The Hidden Life of Art

THE

HIDDENLIFE OF ART

Secrets and Symbols

in Great Masterpieces

CLARE GIBSON

184 Allegorical Figures & Symbols

The Merchant Georg Gisze Hans Holbein the Younger

1532, oil on oak, SMPK, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, Germany

Although it was painted in London, England, neither the sitter nor the artist were English, and, indeed, they probablyconversed in Middle Low German while The Merchant Georg Gisze was taking shape. It was important to both men

that it had the “wow factor,” Gisze wanting to impress his fiancée back home, as well as his business associates, with a por-trait in which he appeared both authoritative and prosperous, and the German-born Holbein, who had recently arrived inEngland from Basle, in Switzerland, in search of work, hoping that it would trigger a flood of lucrative commissions.Theportrait must have fulfilled all expectations, for it is recorded that Gisze was married three years later in his Baltic home-town, and that Holbein was employed by King Henry VIII of England in 1536. The Merchant Georg Gisze is a rewardingpicture for the twenty-first-century viewer to study, too, partly because its photographic quality is as impressive today as itwas in 1532, partly because the everyday objects that surround him make the long-dead Gisze (1497–1562) seem more ofa real person, and partly because it gives us an extraordinary insight into how offices looked nearly six hundred years ago.

As a merchant from Danzig—today known as Gdansk—a town that belonged to the Hanseatic League (a powerful,northern European trade confederation), Gisze’s business was international, and by 1532, it had taken him to London,where he lived and worked tax-free with other German merchants in the Thames-side Steelyard complex. Being based inLondon for a few years must have been good for trade, but can’t have been a particularly comfortable existence, not leastbecause only bachelors were permitted to reside at the Steelyard.This explains the presence of the Venetian-glass vase filledwith flowers—an otherwise rather incongruous touch in a trader’s office—for according to the conventions of the time,carnations denoted engagement, leading one to surmise that Gisze had his likeness painted as a gift for his bride-to-be,

and that Holbein included the flowers as a tribute to her.

See also Flowers (pages 129–30).

A pair of scales and a signet, orseal, counterbalanced by a ball of amber (for which the Balticregion is renowned) hang from ashelf. Holbein has included Gisze’spersonal motto to the left: Nullasine merore voluptas, or “No joywithout sadness” when translatedfrom the Latin, which may referto his separation from his fiancée.

A number of red seals have beentucked behind a batten, alongsidethe letters whose contents theyonce kept private. Some of thewriting is legible, such as In Jurgezu Basel 1531, or “From Georgein Basle 1531” (could this havebeen a letter recommendingHolbein to Gisze?)

An intricately decorated stringdispenser hangs alongside a pairof signet rings and a set of keysthat probably provide access tothe goods in Gisze’s stockroom.

Pinned to the wall, as though it were an office memo, is animportant statement written in Latin (then the internationallanguage of both business andposterity) and a little Greek.Distichon I Imagine Georgii GyseniiIsta, refert vultus, qua cernis, ImagoGeorgi Sic oculos viuos, sic habet ille genas Anno aetatis suae xxxiiijAnno dom 1532, it says, whichmeans:“Look at the portrait of George Gisze.What you see here shows his features andfigure; his eyes and cheeks lookexactly as they do in life. In his

thirty-fourth year, in the year of our Lord 1532.”

continued overleaf

Allegorical Figures & Symbols 185


Arrayed on the expensiveOriental carpet that serves as a tablecloth are a brass timepiece,which suggests both that timepasses quickly and that its owner,like it, is well-regulated, ordisciplined; a signet; writingimplements, sticks of sealing wax,

a sand-shaker with which to dry wet ink and a pile of loosechange (or wax disks) in a pewterstand; and a pair of scissors.

One of Gisze’s numerous signetrings also lies on the table: used to imprint a symbol of personalor corporate identity on molten

sealing wax, it may be that Gisze handed them to hisrepresentatives to use, or that he himself acted as the agent formany different concerns, whoseseals he was therefore entrustedwith as a sign that authority hadbeen delegated to him.

The document that Gisze isholding is a letter addressed toDem Erszamen Jorgen gisze tolunden in engelant mynem broder tohanden (the Middle Low Germanfor,“To the honorable GeorgeGisze in London, England.To be given into his hands.”)

During this period, carnations in avase represented engagement (theunderlying symbolism wasprobably to do with futurechildren, for a water-filled vasecan signify the fertile womb, andpink flowers, the babies that itsustains). Rosemary, a few sprigsof which can be discerned here,symbolizes remembrance––anappropriate floral message to send to Danzig.

