Étiquette : Marije Osnabrugge

Article written by Marije Osnabrugge

This ‘gem’ focuses on the object that is central to the logo that Guillaume Lecuppre (a.k.a. Nothos) designed so expertly for our project. After a description of this curious object, I will briefly reflect on the insights it might offer regarding the sensory and somatic experience of the present of fifteenth-century Netherlanders from different layers of society.

The Object

The Hour and Calendar Dial (fig.1), currently in the collection of the Museum M Leuven, was made by an anonymous artist around 1500, probably in the Southern Netherlands. It consists of a rather large oak panel (125.6 x 123.4 cm) featuring elaborate decoration in tempera and oil paint. To a twenty-first-century observer, the Roman numbers stamped on a thin band offer the clearest indication of its function. They consist of two series from I to XII, making for twenty-four markers in total, one for each hour of the day. As such, they indicate this contraption showed its late-fifteenth century users what time it was (approximately).

Besides the hours, the panel includes several other temporal units. The most inner band represents the twelve signs of the zodiac and is directly related to the adjacent band with elaborate scenes from everyday life representing the months of the year. Presumably for reasons connected to the mechanical design of the dial, the central upper scene shows the month of July, rather than the first of the Julian calendar, January (which is instead seen on the lower right). The months are represented by fairly standardized scenes of typical seasonal activities (e.g. grape harvest for October, fig. 2), reminiscent of Books of Hours (see for example the month of June from the Très riches heures du Duc de Berry (fig.3).¹ Like those precious manuscripts – destined for an even more elite audience than the device discussed here – the scenes on this dial show people from different societal classes, generally isolated from each other and sometimes coexisting in the same section.

Following the thin golden band with the twenty-four Roman numbers, we see another band with scenes from everyday life. The twenty-four small sections initially seem to lack coherence or logical order. Previous research has shown that they represent the popular astrological system of the Planetenkinder or ‘Children of the Planets’, in which the Sun, Moon, and the planets Mercury, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter and Mars are connected to characteristics of individuals. Such aspects range from physical and character traits to professions and activities considered typical for people connected to that planet. In this case, professions and activities are represented.² The scenes next to the Roman numerals III, XI (first series) and VI (second series), for example, show activities typical for the ‘Children of the Moon’, who were thought to thrive in water (fig. 4). But why are the Planetenkinder included on a time-measuring device? The moment of birth formed the main indication to which planet a person belonged, based on the ascendant associated with the day and/or the hour. Each ‘planet’ was in fact linked to a day of the week, as well as an hour of the day or night.³

To continue with the description of the object, the white band has 365 fields for the days of the year, with key liturgical dates (Christian feasts and saint days) indicated in French. The co-existence of astrological and Christian temporal systems was completely acceptable in the late-medieval and early modern period. The black band indicates the number of days for certain months (e.g. ‘maius habet dies xxxi’). In the four corners of the panel, we see a figure in a nimbus, accompanied by two zodiac signs. The figures are again identifiable as the planets Mars (right-top corner), Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, which were linked to specific zodiac signs. In its current state, only eight of the zodiac signs are represented in connection to the planets, possibly indicating missing parts of the panel.⁴

The dial’s use: determining, but also sensing the moment

The two sealed holes reveal that the panel originally featured a mechanism to indicate the time. The exact nature and functioning of this mechanism are unclear and must have been quite intricate. It would certainly have included hands to indicate the hour (the Roman numerals). Based on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century clocks and watches (fig. 5), we would furthermore expect some sort of frame (or several frames) that could be moved to highlight certain sections of the panel, for example to indicate the current month and zodiac sign, planet or day of the calendar.⁵ Matthew Champion has suggested the mechanism of this dial might have also included the phases of the moon, which was indeed a common feature of such devices.

In short, the object would have allowed its relatively wealthy owners to determine and measure time. Our project does not focus on the measurement of time per se. However, time-measuring devices such as this dial also played an essential role in the way people related to their present time. Several historians have already discussed the impact of the increasing availability of clocks, whether in the public context of a bell tower, or in one’s house or pocket.⁶ This is not the place to reiterate such observations. Instead, I would like to use this hour and calendar dial to explore the potential of such objects for studying sensory and somatic experiences of the present – as opposed to cognitive awareness. I will focus specifically on the representation of the months here. As discussed above, each month is represented by a depiction of typical activities. All these seasonal practices involve physical sensations, which in turn formed a part of the perception and experience of that month.

