WoodblockPrint

Pros and Cons of the Woodblock Print

PROS

                1. Three of these musicians are playing wind instruments, just as our
                       Bassano musicians did. The two men singing could also be wind
                     instrument players with their particular instruments laying at the
                     front, bottom of the picture. *

                    2.   The mountains shown outside the window could represent Mount Grappa
                        near Bassano del Grappa. Many of the artist Jacopo Bassano's paintings
                        show what looks similar and sometimes exactly like this formation of
                        mountains.

[Click here for an illustration of this point.]

3. The instruments hanging on the wall could indicate these musicians
    were musical instrument makers, as the Bassano brothers were.

4. The clothes they are wearing are right for the dating of 1535. The hat
        the middle musician is wearing looks exactly like the one worn in Jacopo
        Bassano's painting dated 1538.

CONS

1. The artist Jacopo Bassano did not do woodblock prints. He painted in oils
    and his drawings were in black and red chalk. However, many times a
        woodblock is done from an earlier oil painting.

2. The date of 1535 could be questioned. The brothers were in London
       working for Henry VIII sometime between 1531 and1539.

3. There were six, not five, musician brothers. Only the five brothers: Alinxus,
       Anthony, Gasper, John and John Baptist are listed on 30 October, 1538, in
   their grant as Henry VIII's court musicians. The sixth brother, Jacomo,
       was with them in London in 1538 and 1542. He then returned to live the
       rest of his life in Italy.

* (Thanks to Fran Fulwiler for the suggestion about the instruments
at the bottom of the picture.)

My opinions - 2007