Framing Warfare and Destruction in Sixteenth-Century Netherlandish Prints: The Clades Judaeae Gentis Series by Maarten van Heemskerck

Abstract

The 1569 Clades Judaeae Gentis series tells the story of a chosen people that fell out of favour with God. As the title page states, the reader is invited to draw conclusions from what once happened to the Jewish people. Maarten van Heemskerck treats the Old Testament stories like a visual documentary with short text, a factual account that opens a window into the past. While Heemskerck’s Fall of Babel (1569)—a single print of larger dimensions—is an image full of drama and emotion, the Clades sequence resorts to a much more restrained style of representation in which the artist first and foremost describes the vicissitudes that the Jewish people faced. He thus deliberately employs different modes of representation for expressing his grave concern for the future of mankind.