ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author argues that early modern English debates over the relative worth of representational practices—poetic, historical, philosophic, visual, and so on—were driven by a tension resulting from the contrast between existing representational practices and the new word-centered religion. The connection between limning and illumination and the goldsmith's trade extended to the graphic arts, as all of the artists to which Nicholas Hilliard makes significant reference produced either illustrations for Continental books or single-sheet prints. Durer made his reputation primarily in the graphic arts, and in addition to some important English woodcut frontispieces, Hans Holbein's work in the graphic arts can be found in some important Continental book illustrations. Sir Philip Sidney's initial literary response to the iconoclastic tenor of the age, in the "Old" Arcadia (written between 1578-80; unpublished until 1912), and some of the poems in Astrophil and Stella (written 1581-83; printed 1591), shares, with Hilliard, the attempt to connect art to moral betterment.
