DOC25 - De Vier Uitersten - Four Last Things
Theodorus Galle after Hendrick Goltzius. Prudentia with a boy as a 16th century variant of the 'Spiegel der Vernunft'. De vier uitersten zijn de hemel, het Laatste oordeel, de dood en de hel.
In: HAZELZET, Korine (1994). De levenstrap. Uitgeverij Catena, Zwolle. ISBN 90-72211-21-9
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Fig. 159 – ‘De quatuor novissimis’ or the Last Four Things (Heaven, Last Judgement, Death and Hell) are shown here in a mirror to a young boy by the goddess Prudentia. Engraving by Theodorus Galle (1571 – 1633) after Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – 1617).
GERLACH (1988) pointed in his book on Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516) to Dionysius the Carthusian as the writer of the ‘Four Last Things’. This priest was the leader of a Carthusian order, from 1466 in Olland and thereafter in Den Dungen (Ten Eikendonk), until his dead in 1472. The four Latin editions of the ‘Quatuor novissima’ before 1500 were followed, with an interruption until 1532, by thirteen editions until 1693. The Belgian Jesuit William Stanyhurst (1602 – 1663) was very successful with his edition of the ‘Veteris Hominis . . . quatuor novissima metamorphosis et novi genesis’, dedicated to James van Baerlant (Antwerp, 1661; Prague, 1700; Vienna, 1766). The theme was still popular at the end of the eighteenth century.
Titles like ‘Spiegel der Vernunft‘ (Mirror of Knowledge) and ‘Spiegel der kerstenen menschen‘ or ‘Der Kerstenen Spieghel’ (The Cristian Mirror, by friar Dirk of Munster) were very popular at the same period – around the pivotal point (1500) – as ‘The Four Last Things’. Theodorus Galle followed Hendrick Goltzius in a picture of Prudentia, showing a young boy the four last things in a mirror: Heaven, Last Judgement, Death and Hell (HAZELZET, 1994; fig. 159).
Jeronimus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516), Pieter Breugel (c.-1525 – 1569) and others often depicted proverbs and maxims in paintings and prints. The recording and exposure of the daily encountered abuses and expressing them in a literary form gave way to a new, humanistic language (FOOTE, 1970). The pivotal point, 1500 AD, was an important moment of change where the established, Christian way of expression was replaced by human symbolism.
The realization that man was responsible for his own misery, rather than – as the Church had suggested for ages – he was part of a God-forsaken world dawned in the time of Bosch and Breugel. The seven sins provided only the entree to a whole exposé of human follies and foolishness. ‘No other epoch has laid so much stress as the expiring Middle Ages on the thought of death’, said HUIZINGA (1924/1955, p. 140) in his time-honored book ‘The Waning of the Middle Ages’, ‘An everlasting call of ‘mento mori’ resounds through life.’ This specific attention can be seen, in the light of division thinking, as just another, typical phenomena of a two-fold frame of mind. Birth and death as beginning and end of visible visibility, are significant moments in time.
The expression ‘Media vita in morte sumus’ (in the middle of life surrounded by death) refers to a midlife crisis, where the urge for visibility reaches a peak. The words are – according to ENKLAAR (1950) unjust attributed to the monk Notker the Stammler (Balbulus) of St. Gallen. The dance of death is the cheerful and morbid expression of this crisis (ROSENFELD, 1954).
quadriformisratio.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/in-search-of-e...
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FOUR - A Rediscovery of the 'Tetragonus mundus' - Marten KUILMAN (1996/2011). Falcon Press, Heemstede. ISBN 978-90-814420-1-5 p. 198 ff.:
The interest for the phenomenon of death and the perishable nature of all things had been immanent for some time. The 'triumph of death' on the Campo Santo of Pisa was an early example of its celebration. Furthermore, the historian Thietmar of Merseburg, recorded the dead in the cemetery of Deventer (Holland), who were singing while bringing their offerings (Thietmari Mersenburgensis episcopi chronican, ed. F. Kurze (1889) 8, I 11). Denis the Carthusian, the great compilator of the Middle Ages, had often seen - 'Yes, hundreds of times' - apparitions of deceased persons.
