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Hendrick Goltzius

Apollo

Maker

Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558-1617)
Dancker Danckerts (Dutch, 1633 - 1666), publisher

Title

Apollo

Year

1588

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Materials

engraving

Supports

Dimensions

Plate/Image: 34.8 x 26.7 cm (13 11/16 x 10 1/2 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Recto:in pencil in LR:B.141. fig 43/243 Verso:in pencil in LR:Le Dieu de Soleil; in UR:400In Plate--In LR:Dancker Danckertz-Exc.; In LC: H Goltzuis (H+G in monogram) fe./A°88; inscribed arou

Identification

State

2nd of 2

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Professor and Mrs. A. David Kossoff

Object Number

81.193

Type

Publications

  • Books

The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650

Renaissance engravings are objects of exquisite beauty and incomparable intricacy that are composed entirely of lines. Artists began using this intaglio process in Europe as early as 1430. This captivating catalogue focuses on the height of the medium, from 1480 to 1650, when engravers made dramatic and rapid visual changes to engraving technique as they responded to the demands of reproducing artworks in other media. The Brilliant Line follows these visual transformations and offers new insight into the special inventiveness and technical virtuosity of Renaissance and Baroque (Early Modern) engravers. The three essays discuss how engraving’s restrictive materials and the physical process of engraving informed its visual language; the context for the spread of particular engraving styles throughout Europe; and the interests, knowledge, and skills that Renaissance viewers applied when viewing and comparing engravings by style or school.

Exhibition History

The Brilliant Line
Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650
Sep 18, 2009 – Jan 03, 2010

Label copy

By the 1580s, Hendrick Goltzius had radically altered the engraver’s formulas for producing shape, volume, and tone. Rather than a single contour around the figure, here lines terminate to form the figure’s outline. Lozenges made from crossed swelling lines on Apollo’s body are interspersed with dots to moderate the transition from dark to light. Also evident is the s-curve, a mark used by Albrecht Dürer, but now swelled to follow the complicated volumes of clouds and activate the surface with swirling movement. Goltzius’s inventiveness as a calligrapher is also on display in the inscription around Apollo’s head, which describes the Sun God’s ability to dispel shadows and illuminate the globe.

The exaggerated musculature of the sculptural Sun God and the twisting bands of clouds around the figure were inspired by the style of Bartholomeus Spranger, court artist to Emperor Rudolf II at Prague, whose drawings were sent to Haarlem.

Image use

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Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Hendrick Goltzius (Dutch, 1558-1617)
Dancker Danckerts (Dutch, 1633 - 1666), publisher
Apollo, 1588
Engraving
Plate/Image: 34.8 x 26.7 cm (13 11/16 x 10 1/2 inches)
Gift of Professor and Mrs. A. David Kossoff 81.193

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