Locating ‘Realism’ in Seventeenth-Century
Dutch Art
Looking at the art of everyday life
By: Kim Sluijter
Student Number: 5826659
A thesis submitted to the Graduate School for Humanities of the University of Amsterdam in
partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts.
August 1st, 2009
Abstract
Throughout the ages, seventeenth-century Dutch art has often been referred to as ‘a mirror of
everyday life’ and ‘realistic’ has become its major label. This research focuses on the term
‘realism’ in relation to seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings and examines various
theories relating to this topic. The research question relates to how recent art historians have
explained the concept of ‘realism’ in relation to genre paintings, and where they have located
this ‘realism’ in the paintings themselves. The main focus will be on three recent interpretations
by Eric Jan Sluijter, Lyckle de Vries and David R. Smith. Each of the authors has a different
opinion of where ‘realism’ can be found in or in relation to these paintings. This paper includes a
discussion on four possible locations for ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century Dutch genre paintings,
namely; subject matter, style, technique and artistic mode. In order to examine the validity of
these art historians’ theories, their ideas are tested by applying them to two paintings; Gerard
ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation (1655) and Pieter de Hooch’s Interior with Women beside a
Linen Chest (1663). From this, it is found that the theories themselves already raised many
questions, but also that applying them to the actual paintings could not be done flawlessly for
any of the theories.
2
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my tutor Dr. Arno Witte and supervisor Dr. Thijs Weststeijn for their time
and commitment over the past half year. Both have helped stir this project in the right direction. I
especially owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Thijs Weststeijn for being available at such late notice
and putting so much effort into working with me throughout the summer. I would also like to
thank Jesse Coleman for editing the English in my final thesis. A special thank you goes out to
all my friends and family for their continued support and faith.
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Table of Contents
Chapter I: Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 5
Research goal .......................................................................................................................... 5
Research questions ................................................................................................................. 6
Current State of Research ....................................................................................................... 7
Dutch Democratic Realism ......................................................................................... 7
The iconological approach: protagonists and antagonists ....................................... 8
Recent work ............................................................................................................... 11
Issues at hand ........................................................................................................................ 13
Research Scope ..................................................................................................................... 14
Paper Division ........................................................................................................................ 15
Chapter 2: Theory ............................................................................................................................... 17
‘Realism’ as subject matter ................................................................................................... 17
‘Realism’ as style.................................................................................................................... 20
‘Realism’ as technique ........................................................................................................... 24
‘Realism’ as mode of artistic thought .................................................................................... 27
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 31
Chapter 3: Practice ............................................................................................................................. 33
‘Realism’ as subject matter ................................................................................................... 33
‘Realism’ as style.................................................................................................................... 37
‘Realism’ as technique ........................................................................................................... 42
‘Realism’ as mode of artistic thought .................................................................................... 47
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 50
Chapter 4: Discussion and Conclusion ............................................................................................. 53
‘Realism’ as subject matter ................................................................................................... 53
‘Realism’ as style.................................................................................................................... 55
‘Realism’ as technique ........................................................................................................... 57
‘Realism’ as mode of artistic thought .................................................................................... 58
Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 59
Figures ................................................................................................................................................. 62
Bibliography......................................................................................................................................... 68
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Chapter I: Introduction
Throughout the ages, art historians, collectors and art-lovers have been intrigued by the works
of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age. Although people often look at works of art
differently, a consensus on a specific aspect of Dutch art seems to rule the general opinion,
namely that the highly realistic depiction of scenes is extremely exceptional. It is for this reason
that Dutch art has often been referred to as ‘a mirror of everyday life’. This phrase is what
initiated this research as it has been used throughout the ages to refer to Dutch art, from
Samuel van Hoogstraten in the seventeenth century, who spoke of a ‘mirror of nature’, to
nineteenth-century French art historians such as Thoré-Bürger. Even today, Dutch art has
connotations of being a ‘slice of everyday life’.
In spite of this continuity over the years, there has been a change in perception of these
‘realistic’ pictures and a change in the interpretation of the term ‘realism’. Some art historians
have accepted the images they see as a faithful reproduction of daily life in the seventeenth
century, while others have argued that these images do not portray any real scenes but that
they have a deeper meaning. This research will look back at the aspects of these paintings
which has intrigued art historians, collectors as well as art-lovers, and explore the ‘realism’
depicted in these works. As there is a long tradition in interpreting the ‘realism’ in seventeenthcentury Dutch paintings, this research will only focus on the current debates and investigate art
historical theories proposed in the last quarter of a century until 2009.
Research goal
The goal of this research is to investigate the concept of ‘realism’ in relation to seventeenthcentury genre paintings. The definition of the term ‘realism’ is ever changing and each time
period imposes its own meaning on it. For this reason, this research will investigate the
interpretations of ‘realism’ formulated by three major art historians from the last decade of the
twentieth and the first decade of the twenty-first century. The objective is to understand how
realism has been interpreted over the years, but also how it relates to different aspect of the
paintings themselves. Where do these art historians recognise a realistic mode of
representation in a painting and what does it mean according to them? Allegedly, ‘realism’ can
be found in the objects displayed, but also in the style of painting, or perhaps it cannot be seen
in the painting at all. Each art historian that this research will focus on has a different opinion on
the matter, and each of the three authors under discussion (De Vries, Sluijter and Smith) will
represent one or more possible locations for ‘realism’. Due to the limited scope of this research,
5
this paper will explore four different locations; subject matter, style, technique and artistic mode.
The various definitions and interpretations of the concept ‘realism’ will be discussed and
juxtaposed. Special attention will also be given to problems arising from the way art historians
have used the term ‘realism’.
As the locations for ‘realism’, according to the chosen art historians, are all relate to
seventeenth-century Dutch genre painting, the theories will also be applied to the actual works
of art to test their validity. For this part Gerard ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation (1655) (fig. 1)
and Pieter de Hooch’s Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest (1663) (fig. 2) have been
chosen. By testing the theories, it will become apparent whether or not these theories actually
stand when applying them the paintings for which the theories were created.
Research questions
The main question around which this research revolves is as follows; how have art historians in
the past twenty years explained the concept of ‘realism’ in relation to seventeenth-century Dutch
genre paintings? To be more specific, this research will look at where, according to Sluijter, De
Vries and Smith, ‘realism’ has been located in relation to the paintings.
The names mentioned are those of art historians Eric-Jan Sluijter, Lyckle de Vries and David
Smith. Each of them have interpreted ‘realism’ in Dutch art in the past couple of decades and
have found different locations for ‘realism’. This is why the main focus will be on these specific
art historians although this will be expanded upon when other sources are deemed necessary.
In order to investigate this matter, the focus will be on several aspects of the genre paintings
where ‘realism’ might possibly be located; ‘realism’ as the subject matter of a painting, ‘realism’
as the style of painting, ‘realism’ as a technique and ‘realism’ as artistic mode. The theories
proposed by Sluijter, De Vries and Smith will be discussed and analysed from a critical
perspective. Next to this theoretical discussion on the possible location of ‘realism’, these
theories will also be applyed to actual paintings. Do the theories by Sluijter, De Vries and Smith
stand when testing them on the paintings? As the focus is on genre paintings, two scenes
depicting domestic interiors have been chosen to which the theories on the location of ‘realism’
will be applied. The paintings to be analysed are Gerard ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation and
Pieter de Hooch’s Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest.
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Current State of Research
In the last two centuries, many different art historians have been interested in seventeenthcentury Dutch art, and each has formed his or her own opinion of it. As this research only
focuses on ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century Dutch art, only studies into this topic will be included
in this section. It must be remembered that this will thus only present the reader with a selection
of investigations made into this type of art, and is therefore is not representative in any form.
Select art historians and their ideas on ‘realism’, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present
year, will be focussed on. The purpose of this is to make clear how different art historians have
interpreted the ‘realism’ in the paintings throughout the years, and, more importantly, where they
have located ‘realism’ within the painting.
Dutch Democratic Realism
When exploring the history of the term ‘realism’ in relation to seventeenth-century Dutch art
theory, one does not need to go back to the Golden Age: in that age, the term ‘realism’ was not
used. Instead, it seems more useful to go only as far back as the nineteenth century. In this
period, the ideas on ‘realism’ in paintings came into in a wider scope, and the term was applied
to Dutch art for the first time. Especially in France, where realism as an artistic movement had
begun in the 1850s, it was a much favoured visual art style as well as subject matter. The goal
of this movement was “to create objective representations of the external world based on the
impartial observation of contemporary life”1. Therefore, it does not seem out of the ordinary that
it was these art critics and historians which praised the ‘realism’ in Dutch art so highly. One man
in particular was intrigued by the appearance of Dutch art, and promoted it amongst his fellow
Frenchmen. The art critic Etienne Joseph Théophile Thoré (1807-1869), better known under the
name of Thoré-Bürger, was one of the first to appreciate Dutch art for its ‘realism’ in subject
matter. Thoré-Bürger and others in the French realist movement opposed the classical style of
paintings which depended on Italian models and often depicted Gods and Saints. Instead, he
promoted the ‘low’ subject matters as seen in Dutch art, both the object as well as activities of
the lower social classes, which were “previously considered unworthy of representation in high
art” 2. He too believed that the appearance of Dutch art, depicting low subjects in a realistic style,
was a direct cause of the Dutch democratic system in the seventeenth century. To him, these
1
Rubin, J. H. ‘Realism.’ Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 16 May. 2009
<http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T070996>.
2
Rubin, 2009.
7
pictures presented a mirror of everyday life. This view was closely related to the political
situation in France, which was an empire at the time and endorsed the classicist style of art.
Instead, Thoré-Bürger would have rather seen a democracy in France, as the Netherlands was
in the seventeenth century. For his ideas, he was forced to leave France and move to Holland,
where he appropriated the pseudonym Willem Bürger. Not only did this name sound Dutch, also
the ‘Bürger’ referred to the Dutch ‘burghers’ of the seventeenth century, who had prospered
through the Dutch democracy. Nowadays Thoré-Bürger is praised for his rediscovery of
Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals, who became practically unknown shortly after the Golden
Age as some of their works had been wrongly attributed to other painters. This was of great
importance to our modern-day view of seventeenth-century Dutch art, as the three main
protagonists are Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer and Frans Hals. 3
The iconological approach: protagonists and antagonists
The iconological approach to art has been extremely prominent in the past. Due to its long
history, this interpretation method will only be discussed in relation to seventeenth-century
Dutch art, and its main protagonist the Dutch art historian Eddy de Jongh. Before discussing his
ideas, it is important to know the definition of iconology and its relation to art.
Iconology as a field of art history is closely related to iconography, and the distinction between
the two needs to be made clear. Iconography is the “collection, classification, and analysis of
data, from which the theme or subject of a work of art is deduced”4. Iconology, on the other
hand, “attempts to explain the very basis for the existence of a work of art and its entire
meaning”5. Iconography is the first step to be taken into identifying an object, and iconology
would derive a meaning from that. To explain the terms in different words, iconography identifies
3
Jowell, F. S. ‘From Thoré to Bürger: The image of Dutch art before and after the Musées de la Hollande’. Bulletin
van het Rijksmuseum. 1 (2001); pp.29-44.
4
Turner, J. The Dictionary of Art. New York: Grove, 1996, volume 17.
5
Turner, 1996.
8
certain aspects of a work of art that can be seen as symptomatic6, and iconology tries to explain
the meaning and significance behind these features.7
Eddy de Jongh was a professor at the University of Utrecht, and applied iconology solely to
seventeenth-century works of art. He believes that these paintings contain implicit moral
lessons, and that this is the meaning. One of his most famous theories was published in the
article “Realism and Seeming Realism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings” (1971).8
Following this theory a particular painting can depict two types of realities; a depiction of reality
how it truly is, or a depiction of reality through the use of metaphors and symbols. This second
type of realism was appropriately dubbed ‘schijnrealisme’. 9 De Jongh thus believes that there is
a deeper meaning in a work of art, one that is veiled behind its visual appearance. In order to
find this meaning, we should read the symbols in the painting as having a specific message or
implication. In other words, the meaning of the painting is found behind the canvas; the painting
alone will not suffice in unravelling its message. 10 The surface of the paintings itself, however, is
depicted in a ‘realistic’ manner. De Jongh thus sees the style of painting as ‘realistic’, yet this is
merely a guise for the paintings’ true goal, which is to give the viewer instructions on moral
conduct.11
6
“Iconography: The aspect of art history dealing with the identification, description, classification, and interpretation of
the subject matter of the figurative arts” Chilvers, E. I. ‘Iconography’ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists.
Oxford University Press, 1996. Oxford Reference Online. 03 February 2009
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t3.e1190>.
7
“Iconology: Closely related to iconography, but whereas that term is essentially descriptive, iconology is more
interpretative. It implies an examination, for example, of the meaning of an image or work of art by setting the
iconographical evidence it offered in a wider context.”Clarke, M. ‘Iconology’ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art
Terms. Oxford University Press, 2001. Oxford Reference Online. 03 February 2009
<http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t4.e883>.
8
De Jongh, E. ‘Realisme en schijnrealisme in de Hollandse schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw’ in Paleis voor
Schone Kunsten, Rembrandt en zijn tijd, exh. cat. Brussels: La Connaissance, Europalia,1971, pp. 143-94. The same
article appeared in English; ‘Realism and Seeming Realism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings’ in Frantis, W.
(ed) Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. Realism Reconsidered. Cambridge University Press, 1997.
9
The English translation of ‘schijnrealisme’ is ‘seeming realism’.
10
De Jongh, 1971.
11
See also Questions of meaning; theme and motif in Dutch seventeenth-century painting by De Jongh (2000) which
contains some of the De Jongh’s most influential articles on iconology and his ideas on seeming realism, and ‘Pearls
of Virtue and Pearls of Vice’ Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 8, No. 2 (1975 - 1976): pp. 6997. in which De Jongh puts forward a prime example of an iconological study.
9
The first major clash of dogmas occurred in the beginning of the 80s with the publication of
Svetlana Alpers’ The Art of Describing: Dutch art in the seventeenth century (1983).12 The
content of the paintings, according to her, is Dutch culture and it functioned for the seventeenthcentury viewer as a way to gain knowledge of the world. This would also explain the ‘realism’
seen in these works, and the ‘reality effect’ 13 is thus merely the form used by these artists.
