The Spirit of the New Style

Jan Koenderink

D E C LOOTCRANS P RESS
The Spirit of the New Style
Jan Koenderink

D E C LOOTCRANS P RESS , MMXII

Front cover: Ernst Stöhr — Illustration for V ER S ACRUM, 1898. Foreword

This short E–Book is made up of the slides of a presentation I gave in

Rovereto at the MART (Modern Art Museum of the province Trento) on
march 22, 2013. I was asked to lecture on Art Nouveau, and I used the op-
portunity to trace the ROOTS of that style, which—to my mind—marked the
boundary between classical and modern Western art.
Of course, the slides alone cannot convey what I presented. When I find the
time I will make up for this by means of Internet references. However, this
may take another half year or so.

Utrecht, february 12, 2012 — Jan Koenderink

De Clootcrans Press
Utrecht The Netherlands
jan.koenderink@telfort.nl

Copyright © 2012 by Jan Koenderink

All rights reserved. Please do not redistribute this file in any form without my
express permission. Thank you!
Jan Koenderink
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
pax / jan koenderink Laboratory of Experimental Psychology
Tiensestraat 102 – bus 3711
3000 Leuven
Belgium
First edition, 2012 jan.koenderink@ppw.kuleuven.be
Personal page
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

i

THE CRADLE OF THE NEW STYLE
In this chapter I succinctly introduce the concept of the New Style.
What is “The New Style?”
With “The New Style” I indicate the stylistic period in European art
that is often indicated as “Art Nouveau” (in France, and internationally),
“Jugendstil” (many German speaking countries), “Modernismo” (Spanish
speaking countries), “Modern” (in Russia), “Secession” (Autria–Hungary),
“Arte Nuova”, “Stile floreal”, or “Stile Liberty” (in Italy), and many more, all
indicating the decade of transition of (approximately) 1895–1905.
It is only a short period, officially preceded by impressionism, pointillism,
post–impressionism, and symbolism (“Les Nabis”), and succeeded by fau-
vism, Bauhaus, and Art Deco. Its beginning might be dated at December
1895, when the (German–born) Parisian art dealer Siegfried Bing opened his
gallery L’Art Nouveau, where he sold contemporary décor. It is usually char-
acterized as decadent, and dominated by unnecessary floral ornamentation,
and curved lines that should be straight. Thus the final blow is supposed to be
Adolf Loos’ paper Ornament und Verbrechen (“Ornament and crime”), that
appeared in 1908.
Of course, such conventional dates are largely arbitrary. Moreover, the
main stream art historical account in terms of a linear progression of progres-
sively more modern stylistic periods, grossly misrepresents these times. Many
of the stylistic periods that are supposed to be sequential, actually overlapped
for prolonged periods. Cabanel is supposed to represent the old “official”,
academic style, whereas Whistler paints in a style that already shows most of
the elements the New Style. Yet we see both artists simultaneously active in
the early 1860’s. Likewise, we can find artists painting in what looks much
like Cabanel’s style during the 1890’s. In any account of the New Style one
should start at least as early as the mid nineteenth century, whereas the first
1
World War is perhaps a reasonable conclusion. In looking for the roots the
second half of the nineteenth century is the important period. In considering
the aftermath we arrive at today, for many of the key notions of the New Style
as as vivid as ever. The decade 1895–1905 was indeed a turning point, but it
marks an almost singular even in a much longer period of development and
change.
The Zeitgeist leading to the New Style
It is certainly possible to point at phenomena before the mid nineteenth
century that remind one of the New Style. Just to indicate what I mean I
summarily discuss two examples, both related to floral decorative ornament,
often taken as characteristic of the New Style.
Consider the German–Danish romantic painter Philipp Otto Runge’s
(1777–1810) painting known as “The Small Morning” (of 1808, yes, there
is also a large one) at the Hamburg art museum. It has an ornamental bor-
der that is part of the painting, and important to its meaning. It symbolizes
the spectrum between earth/dark/opaque and heaven/light/transparent. Flo-
ral symbolism carries the brunt of the message. In the central depiction a
“light lily” contributes further flower power. Purely visually, it is obviously
not like the New Style, since the flowers are not abstracted and stylized, but
painted as solid, three–dimensional objects.
Runge’s scissor cuts of flowers are obviously flat and flattened, that is to
say, not modeled through light and shade, and spread out such as to be im-
mediately readable as flat silhouettes. Such works might indeed be taken for
products of the New Style. It is because we are familiar with Runge’s paint-
ings that we know better.
Indeed, reading Runge’s letters and his treatise on color one realizes that
Runge’s mind-set was a romantic one, far removed from the way the minds
