Intermedial Strategies and Artistic Resilience: The Case of Lucas d’Heere

The mastery of multiple artistic media was a common professional strategy among artist families. In this paper, I argue that in the face of religious war and forced migration, it could become a more existential survival tactic. The case of Lucas d’Heere illustrates this phenomenon. The son of a sculptor-architect and a miniature painter, Lucas d’Heere was trained in the famous Antwerp studio of Frans Floris. On his return to his native Ghent, d’Heere quickly became a successful society painter and poet who also contributed to public ceremonies. During his religious exile in Elizabethan London, however, he faced the economic necessity of further diversifying his artistic activities. Although there are few records of his workshop practices in England, the available evidence suggests that he, his pupils and family members were involved in portrait and gallery painting, drawing, sculpture, miniature painting and goldsmithing.

This apparent “success” of a continental artist in exile should not obscure the fact that migrants faced harsh conditions. Excluded from the guild system, d’Heere’s professional activities were subject to restrictions. As a foreign-language author, it was also much more difficult to gain access to the printing press. It is this context that is crucial to understanding the three manuscripts from d’Heere’s English period, which show how he tried to appeal to different audiences, including English aristocrats, Flemish merchants, humanists and fellow artists. These manuscripts are: a collection of French poetry dedicated to an aristocratic patron (1568/73); a Dutch-language geographical and historical description of England, Scotland and Ireland (1574/75); and a collection of 98 watercolor drawings depicting historical and contemporary dress from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas (1576/77). The Theatre de tous les peuples et nations de la terre, in particular, illustrates how d’Heere harnessed various media to construct his new persona as a refugee artist and Protestant moralist. Drawing on sources as diverse as antiquarian treatises, polemical prints, student travel albums, political ceremonies, and sermons, the Theatre was set up as both a collection of new knowledge and a model book. Despite its seemingly apolitical discourse, upon d’Heere’s return to the Low Countries, this manuscript took on a new role as a diplomatic gift in the context of the Dutch Revolt.

Anne-Laure Van Bruaene is a professor at Ghent University in Belgium, where she specializes in early modern cultural history and urban history. Her primary focus lies in exploring urban culture in the Low Countries from approximately 1450 to 1650. She boasts an extensive publication record, including two monographs: one delving into urban chronicles (1998) and another investigating urban literary societies (2008). Additionally, she has co-edited and co-authored a comprehensive synthesis titled City and Society in the Low Countries, 1100-1600, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. Presently, her research efforts are dedicated to a book project centred around Lucas d’Heere (1534-1584), a multifaceted figure known as a Renaissance painter, poet, and Calvinist propagandist.

Anne-Laure Van Bruaene also serves as the co-editor of the book series “Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800).” Her contributions to academia have earned her several prestigious awards, including Belgian scientific prizes in 2000 and 2005, as well as the William Nelson Prize from the Renaissance Society of America in 2006. Moreover, she was a visiting fellow at prominent institutions such as the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies in Toronto in 2005 and the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in 2016. In the Fall semester of 2024, she will hold the Pieter Paul Rubens Chair for the History and Culture of the Low Countries at UC Berkeley.