Eelco Nagelsmit
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Religion and Theology, Department Member
- Anthropology, Architecture, Art History, Visual Studies, Women's Studies, Medieval Studies, and 62 moreEarly Modern History, Anthropology of the State, Baroque art and architecture, Role of Culture in Architecture, 17th century Europe, Early Modern Catholicism, 16th Century Italian Art, 16th Century Netherlandish Art, Religious architecture, 17th Century Netherlandish Art, 17th Century Italian Art, 15th Century Netherlandish Art, 15th Century Italian Art, Church monuments, Prints and Drawings, 15th/16th c. German Art, History and Theory (Architecture), Medieval European Religious and Secular Architecture, Baroque Architecture, History, Seventeenth Century, 17th Century Dutch Republic, Reformation History, History of Roman Catholicism, Reformation Studies, Church History, 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish Art, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern France, History of The Netherlands, Prints (Art History), Jesuit history, German Pietism, Church architecture, Catholic Church History, Early Modern Church History, Dutch History, Counter-Reformation, Religious History, Sacred Space, Historiography (in Art History), Venetian art and architectural history, Portraiture, Power of Images, Complexity and Contradiction In Architecture, Materiality (Anthropology), Material culture of religion, 17th-Century Studies, Court history, Early Modern Italy, Habsburg Studies, Cultural History, Georges Didi-Huberman, Early Modern Low Countries, Brussels, Counter-Reformation art, Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish Baroque Art, Cultural Studies, Devotional literature, Iconography, and Semioticsedit
- Historian of Art and Architecture, focusing on early modern religious cultures, and the relation between art and mate... moreHistorian of Art and Architecture, focusing on early modern religious cultures, and the relation between art and material culture, religion and politics. Learn about an 18th century model of the Salomonic Temple: www.tempelsalomonis.euedit
This article offers a new interpretation of the portrait of Madame de Maintenon, in which Pierre Mignard depicted the secret wife of Louis XIV as Saint Frances of Rome. Celebrated in its time as a witty conceit, the portrait has been... more
This article offers a new interpretation of the portrait of Madame de Maintenon, in which Pierre Mignard depicted the secret wife of Louis XIV as Saint Frances of Rome. Celebrated in its time as a witty conceit, the portrait has been taken at face value, neglecting the intricacy of its iconography in relation to the equivocal status of the sitter. By combining art historical and church historical approaches, we shed light on the function of the portrait in the political and religious context of the court of Louis XIV. The study of little-known sources on Maintenon’s devotional practices allows us to reconstruct the agenda behind its creation. We argue that the artist played with the conventions of portraiture, using the analogy between the secret spouse and the saint to produce more than just a historiated portrait, but rather a ‘visual parable’. As a strategic intervention in Maintenon’s public image at a critical junction, it dissimulated her status as wife of the king while projecting a specific image of her religious persona in relation to the world.
Research Interests: French History, Painting, Secrecy, Catholic Theology, Portraiture, and 15 moreHistory of Roman Catholicism, Church History, Devotional literature, Religious Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Louis XIV, Catholic Church, Quietism, Catholic Church History, Court Studies, Francois Salignac De La Mothe-Fenelon, Portraiture and the Problematic of Representation, Pierre Mignard, Salesian Studies, and Madame de Maintenon
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Research Interests: Women's Studies, Women's History, Beguines, Roman Catholicism, Flemish Painting, and 10 moreBrussels, Female Patronage, Counter-Reformation art, Counter-Reformation, Female Patronage of Arts, History of the Duchy of Brabant (Low Countries), Beguinages, 17th Dutch and Flemish Paintings and Prints, Begijnhof, and Theodoor Van Loon
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The introductory chapter of my Ph.D. dissertation in the History of Art and Architecture (Leiden University & University of Ghent, 2014)
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Journal of Early Modern Christianity, special issue on 'SOLITUDES: Withdrawal and Engagement in the Long Seventeenth Century'
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The Cistercian monastery La Trappe, Mme de Maintenon’s school for girls at St Cyr, the schools at A. H. Francke’s foundations at Halle and the community established within these foundations bring to the fore the dynamic between withdrawal... more
The Cistercian monastery La Trappe, Mme de Maintenon’s school for girls at St Cyr, the schools at A. H. Francke’s foundations at Halle and the community established within these foundations bring to the fore the dynamic between withdrawal and engagement and the medial expressions of this dynamic. But each case demonstrates a particular employment of architecture, texts, music and images in the service of withdrawal and engagement respectively. At La Trappe the liturgical life and the furnishing of the abbey church made manifest the appropriation of desert asceticism as well as the Cistercian origin. Meanwhile the ethos of isolation and devotional self-surrender was conveyed beyond the walls by means of treatises, letters, images and the reception of visitors. At St Cyr noble girls were taught to renounce the world. This aim went hand in hand with the disciplinary and educational profile of the school and the royal founders’ ambition of to educate the wives and mothers of French noble households. Three paintings produced for the royal institution embody this aspiration in a particularly illuminating way. In the two cases related to Halle, the juxtaposition of theological texts and concepts such as Gelassenheit, musico-poetical culture as well as material and visual expressions of the Pietist reform movement and the employment of the eagle motif contributes to a multi-faceted understanding of the dynamic between withdrawal and engagement and the relation between the withdrawn locus and the society in which it was set.