Allegorical Figures & Symbols 187

Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife (“The Arnolfini Portrait”) Jan van Eyck

1434, oil on wood, National Gallery, London, England

The question mark that casts doubt upon the identity of the man portrayed in the painting perhaps provisionally entitledPortrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife (“The Arnolfini Portrait”) is by no means the only query that art historians have

raised in relation to this image. Indeed, the more one delves into the theories that it has generated, the more of an enigma itbecomes, so that in the end, the only certainty is that this Early Netherlandish masterpiece was painted by Jan van Eyck, whopositioned his brush above the round mirror and signed his work with a flourish. Or did he? For rather than following artis-tic convention and using the conventional Latin wording Johannes de Eyck fecit, or “Jan van Eyck made this,” the artist insteadwrote Johannes de Eyck fuit hic, 1434, or “Jan van Eyck was here, 1434,” which does not necessarily mean the same thing.

Although it was thought to depict a mar-ried or betrothed couple, little was knownabout this painting until a sixteenth-centuryinventory, written in French, was discoveredthat appeared to refer to it as “A big panelpainting, Hernoult le Fin with his wife in aroom.” Van Eyck was working in Bruges,one of the most important ports in theduchy of Burgundy (and, indeed, theworld), in 1434. Searches of the city archivesrevealed two potential candidates for thefur-draped man: the brothers Arnolfini (theItalian equivalent of the French “Hernoultle Fin”), namely Giovanni di Arrigo, or diNicolao, and Michele, scions of a wealthymerchant and banking family from Lucca,Italy, who had taken up residence in Brugesto conduct business with Philip the Good,Duke of Burgundy (who was also vanEyck’s patron). The records reveal thatGiovanni married Giovanna Cenami, thedaughter of another Italian financier, and thewealth inherent in such a union, along withthe evident prosperity of the bedchamberdepicted in such intricate detail by vanEyck, has led scholars to claim that thepainting commemorates their wedding.Others, however, insist that it is simply adouble portrait of a well-to-do husband andwife.The debate will no doubt continue,butfor the moment it seems safe to say that thesymbolic messages contained in this imageallude to the ideal Christian marriage.

See also The Virgin Mary (page 76),Margaret of Antioch (page 80), Crucifixion

of Christ (pages 114–15), Dog (page 136).


The lady may appear pregnant,but a comparison with othernorthern Europeanpaintings of this periodreveals that even saintlyvirgins were portrayedwith protruding abdomens,indicating that this bodyshape was then consideredthe ideal for youngwomen, as werevoluminous gownsfashioned fromheavy fabrics.

That only one candle is burning insuch a handsome chandelier, and insuch a well-ordered household is a mystery.Art historians’ bestguess is that the single flameconforms to Christian conventionin symbolizing Christ’s divineillumination, or all-seeing eye, orelse may signify faith, one of the three theological virtues.

The brush hanging by thebed would have been usedfor dusting, and thussignifies a disciplined

housekeeper and a clean, well-

run household.

A rosary (or two) hangs on thewall. Rosaries aid the memorywhen at prayer, and consequentlydenote piety.And because rosariescan represent the Virgin Mary, the“rose” of heaven, they may alsorefer to Christianity’s idealfeminine, a role model to which

fifteenth-century women wereencouraged to aspire.

Ten medallions, eachportraying a scenefrom Christ’sPassion, with theCrucifixion at the

top, surround aconvex mirror, again

suggesting piety, as well asfeminine purity, for the VirginMary was often likened to a“spotless mirror.” Zoom in onthe mirror, and we can see thereflections of two additionalpeople (witnesses to a wedding,maybe?), a male figure in red anda turbaned man in blue, who maybe van Eyck himself.

The wooden finial on thebedhead has been carved into a representation of St.Margaret of Antioch and thedragon.The saint’s escape

from the dragon’s stomach causedher to be invoked by women inchildbirth, who prayed for aneasy labor at a time whenchildren were almost invariablyborn in the marital bed.

Like all canines, thelittle dog symbolizesfaithfulness, andbecause, being alapdog, it belongs tothe lady of the house,wifely fidelity inparticular.

Oranges imported from theIberian Peninsula would havebeen expensive luxuries infifteenth-century Bruges, so their inclusion in the paintingemphasizes the household’swealth. In symbolic terms,oranges can denote fertility,while orange blossom representsvirginity and blushing brides.

It appears that theman has kicked

off his pattens (the wooden clogs that protecthis stockings while out and aboutin the filthy streets on business),while the lady’s red slippers canbe seen lying higgledy-piggledyin the background. Because theystrike such untidy notes in anotherwise formal composition,supporters of the wedding theoryhave speculated that they refer toGod’s Old Testament injunctionto “put off thy shoes from off thyfeet, for the place whereon thoustandest is holy ground” (Exodus3:5), their argument being thatbecause marriage is one of thesacraments of the Church, it takes place on sacred ground.