of the artists of the end of the nineteenth century ticked.
Next consider the architect–designer Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
(1812–1852). He published a book “Floriated Ornament: a series of thirty-
one designs” in 1849. Looking at the plates they strike one as “square”, def-
initely not “cool”. They have a certain wooden quality that is very unlike the derives from Franz Brentano (1838–1917). The Gestalt ideas were very much
New Style. Yet there is no doubt that Pugin was avant garde in his time. in the spirit of the New Style. During the eighteen-nineties Jakob von Uexküll
Thus I take 1850 as my point of departure. Arbitrary indeed, but conve- developed his ideas of the Umwelt, a biological foundation for the philosoph-
nient, and somewhat useful. The period 1850–1890 then, is what I take as ical and psychological notions. Such ideas strongly influenced the mind-set
the era leading up to the New Style. Of course, this has to be understood in a of the New Style artists, albeit in an indirect sense.
rather fuzzy sense. What about the Zeitgeist of this period? The most important aspect is possibly that the artist became Nature, instead
of copying Nature. One might say that Cabanel “copied Nature”, even though
It is the period that railroads revolutionized public travel in Europe. Gas
Venus was obviously not one of his contemporaries. Likewise, one might say
light replaced candles, later in the period electric light took over. At the mid
that Monet copied the optical structure impinging on his eye. But the Art
nineteenth century the industrial revolution really started to take its toll. This
Nouveau artist does not copy at all. The Art Nouveau artist creates because
had a great many effects. One important “side effect” involved the living situ-
he has become the Force of Nature itself. The “mirror turned lamp”.
ation of the labor force. This triggered the advent of the socialist movements,
initially an occupation of intellectuals and bourgeous. Designers wanted to
work for the people, some saw the need to industrialize their production meth-
ods, others wanted to reestablish honest manual crafting, these ideas derived
from the same root. This had many effects on the arts. For instance, the cleft
between design (a craft) and easel painting (an art) soon evaporated. The pro-
duction of unique specimen (like easel paintings) was perceived by many as
essentially morally reprehensible. Design for mass products became a valid,
even desirable, artistic goal.
The exact (physics, chemistry, and biology) sciences boomed, for a large
part because of their industrial importance, and relevance to colonial matters,
but also because of pure intellectual interest. All these factors obviously in-
fluenced the intellectual climate in various ways. One important factor was
the changed attitude with respect to religion. This had to do with the sciences,
with philosophy, and with socio-economic matters. For a start, one felt that
religion is there for man, instead of man for religion. This also implied a
changed attitude with respect to nature. Man, and man’s awareness became
more important. This was inititiated by Kant’s Kritik der reinen Vernunft
(1781), and Schopenhauer’s Der Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1818). At the
end of the era (1890) we have the complete works of Friedrich Wilhelm Ni-
etzsche (1844–1900), and the advent of modern psychology (Wilhelm Wundt
(1832-1920) established the first psychological laboratory in 1879). In the
1890’s Carl Stumpf (1848–1936) started his laboratory on Gestalt psychology
at Berlin, a branch of psychology/philosophy (the difference was vague) that

2
This is the poster for the workshop at which this talk “Ver Sacrum: the liberation of
artistic form” was presented. The museum had a special exhibition on the life and
work of Rudolph Steiner, which fitted very well with the topic.
 Ver Sacrum
the liberation of artistic form

Jan Koenderink
 What IS the “New Art”?

what are the roots of the mind-set that led

to a break with the past in Art & Design
during the decade straddling 1900 AD?

The actual products of the “Jugendstil”, “Art

Nouveaux”, … etc., being extremely varied,
the “invariant” has to be the Weltanschauung.
Ver Sacrum [“Sacred Spring”] was the official magazine
of the Wiener Secession. Published from 1898-1903, it
marks the hay days of the New Style.
there was a general awareness of change:

“The dominant characteristic of an époque

of transition like ours is spiritual anxiety.

…, we are living in a storm where a hundred

contradictory elements collide, debris from
the past, scraps of the present, seeds of
the future, swirling, combining, separating
under the imperious wind of destiny.”

Adolphe Retté (1 March 1898, La Plume)

…but the roots must be sought in the preceding decades

main stream art, early 1860’s

Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889)

 avant garde art,
early 1860’s
James Abbott McNeill
Whistler (1834-1903)
(remember the famous legal case
Ruskin-Whistler!)

