“True Violins” and “Artistic License”. Two Prejudices that hinder the Study of Early Violin Morphology. (Louvain, 2022) https://www.academia.edu/74199516/True_violins_and_artistic_license
This is a scholarly article, but at the same time a plea for an urgent rewrite of the early history of the violin, this time unhampered by prejudice and entrenched ideas. To me, this is symbolic of the world we are now fighting for: a world where truth is sought in freedom, especially when it is threatened by arguments of authority and ingrained norms. It is high time to correct the misconceptions about violin making before 1650. The idea that this craft meant little or nothing outside of Brescia and Cremona must urgently be dispelled. The mistrust in the documentary value of art works is widespread among makers and scholars, who still believe extant instruments are more reliable sources when it comes to studying the early history of violin making. The second bias is rooted in the strong belief in Cremonese violin-making principles as the sole basis for determining whether an instrument is a decent violin or even whether it can be called a “violin”. The influence of Cremonese violin making before 1650 is overestimated. From representations in art and from archival texts it appears that in various centers in Europe, professional violin makers supplied the local markets with instruments, in a style and with techniques that were once common and are now gradually being rediscovered. The early history of violin making needs to be rewritten, and the new insights need to be popularized, answering a number of questions.
As one goes back in time, the number of extant bowed instruments decreases gradually, and this is particularly true for loose parts such as bridges, pegs and tailpieces. The current article traces the development of bridges of instruments of the violin family, based on a study of extant instruments and around 800 iconographic sources. This study reveals the origins of the various elements of bridges found on modern instruments of the violin family, and reconstructs the different stages of their evolution. Many elements of the modern violin bridge were already present, sometimes hidden, in bowed-instrument bridges of the 16th century. The extensive appendices and many line drawings offer today’s researchers, makers and restorers the possibility of providing historically informed bridges that are less fantasized than those hitherto often encountered on restorations or reconstructions of old instruments.
My comments on how to display dancing master violins in museums have been published in the June 2024 issue of The Strad! Actually, this is the outcome of a heated discussion on Facebook a few months ago: "The pochette, one of the most special stringed instruments, can be found in many museum collections-but is it displayed properly? Wim Raymaekers states that the bridge position should be reconsidered."
After studying, as an art historian and violin maker, over a thousand works of art from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries as well as extant instruments, I found proof for this hypothesis about the origin of the f-hole: cutting the C-hole shape in half and rotating both halves relative to each other. That is why f-holes have indents, and why the inner one is placed lower than the outer one. That is also the reason why these inner notches were not used initially as a reference to locate the bridge. It was purely the result of a visual adjustment.
Accessible to subscribers to The Galpin Society Journal only.
The Stylistic Features of the Instruments of the Violin Family in Seventeenth Century Dutch Paintings
This article is a translation of a study originally published in Dutch: Wim RAYMAEKERS, De vormkenmerken van de instrumenten der vioolfamilie in de 17de-eeuwse Nederlandse schilderkunst, in Musica antiqua. Actuele informatie over oude muziek, 6, 3, 1989, p.98-105. This text is still relevant an innovative, since it widens our knowledge of archaic violins in the same way the “rediscovery” of the Alemannic school and the Freiberger violins did. Whatever the meaning, the hidden symbolic messages or the iconographic theme of representations from the Golden Age may be, the elements with which they are composed are often so realistic that they can be studied in detail. This certainly applies to the illustrations of the instruments of the violin family. In addition to the fact that they play a remarkable role in the iconography of that time , they offer, due to their large number and their quality as a document, the possibility to study the visual characteristics of the seventeenth century violin in the Netherlands. They allow us to follow their evolution starting as early as 1620, despite the fact that no extant organological material concerning this material has come to us from well past the middle of the century. This unclarified period between about 1620 and 1660/1670 appears to be a pivotal era, because it is precisely then that the transition from "archaic" to "modern" stylistic features can be observed in Dutch iconography.
17th century virtual reality: a gallery of lost archaic violins from Dutch painters'studios. Art historian and violin maker Wim Raymaekers describes a number of violins depicted in detail and from different viewpoints by Dutch painters in the Golden Age before 1650.
Real or Fake? Damaged String Instruments in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Paintings. Wim Raymaekers, 2024.
Damaged stringed instruments can appear in a number of different iconographic contexts. They may be profane, mythological, biblical, or otherwise religious. Much can be learned from these paintings about the objects and the degree of realism of the works of art. Anyone familiar with the restoration and conservation of musical instruments can tell at a glance whether the artist knew what defects on an instrument really look like.
Echt of Fake? Beschadigde snaarinstrumenten op zestiende- en zeventiende-eeuwse schilderijen. Wim Raymaekers, 2024.
In een aantal uiteenlopende iconografische onderwerpen kunnen beschadigde snaarinstrumenten aan bod komen. Ze kunnen profaan, mythologisch, bijbels of anderszins religieus zijn. Uit deze schilderijen valt veel te leren over de objecten en over de mate van realisme van de kunstwerken. Iedereen die bekend is met restauratie en conservering van muziekinstrumenten kan in één oogopslag zien of de kunstenaar wist hoe gebreken aan een instrument er werkelijk uitzien.
Snooty organologists! An investigation into the socio-cultural, material, economic, intellectual and financial self-deception of musical instrument research. Wim Raymaekers, 2024.
“Research supports the notion that using feedback and constructive criticism … is very influential” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism). Perhaps even organologists are not immune to its positive effect. Hence this attempt to identify a number of problems.
All violin sound holes great and small (1500-1750). Geigen f- und andere Modelle nach Originalen alter Meister (Maler, Zeichner, Geigenbauer…). Wim Raymaekers, 2024.
Outlines taken from extant instruments of the violin family and from iconographic sources, mostly between 1500 and 1700. They can be used for reference, or simply for inspiration.