Alpers places the meaning of seventeenth-century art not behind the canvas, as we have seen
with De Jongh, but believes the surface is the meaning. In her view, Dutch paintings are
descriptive, hence the title of her book, and are therefore not subject to the iconological
approach, which had been invented for narrative scenes rather than descriptive ones. Her book
was a radical departure from the iconological approach, and was both widely praised and highly
criticized. Supporters praised Alpers’ innovative view on seventeenth-century works of art,
whereas opponents disapproved of “her alleged selective use of evidence” 14. Alpers thus
opposes the entire iconological interpretation and the place it looks for meaning, making her
book one of the first major attempts to attack iconology at the heart. 15
During this time period, many other art historians also wrote about iconology, either positively or
negatively. The discussion of whether iconology is a valid manner of interpretation will be left
out of this research as it does not relate to the ‘realism’ of the thesis question. One must take
into account, however, that in this time period many interpretations were made of seventeenthcentury paintings. Each art historian tried to explain why the paintings we see today look so
highly realistic and, perhaps more importantly, what they meant. Since Alpers, there has been a
certain trend in the art historical field which tends to move away, although some more so than
others, from the iconological approach. This has been beneficial for the research into ‘realism’
as the idea of ‘seeming realism’ lost prominence, thereby raising again the question of what
‘realism’ is and where it is truly located. 16
12
Alpers, S. The art of Describing: Dutch art in the seventeenth century. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
13
The term ‘reality effect’ has been used by Alpers and refers to the realistic style of painting in seventeenth century
Dutch art. Like De Jongh, she believes the style is where realism is located. Rather than calling it ‘schijnrealisme’,
she calls it the ‘reality effect’ as the purpose of the artist was to stay close to the culture he was exploring.
14
Ross, A. ‘Svetlana Alpers’. 1999. Stanford University. 4 February 2009
<http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/alpers/>.
15
Another publication by Alpers, on the same topic is ‘Picturing Dutch Culture’, in Frantis, W. (ed.), Looking at
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art. Realism Reconsidered. Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 57-67.
16
Other prominent art historians of this time were Bedaux, J. B. The reality of symbols : studies in the iconology of
Netherlandish art 1400-1800. The Hague: G. Schwartz/SDU 1987; Sluijter, E. J. ‘Belering en verhulling? Enkele
10
Recent work
The art historians discussed up till now have all interpreted the realism in Dutch art in a certain
way, mainly focussing on the visual style the term often conveys. By interpreting it as a style, the
art historians hoped to find a way to explain the ‘realism’ in these paintings. There have also
been art historians who took a relatively different approach and explored the term ‘realism’ itself.
These authors put forward issues one needs to consider while looking at seventeenth-century
Dutch art. Their work will also be the main focus of this article and will be discussed in more
depth below. However, they will firstly be shortly summarised here.
Eric Jan Sluijter devoted an article to the ‘realism’ in Dutch art in 1990. The article is not only an
undermining of the iconological interpretation method, it also presents a new way of looking, or
interpreting, the realistic style of painting in seventeenth-century art. In iconology, the style is
merely a façade for the hidden message that lies in the symbols depicted, and the style of
painting was thus appropriately dubbed ‘schijnrealisme’. When thinking in this specific way, form
and content have become completely separated and the form of the paintings has become a
“betekenisloos realisme” 17. Instead, Sluijter believes that the realistic style of painting is an
important part in creating meaning. What is depicted in these works might not make much
sense today, but is by all means not hidden. At least it was not for the seventeenth-century
viewer, for whom the works were intended. They depicted certain stereotypes and symbols, to
which the contemporary viewers were accustomed. To them, the paintings did not present any
riddles or hidden symbols, but rather objects (and their accompanying connotations) which they
encountered in everyday life. The ‘realism’ in the paintings was thus an important aspect as the
objects and stereotypes depicted, needed to be recognizable to the viewer. The example for
both the painter and the viewer was reality itself. It was, however, not the artists’ intention to
depict reality exactly how it was. This idea of ‘photographic’ reality, as Sluijter calls it, is a
nineteenth-century invention which we still use today to look at art works and decide whether or
17de-eeuwseteksten over de schilderkunst en de iconologische benadering van Noordnederlandse schilderijen uit die
periode', De Zeventiende Eeuw. Cultuur in de Nederlanden in interdisciplinair perspectief, 4.2 (1988): pp. 3-28;
Hecht, P. ‘Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting: A Reassessment of Some Current Hypotheses’ Simiolus:
Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, Vol. 21, No. 1/2 (1992), pp. 85-95; Montias, J. M. ‘Cost and Value in
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art’, Art History, 10 (1987): pp. 455-66.
17
Sluijter, E.J. ‘Hoe realistisch is de Noordnederlandse schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw? De problemen van
een vraagstelling.’ Leidschrift, 6, (1990): p. 28. ‘Betekenisloos realisme’ means ‘meaningless realism’ in English.
11
not we call them ‘realistic’. The artists in the seventeenth century were selective and what they
depicted were artificial scenes, yet they did it in a realistic manner.
In 1991 Lyckle de Vries moves away from interpreting ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century Dutch art
and instead he analyses the term and its different meanings. 18 Next to style and subject matter,
which more or less relate to the interpretations discussed above, he also brings up the issues of
realism in technique and the reliability of these ‘realistic’ images. These various perspectives on
‘realism’ are extremely valid today as the term itself is being questioned as well as its
relationship with Dutch art. As De Vries puts it: “Form and content, style and choice of subject
matter, no matter how interwoven, can and must be distinguished from each other” 19. By taking
all these aspects of the painting apart, each of them can be analysed individually in order to find
the ‘realism’.20 A very interesting point raised by De Vries relates to the reliability issue. He
questions the reliability of these pictures and mentions that painting a picture is an artistic
process, in which the artist himself manipulates the painting for the best results. One other
intriguing point raised in the article, is the relationship between style and ‘realism’. Even though
many other art historians have located the ‘realism’ in Dutch art as the visual style, De Vries
also mentions that not all Dutch artists in the seventeenth century painted in the exact same
style. Thereby he raises the valid question of which style portrays ‘realism’ and which does not.
De Vries also makes an attempt to locate ‘realism’ in the techniques used by the artist. By doing
this, he thus focuses more on the material aspects of the painting. De Vries’ article thus
proposes many locations for ‘realism’, of which the most elaborate one is style. Both style and
technique will be focussed on in more depth further on in this research.
In early 2009, David Smith published an article dealing with realism in seventeenth-century
Dutch art and the boundaries of genre pieces.21 What Smith had noticed over the past years is
that ‘realism’ in Dutch art of the Golden Age has only been thought of as a visual aspect of
paintings and thus “realism refers to visual appearance alone” 22. What he proposes is ‘realism’
as an artistic mode rather than a mere visual style. When viewing ‘realism’ from this
18
De Vries, L. ‘The Changing Face of Realism’ in Freedberg, D. A. & De Vries, J. (ed) Art in history, History in art:
studies in seventeenth-century Dutch culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, pp. 209-244.
19
De Vries, 1991, p. 222.
20
De Vries is aware that all the aspects of a painting work together to create a whole, and that there is not one aspect
in a painting which is more important than another.
21
Smith, D. R. ‘Realism and the Boundries of Genre in Dutch Art’. Art History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2009): pp.78-114.
22
Smith, 2009, p. 78.
12
perspective, the term “necessarily encompasses dimensions of reality that are not exclusively
visual” 23. According to Smith, the ambiguity that many art historians have seen in seventeenthcentury paintings can be explained by examining what the artist might have encountered in
reality, and perhaps included in the painting. He thus proposes we look beyond the generic
conventions where we will find a ‘surplus’ of reality which the painter might have put into his
work of art. For his ideas, Smith has used a literary term ‘chronotope’, originally coined by
literary philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin. 24 This concept describes the spatial and temporal
relationship in narratives, which Smith believes also applies to paintings. Seventeenth-century
paintings should thus be seen in a spatio-temporal matrix. ‘Realism’ in these works of art is thus
not a tangible aspect of a painting per se, but relates, according to Smith, to the entire artistic
process and way of thinking. Smith’s ideas are of a different character than those by Sluijter and
De Vries. This article should be seen as being in the tradition of Svetlana Alpers, who also uses
concepts from the theory of literature to explain seventeen-century painting.
Issues at hand
The main issue when looking at ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century Dutch art is that the term has
not been constant over time. Ever since the nineteenth century, Dutch art was perceived as
being ‘realistic’ and this became its major label. What triggered this reading of Dutch art were
most likely the common objects these paintings depicted. These alleged slices of everyday life
then became subject of the iconographical approach which also believed these pictures
depicted (a type of) reality. The most obvious example is De Jongh’s idea of ‘realism and
seeming realism’. 25 These interpretations, as well as those of Alpers and other art historians
from this time period, mainly focussed on finding ‘meaning’ in these works of art, which can be
rephrased as to say they wished to explain the ‘realism’ in these paintings. Yet only the ‘realism’
as defined by the visual element of the painting’s subject matter. It was not until some years
later that art historians started to actually question the term itself and apply it to other levels of
the paintings as well as the artist himself. This more theoretical discussion is the current state of
research in Dutch seventeenth-century art, and these are the issues at hand in this research.
‘What is ‘realism’ in relation to these paintings?’ seems to be the main question which all these
more recent art historians try to answer, either consciously or not. Next to that, they also
question if there is any ‘realism’ to be seen at all in these paintings, as they investigate issues
23
Smith, 2009, p. 79
24
Bakhtin, M. M. The dialogic imagination: four essays. Austin : University of Texas Press, 1981.
25
De Jongh, 1971.
13
such as the reliability of the artist as well the artist’s creativeness and manipulation in creating
their works. Others have proposed to completely banish the term ‘realism’ in relation to
seventeenth-century Dutch art, as the term creates more questions than it can answer. These
queries will be addressed in this thesis and it will put forward many different kinds of ‘realism’ to
be associated with seventeenth-century Dutch art.
Research Scope
Until now, the term ‘realism’ has been used in this paper in various ways interchangeably. As
the term has many different meanings and connotations, it is important to discuss the term
before continuing. In dictionaries of art, the term is often associated with the nineteenth-century
art movement in France, as discussed earlier in relation to Thoré-Bürger. The term ‘realism’ can
be applied to works of art from any time period, yet the term itself originated in the nineteenth
century in France and is thus relatively modern. The entire history of the term is too detailed to
go into now, yet one must bear in mind that the term is “used to describe works of art from all
periods that seem to depend on direct observation” 26. As each painting has a different temporal
context, it “remains essential to define the notions of ‘reality’ [...] that the works expressed” 27.
The kind of reality is expressed by seventeenth-century painters is what the art historians
discussed above have been trying to unravel. This research will look at various types of realism
as well, yet try to explain the types of ‘realism’ the chosen art historians try to impose on the
paintings. As mentioned before, the focus will be on realism as subject matter, style, technique
and as part of the creative process.
As there is a vast number of Dutch paintings from the seventeenth century, a selection has
been made to focus on in more detail. Because of the many different genres present in the
works from this time period, only the domestic genre scenes will be focused on in this research.
These paintings have been chosen because of their use in past research. Genre works have
been the focus of the iconologists’ quest to find meaning, and the battle between the
iconologists and their opponents such as Alpers, have taken part in these paintings. Thus the
discussions of ‘what is the meaning?’ as well as ‘what is realism?’ have mainly taken place in
this genre. These works of art have been the focal point because of their visual appearance.
Genre scenes often depict interior scenes with figures, often a room in a house. This basic
26
House, J. ‘Realism.’ The Oxford Companion to Western Art. Ed. Hugh Brigstocke. Oxford Art Online. 17 May. 2009
<http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t118/e2187>.
27
House, 2009.
14
concept of the home has apparently given rise to the idea that the paintings depict ‘everyday
life’. This makes this genre extremely appropriate for this specific research. One consideration
that must be made at all times is that the term genre, as it is used in this context, is an invention
of a later time.28 In the seventeenth century, no genre with that name was known to artists. As
the term has become part of the modern day curriculum, it will be used in this research.
The term location in this research is used for the place in or surrounding a paintings where the
art historians place ‘realism’. As their placement of ‘realism’ can sometimes be difficult to grasp,
the term ‘location’ will be used. In this paper, four different locations for ‘realism’ will be
discussed, namely; ‘realism’ in the subject matter, in the style of painting, in the techniques used
by the artist, or in the artistic mode. These locations are thus not in all cases actual places
within the painting, rather certain aspects that make up the painting.
Paper Division
This research will consist of two main parts chapter two and three of this paper. The first one,
chapter two, will elaborate on the theoretical discussion about ‘realism’ which has taken place
amongst art historians of the past twenty-five years. The focus will mainly be on three articles
which have already been mentioned above; Sluijter’s ‘Hoe realistisch is de Noordnederlandse
schilderkunst van de zeventiende eeuw? De problemen van een vraagstelling’ of 1990, De
Vries’s article titled ‘The Changing Face of Realism’ of 1991, and the most recent article by
Smith ‘Realism and the Boundaries of Genre in Dutch Art’, 2009. Where necessary, other art
historians and their ideas will also be discussed. The theories these authors propose will be
discussed in relation to various types of realism as defined earlier. As there are four different
locations to be discussed, this part will also be divided in four parts.
Chapter three will apply the theories discussed in chapter two to actual paintings. This chapter
will thus be more object-based, as opposed to the theoretical chapter two. In this part other art
historians will be used as well to both strengthen and undermined the theories proposed by
Sluijter, De Vries and Smith. Chapter three will also be divided by location. The paintings
chosen for this part are Gerard ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation and Pieter de Hooch’s Interior
with Women beside a Linen Chest. Both paintings depict an interior scene, and are on show at
the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum. Out of fairness, neither of these paintings has been specifically
mentioned by any of the three authors.
28
The term ‘genre’ as depicting scenes from everyday life was first used by the French critic Quatremère de Quincy
in 1791. By the mid nineteenth century the term had become part of the curriculum.
15
In the final part, chapter four, the most important points made in relation to ‘realism’ and its
various locations will be shortly summarised, and the theory and practise section of each
location will be brought together. This part too will be ordered by possible location for ‘realism’.
The research as a whole will be discussed as well, mentioning its benefits, drawbacks and
further research questions. Following this will be the conclusion.
16
Chapter 2: Theory
This chapter is devoted to a theoretical discussion of the term ‘realism’ and how it has been
used in relation to seventeenth-century paintings and where ‘realism’ is located. I use the verb
‘locate’ to refer to the manner in which various art historians have identified characteristics of
‘realism’ in certain aspects of paintings. The chapter will be divided into four parts; one for each
possible location of ‘realism’. The first will focus on ‘realism’ as being located in the content of a
painting or its subject matter. The second part will focus on ‘realism’ as a form or style of
painting. ‘Realism’ being located in the technique of painting will be discussed in the third part.
The final part will discuss ‘realism’ as a non-material aspect of the painting, located in the
creative process of the artist himself. The chapter will end with a conclusion, summarising the
main points that have just been discussed.
‘Realism’ as subject matter
A painting’s subject matter is often the easiest to locate in a painting, especially in Dutch
seventeenth-century paintings. The subject matter is that what is being depicted in the painting,
and is thus an obvious point of departure to look for ‘realism’. The major characteristics of Dutch
art from the seventeenth century are its wide range of subject matters. Elsewhere in Europe
around the same time, history scenes and religious pictures, obeying to the demands of
decorum, were the focus of production; in the Netherlands the ‘low’ subjects became popular.
