This engraving is one in a series of four personifications of the Four Elements (Earth, Air, Water, Fire), understood in the sixteenth century as the building blocks of all matter. Captioned in the Latin Terra, it figures Earth as a hunter shown amid brushy shrubs, animals, and distant trees in an outdoor scene. A dead hare hangs from the staff hoisted on his shoulder; in his right hand is a rope used as a lead for the hunting dog at his side. The personifications in this series are distinct in their humbleness: rather than gods and goddesses, earthly figures like the hunter shown here, as well as a falconer (Air), a fisherman (Water), and a game cook (Fire), represent the lived world.
Beginning in the late 1580s, de Gheyn began collaborating with the artist and historian Karel van Mander in Haarlem, producing nearly fifty prints after van Mander’s designs. A preparatory drawing for this print, at the Art Institute of Chicago, shows de Gheyn’s sophisticated handling of the composition. He was particularly adept at translating into engraving the subtle differences in manner between the artists with whom he collaborated: for the Four Elements series, he deploys a finer, more elegant style in line with van Mander’s approach by using subtle incisions into the plate, and a bolder approach in his works after Hendrick Goltzius (1558−1617), master of Northern Mannerism and one of de Gheyn’s instructors.
Claire Spadafora Baes
2025
