naturally. Regarding Xxxxxxxx’x reference to the commentary of Xxxxxxxx, Xxxx Ten Xxxxx Xxxxxxxxx claims that “Surely he [Xxxxxxxx] is referring here to Xxxxxxx’s Romanist contemporaries. The artist [Xxxxxxx] is understood as being more attentive to nature than art.” She goes onto to conclude: “His peasants are primarily in his art an extension of the landscape, that is, a human metaphor for nature.”68 Xxxxxxxxx also argues that Xxxxxxxx’x statement is indicative of a polemic between the art of Italy and a Northern vernacular school, especially if compared to a similar artistic criticism that is directed at Xxxxx Xxxxxx, who is said by modern art historians to paint in a more idealizing, Italianate style.69 In 1565, Xxxxx xx Xxxxx published Den hof en boomgaerd der Poësien, in which he writes an “Invective against a certain painter who scoffed at the painters of Antwerp” in order to defend his teacher, Xxxxxx.70 Xx Xxxxx has the xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx he addresses condescendingly refer to Xxxxxx’s paintings as “sugar images” [suuckerbeeldekens] because they are “ornamented (verciert), becomingly (betamelijck) and richly (rijcke).”71 The reference implies something 66 “Eunapius in Iamblicho. Pictores qui formosulos in aetatis flore constitutos pingunt voluntque picturae lenocinium quoddam et gratium de suo adjicere, totam depravant repraesentatam effigiem, sic ut et ab exemplari proposito pariter et a xxxx forma aberrant. Ab hac labe purus noster Brugelius.” As translated in Meadow, Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx the Xxxxx’x Netherlandish Proverbs (2002), 109-110. X. Xxxxxxxx, Album Amicorum, Antwerp, 1573-1596, 12v-13r. 67 Xxxxxxxxx, “Allusion and Topicality” (1989), 63. 68 J. Ten Xxxxx Xxxxxxxxx, “Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx and the Matter of Italy,” Sixteenth Century Studies, vol. 23 (1992), 231. Melion makes a similar assertion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon (1991). 69 Xxxxxxxxx, “Allusion and Topicality” (1989), 62-63. 70 Xxxxx xx Xxxxx, Den hof en boomgaerd der Poësien, X. Xxxxxxxxxxx (ed.), Zwolle: W.E.J. Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, 1969. For an additional analysis of this poem, see van de Velde, vol. 1 (1975), 1-6. 71 As translated in Meadow, “Xxxxxxx’s Procession to Calvary” (1996), 181.
