Guild of Saint Luke - Guilds and Intellectual Pursuits

Guilds and Intellectual Pursuits

The late sixteenth-century elevation of artist's status that occurred in Italy was echoed in the Low Countries by increased participation by artists in literary and humanistic societies. The Antwerp Guild of St. Luke, in particular, was closely associated with one of the city's eminent chambers of rhetoric, the Violieren, and, in fact, the two were often discussed as being the same. By the mid-sixteenth century, when Pieter Bruegel the Elder was active in the city, most of the members of the Violieren, including Frans Floris, Cornelis Floris, and Hieronymus Cock, were artists. The relationship between the two organizations, one for professionals practicing a trade and the other a literary and dramatist group, continued into the seventeenth century until the two groups formally merged in 1663 when the Antwerp Academy was founded a century after its Roman counterpart. Similar relationships between the Guild of St. Luke and chambers of rhetoric appear to have existed in Dutch cities in the seventeenth century. Haarlem's "Liefde boven al" ("Love above all") is a prime example, to which Frans Hals, Esaias van de Velde, and Adriaen Brouwer all belonged. These activities also manifested themselves in groups that developed outside of the guild like Antwerp's Romanists, for whom travel to Italy and appreciation of classical and humanist culture were essential.