Garden of love

(Children of Venus)

From the Children of the Planets series. Early 17th century. Southern Netherlands, Bruges (?). Wool, silk; tapestry weaving. 345 × 455 cm.

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It is the image of Venus in a chariot under a zodiacal arc with images of
Taurus and Libra helps us to understand that this is not a simple garden of love, but Children of the planet Venus

The astrological significance of the planets and their influence on the Earth, natural phenomena, political events and above all human character, destiny and occupation was a favourite subject in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. In the Children of Venus, the composition is based around the image of Venus' flying chariot. The universal celebration of love and the merry feast of the children of Venus are depicted in the central part of the tapestry.

The planets and their children: Venus

The Chariot of Venus

Venus and Her Children

The planets and their children: Venus

There are few surviving 16th-century series of tapestries (complete or, more often, incomplete) depicting children of the planets: for example, the series of seven tapestries in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, the series of eight in the Council Room of the Château of Chaumont-sur-Loire, the series in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the series of seven kept at the Martin Bodmer Foundation, in the Geneva suburb of Colony, The Children of the Moon tapestry at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Children of Mercury tapestry at the Bagatti-Valsecchi Museum in Milan, and possibly a tapestry depicting Mars in a triumphal chariot, from a series with atypical iconographies of ancient gods at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh. We can add to this individual tapestries, rarely but still occurring at auctions, as well as being referenced in inventories, from which it is usually difficult to get an idea of the iconography of these compositions.

Research

Technical and technological research is nesessary before conservation. During microscopic examinations, we examine the parameters of the sampled threads, their nature and state of preservation. High-performance liquid chromatography and molecular spectroscopy are used to determine the nature of the dyes used in the dyeing of the fibres and threads. The results are taken into account in the designing the conservation programme.

Examination results

Birds and plants

The tradition of depicting plants and animals with symbolic meaning dates back to Antiquity. In the late Middle Ages, plants on tapestries were created with amazing botanical precision. And if initially, they served only for decoration, in the 16th -18th centuries they became a treasure trove of symbols, especially in religious scenes. The grassy carpet at the feet of the saints is truly a botanical reference book. The borders of the tapestries, which are usually treated as a secondary ornamental frame of the main image, conceal many symbols and allegories in both plant and animal imagery. Weavers skillfully wove fruits, leaves and stylized images of birds into flower garlands. Moreover, tapestries feature not only local animal and plant species, but also exotic ones brought from faraway countries and grown with love ad care in the gardens and parks of Europe.

Time and fashion

Both in paintings and in the art of tapestry weaving, the clothing of the characters depicted on the tapestry corresponded to the fashion of the time when the artwork was created. Although many costume details are not free from conventional artistry, studying the details, images and symbols in the clothes depicted on the 16th-century tapestries is fascinating.

Harmen Jans Müller's
series

Harmen Jans Müller's Children of the Planets series, based on compositions by Martin van Heemskerk. Published by Hieronymus Kok in 1568. Etching on copper.

The composition and many details of the tapestry from the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts go back to an etching of the same name from the series of Children of the Planets, made by Harmen Jans Müller from drawings by Maarten van Heemskerk (1568). But this series is not a wholly original work either, in turn being strongly inspired by the highly influential and much-copied series of similar content by the German etcher Georg Pencz (1531). The etchings are not repeated exactly, but there are many similarities at the level of overall compositional structure and individual motifs.

Heemskerk chose that version of the iconography of the children of the planets in which the seven planetary deities, corresponding to the main gods of the Greco-Roman pantheon, ride in chariots in the upper parts of the compositions, separated by a cloud ridge, while below, on earth, people do what is prescribed for them by the horoscope. The signs of the zodiac are depicted not on the wheels of carts (as is often the case), but soaring in the sky near the gods. The motif of triumphal passage in relation to the planetary deities originated with Boccaccio in his Genealogy of the Pagan Gods (first edition in 1360), and in the visual arts first appears in some reliefs in the Chapel of the Planets by Tempio Malatestiano in Rimini (1454-1455) and in a series of children of the planets by the Florentine engraver Baccio Baldini (c. 1460). The latter also indirectly influenced the Penz and Heemskerk-Müller series.

Notably, in the case of the iconography of the children of the planets, the imagery does not so much illustrate the textual accompaniment as it exists parallel to it, complementing and, in fact, forming its own storyline. While the text deals primarily with the characters, talents and illnesses of the "children", the etchings present their work and pastime or even, instead of individual scenes of activities, whole, single-moment sketches of life, as in the case of the Sun (urban competition) or Venus (recreation in the countryside).

Moon

Mercury

Venus

Sun

Mars

Jupiter

Saturn

Maarten van Heemskerck (June 1, 1498, Heemskerck - October 1, 1574, Haarlem) was a Dutch painter, master of portraiture and religious painting, and a representative of Dutch Romanticism. He studied and spent most of his life in Haarlem. At first his mentor was the painter Cornelis Willems, but in 1527 his teacher was Jan van Scorel, whose Italianizing style determined the stylistic preferences of Heemskerck. His Italian journey between 1532 and 1536, during which he became acquainted with the works of Michelangelo that particularly impressed him, also played a role in shaping the master. He created altarpieces, compositions for stained glass windows, tapestries, and prints.

Harmen Jansz Muller (c. 1539, Amsterdam - October 7, 1617, Amsterdam) was a Dutch printmaker and publisher who first worked for publishers in Antwerp (Gerard de Jode and Hieronymus Cock), making prints of compositions by famous artists as well as his own. Among the artists whose works he translated into prints and/or published were Martin de Vos, Bartholomew Spranger, Jan van der Strat, Dirk Behrends, Cornelis Ketel, Hendrick Goltzius, Abraham Blumart and, of course, Maarten van Heemskerck.

Hieronymus Wellens de Cock (1518, Antwerp - 10 October 1570, Antwerp) was a Flemish painter, engraver and the greatest publisher of his time. In the second half of the 1540s he took a trip to Italy. On his return he set up his own publishing house, Aux quatre vents or In de Vier Winden (On the four winds), where he published works both by Italian Renaissance masters (Raphael, Primaticcio, Andrea del Sarto, Giorgio Guisey, etc.) and by Flemish masters (Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hieronymus Bosch, Cornelis Floris, Martin van Heemskerck, and others). Many of the famous prints were commissioned by Cock.