Please click on the emblem above to enlarge the image.
One of the most important virtues presented in Sinnepoppen is 'self-discipline'. The commentary explicitly >compares the use of the rod with pedagogical discipline. The concept of discipline, of essential value in Stoic philosophy, seems to have been >christianised by Roemer Visscher. Whoever Roemer Visscher himself felt was responsible for using the rod is not immediately apparent. The abstract and frequently depicted hand from the cloud in the pictura deliberately does not provide the answer. Like so much, this was left to the reader's personal interpretation. Depending on his or her situation, it could be God, or the parents taking care of a child's education as was perhaps suggested by the painter Ochtervelt, or someone else still. The implicit message of the emblem however, seems to be the need for self-discipline, to be displayed after the unnamed guide has stopped using the rod.
The iconographic use of the rod can also be seen in the painting >'Family portrait' (1669) by Jacob Ochtervelt. >Compare the two images.
>Click here for a slightly modified representation of the same emblem in the third edition of Sinnepoppen (1669).