These ‘low’ subject matters were objects or scenes which could be seen in everyday life. This
opposes the ‘high’ subject matters, the decorum in other European countries, which mainly
depicted gods, saints and heroes. These paintings, especially the ones which are the focus of
this research, do not depict any noble or heroic subject matters. Rather, they depict objects and
scenes encountered by common people in their day-to-day lives, such as bar and inn scenes,
market scenes, tables decorated with food and mothers inside their homes. Paintings like this
are called genre paintings, and thus also make up this type. This state of affairs is part of what
makes Dutch art from the seventeenth century so interesting for art historians, yet does not
explain any ‘realism’ we might see in the paintings.
Some might argue that the entire genre of genre paintings can be called ‘realistic’ because of
their subject matter. According to Langdon, the definition of a genre painting is that it depicts
17
scenes from everyday life. 29 This is thus also the subject matter of these works. When depicting
scenes from the everyday, the objects, situations and spaces seen in the painting are most
likely the same as those the artist encountered in their day-to-day life as well. Although also
imagined and idealised everyday settings are counted as genre scenes, the addition of
‘everyday’ seems crucial in this definition. If the scene depicted was imagined by the artist and
thus did not exist in reality, what was depicted must have been shown in a ‘realistic’ manner, in
order for the viewer to recognise it as a ‘scene from everyday life’.
According to Seymour Slive 30, part of the charm of Dutch art, and what I believe is also one of
the chief components for calling the subject matter ‘realistic’, is that “[e]veryone recognizes the
subjects depicted by seventeenth-century Dutch artists” 31. This would imply that recognition, or
perhaps familiarisation, plays an important role in calling a painting ‘realistic’. The link between
familiarisation and ‘realism’ probably derived from the idea that if the modern-day viewer can
still recognise the subject matter presented, the artist, centuries ago, must have taken a close
look at reality and depicted everything exactly as he saw it. Obviously, this last point cannot be
considered a very likely scenario when we realise that one single artist such as De Hooch
painted over eighty paintings during his career. It would be impossible for him to have visited all
the houses, rooms and gardens he depicted, let alone set up his easel there to paint.
This brings up the question of reliability of the artist. It seems more than obvious that the Dutch
artists of the seventeenth century took reality as their point of departure. There are, however,
many steps between an observation (or perhaps study) of reality and the final painting. To quote
De Vries, making a painting is a creative process during which “accents were shifted, contrasts
intensified, combinations invented, and models manipulated” 32. We can say that the artist is
extremely biased when making the painting, only choosing that which will best suit the final
result. The finished painting thus might not resemble reality at all, yet we still find that these
works are familiar to us and call them ‘realistic’. Are these paintings categorised as ‘realistic’
because the viewer recognises them, rather than because they depict scenes as they truly
29
Langdon, H. "Genre." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 2 Jun. 2009
<http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T031326>.
30
Slive, S. ‘Realism and Symbols in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting’ Daedalus Vol. 91, No. 3 (1962) pp. 469-
500.
31
Slive, 1962, p. 479.
32
De Vries, 1991, p. 221.
18
appear in reality? When a paintings ‘realism’ is judged on the viewers’ familiarisation with the
subject matter, is the fact that the artist depicted a real scene, or not, even relevant?
A similar question can be raised when we realise that the artist might have made up an entire
scene in their head rather than actually encountering it in reality. There are so many interior
scenes depicted by the genre artists from the seventeenth century. Should we blindly assume
that each of them saw these rooms in reality before they painted them? I would argue we should
not assume such a thing, yet this cannot imply that these pictures are therefore not realistic
either. Some of the paintings must have surely been modelled after existing rooms and it would
be quite possible that somewhere in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century, a room such
as the one depicted by an artist could have existed, even if the artist made it entirely up. Thus
even though it might not have been painted from reality, the use of certain ‘realistic’ aspects,
which must have surely been encountered in some point in life, and perhaps even every day in
their own house, still ensure that we say these paintings have a ‘realistic’ subject matter.
Whichever way the argument goes, the fidelity of the artist to reality should always be taken into
account when looking at these paintings, and one should not blindly assume that the artist was
a mere slave to reality.
More recently, Dominic Lopes33 has argued, that “pictorial realism has to do with pictorial
informativeness”34. According to this theory, which was not developed for Dutch art of the
seventeenth century specifically, but for art in general, ‘realism’ is a reflection of the paintings
informativeness. In other words, “a picture is realistic to the extent that it represents its subject
as either satisfying or not satisfying visual properties” 35. This idea, however, does not relate to
the concept of ‘accurateness’ in subject matters. When relating back to the subject matter as
discussed above, a painting of, for example, a roemer can be inaccurate compared to reality, as
the painter might have changed the cup’s place on the table or the way it reflects light, it still
informs the viewer of what a roemer is and its basic characteristics (colour, shape, size). Yet
even this theory does not seem to stand as other, ‘unrealistic’ pictures are able to provide just
as much information about the properties of the roemer as the ‘realistic’ one. One also needs to
question to what extent the ‘realistic’ picture in this example can be called ‘realistic’, as the artist
imposed his own ideas on the subject. In the end, it seems that Goodman was right in
33
Lopes, D. ‘Pictorial Realism’. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Summer, 1995), pp. 277-
285.
34
Lopes, 1995, p. 277.
35
Lopes, 1995, p. 278.
19
concluding that “realistic and unrealistic pictures may be equally informative”36 about the subject
they present and “information yield is no test of realism” 37.
Subject matter as the location for ‘realism’ can thus be approached from different angles. As this
research focuses on genre scenes, the word ‘genre’ already gives the connotation of having
some link with reality, as it depicts scenes and objects from everyday life (whether these images
were actually observed from life or imagined and idealised scenes, is of no significance for the
definition of genre). Yet if this is the definition of genre, how true to life do the objects and
scenes need to be? Obviously, it is difficult to set borders to what extent a painting needs to be
modelled after reality to be called a genre painting. This also poses a difficulty when looking at
the ‘realism’ of the subject matter, as even though the subject might be an object or scene from
everyday life, it might not have been modelled after reality directly per se. Should we therefore
say that only the genre scenes that have been painted in direct observation of reality contain
‘realism’? The entire idea is made even more problematic when we realise that the artist is a
biased medium in transferring an actual scene onto the canvas, and it is safe to assume that
this was not even the artist’s intention. What is seen in the paintings might thus be the artist’s
invention, rather than a precise copy of reality. It seems that other criteria are needed to decide
whether or not the subject matter contains ‘realism’, and familiarisation and informativeness
have been proposed. Familiarisation of the subject matter to the viewer seems to tie in with the
idea that genre works depict scenes from everyday life, yet it is difficult to test how truly realistic
these images are by using familiarisation. Informativeness then, proposed even further
difficulties as the amount of information a painting gives about the object it depicts is in no
correlation to how realistic it depicts that same object. ‘Realism’ in subject matter thus proposes
some difficult issues, and subject matter on its own does not fully explain any ‘realism’ that
might be seen in seventeenth-century Dutch art.
‘Realism’ as style
Before diving into the discussion about the relationship between style and ‘realism’, the term
‘style’ needs to be understood in this context. The definition of ‘style’ is highly debated in art
history, yet can be described as a “term used for a coherence of qualities in periods or
36
Goodman, N. Languages of Art: an approach to a theory of symbols. London: Oxford University Press, 1969, p.
35-36.
37
Goodman, 1969, p. 36.
20
people”38. Often a certain ‘style’ is used to describe artist from a specific school. In the
Netherlands during the seventeenth century, there was not one ‘style’ that prevailed over others.
Rather, there were many different styles practiced simultaneously. These various styles did not
only derive from various schools, but also various cities as well as influences from abroad. 39
Artists tried to imitate each another and older styles would to develop into new, independent
styles which would again be intermingled with others. One could say that styles and their
development is an ongoing process. In the seventeenth century, various styles were used by
painters. Some artists worked their entire life in a certain style, others switched between them
during their careerwhile some even“changed styles to suit their subject matters”40. Style was
thus not only dependent on a certain school or city, but also on the genre and subject matter.
One must also take into consideration the idea that some artists wanted to acquire a personal
style. Whether belonging to a school or not, some painters strove after a certain ‘signature’
style, which differentiated him from the others, whereas others imitated a certain personal style
of another artist.
‘Realism’ is the term often used to characterize all Dutch art from the seventeenth century41, yet
based on the styles in Dutch art, this is highly problematic. With all these different styles,
practiced at the same time, in the same town and sometimes even by the same artist, it is
extremely difficult to define one single style as ‘realistic’. If it does happen and a single style is
dubbed as ‘realistic’, this would imply that other styles are not, or are less, ‘realistic’. Which of
the styles by the fijnschilders42 from Leiden, Johannes Vermeer from Delft or the precise
rendering of textures by Gerard ter Borch, can be called ‘realistic’, thereby labelling the other as
‘unrealistic’? If there is not one style which can be dubbed ‘realistic’, what can there be said
about ‘realism’ in Dutch styles of the seventeenth century? De Vries argues that ““realism”
should not be considered the main characteristic of Dutch art; rather, the fact that this art
expressed itself in a number of styles, of which “realism” seems the most conspicuous,
38
Elkins, J. ‘Style.’ Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 24 May. 2009
<http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T082129>.
39
De Vries, 1991, p. 222.
40
De Vries, 1991, p. 222.
41
Slive, 1962, p. 470.
42
The Dutch word for ‘fijnschilders’ has been translated into English as ‘fine painters’.
21
determines its nature”43. This would imply that there is one specific style in Dutch art that is
‘realistic’, at least according to his standards.
The so-called ‘realistic’ style in Dutch art can be recognized in (parts of) the various genres,
such as landscapes, portraits and genre works. In this specific context the genre works are of
interest, and De Vries explicitly mentions that ““realism” was a style that could refer to the
quotidian”44. If we follow this interpretation, we can say that the ‘realistic’ style of painting suited
the domestic scenes as subject matter. Now that it has been established where the ‘realistic’
style can be seen, it still needs to be defined what it exactly is. De Vries proposes that ‘realism’
“might better be described as executed in a schilderachtig (picturesque) manner” 45. This would
then propose a certain ‘style’ in which we can see the ‘realism’. The author puts forward certain
criteria which a ‘realistic’ painting might follow. All the points relate to the style of the painting,
and some interesting ones will now be summarised.
According to De Vries’s interpretation of the term ‘realism’, in ‘realistic’ paintings the emphasis is
on the rendering of textures. Variations in the brushworks in the painting are only made in order
to enhance the rendering of fabric or texture in the painting, and emphasis is put on the effects
of light on the different textures. There are also no bright or sharp contrasts or transitions in
either light or colour. The colours preferred are modulated and subdued, and are
monochromatic and tonal. The pictorial space does not run very deep into the picture plane and
is not cut off on the sides. Instead, there are doors or windows on each side of the space. The
figures that inhabit this space are individualised rather than idealised, and there is no emphasis
on their movements or gestures. The author states that this is the reason why these images are
often so difficult to read.46 These points easily bring to mind the genre paintings of the
seventeenth century. De Vries points out that the origin and development of the two, genre as
well as realistic pictures, are closely connected. Even so, the author realises “it would be hard to
name a work of art that according to the above criteria, could be described as totally
“realistic”” 47. Instead of looking for all the points mentioned, one should look for various ‘realistic’
aspects, which can be found in various paintings, as will be discussed in chapter three of this
paper.
43
De Vries, 1991, p. 222.
44
De Vries, 1991, p. 223.
45
De Vries, 1991, p. 223.
46
De Vries, 1991, p. 225.
47
De Vries, 1991, p. 225.
22
According to De Vries, there is a certain style of painting, or aspects of a style, which can be
dubbed as ‘realistic’, yet even this is highly debated. There is not one painting that could fit all
the criteria mentioned, yet many different paintings posses a certain aspect of ‘realism’. What
has become clear from the article is that ‘realism’ cannot be used to typify all Dutch art in
relation to style. Even though “all Dutch art has style” 48, not all Dutch art has the same style, nor
a ‘realistic’ style.
Eric Jan Sluijter too wrote about the relationship between ‘realism’ and style. 49 In the article
special emphasis is put on the ‘photographic’ way of looking. Sluijter discusses how in modern
days, people often think of a type of ‘photographic realism’. Can these paintings from the
seventeenth century be compared to a ‘snapshot’ from a camera? Sluijter believes that the
seventeenth century painter did not have the aim of creating an exact copy of reality. He chose
his subject matters very carefully and manipulated his pictures as he wished. Thus the
“weergegeven ‘werkelijkheid’ in zulke [zeventiende eeuwse] schilderijen dikwijls zeer artificieel
is” 50 as well as highly selective. When disregarding all the paintings in which the painter has
manipulated reality in such a way that the painting cannot be seen as an exact copy of reality,
as being realistic, then we would be left with no paintings at all to analyse. This again relates to
the reliability of the artist as discussed earlier in relation to the subject matter. Photographic
realism is thus not what should be searched for in seventeenth-century painting, according to
Sluijter.
Even though copying reality might thus not been the artist’s main objective, ‘realism’ was surely
the form (or ‘style’) to be employed by these artists. Sluijter argues this as he believes that the
seventeenth-century painter and viewer were intrigued by images that appeared to be ‘net
echt’51. Sluijter thus feels that the artist had to strive for images that would appear to be real,
regardless of whether or not they could truly be seen in reality. The viewer “zal niet hebben
verondersteld dat het voorgestelde ook zo in werkelijkheid te zien was”52, says Sluijter. The
mirror metaphor is used in the article to explain this point; depicting pleasant images which, like
48
Liedtke, W. ‘Style in Dutch Art’ in Franits, W. (ed) Looking at Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art; Realism
Reconsidered. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997: pp. 116-128; p. 117.
49
Rather than using the term style, he discusses the form of the paintings. Even though the two terms are by
definition not the same, they will be used together in this part as both terms are used to describe the appearance of
the paintings.
50
Sluijter, 1990, p. 19.
51
‘Net echt’, as used by Sluijter, can be translated as ‘almost real’ or ‘appear to be real’.
52
Sluijter, 1990, p. 15.
23
a mirror, “bedrieglijk echt lijken, maar die door mensenhand ‘vervormd’ zijn”53. In a way, it was
like holding up a mirror in front of the viewer. The style of the paintings played an essential role
in displaying the paintings message. This message, which according to Sluijter, who greatly
opposes the iconological approach, is not hidden or symbolized as De Jongh and his followers
have argued, yet is “direct herkenbaar voor ogen gesteld”54 through “[het] visualiseren van
simple, gangbare metaforen”55. By using everyday objects and motifs in the paintings, this
‘realistic’ style referred back to the viewers own ‘belevingswereld’, making them understand the
specific associations and connotations these metaphors stood for.