Whistler’s signature,
an abstract butterfly
 avant garde
1908

Pablo Picasso
(1881-1973)

this is the first

real “break with
the past” after
the New Art
same year
1908!

Léon Comerre
(1850-1916)
1860’s

this tends to be confusing

to the naive observer

1908
 Whistler Picasso

Even more confusing…

Among the “roots” of the New Style are:

- the Zeitgeist is dominated by hopes & fears induced

by fast changes in science, industry, society, religion,
philosophy, politics, economics, …

- the cleft between design (crafts) and art (painting,

sculpture, …) evaporates

- photography trivializes mimesis in the arts

- science and mobility open up new worlds

- mind is construction, “the mirror turns lamp”

There are strong causal dependencies between all of

these factors, it is a dense nexus.
observation of nature & visual design

- example: floral design -

Acanthus Mollis (or spinosus) are
supposed to be the origin of the
Corinthian Style” (James Page “Guide
for drawing the Acanthus,” 1886)

John Ruskin, drawing from “The Stones of

Venice” (1851/3)

Botanical interest (observation of nature) and design

interest (extracting the essence, organization)
In the mid 19th c. up to Victorian times the “language of flowers” added interest.
Owen Jones: “Grammar of Ornament” 1856

based on botanical observation ->

From the 1860‘s we find
increased influence of more
scientific approaches. This
went on to well within the
early 20th c.

John Ruskin combines artistic

and scientific interests.

This has moral, religious roots.

Christopher Dresser has an interest as designer ca. 1850.
Dresser knows Goethe’s notion of the “Urpflanze” through Gottfried Semper.
 Christopher Dresser 1855
(chart for design classes teaching purposes)
Dresser 1855 (“L-grammar” avant la lettre!)

Dresser goes remarkably far

in the direction of abstraction.
His designs are hardly
distinguishable from the avant
garde of the late 1890’s.
Dresser 1876
Dresser not only works in the
direction of abstraction of
natural forms, he also explores
the expressive nature of these
forms.

He understands the notion of

Einfühlung as applied to abstract
graphical elements, as half a
century later described by
Kandinsky.
William Morris (1834-1896) was directly influenced by Christopher Dresser.

However, he was far more conservative. He initiated the “Arts & Crafts” movement
(ca. 1860-1910), a forerunner of several such enterprises in the Art Nouveau period.
Although a socialist he advocated manual workmanship, and abhorred industrial
methods, which are actually advocated by Dresser (like Arthur Lasenby (“Liberty”),
Siegfried Bing, Henri van de Velde, the Wiener Werkstätte, and Bauhaus later).
--- “Arts & Crafts” is best considered a “dead end”
Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) was a scientist whose works had a marked influence on the
art of design (and vice versa). - he knew Dresser as an learned artist-botanist.
Moritz Meurer (1839-1916)
was an art theorist/scientist.
He studied plant forms with
an eye on the education of
artists.

In the early 1890’s he

employed the sculptor Karl
Blossfeldt (in Berlin) to start
a collection of models.
Karl Blossfeldt became famous because of his book of photographs
“Urformen der Kunst” of 1928.
This was an immediate consequence of his work with Moritz Meurer in
the 1890’s.
 Eugene Grasset (1845-1917)

Use of decorative floral motives in representative art is common in Art Nouveau

Few issues of Jugend magazine are without a number of pages designed much like these.
Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939), from
Combinaisons ornementales (1897)

The abstraction often gets far.

There is a strong insistence on
expressive, arabesque line.
Ver Sacrum 1902

floral design
becomes almost
arbitrarily
abstract

notice how the

“stems of the
roses” merge into
a “drapery”
(the designs reads
differently
upwards and
downwards!)

notice the
bilateral
symmetry
Otto Eckmann
Abstractions tending to arabesque are common

Richard Grimm (Pan magazine 1899)

Hermann Obrist (1862-1927) in 1896 goes much farther with purely expressive line
Henry van der Velde (1863-1957)

ca. 1898

The floral ornament has become

completely abstracted and almost
purely expressive.

The shape of the “flowers” is fitted

to the shape of the vignette and
(most relevant for the application)
the lettering
stylized tulips stylized daisies
textile designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh
the “essence” of the flowers is still recognizable
Science, Art & Religion

(an aside)
 “African Venus”

The same scientific interest in the structure of the natural world as found
in botany, is found in ethnography, geomorphology, animal form, et cetera.
For the scientist, humans are in no way more important than flowers!

