Blindheid en inzicht. De retoriek van het lezen in Constantijn Huygens' Ooghen-Troost

Samenvatting

In this contribution, we focus on two often misread extracts from Constantijn Huygens' poem Ooghen-troost in which the author relates the binary framework of his poem to the paragone between the 'sister' arts of poetry and painting in an interesting way. We suggest that, in these passages, Huygens forges an opposition between two forms of seeing that are central to his conception of the paragone and that inform much of his other writings on the visual arts: the seeing that involves the mere looking at a painting (the superficial gaze) and the reading of a text that involves a more valid way of perceiving that hinges upon - and literally looks through - the distinction between surface and depth, external appearance and inward truth.