According to Sluijter, the content of the painting, as well as its function and style, are so
interconnected that one cannot only focus on one of these aspects, like the iconologists have
done. When one takes this approach, and then mainly focuses on the content, the paintings’
appearance becomes a ‘meaningless realism’ 56. ‘Realism’ was thus applied as a visual style
because of the paintings function and content, and can be found in all seventeenth-century
Dutch genre paintings.57
Both authors discussed take different approaches to unravel the question of ‘realism’ in style;
De Vries isolates the aspect of style, and questions whether all styles can be called realistic,
and if not which one style is ‘realistic’58, whereas Sluijter puts the style in context with other
aspects of the paintings. An interesting discrepancy between the authors, is that De Vries
believes there are various styles in Dutch art, and therefore questions how all styles can be
typified as ‘realistic’, whereas Sluijter seems to take for granted the idea that all Dutch art looks
‘realistic’. 59
‘Realism’ as technique
Another aspect which will be addressed as a location for ‘realism’ is the technique of the
painting. With this I refer to the execution of the painting, which relates to the material aspects.
The painters’ choice of type of paint or canvas to use and how the works have been executed
53
Sluijter, 1990, p. 27.
54
Sluijter, 1990, p. 24.
55
Sluijter, 1990, p. 25.
56
Sluijter (1990) uses the term “betekenisloos realisme”, p. 28.
57
Sluijter did mainly focus on genre works in his article, which perfectly serves the goal of this research.
58
Even though De Vries discusses style as an independent aspect of art, he does make the reader aware that is not
the case in reality, and that style is only a certain aspect of a painting.
59
Although he does leave out the extent to which they seem ‘realistic’.
24
have also been proposed as being the location for ‘realism’. Although it might be difficult to
imagine a correlation between some ‘realistic’ aspect of painting and the paintings execution, it
is relevant to investigate the relation between ‘realism’ and technique. The execution of a work
of art results in the appearance of the painting today. The subject matter or the composition of a
painting can be beautiful in its own right, but if the painting is poorly executed, it will never
receive much praise. This might seem like a harsh statement, but think of the works of art that
have been passed down to us. Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals and many other masters whose
works hang in museums, were not mere mediocre artists in their time. Only a small percentage
of all paintings produced in the seventeenth century have survived, and it is safe to say that only
the best executed ones and the most beautiful ones have had the privilege to end up in
museums. The technique, or execution, is thus an integral part of the painting, just as much as
subject matter and style are.
Unfortunately, not many art historians have ventured to discuss this specific topic. De Vries,
however, does devote a part of his 1991 article to this topic. His discussion of the execution of
works of seventeenth-century genre paintings is closely related to his discussion of style. The
techniques used by the artists, he argues, adds to the picturesque style he believes is (or could
be) the ‘realistic’ aspect of these paintings. There is thus an overlap in the characteristics De
Vries mentions of a schilderachtige style and what can be seen in the technique. He mentions
for example the expression stofuitdrukking 60, which according to him has no English equivalent,
which explains part of the picturesque style he discusses.
De Vries mentions that “nowhere else was so much effort expended on attaining the greatest
possible likeness between a real object and its depiction with regard to surface structure, color
and the play of light.” 61 This statement alone raises enough questions to be the starting point of
its own research. One might wonder if the artist really saw a table spread with silverware as
they depicts in their still life, and how much of that scene was made up in their mind. Again the
question surrounding fidelity is raised, and the role of the artist in the depiction of these ‘realistic’
pictures. Yet even if they did change a composition or had made up the entire picture in their
mind, the fact remains that the artist did try to express each objects material characteristics as
faithfully as possible. It can even be said that because these masters knew how to capture
these materialistic aspects so wonderfully, the viewer can recognise the objects at a glance,
even today. This aspect of recognition was already discussed in relation to the subject matter,
60
De Vries (1991) translates this word as “rendering of texture”, p. 226.
61
De Vries, 1991, p. 226.
25
yet recognition of an object is thus also dependent on the techniques used. The artist thus
chose the materials which they thought would create the picture that would look most real.
On closer scrutiny, we might feel obliged to agree with De Vries, and indeed conclude that the
Dutch artists from the seventeenth century were extraordinary masters in portraying fabrics and
textures, shiny and glass objects, and the play of light. Regardless of their style, each of them
portrayed objects in such a manner, that their goal seems to have been to portray reality. There
are probably not many art historians who would call Vermeer a better painter than Ter Borch or
De Hooch. Their styles are different, but there is no denying that their level of precise execution
is similar. Thus “this combination of style and technique apparently aims at making the viewer
believe that reality is faithfully rendered” 62, even though it can never be known what the artists’
true intention was.
Style and technique have been very intertwined in this discussion so far, yet it must still be
remembered that this is merely De Vries’ approach to it. He believes that the technique used in
genre paintings add to the picturesque style, yet does not look at technique as an individual
entity of the painting. Style, in this research, is the manner in which the paint is applied to a
medium; a precise style, a loose manner, and so forth. Style can be compared to a person’s
handwriting; there are many different kinds of handwriting, and sometimes one person uses
different styles of writing, depending on the occasion. 63 When we see a person with neat
handwriting which we like, we might try to imitate it. The kind of handwriting has nothing to do
with the technique that is used in writing; we could use a pencil or ballpoint pen, a marker or
even spray-paint. Also, we can write on paper or cardboard, plastic or a wall. This basic
difference between handwriting and the medium with which, and on which, is being written, is
the same as the difference between style and technique in painting. It is difficult to find ‘realism’
when examining technique alone, yet we can assume that the materials used in creating a
painting has an effect on the final result. As in the analogy, a more readable text might be
produced when using a ballpoint and paper as opposed to spray-paint and a wall. 64 Thus even
though style and technique might have an effect on one another, as De Vries argues, they are
still two different aspects of a painting.
62
De Vries, 1991, p. 226.
63
Think for example of filling in official forms; it often says to fill it in ‘block letters’ or ‘print in capital letters’. For an
invitation card we might use calligraphy to make the invitation more appealing for the recipient.
64
Obviously, it has to be taken into account what the artist’s (or writers) intention is; is he striving for readability of his
scene (or text) or is it something else?
26
When talking about technique or materials of a painting, one must think of the paints used and
the type of support. In the seventeenth century, there were many pigments that could be used to
make paint. These pigments, which could be taken from minerals or organic matters such as
plans an insects, were made through chemical processes. 65 The various kinds of paints and
other materials used in creating the painting form a dynamic system in which chemical and
physical processes take place.66 Paintings today might seem to us like a stable object, yet the
paints continue to change over time due not only to chemical reactions, but also through the
influences of light, heat, air pollution and etcetera. One might wonder what the connection is
with ‘realism’ as technique, yet the above mentioned “processes are inherent to the artist’s
choice of materials and his working methods”67. The artist chose the materials to use as he
knew which of these would give the best result. Also, artists were often aware of how the paint
would act once it was on the medium.68 For example; they knew that smalt, which is used for
the colour blue, would quickly faint once the painting was finished. This is why certain artists
over-painted the smalt with a more expensive blue like ultramarine, to create the desired colour.
The artists’ choice of materials thus play an important role in the final painting, and affects the
artist’s painting process too as some pigments would cause reactions once they came in
contact with certain other pigments.
As has become apparent, the discussion of ‘realism’ being located in technique is not as highly
debated as the subject matter or style. Yet De Vries devoted part of his article to it, and rightly
made the readers aware of this aspect of a painting. Art historians have often enough focussed
on subject and style, yet the materials used also play an important role in creating a picture.
This section has only touched upon certain queries briefly, yet the following chapter will focus on
actual paintings and how technique might be the location for ‘realism’.
‘Realism’ as mode of artistic thought
In a recent article from earlier this year, 2009, Smith proposes an entirely new concept of what
‘realism’ is in relation to seventeenth-century Dutch paintings, and where it is located. His article
65
Noble, P. & Runia, E. Bewaard voor de eeuwigheid: conservering, restauratie en materiaaltechnisch onderzoek in
het Mauritshuis. Zwolle: Waanders, 2008.
66
Van Loon, A. Color change and chemical reactivity in seventeenth-century oil paintings. Proefschrift Universiteit
van Amsterdam, 2008.
67
Van Loon, 2008, p. 10.
68
Van Loon, 2008, p.10.
27
is “an attempt to restore some depth of meaning to the vexing term ‘realism’” 69 as he believes
that in recent decades the focus has been too much on “symbols, codes and conventions as
explanations of form and meaning” 70. Instead, Smith proposes a new location to look for
‘realism’, which will be discussed in this section.
The start of Smith’s argumentation is based on the idea that the emergence of the genre scenes
and new genres in general, in the seventeenth century is somehow related to the artist’s
perception of reality. On this he says; “The expansion of generic categories is a sign of […]
artists’ perceptions of reality outgrowing the capacity of established genres” 71. The artists thus
encountered a ‘surplus’ of reality, which did not fit the already existing genres, and therefore
new genres were invented. Genre works, such as domestic scenes, functioned to hold the
‘surplus’ of reality. Thus instead of merely focusing on the form and meaning of Dutch art in
order to give an explanation of its ‘realism’, Smith instead focuses on “realism as a mode of
artistic thought” which “encompasses dimensions of reality that is not exclusively visual”72.
Compared to Sluijter and De Vries discussed above, who focus on style, subject matters and
technique, Smith leaves all of this far behind and moves into the realm of the more abstract
ideas on ‘realism’. What he proposes is that ‘realism’ in Dutch art goes beyond the limits of the
canvas and encompasses aspects as time and space as well as sound, smell and taste.
Smith’s entire argumentation is rather long and tedious, and this research will avoid following all
of his steps. One theory that demands attention is his idea on the ‘chronotope’. Originally coined
by literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin 73, this concept entails the “specific correlation of space and
time” 74 in genre. Originally derived from Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, the notion entails
the idea that both space and time are connected in a matrix. Where the two axes of space and
time cross one another, is where the chronotope is located. This is thus where a certain place
and a certain time come together to create a narrative. Bakhtin created the chronotope in
relation to literature, where it explained the narrative. The chronotope is thus the reflection of a
certain worldview at a specific time and place, grounded in the idea that space and time are
inseparable. Smith transposes this idea onto genre art from the seventeenth century, as he
69
Smith, 2009, p. 78.
70
Smith, 2009, p. 78.
71
Smith, 2009, p. 78.
72
Smith, 2009, p. 78 - 79.
73
Bakhtin, 1981.
74
Smith, 2009, p. 84.
28
argues this type of art also shows a narrative. In these works, according to him, “elements of
time, place and human presence are unmistakably woven together”75. Related to this is the idea
that paintings which fall under the category of ‘counter-genre’ especially possess these types of
‘realism’. A work called ‘counter-genre’ is a work of art which mixes various genres into one
painting. This could have had various purposes according to Smith, one of which he mentions is
to parody the genres. The term counter-genre has been borrowed from Rosalie Colie, also a
literary critique, who came up with the term in relation to Italian Renaissance literature. 76
A painting is thus a product of a certain time and place, just as the idea of the chronotope
explains. In this setting of a specific time and place, a specific behaviour is also present. What is
thus depicted in these works of art is an interplay between art and reality, or, as Smith calls it, a
‘dialogue’ between art and reality. What is expressed is how life and art interact on a canvas.
These works of art “play out dialogues between inside and outside and between fantasy and
reality that increasingly shaped Dutch realism”77. In order to explain his ideas to the reader,
Smith uses various examples, of which the clearest one will be discussed here. 78 Jan van der
Heyden’s Canal Scene in Amsterdam of 1670 (fig. 3) appears to be a mere cityscape of
Amsterdam, yet Smith argues it is a counter-genre. Although Smith fails to explain to his reader
exactly why he believes it is a counter-genre, he does mention that the “cityscape lends itself to
chronotypes and ideologies ever better than other genres” 79. Smith has dubbed this particular
painting a counter-genre as it depicts the new Amsterdam Town Hall on Dam Square in the
distance, and the St. Elisabeth Hospital and the old Gothic Town Hall in the front. This is “what
allows us to recognize this as a counter-genre” 80 as the Gothic building burnt down in 1652,
when the new Town Hall was being built. Through this painting, the artist shows new and old
images of the city, and thereby juxtaposing the past with the present. By this, he questions the
urban values which, all together, forms the “deep intentionality of the theme”81.
75
Smith, 2009, p. 85.
76
Colie, R. L. The Resourcse of Kind: Genre Theory in the Renaissance, ed. Lewalski, B. K. (ed.) Berkley: University
of California Press, 1973.
77
Smith, 2009, p. 88.
78
My example does not exclude genre paintings, as these too are called upon abundantly in the article. Van Der
Heyden’s painting was merely chosen for its clarity.
79
Smith, 2009, p. 89.
80
Smith, 2009, p. 90.
81
Smith, 2009, p. 90.
29
Another form in which the chronotope re-appears is in genre pieces with thresholds. According
to Smith, these paintings have to do with the chronotope of the social order. A figure can
(literally) be looking at a certain scene, as Nicolaes Maes’ The Eavesdropper does on the
maidservant (fig. 4). The lower space here is associated with the lower social classes. The
figure on the stairs is not only literally but also figuratively looking down at the servant, who is
bound to do something carnal with her male companion. These paintings thus portray an
interplay with the misbehaving low-life. The reverse can also been seen; when a figure is
looking up at a scene, for example a scene at the top of the stairs. The figure would then be
looking at higher social classes of “social propriety and established morality”82. The spatiotemporal context in these paintings can thus be seen as the following; the space is the
household in which various levels can be seen, and the time is the exact time where these
various narratives come together.
Smith’s theory does not locate ‘realism’ in any physical part of the painting. Instead, he argues
that the aspect we call ‘realism’ has been expressed in the work of art through the creative
process of the artist. Instead of a more tangible aspect like subject matter, style or execution of
a painting, ‘realism’ to Smith is a mode of artistic thought. The paintings, especially the new
genres which emerged in the seventeenth century, capture the ‘surplus’ of reality which could
not be expressed through the already existing genres. A difficulty with such an abstract
approach is that it is even harder to localise the element of ‘realism’. Pinpointing where ‘realism’
can be seen in the painting was already difficult with tangible aspects, yet when dealing with an
abstract idea, present mostly in the mind of the artist, this becomes even more difficult. Another
issue with Smith’s theory is that he employs concept from the theory of literature to paintings.
The idea of the chronotope and counter-genre are both concepts from literary theory and relate
to narratives. By taking these concepts out of their original context, it cannot be expected they
continue to have the same meaning and explain the same things. In literature, they were
created to explain words; in Smith’s case they have to explain visual aspects. Also, the
concepts were invented to elucidate a fictional world described in literature, while Smith uses it
to try to describe the real world through the artist’s painting. It also remains unclear whether only
today’s viewer is aware of the chronotope, or if the seventeenth-century artist was as well.
Smith discusses that the chronotope can be seen in counter-genres, yet the question remains if
they can be seen in other works as well.
82
Smith, 2009, p. 100.
