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Address: Cambridge, United States
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Papers by Anna Knaap
12 Marvels and Marbles in the Antwerp Jesuit Church: Hendrick van Balen’s Stone Paintings of the Life of the Virgin (1621)
Jesuit Image Theory, 2016
This volume investigates how Jesuits reflected visually and verbally on the status and functions ... more This volume investigates how Jesuits reflected visually and verbally on the status and functions of the imago, between the foundation of the order in 1540 and its suppression in 1773, in rhetorical and emblematic treatises, theoretical debates, and embedded in various instances where Jesuit authors and artists implicitely explored the status and functions of images.
The Jesuit church in Antwerp ranked as one of the most splendid Counter Reformation churches buil... more The Jesuit church in Antwerp ranked as one of the most splendid Counter Reformation churches built North of the Alps in the early seventeenth century. Its magnificent Italian facade designed by Francois Aguilonius (1567-1617) and Pieter Huyssens (1578-1637) ( ) provided an imposing image of the Jesuit order that saw itself as the leading reform movement of the period. 1 The facade was matched by an ostentatious interior that displayed polished Italian marble and a rich decorative scheme. The most notable parts of the program consisted of Peter Paul Rubens' (1577-1640) high altarpieces depicting Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier and a series of thirtynine ceiling paintings that were executed between 1620 and 1621. Given the magnificence of Rubens' project, it is all the more regrettable that the original scheme was lost in a fire in 1718. While parts of the church and its decoration survived -the choir with Rubens' high altarpieces, the side chapels and the facade -the ceiling paintings in the nave were completely destroyed. Luckily, writers have been able to recover their original appearance through the study of Rubens' preparatory oil sketches, later copies after the final ceilings by Jacob de Wit (1695-1754) and Christian Benjamin Müller (1690-1758), and an early eighteenth-century description of the ceilings by the Jesuit Jan Baptist Van Caukercken (1675-1755). 3 On the basis of this evidence and the survival of contemporary views of the original interior by Pieter Neeffs (1578-1656/61) ( and others, writers have also been able to reconstruct the layout of the ceilings. John Rupert Martin convincingly demonstrated that the ceiling paintings located in the vaults of the upper galleries presented two parallel sequences of nine alternating Old and New Testament scenes ( while the ceiling paintings above the aisles and narthex featured a series of twenty-one male and female saints. Following Caukercken's early description, he identified eight pairings of familiar type-antitype relationships in the upper ceilings. For example, he connected the New Testament scene of the Raising of the Cross to the Sacrifice of Isaac ( , an Old Testament event that was thought to foreshadow Christ's sacrifice on the cross. In the literature there is now general consensus that the upper level ceilings constituted a 'straightforward' narrative progression of typological pairs. 4
Book Reviews by Anna Knaap
The European tradition in the graphic arts began in the fifteenth century, and early prints are n... more The European tradition in the graphic arts began in the fifteenth century, and early prints are notable for a bold and rapid exploration of new subjects and themes. Given the much expanded degree of interaction between Christian Europeans and black Africans that developed during the 1400s, one might imagine that printmakers would have been eager to depict persons of color. Yet the first attempts to do so were halting, and for a paradoxical reason: graphic artists had a hard time showing dark skin because light and dark were rigorously employed as chiaroscuro elements to evoke form, rather than the hue of individual objects. This choice little show of twenty objects at the Neil L. and Angelica Zander Rudenstine Gallery at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research traced the means by which European printmakers overcame this obstacle between ca. 1500 and ca. 1700.
Renaissance Quarterly 68 (Spring 2015), 247-9
Review of exhibition catalogue, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2013), edited by Stephanie Sch... more Review of exhibition catalogue, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2013), edited by Stephanie Schrader.
Published in: Journal of Jesuit Studies 1 (2014), 313-315.
12 Marvels and Marbles in the Antwerp Jesuit Church: Hendrick van Balen’s Stone Paintings of the Life of the Virgin (1621)
Jesuit Image Theory, 2016
This volume investigates how Jesuits reflected visually and verbally on the status and functions ... more This volume investigates how Jesuits reflected visually and verbally on the status and functions of the imago, between the foundation of the order in 1540 and its suppression in 1773, in rhetorical and emblematic treatises, theoretical debates, and embedded in various instances where Jesuit authors and artists implicitely explored the status and functions of images.
The Jesuit church in Antwerp ranked as one of the most splendid Counter Reformation churches buil... more The Jesuit church in Antwerp ranked as one of the most splendid Counter Reformation churches built North of the Alps in the early seventeenth century. Its magnificent Italian facade designed by Francois Aguilonius (1567-1617) and Pieter Huyssens (1578-1637) ( ) provided an imposing image of the Jesuit order that saw itself as the leading reform movement of the period. 1 The facade was matched by an ostentatious interior that displayed polished Italian marble and a rich decorative scheme. The most notable parts of the program consisted of Peter Paul Rubens' (1577-1640) high altarpieces depicting Ignatius of Loyola and Francis Xavier and a series of thirtynine ceiling paintings that were executed between 1620 and 1621. Given the magnificence of Rubens' project, it is all the more regrettable that the original scheme was lost in a fire in 1718. While parts of the church and its decoration survived -the choir with Rubens' high altarpieces, the side chapels and the facade -the ceiling paintings in the nave were completely destroyed. Luckily, writers have been able to recover their original appearance through the study of Rubens' preparatory oil sketches, later copies after the final ceilings by Jacob de Wit (1695-1754) and Christian Benjamin Müller (1690-1758), and an early eighteenth-century description of the ceilings by the Jesuit Jan Baptist Van Caukercken (1675-1755). 3 On the basis of this evidence and the survival of contemporary views of the original interior by Pieter Neeffs (1578-1656/61) ( and others, writers have also been able to reconstruct the layout of the ceilings. John Rupert Martin convincingly demonstrated that the ceiling paintings located in the vaults of the upper galleries presented two parallel sequences of nine alternating Old and New Testament scenes ( while the ceiling paintings above the aisles and narthex featured a series of twenty-one male and female saints. Following Caukercken's early description, he identified eight pairings of familiar type-antitype relationships in the upper ceilings. For example, he connected the New Testament scene of the Raising of the Cross to the Sacrifice of Isaac ( , an Old Testament event that was thought to foreshadow Christ's sacrifice on the cross. In the literature there is now general consensus that the upper level ceilings constituted a 'straightforward' narrative progression of typological pairs. 4
The European tradition in the graphic arts began in the fifteenth century, and early prints are n... more The European tradition in the graphic arts began in the fifteenth century, and early prints are notable for a bold and rapid exploration of new subjects and themes. Given the much expanded degree of interaction between Christian Europeans and black Africans that developed during the 1400s, one might imagine that printmakers would have been eager to depict persons of color. Yet the first attempts to do so were halting, and for a paradoxical reason: graphic artists had a hard time showing dark skin because light and dark were rigorously employed as chiaroscuro elements to evoke form, rather than the hue of individual objects. This choice little show of twenty objects at the Neil L. and Angelica Zander Rudenstine Gallery at Harvard University’s W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research traced the means by which European printmakers overcame this obstacle between ca. 1500 and ca. 1700.
Renaissance Quarterly 68 (Spring 2015), 247-9
Review of exhibition catalogue, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2013), edited by Stephanie Sch... more Review of exhibition catalogue, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (2013), edited by Stephanie Schrader.
Published in: Journal of Jesuit Studies 1 (2014), 313-315.