Minneapolis Institute of Art

Inleyding tot de Hooge Schoole der Schilderkonst

Author: Samuel van Hoogstraten; Publisher: Fransois van Hoogstraeten

Date

1678

Medium

Letterpress book illustrated with engravings and etchings

Department

European Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

Samuel van Hoogstraten was a prominent, multi-faceted artist and theorist in the seventeenth century. Born in Dordrecht, he apprenticed with Rembrandt, received a gold chain from Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III for painting a still-life so convincing that it deceived his eye, and worked in London, where he witnessed the great fire of 1666. Late in life, Hoogstraten returned to his hometown and wrote this book, whose title translates as “Introduction to the Higher Academy of the Art of Painting: or The Visible World.” The border between perception and reality fascinated Hoogstraten. His painting of the Habsburg palace in Vienna showed a clock tower into which he inserted an actual clock so that his painting could keep time. His trompe l’oeil paintings are surprisingly convincing. Most astonishing are his “perspective boxes” whose highly distorted interiors resolve into perfectly believable 3-D images when viewed through a peephole. In the present book, an intriguing plate shows figures casting long shadows onto a stage backdrop, an allusion to Plato’s Cave, in which captives’ impressions of the outside world are based solely on shadows cast on the wall of the cave. Hoogstraten’s art required immense rigor. This volume comprises his detailed instructions on how to improve, including studies of anatomical proportion that set the tone for aspiring students. Netherlands, Europe

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