30
It is interesting to point out that in a footnote Smith explicitly mentions the articles by Sluijter and
De Vries that have been discussed above, and refutes them for believing ‘realism’ only refers to
visual appearance. Here I feel obliged to say that both Sluijter and De Vries do make clear that
all the parts in a painting are connected to one another and could never be separated and
studied as an individual entity, yet have done so for the sake of their argumentation. Even
though Smith opposes the view taken by Sluijter and De Vries, he does the exact same thing in
his approach; he separates the artistic mode from the rest of the painting, and analyses it as an
individual entity. How this theory relates to the actual works of art will be discussed in the next
chapter.
Conclusion
The goal of this chapter was to discuss the various ‘locations’ where ‘realism’ might be found in
relation to seventeenth-century Dutch art. Art theories from the last two decades have been
used to give the most recent discussions in the field.
According to the definition of genre paintings, the subject matter depicts something out of
everyday life. Thus by definition we might expect the subject matter to be the location of
‘realism’. Seymour Slive has argued that the subject matter of seventeenth century artists look
realistic and familiar to us, which brought forward the idea of a link between ‘realism’ and
familiarisation. Yet what was found is that neither the subject matter itself nor the viewers’
familiarisation with it truly reveals a subject matter’s ‘realism’. This was connected with the
artists’ reliability. Creating a painting is a creative process in which the artists manipulated their
models. If the subject matter was not copied exactly from reality, are the objects still from
everyday life? Yet if the viewer still feels a sense of familiarisation with the subject matter
depicted, should these images then be called ‘realistic’ after all? It thus seems that even though
subject matter is a rich location for possible ‘realism’, another criterion is needed to understand
where it expresses itself in the painting. Informativeness was proposed, yet this theory too did
not suffice in locating ‘realism’ in these genre paintings as almost any painting informs its viewer
to some extent.
‘Realism’ as style was also discussed, and two main arguments have been put forward. De
Vries has argued that the picturesque style is the style that is most ‘realistic’ in Dutch art, and
has given various characteristics of this style, which best resemble the genre scenes which are
the focus in this research. Sluijter on the other hand, proposed that all styles in Dutch art are
realistic, yet not in the sense that they try to copy reality. Instead, the artists wanted to create
31
their own reality in the pictures, and made them seem ‘almost real’. The style in Sluijter
argumentation is very much connected with function, as he believed that the paintings portrayed
metaphors using everyday objects, of which the viewer knew its meaning and connotations. The
viewer had to recognise the subject matter in order to reveal its message. The danger in calling
one style, or none as the case may be, ‘realistic’, is that there are many different styles to be
recognised in Dutch art. By naming one style ‘realistic’ we imply that all others are not or less
‘realistic’, yet by calling all styles ‘realistic’, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what all these styles
have in common that makes them ‘realistic’ images.
The artists’ technique as a possible location was also discussed, and according to De Vries the
techniques used added to the picturesque style. His discussion of technique was very limited,
and had only the function of creating a certain style. Technique is an aspect of painting which
surely adds to a certain style, yet should also be seen as a separate entity of a painting. The
material an artist chooses to use for his painting has an effect on the appearance of the
completed work, and could therefore also be seen as a possible location for ‘realism’. Up to this
point the debate surrounding the relation between technique and ‘realism’ has not been
ventured by many art historians, yet possible further research might enrich this discussion.
In the discussion on artistic mode, the location of ‘realism’ was found in the mind of the artist as
well as in the process of creating a painting. This idea, proposed by Smith, does not locate
‘realism’ in a tangible aspect of a painting, but in an abstract part of the painting process. Not
only has such an idea not yet been proposed or investigated by other art historians, due to its
abstractness the theory is difficult to grasp. As this idea is still so new, Smith borrowed terms
from literary theory to propose his ideas, which is a point of criticism as literature and paintings
are two very different forms of art. However, Smith’s article has shown us that the search for
‘realism’ in relation to seventeenth-century Dutch art is an ever ongoing quest and new locations
keep being found.
What also has become apparent is that there is overlap between the various locations, and that
they also influence each other. Almost each point is dependent on the painters’ artistic choices;
in subject matter and the manipulation of his models as well as the techniques he uses and
technique also affects style to a certain extent. Also the reliability of the artist is a recurring
theme as they are the link between reality and the image on the canvas. The theories discussed
have proposed many possible locations for ‘realism’, and the next chapter will test these
theories by applying them to actual paintings.
32
Chapter 3: Practice
In the third chapter, the theories proposed in the previous chapter will be put to the test by
applying them to actual works of art. The criteria for the works chosen are based on both
theoretical aspects as well as mere practicalities. The works of art obviously need to be made
by Dutch masters of the seventeenth century, as well as depicting domestic interior settings. In
this research, a domestic interior has been defined as an interior scene of a house, with figures.
A practical reason for choosing the paintings was that I had to be able to see them myself. Also,
works from various artists have been chosen to create some diversity and be able to better
problematise the theories proposed in the last section. The works to be looked at in more detail
in this chapter are Gerard ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation from 1653-1655 (fig. 1), currently on
display at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Also at the Rijksmuseum is Pieter de Hooch’s
Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest, dated 1663 (fig. 2). The reader may think that in
order to test the theories discussed in the previous chapter against visual material, just two
paintings are insufficient, but it has to be remembered that the authors themselves do not
specify what paintings are relevant to their theories. The only distinction that they make is that
they discuss genre scenes, without even specifying what they mean by that term. As a
discussion of each of these paintings in relation to the four aspects of ‘realism’ would go beyond
the boundaries of this research, a specific painting will be chosen for each of the discussions.
‘Realism’ as subject matter
The subject matter of genre paintings has often been a trigger for calling the works ‘realistic’.
The ‘low’ subject matters they depict, such as ordinary people doing their daily errands, seem to
speak to viewers across the centuries. In De Hooch’s picture, two women are clearing away the
linen into the closet and a child is playing a seventeenth-century game called kolf in the
background. The act of putting away the linen is an everyday activity for the mother/housewife
yet De Hooch chose to depict this scene in his painting. There is nothing heroic or religious
about this act and can therefore be called a scene from everyday life in a domestic setting. Also
the fact that it is placed within a home makes the scene appear more ordinary. Before the
blooming of the Dutch art market, such a trivial scene was generally considered an unworthy
subject matter.83
83
This is much more of a ‘low’ subject matter than Ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation. However, the interior scene
depicted in De Hooch’s picture does depict a wealthy family and definitely no real ‘low’ life scene as can be seen in
peasant and bar scenes, and earlier works by De Hooch in which he depicts interior scenes of lower social classes.
33
An aspect of ‘realism’ in the subject matters can literally be seen in what is being depicted in the
painting. The closet depicted in the painting is a ‘toogkast’84, a type of closet which was
commonly made around 1650.85 As the painting has been dated 1663, De Hooch most likely
had an actual closet as an example. Otherwise it would seem rather peculiar he painted the
decorations on the closet in exactly the way that was fashionable at that time. Next to that, the
viewer must have surely recognised the closet as being a ‘toogkast’ when being confronted with
the painting. The setting must have also struck the viewer as ‘realistic’, especially the canal
house painted in the background, a building in the so-called Dutch renaissance style. This style
was a common architectural style in the seventeenth century, used by architects like Hendrick
de Keyser and Lieven de Key. 86 These types of houses can still be seen along the Amsterdam
canals today. In the house itself there are also traces of the Dutch renaissance style; the
window and door are decorated with golden pillars, typical for this style. It would thus seem
plausible that De Hooch saw these things in reality and then depicted them in his painting. The
aspect of ‘the everyday’ can be seen in aspects such as the closet and the townhouse, (which
both the contemporary viewer, as well De Hooch himself, must have encountered on a daily
basis), but also in the chore of the women and the child playing.
Even though the scene might seem ‘realistic’ in subject matter, Willemijn Fock, who specialises
in seventeenth-century interiors, has another opinion on these genre paintings. 87 She looked at
the ‘realism’ of Dutch interior paintings by contrasting the works of art with remains of
seventeenth-century houses as well as contemporary inventory lists, journals, advertisements
and the like. Fock has come to some interesting conclusions, some of which are relevant to De
Hooch’s painting. She mentions that “it was in the artist’s own interest to portray a fairly realistic
situation” but that “[p]ainters could add details that would not be present in an actual situation”88.
She is thus aware that the painters were artists, and had to take into account that they were
In the genre hierarchy, however, this specific painting can certainly be considered ‘low’ as it depicts an ordinary day
to day scene, rather than a history or mythological scene.
84
For the English translation of ‘toogkast’ the word ‘cupboard’ has been used as there is not a more accurate
translation. Another Dutch word for this type of closet is ‘boogkast’, which refers to the bows on the closet doors.
85
The Rijksmuseum has identified this type of closet as a ‘toogkast’ by the decorations on the door. See Baarsen, R.
J. Nederlandse meubelen 1600-1800. Zwolle: Waanders, 1993, p. 34-35; Baarsen, R. J. Wonen in de Gouden Eeuw:
17de-eeuwse Nederlandse meubelen. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, 2007, p.32-33.
86
Watkin,D. J. A History of Western Architecture. London: Laurence King, 2005.
87
Fock, C. W. ‘Semblance or Reality? The Domestic Interior in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Genre Paintings’ in
Westerman, M. Art & Home: Dutch Interiors in the Age of Rembrandt. Zwolle: Waanders, 2001.
88
Fock, 2001, p. 83
34
creating an image, which had to be as aesthetically pleasing as possible in order to please the
viewer and potential buyer. Merely copying reality was thus not their only goal, even though a
realistic scene would be desirable. One way of increasing the sense of realism in these
paintings was by changing the spatial arrangements of the interior. Fock noticed that what the
paintings depict is not actually the real architecture of a Dutch house; rooms were shifted to give
‘doorkijkjes’89 and other effects to increase the illusion of depth. Another aspect of interior
scenes which Fock wishes to counter-argue are the marble floors. Although often depicted in
interior scenes, most houses in the Netherlands had wood floors instead of marble. Stone floors
would only be used in the entrance halls and corridors. The painters used these floors to
“construct or emphasize the pictorial perspective, as an artistic device” as can be seen in De
Hooch’s Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest. What Fock thus proposes is that the artists
did not faithfully look at reality, but took ‘realism’ as their point of departure in their subject
matters. They took into account that the viewers had to be able to recognise what they saw, yet
also make the image appear aesthetically pleasing.
The above mentioned aspects all add to the sense of recognition the viewer had with the
subject matter. An everyday activity, in an ordinary home along the canals, would be recognised
by anyone seeing it at the time. However, the term ‘realism’ discussed in this research was
invented by art historians in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We should therefore
question what kind of recognition of the subject matter we speak of; recognition by its
contemporary viewer or by viewers today. Yet even to the modern viewer, the scene would
seem familiar. Women putting away the linen in a closet while a child is playing in the house
could describe any twenty-first-century household. The interior of the house and the clothing
might be different; the overall scene is still highly recognisable. De Hooch’s picture thus
proposes an apt example of ‘realism’ in the form of familiarisation. In the previous chapter the
idea of familiarisation in relation to the ‘realism’ of a subject matter was proposed, as the objects
depicted in Dutch art look familiar to their viewer. This can thus also be said about De Hooch’s
picture.
De Vries puts forward the question of reliability of the artist. Did De Hooch truly see a house like
the one displayed in his picture and was it exactly the same? As was already established
earlier, creating a picture is a process in which the artist reshapes reality to serve the final
result. As De Vries mentions; “the rendering of reality in many Netherlandish paintings is less
89
‘Doorkijkjes’ is the Dutch word for a ‘see through’, which has no real English equivalent.
35
reliable than was thought until recently, because the observed was manipulated in the artistic
rendering”90. Especially when looking at De Hooch’s entire oeuvre the ‘realism’ in subject matter
becomes highly relative. As De Vries states, the artist might not have been on a “quest for
objective faithfulness” 91. Over eighty paintings are currently attributed to De Hooch, of which
practically all depict some sort of genre scene, be it an interior scene with a mother and child, a
woman doing some domestic chore, or perhaps an outdoor scene with a family.92 Each painting
depicts some sort of homely scene with the general theme of the family running through all of
them. Since De Hooch depicted so many interior scenes like the Interior with Women beside a
Linen Chest, it seems likely that the same motif would return in other paintings or that De
Hooch, especially later on in his career, did not even need an example from reality to make a
composition. After having made so many different interior scenes, he would have been able to
gather aspects from previous paintings and combine them into a new one. For an artist with an
extremely extensive oeuvre, looking afresh at a concrete aspect of visible reality might not have
been a point of departure. However, the fact remains that even though he might not have looked
at reality per se for painting this work, he must have gotten the motifs form somewhere. Surely
he had been inside a canal house to know what the house looked like on the inside, to see what
type of windows these houses had, what kind of interior decorations and so forth. Even though
this particular scene might not be a ‘copy’ of reality, certain aspects of it certainly are derived
from real life.
When we look at De Hooch’s painting in a way that the subject matter needs to inform the
viewer in order to be ‘realistic’, as the idea proposed by Lopes, it would seem that this particular
painting is very ‘realistic’. It informs the viewer what a canal house looked like, what type of linen
closet was fashionable at the time, what kind of clothing people wore and what kind of games
children played. If one would merely see the amount of information a scene can give as an
indication for its ‘realism’, one would arrive at a completely different result from what was
discussed above. This idea can thus be considered to be highly problematic as one could argue
that almost any painting, no matter how ‘realistic’, can offer some sort of information. As
discussed in the introduction to this paper, the term ‘realism’ in the broad sense of the word is
used to categorise works of art that depend on direct observation from nature. As this is already
difficult to establish in relation to De Hooch, one should be cautious with calling the paintings
90
De Vries, 1991, p. 223
91
De Vries, 1991, p. 223.
92
Sutton, P. C. Pieter de Hooch: complete edition. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980.
36
‘realistic’ according to these criteria. Also, it was already discussed in the previous chapter that
informativeness, as argued by Lopes, cannot be considered a sound criterion for judging a
painting’s ‘realism’, as information and ‘realism’ do not in correlate with one another.
‘Realism’ as a subject matter can thus be connected to the object displayed and how closely the
painter has imitated objects from reality. Even though it can be questioned whether or not De
Hooch used reality as his point of departure for this specific painting, the objects, architectural
setting, and actions he paints can most definitely be interpreted as informed by observations
from life. This state of affairs is related to the idea of familiarisation, as the objects and peoples
displayed need to show similarity with reality to some extent in order to be recognised by the
viewer. This is also the point that Fock argued, even though she makes it clear that she believes
that genre paintings are not representative of seventeenth-century Dutch interiors.
‘Realism’ as style
The discussion on style in the previous chapter was rather extensive and raised many
questions. Since De Vries proposed a certain style, the picturesque, as being a ‘realistic’ style of
painting, his theory will be checked against the visual example offered by the Gallant
Conversation by Gerard ter Borch. In his article, De Vries puts forward an accumulation of
characteristics which may be recognised in a ‘realistic’ painting. These points will now be
studied again in relation to Ter Borch’s painting. However, before doing this, it has to be stated
that De Vries believes that the so called ‘picturesque’ style, which he believes to be a ‘realistic’
style, is not solely dependent on the painting style. To quote the author, the style “was
considered to be as much inherent in certain objects as it was a product of the artist’s brush” 93.