Here are sculptures by Charles-Henri-Joseph Cordier (1827-1905). From

1851- 1866 he is the official sculptor of Paris's National History Museum.
 “NATURE
unveils before
SCIENCE”

Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841-1905)

Barrias’ “La Nature se dévoilant à la Science” (1899) is
revealing.

Science was seen as being forced to “reveal its secrets”,

allowing man to understand Nature from the inside out, so
to speak.

This freed the artist from the chore of copying nature,

allowing the artist to identify with the very force of Nature
and create original (natural!) forms.

“… soul must become … its own deliverer …

the mirror turned lamp”
- William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
 Monet
Gérôme 1872 1886

The classical artist copied the WORLD (or an

imaginary scene of it!), the impressionists copied the
RETINAL IMAGE.
The Art Nouveau artist doesn’t copy at all!
The artist CREATES for has BECOME NATURE.
(that is why impressionism is abused by the New Art)
Obrist 1895
science for the people!
Although a positive tone dominates, on the negative side
are the social disasters of the industrial revolution,
which dominated the (dark) thoughts of John Ruskin,
William Morris, and many others.

This led to a complex of thoughts involving Science,

Nature, Humanity, and Religion, that surfaces in various
forms in the Art Nouveau mind set.

The greatest thing a human soul ever does

in this world is to SEE something, and tell
what it saw in a plain way... To see clearly is
poetry, prophecy, and religion ––– all in one.
– John Ruskin
(Ruskin taught free evening classes to
workmen on this topic.)
observation of nature & visual design

- expressive bodily movement -

(example: Loie Fuller)
Loie Fuller was the
sensation of the
years 1892-1920’s
at the Folies-
Bergère

She inspired
painting, sculpture,
decorative arts, …

The visual
experience neatly
fitted scientific
experiments on
kinetics, and ideas
of expressive
(graphical)
“movement” in
ornamental
pattern design.
“Danse Serpentine” - 1900

Loie Fuller (1862-1928)

(born at Chicago)
no problem to find hundreds of these!
Henri de Toulouse- Lautrec (1864-1901) - probably drawn on site
Koloman Moser
- a movement towards full abstraction
(1868-1918)
 attempts to express phases
of movement in solid shape

Théodore Louis-Auguste Rivière,

Lily Dance, Loie Fuller, 1898 ca. Loie Fuller Dancing by Pierre Roche 1900
Étienne-Jules Marey (1830-1904)
scientist, physiologist and
“chronophotographer” became
famous in science & art alike.
Artists came to study with him.
 decorative figures not only derived
from abstracted natural patterns,
but also from abstractions from
body poses and expressive bodily
movements.

Two handed drawing, New York 1899

1900

“L’eau froide” “La Reconnaissance” Albert de Rochas d'Aiglun (1837-1914)

atelier of Alfons Mucha Les Sentiments, la musique et le geste
 Alfons Mucha’s
expressive
“macaroni” lines
(contemporary
comment)
immediately
derive from the
kinematics of
Marey, Loie
Fuller’s dances,
and kinaestethic
perception.

It is widespread
(e.g. think of
Rudolf Steiner’s
Eurythmy).

left: “dance”
top: from”Combinaisons Ornementales”
We encounter Loie Fuller frequently in
abstract page design (the example by
Otto Eckmann).

The essence is more important than

Loie Fuller per se, it is an abstract
design principle that seeks to express
natural rhythms of the human body.
observation of nature & visual design

photography
Alphonse Mucha posing models
 Photography
was used as
reference.

“Copying”
nature was
never
superficial (as
in the academic
methods of the
19th c.), but
supposed to
come from the
inside.
the painting from window to decorative object

flattening and organization of pictorial space

Maurice Denis:

“Remember that a picture, before being a

battle horse, a nude, an anecdote or whatnot,
is essentially a flat surface covered with
colors assembled in a certain order.” - 1890

“I think that above everything else a painting

should be an ornament.” - 1893

these ideas are common sense in the New Style

A picture is something fully visual, an “icon”.
Its discursive meaning is secondary.

This is Adolf Hildebrand’s notion of the Fernbild.

The resulting awareness is immediate, not patched
together from various glances.

Such pictures are due to design. They derive from

experience of nature, but are constructed by the
artist to directly address visual awareness.
An icon is necessarily an organic whole, that is
how it appears in immediate visual awareness.

Discursive thought, theories of proportion, and

so forth, have nothing to do with it.

Konrad Fiedler & Adolf Hildebrand (early 1890‘s)

explain that the work of art should fit our vision.
It does not illustrate or represent something else.

