Yellow, Vermilion, and Gold: Colour in Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck
Abstract
This chapter proposes a new interpretation of Karel van Mander’s views on
colour, as presented in his 1604 Schilder-Boeck, the most important early modern
treatise on Netherlandish painting. At the heart of Van Mander’s theory of
colour lay the creation of a critical vocabulary of art that would do justice to
the “Netherlandish” technique of oil painting and assert both its epistemic
dimensions and its power to produce affects. Particular attention is given to
Van Mander’s extensive discussion of the uses of gold and yellow, which has
received little attention to date, and to Hendrick Goltzius’s pictorial strategies
to “materialize” his new identity as a painter that closely paralleled the writing
of the Schilder-Boeck.
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press