The feeling of a 'contemptus mundi' (contempt of the world) developed in a psychological environment where a clear distinction between the visible and invisible world was made. Death, as the gate to heaven or hell, was an awesome boundary, a marker point to celebrate in a dance.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109) called for a contempt of the world in his 'Exhortatio ad contemptum temporalium et desiderium aeternorum' and another strong advocate of these feelings was Bernard of Clairvaux, who summoned kings to conquer the Holy Land and live according to the strict rules of Saint Benedict. He was (most likely) the author of the 'Rhytmus de Contemptu mundi', which had the unimportance of the worldly endeavors as a central theme.
Innocent III wrote - before he became pope (from 1198 to 1216) - a book under the title 'De Contemptu mundi sive de miseria conditionis humanae libri tres'. It made an early call to despise the visible world. He made it clear that our existence was inevitably connected with death. This final element was a certain sign for the unimportance of the earthly existence. There was a sharp contrast to life in the afterworld, which was far more important.
ENKLAAR (1950) mentioned the outbreak of the plague or Black Death (1347 - 1351) and the Hundred Year War between France and England, with widespread misery in France, as the possible causes for the interest in death and the handling of mortal fear. It can be demonstrated that the dance of death on the wall of the cemetery 'zu Predigern' at Basle (1439) and another one at Lübeck (1463) was made while the plague raged the city and caused many victims. A dance of death in the Dominican cloister of Bern, executed by Niklaus Manuel (1484 - 1530) in 1519, was a medical affair, pointing to the mortal character of human beings (fig. 123).
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MORE, Thomas (1935). De vier uitersten (tr.: ‘The four last Things', 1521). Uitgeverij "Foreholte", Voorhout.
DOC25 - De Vier Uitersten - Four Last Things
Theodorus Galle after Hendrick Goltzius. Prudentia with a boy as a 16th century variant of the 'Spiegel der Vernunft'. De vier uitersten zijn de hemel, het Laatste oordeel, de dood en de hel.
In: HAZELZET, Korine (1994). De levenstrap. Uitgeverij Catena, Zwolle. ISBN 90-72211-21-9
---
Fig. 159 – ‘De quatuor novissimis’ or the Last Four Things (Heaven, Last Judgement, Death and Hell) are shown here in a mirror to a young boy by the goddess Prudentia. Engraving by Theodorus Galle (1571 – 1633) after Hendrick Goltzius (1558 – 1617).
GERLACH (1988) pointed in his book on Jheronimus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516) to Dionysius the Carthusian as the writer of the ‘Four Last Things’. This priest was the leader of a Carthusian order, from 1466 in Olland and thereafter in Den Dungen (Ten Eikendonk), until his dead in 1472. The four Latin editions of the ‘Quatuor novissima’ before 1500 were followed, with an interruption until 1532, by thirteen editions until 1693. The Belgian Jesuit William Stanyhurst (1602 – 1663) was very successful with his edition of the ‘Veteris Hominis . . . quatuor novissima metamorphosis et novi genesis’, dedicated to James van Baerlant (Antwerp, 1661; Prague, 1700; Vienna, 1766). The theme was still popular at the end of the eighteenth century.
Titles like ‘Spiegel der Vernunft‘ (Mirror of Knowledge) and ‘Spiegel der kerstenen menschen‘ or ‘Der Kerstenen Spieghel’ (The Cristian Mirror, by friar Dirk of Munster) were very popular at the same period – around the pivotal point (1500) – as ‘The Four Last Things’. Theodorus Galle followed Hendrick Goltzius in a picture of Prudentia, showing a young boy the four last things in a mirror: Heaven, Last Judgement, Death and Hell (HAZELZET, 1994; fig. 159).