The present analysis will only focus on the formal traits of the picturesque style.
One of De Vries’ main characteristics for the picturesque style is the rendering of textures and
the effect of light on them. He mentions that “more emphasis was placed on the rendering of
textures and the effect of light on surfaces than on defining contour and volume” 94. Ter Borch
was a painter who today is known for his precise rendering of textures. An apt example can be
seen in the Gallant Conversation (fig. 1) where the young woman’s dress, seen from behind, is
rendered with extreme care. The viewer can clearly see that the dress is made of precious silver
coloured silk. There is a light source somewhere outside the canvas on the left side, lighting the
scene. The folds in the woman’s dress reflect the light, creating different and unpredictable
93
De Vries, 1991, p. 224.
94
De Vries, 1991, p. 224.
37
effects of lighting on the fabric. The shininess of the satin is contrasted by the black velvet with
which the dress is trimmed. The comment De Vries made about the volume also seems to apply
to this figure; we see her from the back, yet her plasticity is difficult to read. Although the dress
shows some indication of the female body, it is difficult to see the woman’s shoulders and arms,
and how far her arms extend into the space in front of her. The shape of her upper body is
integrated into the fabric of the dress. It is difficult for the viewer to imagine the body underneath
the heavily draping dress which gives the painting a certain degree of formlessness. The
emphasis is clearly on the rendering of the dress and how light interacts with the silk. According
to De Vries, there are no sharp contrasts between light and dark. Except for certain parts in the
dress, the composition is rather subdued. The back of the room cannot even be seen as it is
hardly lit. This also relates to the pictorial space in the composition. On the one side it is closed
off by the table and the bed, yet also by the darkness. There seems to be some indication of a
wall and door behind the dog, which gives the illusion that the depicted space is rather shallow
and not explicitly closed off. 95 Although this specific work does not use monochrome tonality as
its main constituent for the colours, it does present a rather subtle use of colours. The only
colour that truly stands out is the silver-grey of the young woman’s dress.96
There are also some aspects of the ‘picturesque’ style mentioned by De Vries that are difficult to
recognise in this painting. The pictorial space is not framed nor is the compositional scheme
difficult to understand. Moreover, the painting does not give a prominent role to figures,
according to De Vries’s theory, that are recognisable to the viewer and consist of imperfections
to portray their human aspects. The young woman in the dress is difficult to relate to for the
viewer because she has turned her back to them, but also because she is wearing an expensive
dress which is not the type of dress the viewer encountered very often. By having the woman
wear this dress, she seems rather perfect instead of having imperfections. There is also another
inconsistency with De Vries’ theory, as he mentions that there no emphasis on the figure’s
movements. The figures in the Ter Borch do now show any particular movements, yet the man’s
gesture does play a rather prominent role in this depiction. 97 The author already warned his
reader that he might not find a painting that matches all of the criteria he mentions. This
95
I call the composition not explicitly closed off as there is only one indication of a wall, which is in the background.
The other sides of the composition are left more open. Even this back wall, which is difficult to read, had an open
door in it, thereby indicating that the space continuous behind the door.
96
De Vries, 1991, p. 222 – 225.
97
Interestingly enough, it has been this particular gesture that has created such a debate surrounding the painting’s
meaning. Is the man cautioning his daughter, or is he offering money to a prostitute?
38
particular painting does present some of the elements that De Vries calls picturesque, and
therefore ‘realistic’, but this may be explained chiefly by Ter Borch’s fascination with the
depiction of textures.
When we compare the above mentioned work with De Hooch’s painting discussed previously,
the characteristics relating to light and fabric are not comparable. However, De Hooch’s picture
does show a certain individuality of the characters, more so than Ter Borch’s painting, and also
puts less emphasis on the figures’ movement. The pictorial space in De Hooch’s work is also
rather shallow, and is closed off by the architecture on all sides. However, the viewer is made
aware that the pictorial space is not limited to the architectural space depicted in the scene as
there are windows and open doors, showing what lies beyond this Amsterdam canal house.
These two examples suggest that domestic scenes can possess different characteristics of the
picturesque style, which raises the question of whether each of these was made with a different
degree of ‘realism’ in mind. De Vries does not discuss which characteristics are more important
or which make a painting more ‘realistic’. It does seem that, intentionally or not, the author puts
a certain emphasis on the rendering of textures, which he refers back to later in the article when
discussing technique. Even though it is thus not mentioned explicitly, because of the emphasis
put on the textures, it can be said that according to De Vries’ idea on ‘realistic’ style, Ter Borch’s
picture can be considered more ‘realistic’, even though it does not contain all the characteristics
representative of this style.
Sluijter had also written on the style in Dutch art and how this relates to ‘realism’. He believes
that the seventeenth-century painters did not want to copy reality in their paintings, but did use a
‘realistic’ style in order to convey their message. This message, which is not hidden, as the
iconologists argue, shows metaphors through the use of everyday objects. The viewer would be
familiar with these objects, as he would have encountered them in real life as well, and would be
able to understand the metaphor as he knew the connotations of that specific object. Also,
Sluijter argues that the viewers were intrigued with paintings that looked ‘almost real’. It was
thus the artists’ goal to create paintings that would appear to be real, by using objects from real
life. The question here is thus not whether the images would truly portray reality, but that the
viewer would be fooled in thinking so. Furthermore, Sluijter does not focus on one specific style
like De Vries, but discusses his theory in relation to all Dutch genre works.
These aspects of the ‘almost real’ can be seen in the paintings by De Hooch and Ter Borch. De
Hooch presents the viewer with an interior scene, an Amsterdam canal house which has the
39
appearance of an actual seventeenth-century house. The only things that seem to be missing
are the everyday objects that may be interpreted as symbols. The act of putting away the linen
stands could possible stand for the virtues of the wife and the task to take good care of the
house, but this idea seems to not satisfy the quest for metaphors. There is also the statue of the
Greek god Perseus above the doorway, but these objects are of minor importance. The
character of De Hooch’s painting is also different than the examples Sluijter proposes in his
article. He discusses Gabriel Metsu’s The Hunter’s Gift (fig. 5) and Dirck van Baburen’s The
Procuress (fig. 6). These paintings have also been discussed by iconologists and been
explained as being overtly sexual. Sluijter refutes these ideas, yet uses the same paintings to
serve his own ideas. These scenes are loaded with everyday objects which could, as Sluijter
proposes, stand for metaphors and be loaded with connotations.
These connotations, however, are very much dependent on the specific time period in which the
painting was made. Sluijter uses examples of modern day commercial advertisements, which
the viewer can immediately interpret through the person depicted. This use of stereotypes, and
their associated connotations, can be understood by the people of that time and culture without
much effort. However, once these stereotypes are seen by people from another culture, they
already become problematic and more difficult to grasp. The same happens when these types
are transposed in time. Sluijters thus argues that we cannot read the stereotypes presented in
seventeenth-century paintings anymore, and therefore we do not understand the metaphors. In
this context, Sluijter refers to the paintings by Ter Borch when he speaks of “de kleurig en rijk (te
kleurig?, te rijk?) geklede dames van Ter Borch” 98. What is depicted according to him is thus not
reality, but is a stereotype, which is often based upon exaggeration of certain (often negative)
characteristics of a person or group. The women depicted by Ter Borch, as the one in the
Gallant Conversation, wears a richly adorned satin dress, would pose as a stereotype, most
likely for the upper-class bourgeois of Holland. 99 Knowing exactly what this stereotype meant,
either in this painting or others by Ter Borch, would be difficult, if not impossible, to unravel.
Sluijter’s argumentation is problematised even more when we remember that in the previous
chapter it was discussed that the style of seventeenth-century paintings had to be ‘realistic’ in
order for the viewer to both recognise the objects depicted as well realising they were
98
Sluijter, 1990, p. 19.
99
When following Sluijters’ line of thought, one wonders if the questionable subject matter of the Gallant
Conversation, which art historians have interpreted as either the ‘parental admonition’ or a ‘brothel scene’, was
desired by Ter Borch to suggest a link between a wealthy lady and a prostitute.
40
metaphors and recollect the accompanying connotations. If these objects truly were based on
reality, how does this coincide with the so called stereotypes mentioned by Sluijter? If Ter
Borch’s young lady in the Gallant Conversation really is a stereotype, how would the viewer be
able to recognise this without ever seeing this woman in real life? One might assume that the
objects depicted around her, which contain metaphors as well and are painted in a ‘realistic’
style, might tell the viewer that she is a stereotype. Yet this does not explain the very precise
execution of the young woman’s gown. Was a beautiful silver satin dress something that people
saw in their day to day lives in the seventeenth century? If only the objects contained
metaphors, why depict the dress in such a way? It might have been an aesthetic consideration
to make the dress fit in with the rest of the ‘realistically’ painted image, yet the artist might have
also chosen another, less elaborate, dress to depict the woman’s assumed wealth. As figures
depicting stereotypes are often exaggerated (and sometimes even imagined) versions of reality,
it can be said that stereotypical figures cannot be seen on a day-to-day basis. Especially in
paintings, stereotypes need to be even more exaggerated to convey their message to the
viewer. If the goal of the artist was to use a realistic style of painting so that the viewer could
recognise the daily objects depicted, as Sluijter has argued, why depict a stereotype in the first
place as the entire figure is highly imaginary and cannot be seen walking down the street.
Even though Sluijter does propose an idea which ties in with both the appearance of the
painting as well as its subject matter and meaning, when applying the theory to an actual work
of art it seems to raise more questions than it answers. It could be argued that not all questions
can be answered because of the amount of time that has passed since the work was made, as
Sluijter rightly points out in his article. What has become clear is that Sluijter believes style does
portray ‘realistic’ aspects in these paintings, even though it might not actually be a copy of
reality as such. On the contrary, Sluijter argues that copying nature was not at all what these
artists desired; instead they wanted to create a reality within the painting to make them seem
‘net echt’. The overall style can then be considered ‘realistic’ to a certain extent, and could
possibly also explain why the young woman’s dress is depicted in such a refined manner.
The discussion on the different styles and schools proposed in the last section of this research
is also difficult to apply to the works. Even when only focussing on genre scenes, there are
many different styles to be discerned in Dutch art. De Hooch has often been labelled as being
part of the Delft School, in which town he lived, was married and worked. Later in his career he
moved to Amsterdam. Ter Borch on the other hand has not been ascribed to any school in
particular, even though he studied in both Amsterdam and Haarlem, and visited Delft as well. By
41
calling one of the styles presented ‘realistic’ implies calling the other one less or not ‘realistic’.
By what standards should we judge what style is and is not ‘realistic’? When looking at De Vries’
characteristics of the ‘realistic’ style, which can be considered more important? The author
himself realised not all of the aspects he mentioned can be found in one painting, so which ones
convey the ‘realistic’ style better?
The theoretical discussion, as proposed in the last chapter, and the actual ‘testing’ of these
theories with actual paintings, are two very different disciplines. The theories, raising many
questions on their own, seem rather difficult to apply to the selected works of art. As mentioned
earlier, these works have not been chosen because the authors discussed them, but because of
their domestic scenes and the possibility to analyse them in a museum. It would thus seem that
the authors discussed either used paintings which would suit their theories, or did not discuss
any paintings specifically. The theories have given new insight in the relation between ‘realism’
and ‘style’, but applying them to the actual paintings remains rather problematic.
‘Realism’ as technique
When applying the discussion of ‘realism’ as technique to actual works of art, it seems that here
too there is a difference in disciplines. As with the previous two discussions on subject matter
and style, it has become apparent that theory and practice are two different realms. The same is
true for the discussion on ‘realism’ as technique in Dutch art. Technique, according to De Vries’s
view, does not only refer to the material aspects of the painting, but also to the overall
execution. Painters from the seventeenth century paid a good deal of attention to the execution
of their works, as can still be read today in various treatises that have been passed down.
Philips Angel100 writes for example that “Soo date en prijs-waerdig Schilder defe
verfcheydenheden op’t aengenaemfte voor yders ooge (door fijne Penceel-konft) behoorde te
konnen voorftellen, onderfchuyt maekende tuffchen fchrale ruyge Laecken-achtigheyt, en de
gladde Satijne effenheyt”101. The artist had to take account of the materials he used, as well as
how he applied them.
De Vries theorised that ‘realism’ might be located in technique, yet this idea was intertwined with
his discussion of style. The ‘realistic’ style according to him was the picturesque, and technique
would help to create this ‘realistic’ style of painting. Therefore, the technique adds to the
100
Angel, P. Lof der Schilder-konst. Amsterdam: Kunsthistorisch Instituut, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1972. Copy of
the original published in 1642.
101
Angel, 1642, p. 55.
42
picturesqueness of a painting. De Vries was amazed that the word stofuitdrukking in Dutch does
not have an English equivalent, and saw this as a sign that the Dutch artists were interested in
how to render textures.102 Artists such as Ter Borch were exploring how to depict a certain
fabric on canvas, as has been discussed in the part on style, yet also here it plays a prominent
role. In order to make the satin in the young woman’s dress seen in Ter Borch’s painting appear
to be silk, the artist had to depict the dress in a certain way.103 Ter Borch thus put much effort
into creating a picture in which the objects would show their material characteristics. According
to De Vries, the artist wanted to depict the objects as faithfully as possible and tried to create
the greatest likeness between the real object and the painted one. Ter Borch’s Gallant
Conversation will be used as an example of how technique can be seen as being ‘realistic’, and
for this the focus will mainly be on the young woman’s satin dress.
When looking at the painting, some interesting observations can be made about the satin
dress.104 Firstly, the dress is painted in a different manner than the background. The
background is executed in a looser manner than the dress, and can be seen above the bed and
in the doorway. In these passages, the ground of the painting, which is a warm brownish colour,
can be seen shining through the darker tones painted on top of them. 105 Here, the ground layer
works together with the paint on top of it in order to convey the sense of a wall and doorway to
the viewer. Also in the dog the ground layer can be seen shining through, as well as certain
passages of the soldier and the woman drinking. In these parts, the ground layer can be seen
102
The English translation is ‘rendering of textures’, which is a proper translation of the word. The discussion by De
Vries that the Dutch paid more attention to the rendering of textures, either fabric or other kinds of materials, because
they have one word for it, seems faulty. The Dutch language allows for two words (‘stof’ and ‘uitdrukking’) to be put
together into creating one word, where the English language does not.
103
Even though it cannot be known that this was truly the artist’s intention, it seems safe to say that Ter Borch was
very much interested in the rendering of textures. Especially when comparing him with other artists, it can be seen
that he put effort into making the fabric appear to be silk. This can be seen for example in the amount of paintings by
Ter Borch in which women wearing satin dresses were depicted. These dresses were lit in various ways and with
depicted with various folds. Each painting must thus have proposed a new way to depict the satin which surely must
have required some studies.
