beautiful-belgium:Details from The Four Elements by Joris Hoefnagel”Hoefnagel received one of his ea
beautiful-belgium:Details from The Four Elements by Joris Hoefnagel”Hoefnagel received one of his earliest commissions while working for the Dukes in Munich. He produced a four-volume manuscript of natural history miniatures (various folios dated from 1575 to 1582 in various museums including the National Gallery of Art, Washington; Kupferstichkabinett Berlin; Louvre, Paris and various private collections). The work was entitled Animalia rationalia et insecta (ignis Animalia quadrupedia et reptilia (terra) ; Animalia aquatilia et conchiliata (aqua and Animalia volatilia et amphibia (aier) and contains thousands of detailed animals divided according to the four elements (and the book is therefore simply referred to as the Four Elements).The work resembles an emblem book with its Latin mottoes, epigrams and Bible verses. Hoefnagel did not paint all the works but rather copied from other artists’ works including a series of drawings by the Antwerp animal painter Hans Verhagen den Stommenand woodcuts from Konrad Gessner’s Historia animalium. The book was an important monument of 16th-century science by providing a compendium of the entire known animal world.”Source -- source link
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