Many of the months are associated with agricultural activities (e.g. working the fields, harvesting). It is unlikely that the owners of the dial were themselves familiar with the strenuous physical toil such work entailed. Instead, these representations offer a rare opportunity to grasp the sensory experiences that farmers may have associated with specific moments in the year. For example, on this dial the month of June is represented by men sheering sheep (foreground), a woman milking a cow (center-right) and others picking apples (background left) (fig.6). These activities imply a range of bodily sensations, such as the physical effort of holding a wriggling sheep down, the touch and smell of soft greasy wool; the smell, sound and taste of fresh milk from juicy summer grass, pressed gently from dense utters, and splashing in a bucket; the smell, texture and taste of ripe apples, and fruit dropping with a muffled sound on the ground or in a hefty basket.

City-dwellers, on the other hand, might recall the eerie squeaking and intense smell of fresh blood of animals being slaughtered on a crisp November morning (fig. 2). On the dial, the violent but common scene is placed in an undefined urban setting, perhaps a market square. The freezing month of February (fig. 7), on the other hand, was perhaps associated with the comfortable warmth of a crackling hearth while chewing on a tasty waffle, the clinking of spears from jousting knights outside in the background.

As these examples suggest, each month carried its own specific sensory associations for a fifteenth-century person living in the Low Countries (or arguably anytime, anywhere). A particular time of year consequently evoked the memory or expectation of certain feelings, smells, textures, sounds, tastes and sights that they would experience each year at that moment (i.e. cyclically). A close examination of representations of the months, a very popular subject in medieval and early modern art (especially in the Low Countries), could therefore allow us to understand the bodily sensations involved in the experience and perception of the present.

TO COME

This ‘gem’ about our logo does not directly relate to my research project on the representation and experience of everyday life, for which I am currently studying the visual representation of rest; as well as the natural, biographical and societal rhythms that paced the artistic profession. Nevertheless, I see plenty of connections, which I intend to explore in the coming years. I am particularly fascinated by the impact of sensory, affective and somatic experiences – and their visual representation – with regard to the perception of the present. Such a query will benefit from the increased attention for the history of senses and emotions in our field. My interest was stimulated in particular by the book The Fullness of Time by Matthew S. Champion. Coincidentally, Dr Champion will be the keynote speaker at our conference ‘Present in the City‘ in Lille, 1-3 Oct. 2025.

Bibliography

Y. Bruijnen & P. Huys Janssen (eds.), De Vier Jaargetijden in de kunst van de Nederlanden 1500-1750, exh.cat. Den Bosch (Noordbrabants Museum) / Leuven (Stedelijk Museum Vander Kelen-Mertens), Zwolle: Waanders, 2002 [esp. cat.nr. 1].

M. S. Champion, The Fullness of Time: Temporalities of the Fifteenth-Century Low Countries, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2017 [ref. to the Hour and Calendar Dial: pp. 34-36, figs. 1.2 and 1.3].

A. Klingner, Die Macht der Sterne: Planetenkinder: ein astrologisches Bildmotiv in Spätmittelalter und Renaissance, unpublished PhD Thesis (Humboldt University Berlin, 2017).

1. This extraordinary manuscript is currently on display for the first time ever in an exhibition in Musée Condé at the Chateau de Chantilly ↩︎
2. The Planetenkinder were often represented in the visual arts across Europe, for example in the so-called Salone dei mesi in Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara and on numerous paintings and prints. ↩︎
3. The relation of the hour and planet shifted according to the weekday (the first daylight hour of each day was connected to the planet of the day). The order of the scenes on the dial follows the order of the weekdays associated to each planet. ↩︎
4. I did not yet consult technical reports on the object to verify. ↩︎
5. The Roman numerals on such watches and clocks are remarkably larger than on the object under discussion, perhaps indicating a decreased importance of astrological temporal markers. ↩︎
6. Max Engammare, to name one example, insists on the role of clocks in the religious practices of Calvin and his followers in sixteenth-century Geneva (M. Engammare, L’ordre du temps: l’invention de la punctualité au XVIe siècle, 2004). ↩︎