104
The observations made were done by following the checklist as presented to me in the course ‘Atelierpraktijken:
Ensembles. Schilderingen in 17de en vroeg 18de-eeuwse Nederlandse interieurdecoraties’, taught by Dr. Margriet
van Eikema Hommes. During this class, we were taught how to look for material aspects in a painting, such as the
canvas, the process of stretching the canvas and framing, grounding, under drawings and under paintings, repentirs
and aspects of the working up of the painting and the condition of the painting. As not all these points are relevant to
this research, only observations relating to the satin dress will be discussed.
105
Wallert (2004) has identified the ground as consisting of “coarse and gritty ochre-colored quartz sand” p. 38.
43
as it has not (or partially) been over-painted by other layers. The dress, on the other hand, is
painted in a much smoother manner, in which the ground layer is difficult to see. In the shadows
of the satin some ochre yellow can be seen, which might fool the viewer as being the ground, or
perhaps a lower layer. Yet from technical examination it has become apparent that the ochre
has been applied in one of the upper layers of paint. 106 Although it might not seem like it,
technical analysis has shown that some parts of the dress have up to six layers of paint. This
mixture of various layers has, however, been done in such a subtle way, that it is difficult to tell
by looking at the painting with the naked eye. Ter Borch painted the satin dress in such a
manner, that it does not appear as various paint layers positioned on top of one another, but
rather as one smooth layer. The ochre yellow that can be seen in the satin dress, functions as
reflection of the light falling on the wooden floor. The smooth surface of the dress thus functions
as a kind of mirror which reflects the floor.107 In the satin dress, there are no individual
brushstrokes to be discerned, which is interesting in relation to the ‘realism’. If this painting
functioned like a mirror, as has been suggested by various art historians 108, it would seem only
natural that the artist would try to make his brushstrokes invisible. Having a smooth paint
surface in which no strokes can be identified, increases the sense of ‘lifelikeness’ and ‘realism’
in the picture. The dress is thus depicted in not only a very smooth style of painting, there are
also no individual brushstrokes to be seen. This would add to the idea that Ter Borch wanted to
paint himself out of the picture, as it were, and make it truly seem like a mirror of everyday life.
When trying to make the dress look as real as possible, the painter had to take certain
characteristics of the fabric into account. Satin is a very smooth fabric because of how it was
woven; “with a weft thread that passes over one warp thread, under four warp threads, and then
over one thread”109. This creates a very smooth pattern because the face of the fabric consists
mainly of warps. In creating a satin fabric, silk and cotton threads are often used together for
both economical reasons as well as for the strength. When the light shines on the fabric, it
reflects differently of the cotton thread than it does of the silk thread. As the fabric moves and
light falls on it from various angles, it gives a shimmering effect. Furthermore, light falling on the
silk is not being “absorbed and softly scattered”110 as with other fabrics, but instead “directly and
106
Wallert, A. “The Miracle of Gerard ter Borch’s Satin” in Wheelock, A. K. Gerard ter Borch. Washington, DC:
National Gallery of Art, 2004: pp. 31-41.
107
Wallert, 2004, p. 34.
108
Slive, 1962; Sluijter, 1990.
109
Wallert, 2004, p. 33.
110
Wallert, 2004, p. 33.
44
most fully reflected” 111. Ter Borch thus had to be familiar with these characteristics of silk, and
take this into account when painting the dress of the young woman in Gallant Conversation.
One way in which the artist created the shiny effect was to contrast the lighter areas with the
shadows in the dress. The brightest highlights on the dress are put next to the middle tones and
the deepest shadow, creating the shimmering effect. 112
The young woman in the satin dress appears in various other paintings by Ter Borch. 113 This
points to a studio practice where Ter Borch used drawings for this specific figure, which were reused various times in other paintings.114 When looking at it from a practical point of view, we
can understand why he does this. Painting such an elaborate satin dress with the light falling on
it and reflecting in all directions, takes up quite some time and requires studies from real life. As
the painter had to make money, he wanted to optimally use this figure that took him so much
effort to create. As Wallert says; “compositional inventions and individual motifs [...] were
continuously repeated, varied, combined and copied”115. This we already noticed with the
paintings by De Hooch, who probably also had an economical reason for re-using his own
motifs. The fact that Ter Borch used the same dress many times, can only hint at the success it
must have had with the viewers. Although this in itself does not refer to any ‘realism’ that might
be seen in the painting, even today viewers still remark on how ‘life-like’ the dress looks and
how precisely it has been executed. It would be safe to assume that the seventeenth-century
viewer had the same response, making this a popular figure worth copying.
111
Wallert, 2004, p. 33.
112
In the Gallant Conversation Ter Borch’s knowledge of fabrics is not only shown through his depiction of the satin
dress, but also the fabrics of the other figures. The man on the right side wears clothes made out of cotton or another
type of coarse cloth, which can be seen by the absorption of the light. His sleeve, however, seems to have some sort
of shimmer in it, indicating that another type of fabric is incorporated here. The objects show a similar effect; the
sword next to the man lights up when the light falls on it, and the glass from which the older woman is drinking too.
113
There is an exact copy of the Gallant Conversation in Berlin (fig. 7) and Baltimore (fig. 8), and a scene very similar
to the Gallant Conversation can be seen in Edinburgh (fig. 9). The young woman in the satin dress is also copied in
the Messenger now at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (fig. 10). Wallert mentions there are at least six copies of the
satin dress.
114
There is a technique known which the artist could have used to create an exact copy of the same figure. The
figure was firstly made as a drawing. The back of the drawing, or of a sheet put behind the drawing, would be
covered with pigment. The drawing would then be put on the canvas, and the figure would be traced with a pointed
tool. I myself have done the same thing during a workshop in seventeenth century painting with Charlotte Caspers at
the restoration studio of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
115
Wallert, 2004, p. 35.
45
In the time of Ter Borch there were also other painters who specialised in painting satin
(dresses), such as Eglon van Neer and Adriaen van der Werff, and there are also documents
which advise artists how to paint satin. 116 With regard to these other painters, Wallert raises a
valid question when stating; “But if these artists were such specialists in depicting satins, why
are Ter Borch’s satins so much more convincing than those painted by these very able
painters?”117 Wallert believes that it is not only because of the manner of execution that some
paintings appear to be more convincing than others, as all the above mentioned painters knew
the ‘tricks’ of painting satins, but observation also played an important part. He thus argues that
Ter Borch observed the characteristics of satin in reality, and was aware of its properties and
effects of lighting on it. Satin was often starched and ironed for strength, making the textile
stiffer. The Gallant Conversation is according to Wallert an excellent example of Ter Borch’s
keen eye, as he observed how the stiff fabric was pushed up by the floor, creating deformed
folds in the dress. Also with respect to the light fall the artist paid attention to actual models, and
on it Wallert concludes that “Ter Borch’s awareness of this optical phenomenon contributes
tremendously to the sense of realism he created in his works”118. Wallert believes that the
technique Ter Borch used made his paintings appear to be ‘realistic’ when he says that “[Ter
Borch’s] skill can make viewers forget that the image he created is just made of paint”119. Next
to that, his entire studio practice of making a painting, in which observation of reality played an
important role, add to the ‘realism’.
When seeing the various paintings in which the same dress as in the Gallant Conversation is
depicted, an initial reaction of the viewer might be that the artist loses credibility as he merely
‘copies’ one and the same dress. Yet when realising the economical reasons discussed above,
that the artist wanted to optimally use the motif he spend so much time and effort on creating,
one might reconsider the artist reliability. As Wallert argues, Ter Borch must have made
observations from life to make the motif of the dress, which only increases the credibility of the
artist when making a ‘realistic’ image. We might thus conclude that because this motif has been
copied so often, it only increases the artists’ fidelity to reality.
De Vries too had argued that artists wanted to create a high sense of likeness between the
objects in reality and the ones painted, yet he did not go into the topic as deep as Wallert has.
116
Wallert mentions Willem Beurs on p. 37.
117
Wallert, 2004, p. 40.
118
Wallert, 2004, p. 41.
119
Wallert, 2004, p. 41.
46
Obviously both articles had a different goal in mind; De Vries wanted to discuss different
aspects of ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century Dutch art and connect the technique with the
picturesque style, whereas Wallert wrote an article on the painting process of Ter Borch for a
book about the painter. It seems that De Vries raised questions and ideas in 1991 that Wallert,
probably unconsciously, answered over a decade later. This also shows that investigating
technical aspects of a painting and research into the studio practice can help answer art
historical questions. When De Vries wrote his article, ‘realism’ might not have been so much
present in technique nor might technical observations have been used to answer art historical
questions. When examining Wallert’s article, which did not have the goal of searching for
‘realism’ in technique, it has become apparent that over the years technical analysis of paintings
and art history have come closer to tackle art historical questions together. Also a close
observations of the execution of the painting has shown that through different manners of
painting (one open layer in the background compared to the smooth and dense layer of the
satin dress), painting techniques use can add to the possible ‘realism’ in these paintings. By
applying this smooth style of painting in the dress Ter Borch has made his brushstrokes almost
invisible to the viewer, thereby creating more of a mirror than a painting.
‘Realism’ as mode of artistic thought
The theories proposed by Smith were probably the most difficult ones to grasp; not necessarily
the ideas he puts forward, but rather the abstract character of his definition of the location of
‘realism’. Subject matter, style and technique are all aspects of a painting that can be seen in
the actual object, whereas artistic thought cannot. The entire painting can be seen as a product
of artist thought, yet it is difficult to pinpoint where exactly this thought can be seen in a painting.
This approach encompasses more than just the painting itself; it also examines how the artist
perceived reality around him and how this perception can be seen in the painting. According to
Smith, the ‘realism’ in these paintings can thus be explained by the idea that a certain painting is
a product of a certain time and place. According to this theory, time and space are inseparable,
and are woven together in a spatio-temporal model of narratives.
An important aspect of ‘realism’ according to Smith, is the counter-genre. These are works of art
that combine various genres into one painting, thereby often creating ambiguity. The mixing of
genres can have different goals. A clear example of this counter-genre are the portraits
historiés, where the history scenes and portraiture are combined into one. This mixing of
genres, although rather difficult to unravel, can also be seen in De Hooch’s painting. At first
47
there is the genre scene in the painting; two women in the house doing daily chores. Secondly
there is a mythological aspect; above the door there is a statue of the Greek god Perseus. The
god can clearly be recognised, holding a sword in one hand and holding up the decapitated
head of Medusa in the other. A third layer which might be discerned is an architectural scene. 120
Not only in the interior has there been much attention given to detail, also the exterior of the
other houses along the canal are depicted in a precise manner. Having established that the
scene is thus a mixture of various categories of painting, it can be said that it is a ‘countergenre’.
Smith argued that in a counter-genre, all the different genres are being pulled together by a
narrative to create a whole. That these paintings have a narrative implies that time and space
are also involved. This idea is exactly what Smith proposes when he discusses the chronotope.
A counter-genre work is a work of art which derived from a correlation of both time and space.
What Smith fails to explain is whether the painter himself was aware of the chronotope, or if only
modern day viewers are. The idea of the chronotope sounds rather abstract, yet is very much
reminiscent of the German term Zeitgeist.121 Both terms are very different, yet I find the
implications rather similar. In both cases it is suggested that a particular time and a specific
place leave their own traces on a work of art. Whereas Zeitgeist only explains a certain time
period, chronotope entails both time and place. According to Smith, the chronotope can be seen
in works of art and he defines it as ‘realism’. If we were to look for this in De Hooch’s painting,
the ideas become more problematic. For what time and space correlation should one look when
unravelling the chronotope of this painting? Smith proposes that ‘realism’ is a mode of artistic
thought, the artist will be the point of departure in looking at the chronotope of Interior with
Women beside a Linen Chest.
Fortunately, this painting is signed and dated 1663. As there is also some information known
about De Hooch’s life, establishing the context in which this painting was made is not too
difficult. Having lived and worked in Delft for a number of years, De Hooch was living in
120
In Smith’s article, there is no mention of architecture as a separate genre, whereas genre and mythological scenes
are. As the architecture is a genre in Dutch art, and Smith does mention the cityscapes as a separate genre, I
propose the architectural genre in De Hooch’s painting, and have treated it as a separate genre in this research.
121
The idea of the similarities between chronotope and Zeitgeist are my own. Smith does not believe in the idea of
Zeitgeist, which he has made clear in a private correspondence on June 22, 2009. The analogy between the two
terms have been proposed to gain a better understanding of the term chronotope as this is the first time it has been
used in art history.
48
Amsterdam by 1661. He remained here until his death in 1684.122 Thus right before making this
painting, De Hooch had moved to Amsterdam. Life in Amsterdam must have differed from that
in Delft, which can also be seen in his paintings. Works from his later period are richer in style
than the ones he made before 1661, even though some art historians have dubbed the year
1658 as the artist’s prime due to the large amount of pictures produced in this year. When
looking at De Hooch’s ‘chronotope’ in this way, we can sense an artist’s curiosity for a new city.
A city he had just moved to with his family, which was new to him and posed new sights. The
fact that he paints more luxurious interiors could suggest that he moved around in the middle to
upper class circles which might also be new to him. The ‘chronotope’ proposed would thus be
the exploration of the domestic lives of the upper-class and probably also the city.
As De Hooch encountered all these new experiences around this time in his career, the current
genres existing in Dutch art were not enough to receive all that he saw. Therefore he created
the counter-genre in Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest, in order to capture the ‘surplus’
of reality he saw in real life. At least, this is how the argument would be according to Smith’s
theories. Even though this sounds like a coherent idea, there are some flaws to be spotted.
Firstly, the linen chest that was identified as an expensive ‘toogkast’ earlier in this research, also
appears in a painting by de Hooch from 1658 titled Young Woman Drinking (fig. 11). Even
though the closet does not play such a prominent role in this work, it can still be seen clearly
and be identified as being the same type of closet. What is also peculiar is that on the top of this
closet, another statuette of Perseus can be seen. The linen chest can thus not be seen as being
part of only the spatio-temporal matrix of 1663, as De Hooch had already seen the closet before
and used it in a painting dated five years earlier. When he painted it in Interior with Women
beside a Linen Chest, he might not even have seen or needed a real ‘toogkast’ in order to paint
one. The same might be the case with the statue of Perseus.
The same motifs are thus used in various paintings, which places them not necessarily within
one specific time-space frame as Smith beliefs. Earlier it was already mentioned that De Hooch
used similar compositions, rooms, figures and motifs in his paintings. Because he does this, it is
difficult to see him as an artist who would put ‘realism’ in his paintings through his artistic
process. This again raises the question; if an artist (re)uses his own motifs, does this make him
less reliable or less ‘realistic’? When looking at Smiths’ theory, one might feel obliged to answer
122
Sutton, 1980.
