Garden of Love

1583–1603

Evenings of drawing and pupils in his home

After the Calvinist iconoclasm religious themes have gone out of fashion and mythology has become popular, but few painters could afford a trip to Italy, so van Mander receives budding artists in his home for evenings of communal drawing and study of classical mythology, to educate them in the proper techniques. A firm believer in the hierarchy of genres, and in the idea that true-to-life historical allegories can be achieved only through proper study of existing works, he counts Frans Hals and Hendrick Gerritsz Pot among his Haarlem pupils.

1583–1603

Inventory of Haarlem's art collection

While translating Vasari's “Lives” into Dutch, van Mander is offered a commission by the Haarlem city fathers to inventory “their” art collection — the city had confiscated all Catholic religious art after the Satisfaction of Haarlem, which gave Catholics equal rights with Protestants, was overturned in 1578. The work lasts twenty years and yields the chapters of his future “Schilder-Boeck” on Early Netherlandish painters.

1603

A manor in Heemskerk to finish the book

In 1603 van Mander rents a fortified manor, “het Huis te Zevenbergen” (later renamed Marquette Castle), in Heemskerk to proofread his book, published in 1604. He spends his last years first in Heemskerk, near Zevenbergen, and then in Amsterdam.

1604

The “Schilder-Boeck” is published

In Haarlem, from the press of Passchier van Wesbusch, appears the “Schilder-Boeck” (“Book of Painters”) — the first art-historical work in Northern Europe: lives of more than 250 painters, ancient and contemporary, together with the art theory of the day for aspiring painters. Inspired by Vasari's “Lives”, it comprises six parts, from a verse address to students and biographies of ancient, Italian, Netherlandish and German masters to a commentary on Ovid's “Metamorphoses” and a guide to depicting figures; its biographical details on early Netherlandish painters, and above all the Haarlem painters, are unique, gathered by van Mander himself.