam, inter homines putant? Qui distincte, qui explicate, qui
abundanter, qui illuminate et rebus et verbis dicunt, et in ipsa oratione quasi
quemdam numerum versumque conficiunt – id est quod dico ornate’, Cicero, De
oratore iii.xiv.53, ed. and trans. E.W. Sutton and H. Rackham, London 1942, vol.
2, p. 42.
71 Quintilian, Inst. orat. viii.iii.6, quoted by Junius: ‘De manhaftige schijn-staetelick-
heyd, ghelijckse voornaemelick in de rechtschaepene rustigheyd van een onver-
seerde kloekheyd bestaet; soo moet se haer meeste cieraet soeken in de ghesonde
verwe van een onghekrenckte sterckte, sonder sich met de vertaerde glattigheyd
van hoogh-verwighe blancketsels in’t minste te behelpen, seght Quintil. VIII.3’,
Junius, Schilder-konst der Oude (see note 10), p. 273.
72 Puttenham, G., The Arte of English Poesie, ed. G. Willock and A. Walker, Cam-
bridge 1970, p. 138.
73 So Lodovico Dolce assures the painter to use natural colouring by referring to
Propertius’ criticism of his lover’s make-up; see Roskill, Dolce’s Aretino (see note
52), p. 299; cf. Propertius, Elegies I,2 vv. 21-22. ‘Sed facies aderat nullis obnoxia
gemmis, Qualis Apelleis est color in tabulis.’ Compare Dolce’s use of ornatus in
respect to Titian: ‘Non ha dimostrato Titiano nelle sue opere vaghezza vana, ma
proprietà convenevole di colori: non ornamenti affettati, ma sodezza da maestro,
non crudezza, ma il pastoso e tenero della natura’, p. 184.
74 Cicero, De oratore, iii.xl.161, vol II, p. 126: [translatio] lumen affert orationi’.
Quintilian calls metaphors the ‘lumina orationis’, Inst. Orat. viii.v.34.
75 Cicero, De oratore, iii.xliii.170, vol II, p. 134 ‘quod maxime tanquam stellis quibus-
dam notat et illuminat orationem’.
76 Inl. p. 217. Ornament and incarnate are connected in the letter written in Raphael’s
name to pope Leo X: ‘senza ornamento [...] l’ossa del corpo senza carne’; Alberti
also makes this connection, and treats incarnate colouring in books VI-IX of De re
aedificatoria, which are devoted to architectural ornament. See Biermann, Orna-
mentum (see note 67), p. 145.
77 ‘De bloote Teykening (zegt Plutarchus) heeft nergens nae zulk een bewegende

thijs weststeijn 129

 kracht, als de verwen: gemerkt dezelve, door het bedroch van een levende gelij-
kenisse, alleen machtich zijn ons gemoed te ontroeren’, Inl. p. 226.
78 Junius, Painting of the Ancients (se note 10), p. 252; compare the Dutch edition:
‘d’over-veruwde figuren evenwel, gelijckse de verscheydene eyghenschappen ende
werckinghen van eenen levendighen gheest klaerder uytdrucken, soo plaghtense
met eenen oock ons ghesicht door d’aenlockelicke lustbaerheyd van menigherley
treffelicke veruw-cieraeten seldsaemlick te beguychelen’, Junius, Schilder-konst der
Oude (see note 10), p. 274.
79 Van Hoogstraten praises Rembrant’s skills in incarnate, Inl. p. 228, and colouring
(Rembrandische verwen), p. 291 and p. 268.
80 Reflected light was putatively Rembrandt’s ‘true element’ (‘Wonderlijk heeft zich
onzen Rembrant in reflexeeringen gequeeten, jae het scheen of deze verkiezing
van ‘t wederom kaetsen van eenich licht zijn rechte element was’), Inl. p. 273.
81 Inl. p. 306 For an analysis of Rembrandt’s tonal qualities and his use of lighting in
relation to the remarks in Van Hoogstraten’s Inleyding, see E. Van de Wetering,
‘Het licht van het ware’, Kroniek van het Rembrandthuis 1-2 (2001), pp. 3-10. As is
noted by A. Golahny, Rembrandt’s Paintings and the Venetian Tradition (diss.), Ann
Arbor 1984, Van Hoogstraten has greater attention and appraisal for painterly qual-
ities such as brushwork and tonal values than any other Dutch writer on art, which
might be well explained form his experiences in Rembrandt’s studio.
82 S. Slive, Rembrandt and his Critics, Den Haag 1953, p. 70.
83 J. van den Vondel, Werken, X 630: ‘Dus baert de schilderkunst ook zoons van duis-
ternisse/Die gaerne in schaduwe verkeeren, als een uil/Wie’t leven navolght kan
versierde schaduw missen/en als een kint van ‘t licht gaet in geen scheemring
schuil’; quoted by Slive, Rembrandt and his Critics (see note 82), p. 70.
84 ‘[Z]oo krachtich, dat, nae zommiger gevoelen, al d’andere stukken daer als kaerte-
blaren nevens staen’, Inl. p. 176.
85 ‘Rembrand en Jan Lievensz, welker manier wel niet geheel te verwerpen is, voor-
namentlyk die van den eersten, zo ten opzichte van zyne natuurlykheid, als ook
zyne uitsteekende kragt. [...Some people ask:] was’er ooit een Schilder die de natuur
in kracht van coloriet zo na kwam, door zyne schoone lichten, lieffelyke overeen-
stemming, zyne zeldsaame en boven gemeene gedachten, enz. [...] En is zulks niet
genoeg om de geheele waereld te verlokken[?]’ G. de Lairesse, Groot Schilderboek,
Haarlem 1740 (first ed. 1707), I, p. 325.
86 Colouring and to a lesser extent clair-obscur are in the tradition of art theory often
appreciated for their affective powers; see J. Gavel, Colour. A Study of its Position in
the Art Theory of the Quattro- and Cinquecento, Stockhom 1979, esp. pp. 153-155;
and M. Cencillo Ramírez, Das Helldunkel in der italienischen Kunsttheorie des 15. und
16. Jahrhunderts und seine Darstellungsmöglichkeiten im Notturno, Münster 2000, p.
68-78. Van Hoogstraten echoes this traditional sentiment especially when he
deems clair-obscur an attribute of the Muse Melpomene, whom he also names the
Treurdichtster, the muse of tragedy.
87 The structure, general nature, and details of this theory of painting rooted in rhetoric
will be elaborated on in my dissertation (see note 11).
88 These words are used for example by Huygens, Fragment eener autobiographie (see
note 38), p. 60, with the marginal reference ‘M. An. Seneca, Praef. in Controver-
sias’.
89 A. Ellenius, De Arte Pingendi. Latin Art Literature in Seventeenth century Sweden and
its International Background, Uppsala/Stockholm 1960, p. 77.

130 the learned eye