Artistic abstraction and construction becomes an

inverted mimesis; the artist becomes nature.
instruments for the creation of flatness

coulisses space
Adolf Böhm

1861 -1927

landscape from
here to infinity
rendered flat,
yet extensive

notice the
“floral” border
Serusier 1892
Maurice Denis
(1870-1943)

a few depth
layers, artfully
integrated
Maurice
Denis

the simplest
front-back
layering as in
many 19th c
Japanese
woodprints

classical
“perspective”
is
intentionally
avoided
Édouard Vuillard
(1868-1940)

depth layers
merging into flat
design and texture
Édouard
Vuillard

depth layers
almost fully
transformed
into flat
texture

The color
palette is
“flat” too
(Yellow-Blue)
Adolf von Hildebrand (Das Problem der Form, 1893):

- truly “visual” images are flat icons (Fernbilder)

- the depth movement is an impure feeling involving

multiple views connected by feelings of movement

- the artist should compose in terms of flat layers

(“Reliefauffassung”)

- through mutual occlusion different depth layers can

be made to “join hands” in the Fernbild
Felix Valloton (1865-1925) 1892
instruments for the creation of flatness

emphasizing frontal planes

Émile Bernard (1868-1941) 1888
 Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)

frontality, symmetry, 2-layered, background a flat texture

(notice how the “horizon” serves to “close” the design)
 Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898)
The Sacred Wood cherished by the arts and muses
1889

a classical composition transformed into a stack of frontal layers

Franz von Stuck (1863-1928)
 Max Klinger
(1857-1920)

since the depth planes

are not interrelated, they
move into a single frontal
plane, strongly flattening
the painting.

the designs works well

when viewed upside down.
instruments for the creation of flatness

picture plane symmetry

 Max Kurzweil
(1867-1918)
1899

bilateral
symmetry on the
vertical is a most
powerful device
for flattening
Otto Eckmann 1865-1902 (Pan magazine 1896)

notice the ambiguous spatial attitude of the “water surface”

Elena Luksch-Makowsky (Ver Sacrum 1903) - translation symmetry made to work
Ferdinand Hodler 1909 Hodler finds symmetry all over nature
Marcus Behmer (1879-1958) - such vignettes were all over Jugend, Pan, Ver Sacrum…
Maurice
Denis

artful use
of visual
symmetry
 Otto Eckmann
(Jugend magazine 1897)

very typical for page design of

the period.

Notice how birds, flowers and

water are integrated into a
single, symmetric vignette.

The typography was fitted to

the vignettes and vice versa.
instruments for the creation of flatness

extreme aspect ratios

instruments for the creation of flatness

flat color
Koloman Moser

Ein decorativer Fleck

in „Roth und Grün“

Ver Sacrum 1898

The title reveals the

intention of the artist:
this is an experiment in
abstract, planar design
Hans Christiansen

designs like this

were popular in
“artistic” postcards

they evidently
reflect the taste of
the public
Koloman
Moser
1899

notice that a
design like
this is only
possible
when
abstracting
from a
photograph

purely flat
objects are
integrated
instruments for the creation of flatness

texture, mosaic & quilt

Gustav Klimt
(1862-1918)

Klimt’s use of flat,

fine grained
texture was
extreme, even at
the time, but it
clearly fitted the
general attitude
very well
 Éduard Vuillard
here the obviousness of depth layers is dissolved into the spotty texture
Maurice
Denis

instead of a
stack of
depth layers
one arrives at
a flat mosaic
Maurice
Denis

in some
cases the
layering
and
texturing
go
together
instruments for the creation of flatness

flat design
Adolf Böhm

although still
suggesting
natural scenes,
such designs
are abstract
and flat from
their first
conception
 Carl Otto
Czeschka
(1878-1960)
Die Nibelungen

use of various
symmetries (notably
repetition) in purely
flat design, with a
“perspective” floor
as spicy contrast
 Kolomam Moser

evidently started
from a photograph,
but worked into a
purely flat design

the lettering is an
integral part of the
design
Koloman Moser
1902

in cases like this,

conceived as flat
design from the
start
 flat design suggesting “depth”,
J. R. Witzel - Jugend Magazine a sophisticated inverted design!
 Two pages from Ver Sacrum 1902

There are (visually) evident parallels with

Gestalt principles in psychological research
flat design is perfectly suited
to book covers, and so forth

a book cover should be flat, it

is in bad taste to make it look
like a window into the world

when the distinction between

“art” and “design” vanishes,
flatness is the natural mode

Jan Toorop
this is a label for bottles of peanut
oil, used in the Netherlands for
dressing salads