Jeronimus Bosch (c. 1450 – 1516), Pieter Breugel (c.-1525 – 1569) and others often depicted proverbs and maxims in paintings and prints. The recording and exposure of the daily encountered abuses and expressing them in a literary form gave way to a new, humanistic language (FOOTE, 1970). The pivotal point, 1500 AD, was an important moment of change where the established, Christian way of expression was replaced by human symbolism.
The realization that man was responsible for his own misery, rather than – as the Church had suggested for ages – he was part of a God-forsaken world dawned in the time of Bosch and Breugel. The seven sins provided only the entree to a whole exposé of human follies and foolishness. ‘No other epoch has laid so much stress as the expiring Middle Ages on the thought of death’, said HUIZINGA (1924/1955, p. 140) in his time-honored book ‘The Waning of the Middle Ages’, ‘An everlasting call of ‘mento mori’ resounds through life.’ This specific attention can be seen, in the light of division thinking, as just another, typical phenomena of a two-fold frame of mind. Birth and death as beginning and end of visible visibility, are significant moments in time.
The expression ‘Media vita in morte sumus’ (in the middle of life surrounded by death) refers to a midlife crisis, where the urge for visibility reaches a peak. The words are – according to ENKLAAR (1950) unjust attributed to the monk Notker the Stammler (Balbulus) of St. Gallen. The dance of death is the cheerful and morbid expression of this crisis (ROSENFELD, 1954).
quadriformisratio.wordpress.com/2013/07/01/in-search-of-e...
---
FOUR - A Rediscovery of the 'Tetragonus mundus' - Marten KUILMAN (1996/2011). Falcon Press, Heemstede. ISBN 978-90-814420-1-5 p. 198 ff.:
The interest for the phenomenon of death and the perishable nature of all things had been immanent for some time. The 'triumph of death' on the Campo Santo of Pisa was an early example of its celebration. Furthermore, the historian Thietmar of Merseburg, recorded the dead in the cemetery of Deventer (Holland), who were singing while bringing their offerings (Thietmari Mersenburgensis episcopi chronican, ed. F. Kurze (1889) 8, I 11). Denis the Carthusian, the great compilator of the Middle Ages, had often seen - 'Yes, hundreds of times' - apparitions of deceased persons.
The feeling of a 'contemptus mundi' (contempt of the world) developed in a psychological environment where a clear distinction between the visible and invisible world was made. Death, as the gate to heaven or hell, was an awesome boundary, a marker point to celebrate in a dance.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109) called for a contempt of the world in his 'Exhortatio ad contemptum temporalium et desiderium aeternorum' and another strong advocate of these feelings was Bernard of Clairvaux, who summoned kings to conquer the Holy Land and live according to the strict rules of Saint Benedict. He was (most likely) the author of the 'Rhytmus de Contemptu mundi', which had the unimportance of the worldly endeavors as a central theme.
Innocent III wrote - before he became pope (from 1198 to 1216) - a book under the title 'De Contemptu mundi sive de miseria conditionis humanae libri tres'. It made an early call to despise the visible world. He made it clear that our existence was inevitably connected with death. This final element was a certain sign for the unimportance of the earthly existence. There was a sharp contrast to life in the afterworld, which was far more important.
ENKLAAR (1950) mentioned the outbreak of the plague or Black Death (1347 - 1351) and the Hundred Year War between France and England, with widespread misery in France, as the possible causes for the interest in death and the handling of mortal fear. It can be demonstrated that the dance of death on the wall of the cemetery 'zu Predigern' at Basle (1439) and another one at Lübeck (1463) was made while the plague raged the city and caused many victims. A dance of death in the Dominican cloister of Bern, executed by Niklaus Manuel (1484 - 1530) in 1519, was a medical affair, pointing to the mortal character of human beings (fig. 123).
--------
MORE, Thomas (1935). De vier uitersten (tr.: ‘The four last Things', 1521). Uitgeverij "Foreholte", Voorhout.