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The Cistercian monastery La Trappe, Mme de Maintenon’s school for girls at St Cyr, the schools at A. H. Francke’s foundations at Halle and the community established within these foundations bring to the fore the dynamic between with-... more
The Cistercian monastery La Trappe, Mme de Maintenon’s school for girls at St Cyr, the schools at A. H. Francke’s foundations at Halle and the community established within these foundations bring to the fore the dynamic between with- drawal and engagement and the medial expressions of this dynamic. But each case demonstrates a particular employment of architecture, texts, music and images in the service of withdrawal and engagement respectively. At La Trappe the liturgical life and the furnishing of the abbey church made manifest the appropriation of desert asceticism as well as the Cistercian origin. Meanwhile the ethos of isolation and devotional self-surrender was conveyed beyond the walls by means of treatises, letters, images and the reception of visitors. At St Cyr noble girls were taught to renounce the world. This aim went hand in hand with the disciplinary and educa- tional profile of the school and the royal founders’ ambition of to educate the wives and mothers of French noble households. Three paintings produced for the royal institution embody this aspiration in a particularly illuminating way. In the two cases related to Halle, the juxtaposition of theological texts and concepts such as Gelassenheit, musico-poetical culture as well as material and visual expressions of the Pietist reform movement and the employment of the eagle motif contributes to a multi-faceted understanding of the dynamic between withdrawal and engagement and the relation between the withdrawn locus and the society in which it was set.
Research Interests: History of Education, Prayer, Emblem studies, Cistercian architecture, Gregorian Chant, and 11 moreMonasticism, Theology and Music, Jansenism, German Pietism, Schools, Aesthetics of Religion, Louis XIV, 17th century France, Court of Louis XIV, 17th century French theater, August Hermann Francke, Hymnals, and Early Modern History - History of Art - Religious Art and Catholic Reform - Folk Art and Popular Culture - Artists and Workshop - Wood Carved and Paintings In Rural Parishes - France XVIIe-XIXe S.
Review of: Ines Elsner, Das Huldigungssilber der Welfen des Neuen Hauses Braunschweig-Lüneburg (1520-1706): Geschenkkultur und symbolische Interaktion zwischen Fürst und Untertanen (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2019)
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MA thesis in the History of Art and Architecture, Leiden University (2009)
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In the early eighteenth century, the German school teacher Christoph Semler (1669-1740) created a detailed scale model of the Temple of Solomon, which existed between the 10th and the 6th centuries BCE in Jerusalem, and which was... more
In the early eighteenth century, the German school teacher Christoph Semler (1669-1740) created a detailed scale model of the Temple of Solomon, which existed between the 10th and the 6th centuries BCE in Jerusalem, and which was permanently destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE. Based on descriptions and measurements from the Bible, it offered its viewers a three-dimensional treasure-trove of exegetical opportunities. During live demonstrations, they were invited to explore the links between biblical events and histories through visualization of their spatial and temporal relations. The original model was lost in the nineteenth century but we have created a virtual reconstruction in Augment Reality based on textual and visual sources. This talk will discuss the possibilities and limitations of such a reconstruction of a reconstruction, and what it might it tell us about eighteenth-century epistemological procedures. How can the digital AR-technology potentially engage a twenty-first century audience with historical objects and religious ideas through spatial and architectural means?
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Christoph Semler’s model of the Temple of Solomon offered its eighteenth-century viewers a three-dimensional treasure-trove of exegetical opportunities. During live demonstrations, they were invited to explore the links between biblical... more
Christoph Semler’s model of the Temple of Solomon offered its eighteenth-century viewers a three-dimensional treasure-trove of exegetical opportunities. During live demonstrations, they were invited to explore the links between biblical events and histories through visualization of their spatial and temporal relations. This talk will discuss the virtual reconstruction of the lost model from various perspectives. It will address the textual and visual sources, such as the Biblical accounts from the Books of Kings and Chronicles, Semler’s manual (1718), and the work of Johannes Lundius on which it is largely based. What are the possibilities and limitations of such a reconstruction of a reconstruction, and what might it tell us about eighteenth-century epistemological procedures? And how can the digital technology of Augmented Reality potentially engage a twenty-first century audience with religious ideas?