Toorop did not do the design

because he was pressed for money

for him (as for most other artists

of the period) this was of no less
(perhaps more!) importance than an
expensive canvas to be hung in a
museum

Jan Toorop
 Lucien Gaillard (1861-1942)

A piece like this (beautiful flat design!) is also pure art nouveaux, but
evidently orders of magnitude more expensive than a bottle of peanut
oil! Only THE FEW could afford it.
Such (apparent!) inconsistencies are plenty in religious thought, social
feeling, and so forth, of the period. Even William Morris (among more a
social reformer!) used child labour, and did not run a cooperation.
observation of nature & visual design

advanced abstraction
 Paul Serusier
1892

Serusier was a
forerunner in the
move to
abstraction
Paul Serusier 1888

the “talisman”

painted on the cover of a

cigar box, this work became
the key inspiration for the
Nabis group, hence its title
Henry van de Velde drew this on a walk through the Flemish dunes
 … and this became
of it …

Henry van de Velde (woodcut #16, in the collection

of poems by Max Elskamp “Dominical”, of 1892)
observation of nature & visual design

Japonisme
“Japonisme” became
influential from the early
1860’s on, through
Siegfried Bing and
Christopher Dresser.
It perfectly fitted the
new Zeitgeist.
Of course, Japonisme was
often used merely for its
fashionable “strangeness”
and variety.

Seder’s page is an offense!

(usually he seems an able
- though average - illustrator)

Perhaps fortunately, such

superficialities are
comparatively rare.

Anton Seder
“Japonisme” became
important because it fitted
the Zeitgeist better than
the works that came from
the academic art
institutions.

The artists understood

Japanese art in their own
(European!) way.

In a sense, Japanese art

and decorative design
acted as an “existence
proof” for the ideas of the
New Style.

Koloman Moser
 Willows tearoom chair

Charles Rennie
Mackintosh

the open screen from the

traditional Japanese
home applied to Western
furniture design
 Kart Hagemeister
the open Japanese screen applies very well to decorative landscape design
 CONCLUSIONS

The spirit of the New Style

- there is no essential difference between design and art

- materials are to be respected, form suggests function

- there is something morally wrong with unique products

like easel paintings, the artist should work for the people

- art is made for the eye, not to mimic nature, tell a story

- art can hold itself against nature, like nature it reaches

the mind, though in purified form

- the mind doesn’t reflect the world, it illuminates it

- the (physical) work and the (mental) idea are inseparable

- the mind resonates to patterns (“Gestalt”)

- artists know how to let others share in their vision

All these notions are thoroughly modern!

The New Style represents a turning point in the arts.

Starting during the industrial revolution of the 19th c.

we still live in its aftermath.
 The key argument is
OTHER E B OOKS FROM T HE C LOOTCRANS P RESS :
de cloten sullen uyt haer selven een eeuwich roersel maken, t’welck
1. Awareness (2012) valsch is.
2. MultipleWorlds (2012)
3. ChronoGeometry (2012) Simon Stevin was a Dutch genius, not only a mathematician, but also an
4. Graph Spaces (2012) engineer with remarkable horse sense. I consider his “clootcrans bewijs” one
5. Pictorial Shape (2012) of the jewels of sixteenth century science. It is “natural philosophy” at its
6. Shadows of Shape (2012) best.
7. Through the Looking Glass: on Viewing Aids (2012)
8. Painting to Marble (2012)
9. Experimental Phenomenology: Art & Science (2012)
10. World, Environment, Umwelt and Innerworld (2013).

(Available for download here.)

A BOUT T HE C LOOTCRANS P RESS

The Clootcrans Press is a selfpublishing initiative of Jan Koenderink. No-

tice that the publisher takes no responsibility for the contents, except that he
gave it an honest try—as he always does. Since the books are free you should
have no reason to complain.

T HE “C LOOTCRANS ” appears on the front page of Simon Stevin’s

(Brugge, 1548–1620, Den Haag) De Beghinselen der Weeghconst, published
1586 at Christoffel Plantijn’s Press at Leyden in one volume with De Weegh-
daet, De Beghinselen des Waterwichts, and a Anhang. In 1605 there appeared
a supplement Byvough der Weeghconst in the Wisconstige Gedachtenissen.
The text reads “Wonder en is gheen wonder”. The figure gives an intuitive
“eye measure” proof of the parallelogram of forces.