La Pia dei Tolomei Dante Gabriel Rossetti

1880, oil on canvas, Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

The English artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti paid homage to two of his great loves in his painting La Pia: the work ofthe poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), from whom he derived his first name and whose Italian heritage he shared;

and Janey Morris (née Burden), the wife of his Pre-Raphaelite “brother,”William Morris.Dante Alighieri immortalized the character of La Pia (Italian for “the pious woman”) in Part II, Purgatorio (“Purgatory”),

of his epic poem Divina Commedia (“Divine Comedy”), of 1321. In the fifth canto (lines 130–6), Dante relates that whenhe encountered the soul of La Pia in purgatory (for she had died without absolution), she implored him to “Rememberme who am La Pia, me from Siena sprung and by Maremma dead.This in his innermost heart well knoweth he, withwhose fair jewel I was ringed and wed.” Dante’s Italian contemporaries would have been familiar with the true story ofLa Pia, of the family of Tolomei, a noblewoman from Siena whose husband, Nello della Pietra dei Pannocchieschi, wasresponsible for her death in 1295, some say due to his jealousy on account of her adultery, and others, so that he wouldbe free to marry the Countess Margherita degli Aldobrandeschi.Although there is also some disagreement as to the exactmanner of La Pia’s death––one version of the tragic tale telling us that illness killed her, another asserting that she wasthrown from a window to her death––it is agreed that she met her untimely end in the unhealthy, marshy region of theSienese Maremma, in Tuscany, and specifically at the Castello della Pietra, or Pietra Castle, where her husband had impris-oned her. In portraying the unhappy, rejected La Pia with the features of Janey Morris, Rossetti may have been hinting

that he was longing to act as Janey’s knight in shining armor in liberating her from a marriage that,he felt, had become her prison, and from a husband who had become her jailor.

See also Plants (pages 130–31), Birds (pages 138–40).

The bundleof weapons

over which herhusband’s standard isdraped represents the

violence that could beused against La Pia should she tryto escape.They could furthermorebe interpreted as phallic symbolson account of their elongatedforms, or, because they are tridents,as the pitchforks wielded by Satan’sdemons in hell.

A clamor of rooks (birds of thecrow family) flies through leadenskies past the brooding La Pia.Like all noisy, black, carrion-eating birds, rooks are said toportend death. Scholars believethat by depicting these birds,Rossetti was also referring to thesection in his poem Sunset Wings(1871) that starts,“And now themustering rooks innumerable /Together sail and soar, / Whilefor the day’s death, like a tollingknell, / Unto the heart they seemto cry, Farewell, / No more,farewell, no more!”

Love letters lie beneath an openprayer book.The letters denote“old news,” while the prayer bookand rosary that acts as a bookmarksuggest that the contrast betweenthe memories that the letters have evoked and her current

circumstances havedriven the pious

lady to seeksolace and

strengthin herfaith.

Lost inthought, La Pia toys with herwedding ring, the “fairjewel” with which her husband“ringed” her, or claimedownership of her, on theoccasion of their marriage.

Like all instruments that measure the passage of time, thesundial alludes to the passing of human life, which moves

closer to death with every hour that passes.The gnomonis decorated with a wheel of fortune, a symbol of the

fickleness of fate that can reverse the fortunes ofanyone and everyone in a

matter of seconds.

The fig leaves to thelonely lady’s leftrepresent potentialfruitfulness, whichis doomed toremain unfulfilled,while the evergreenivy on her right may symbolizethe memories to which La Piaclings, or else her undying fidelity(because it attaches itself tosolid structures, ivy wasonce regarded as asymbol of married womenwho depended on theirhusbands for support).

The bell in the castle’s belfry adds to the ominous atmosphere,suggesting that it won’t be longbefore it tolls a funeral knell forLa Pia.The fortress of which it is a part is a place and symbol of imprisonment, but in othercontexts, castles can denotedefensiveness, security andprotection from hostile aggressors.In psychology, a princesslanguishing within a castle canrepresent both long-sought-after

enlightenment and an object of sexual desire. In addition, ablack castle in which a solitaryoccupant is incarcerated mayrepresent hopelessness, failure andhell.Towers, too, have symbolicsignificance: as watch-towers, theydenote vigilance, and, as soaringstructures, spiritual or intellectualelevation; their shape can alsocause them to be phallic symbols,while in Christian iconography,they may signify chastity.

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