49
that the paintings might be less reliable, because of the above mentioned reasons. 123 But from
other points of view, this is not necessarily the case. In paintings by De Hooch, some
architectural aspects have been identified, such as the old city walls in Delft. 124 This would imply
he did use aspects of reality in his works, and might have re-used them in other works as he
thought they were aesthetically pleasing or worked well in a certain composition. 125 Either way,
it is rather difficult to place his works in a certain time-space context, and it would seem that not
all paintings can be seen in the manner proposed by Smith. Although it must be said that the
idea of the ‘chronotope’, being defined as a painting being the product of a time and space axis
overlapping, does, to a certain extent make sense. But this idea this does not explain or locate
‘realism’ in these paintings.
Conclusion
This chapter has been devoted to testing the theories proposed in the previous part to the actual
works of art in order to find where ‘realism’ might be located in relation to the paintings. The
main goal of this research was to examine where recent art historians have located ‘realism’ in
seventeenth-century genre paintings, and this paper has focused on four locations; subject
matter, style, technique and artistic mode. This chapter has discussed the same points, yet with
the goal of testing the theories and finding the ‘realism’ in these works.
The subject matter in De Hooch’s painting were objects, buildings and scenes from everyday life
in the seventeenth century. There are women performing domestic tasks in the house, there is a
child playing kolf and architecture of the Dutch Renaissance style can be seen. Almost anyone,
seeing this scene must have some feeling of recognition. The idea that ‘realism’ might be
inherent in the familiarisation of the viewer with the subject matter would thus seem to apply to
De Hooch’s painting. Fock made interesting points about how the interior scenes in genre
paintings differ from reality for the purpose of portraying a more appealing realistic scene by
depicting a deeper sense of depth. In De Hooch’s painting, it seems that the artist might have
changed the spatial arrangements of the house as well as adding the marble floors. Thus, parts
of De Hooch’s subject matter can be seen as being ‘realistic’, yet other aspects might have
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Even though it must be mentioned that it is plausible De Hooch saw a ‘toogkast’ around 1663 in Amsterdam.
Whether or not one specific object can be part of different spatio-temporal matrix’ and thus return in different countergenres, is not explained by Smith.
124
Sutton, 1980.
125
Compare for example the The Courtyard of a House in Delft (1658), Figures Drinking in a Courtyard (1658) and
Drinkers in the Bower (1658). The arch in each of these paintings share the same architectural structure.
50
been imagined. Also, due to the large number of paintings by De Hooch, we might assume that
at the end of his career he would have hardly needed any new models from real life in order to
make a new composition. This raises the question of whether an imagined composition, with
motifs from everyday life, can be considered ‘realistic’?
Style was discussed in relation to Ter Borch’s painting, and was tested by applying the
characteristics of the so called ‘realistic’ style of painting proposed by De Vries. De Vries had
already warned his reader that not all the characteristics he mentions could be found in one
painting, and this was found in Ter Borch’s painting as well. It seemed that De Vries, perhaps
unconsciously, put more emphasis on the rendering of textures and the play of light as being
‘realistic’ characteristics. Would this imply that Ter Borch was a more ‘realistic’ painter than De
Hooch? The arguments De Vries put forward create a slippery slope as he dubs one style
‘realistic’, thereby automatically excluding the others. Sluijter argued that the realistic style was
used in order to convey the painting’s message, which was depicted through metaphors using
everyday objects. Ter Borch’s depiction of the satin dress can be called ‘almost real’ as Sluijter
argues, yet there were difficulties with the ‘stereotypes’ he puts forward. If we assume that the
young woman is a stereotype, how could the viewer have recognised her? This type has been
created in people’s heads, and cannot always be seen in reality as a stereotype is often related
to this group’s negative connotations, which are often exaggerated. Yet Sluijter argued that the
style of painting had to be realistic in order for the viewer to recognise what was being depicted.
Were the viewers aware that Ter Borch painted a stereotype and not a person from reality? In
some ways this must have been true as I doubt that many women wore such elaborate satin
dresses on a day to day basis. In both cases it appeared difficult to apply the actual theories to
the works of art. De Vries did not mention any works in particular in his article, and Sluijter
seems to have chosen ones that would work with his theory. These theories might thus work for
some paintings, yet in my examples style does not seem to satisfy the search for ‘realism’.
The discussion on technique was already difficult in the previous chapter as De Vries only
examined it in relation to style, and hardly any other art historian has taken up the perspective of
‘realism’ being located in technique. When looking at the painting by Ter Borch, and how
‘realism’ might be located in technique, we find some interesting observations. Ter Borch
painted the dress in a different manner than the background; in a smooth manner which does
not let any underlying paint shine through. This could relate to the idea that if brushstrokes could
be seen in the painting, the viewer could immediately be made aware that it is a painting he is
looking at, rather than an image or mirror of reality. Also, the characteristics of the dress have
51
been taken into account, from the shininess to the reflections of the floor light. The studio
practice adds to the idea that that Ter Borch made precise observations from life, as the dress
that we see in Gallant Conversation appears in various other paintings by Ter Borch and his
studio. This implies that it must have been a popular and successful motif as it appeared ‘almost
real’ to the viewers of its day. In my reasoning, the re-use of this theme only adds to the artist’s
reliability of depicting satin fabric.
‘Realism’ as artistic thought what the last location to be tested in this chapter, and for this the
painting by De Hooch was used. As with the previous discussions, it was also difficult to apply
the ideas proposed by Smith to the actual work of art. When following Smith’s theories as
closely as possible, a chronotope of the artist himself could be seen in the painting by De Hooch
in various ways. Firstly, it was established that the painting was a counter-genre which
consisted of a genre scene, mythological scene and an architectural scene. A few years before
this painting was made, De Hooch had moved to Amsterdam from Delft. De Hooch must thus
have had many new impressions; of the city, the people, the houses and so forth. The time and
place would thus be between 1661 (when De Hooch moved to Amsterdam) and 1663 (when the
painting was finished) and the city would be Amsterdam. However, problems arose when
interpreting the ‘realism’ in this way; certain aspects of De Hooch’s painting appeared to be
motifs which had already been used in previous works. This makes one wonder about the
chronotope in these paintings and how truly time and place bound it is.
None of the four theories on the possible locations for ‘realism’ could be applied flawlessly to the
works chosen. Although one can imagine that it is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a
theory which describes all of Dutch seventeenth-century genre paintings, it is interesting that not
one theory can be fully applied to both the De Hooch and the Ter Borch painting. This shows
that theorising about where ‘realism’ might possibly be located in the painting and actually
looking for this ‘realism’ in the paintings, are two different disciplines. The theory might sound
solid whereas it is difficult to apply to the actual paintings. It seemed that when testing each
theory, they brought up more questions about ‘realism’ that are left unanswered.
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Chapter 4: Discussion and Conclusion
The final part of this paper will be both a discussion of that is written above as well as a
conclusion for this research. Even though the previous chapters already included a discussion
of the literature and theories proposed, this part will tie each of the topics raised together. A
critique will also be done on this research, and its limitations, fallbacks and difficulties will be
addressed. Also questions that have been raised in this research yet fell beyond its scope will
be discussed in the line of possible future research.
The research question that was examined in this research was; how have art historians in the
past twenty-five years explained the concept of ‘realism’ in relation to seventeenth-century
Dutch genre paintings? The focus has been on the location of ‘realism’ in relation to these
paintings and to answer this question, various different theories on what ‘realism’ in seventeenth
century painting is and where it is located in the paintings have been examined. The discussion
of ‘realism’ and these paintings has been questioned more and more in recent years. In the
times of De Jongh and Alpers, it was always taken for granted that there was a ‘realistic’ aspect
of these paintings, yet where exactly this characteristic might be seen or located was never
questioned. Each of the interpretations discussed in this paper, were all made in the last two
decades. The authors have been specifically chosen both because of their recent views as well
as for their different opinions. Ever since the New Art History approach has overshadowed the
iconological approach, questions about ‘realism’ have become more accepted and researched.
As the main trend in art history today still is to locate and unravel the ‘meaning’ of paintings, I
found it necessary to address the topic of ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century works of art. Many art
historians refer to this art as ‘realistic’ art and as a ‘mirror of everyday life’, but few of them
discuss where exactly this ‘realism’ can be seen, and fewer wonder if there is any ‘realism’ to be
seen at all. The first part thus focused on these recent theories by art historians De Vries,
Sluijter and Smith, each of whom had a different location of ‘realism’. De Vries was the only
author who did not focus on one specific location, but discussed various places of where
‘realism’ might be located. Sluijter and Smith, who talked about ‘realism’ in form and artistic
mode respectively, only discussed a single aspect of paintings, either within the actual painting
or not. During the course of the investigation, other sources were deemed helpful as well.
Although these were not the main focus of the research, each presented, in their own way,
another point of view or opinion relevant for this topic. The third chapter of this research
consisted of ‘testing’ these theories by applying them to the actual works of art. For this, two
53
specific genre paintings had been chosen; Gerard ter Borch’s Gallant Conversation and Pieter
de Hooch’s Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest. Even though the discussion of the
theories themselves already raised many questions, applying them to the actual paintings posed
various difficulties as well. Both the theories and the application of the theories to the paintings
will now be discussed and summarised according to the alleged location of ‘realism’.
‘Realism’ as subject matter
‘Realism’ as subject matter seemed to be one of the easiest locations to look for ‘realism’, yet
quite the opposite was true. The definition of genre includes the idea that the objects and
scenes depicted are taken from everyday life, which already implies that ‘realism’ is located in
the subject matter. In De Hooch’s painting several of these subject matters could be seen. The
act of putting away the linen is a domestic task performed by the women and a child is playing a
typical seventeenth-century game. The so called ‘toogkast’ was a fashionable piece of furniture
around the time the painting was made, and could thus also be called an everyday object. The
architecture to be seen in De Hooch’s painting, both the interior scene and the façade on the
other side of the canal, are of the Dutch Renaissance style, which can still be seen along the
Amsterdam canals today. The subject matters were thus taken from everyday life, as the
definition of genre suggests.
What strikes the viewer as ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century paintings is often a sense of
recognition of the subject matters depicted. When applying these ideas to the actual painting by
De Hooch, it was found that indeed the subject matter was highly familiar to the viewer. Not only
is the domestic setting familiar, also the domestic task the women are engaged in and a child
running around the house playing is highly recognisable to the viewer. The type of linen chest
and the game the child plays might not be familiar to the viewer, yet we still recognize that the
child is playing and that the ‘toogkast’ is a closet which holds linen. Considering the painting
was made centuries ago and viewers today still recognise the scene, we can only imagine how
the contemporary viewer must have felt. The scene is thus highly recognisable to the viewer,
which would mean that if ‘realism’ is truly located in the subject matter, and if this can be tested
by it the viewers sense of familiarity, this painting could be considered ‘realistic’.
But merely recognising the subject matter does not account for any ‘realism’ that might be seen
in the paintings per se. Here I believe this research goes more into depth where ‘realism’ is
concerned as previous art historians have taken the ‘realistic’ subject matters for granted and
believed that this was why these pictures looked real and were so appealing. It is true that
54
compared to works earlier than those by the masters of the seventeenth century mainly
classical and religious scenes were depicted, yet in my opinion this change in subject matter, or
rather the emergence of genres depicting everyday objects and scenes, is not what makes a
picture ‘realistic’. Needless to say it undoubtedly adds to the ‘realistic’ aspects in a painting, yet
does not form the sole location of ‘realism’.
Trying to measure the ‘realism of the subject matter by looking at how informative it is, the idea
proposed by Lopes, has brought up quite a number of issues as well. This also became
apparent when looking at the painting of De Hooch; it gives information about what type of
closet was fashionable at the time as well as the kind of clothing and architecture. However, as
had already been established in the first chapter, almost any painting can give information about
its subject matter and is therefore not a reliable way of examining the possible location for
‘realism’. Next to that, there were also aspects of the interior which seemed different from
reality; Fock mentions that the floor tiles especially were often painted to create a sense of
space in the painting, not necessarily because they could be seen in the actual canal houses of
Amsterdam. Also the spatial arrangement of the rooms in the houses was often altered by the
artist, to give the viewer ‘doorkijkjes’ through the house, thereby also enhancing the illusion of
space. On the one hand the painting thus informs the viewer about certain objects depicted, yet
other aspects of the painting have been adapted by the painter himself. Can we still call these
paintings ‘realistic’ as certain motifs do inform us, or do we label the entire painting as
‘unrealistic’ because of the painter’s adjustments?
The reliability of the painter is in this case an important concept to take into consideration; not
only related to the subject matter, but when thinking about the painting in its entirety. The
painter is a subjective intermediary transporting the appearance of an object, if it was even seen
in real life, onto the canvas. Making a painting is a creative process in which reality might be
modified to fit the aesthetic ideas of the artist. His intervening in the ‘copying’ of reality onto the
canvas is thus a crucial aspect in paintings and its ‘realism’. This idea has not been further
explored in this paper, yet is an interesting thought on its own and should be remembered when
looking at any work of art. In the case of De Hooch, we know that there are about eighty works
by his hand, and it is safe to assume that he might not have seen all the interiors he depicted in
reality, or at least not painted them all from life. The artistic process of making a picture thus
raised some crucial points when looking at Dutch art; can a fantastic scene, made up by the
artist, be considered realistic? One’s first reaction might be ‘no’, yet upon further scrutiny it can
be said that the artist´s first and foremost inspiration, at least in the seventeenth century, was
55
reality. In the example of De Hooch the painter must have seen the motifs he depicted at some
point in his life in order to depict them in the manner they did. These motifs can be seen
returning in various paintings in which the composition of the room is different, yet the objects
and certain architectural features the same. Such a scene might thus have easily been made up
in the head of the artist while using objects he had seen in reality. The subject matter of the
paintings is thus rich in possible locations for ‘realism’, yet each brings with it a set of questions,
problematising the idea of subject matter as the location for ‘realism’ even further.
‘Realism’ as style
Style as a location for ‘realism’ was also discussed extensively, yet mainly focussed on two
recent interpretations by De Vries and Sluijter. The main query concerning style related to the
fact that that there are many different styles to be recognised, depending on the artist, the
school he might belong to, his education and the subject matters he depicts. Style is thus a
changing concept within art history, and styles continued to develop and change over the
course of the seventeenth century. Therefore it is difficult to pinpoint one specific style as
‘realistic’, also because all other styles become excluded from being ‘realistic’.
De Vries, however, believes that there is a ‘realistic’ style to be discerned in Dutch art, which is
the picturesque style. He describes certain characteristics which a picturesque work might
possess, and from this it is clear he refers to domestic scenes, which makes one immediately
wonder if only Dutch genre scenes are ‘realistic’ and all other genres are not. Calling one single
style ‘realistic’ seems to be even more problematic than not naming any style as being ‘realistic’,
mainly because this implies all other styles in Dutch art are less ‘realistic’ or have to be
completely excluded from the ‘realistic’. This theory was applied to Ter Borch’s painting, and
especially the characteristics regarding the textures and light seemed applicable. De Hooch’s
painting also contained some of the characteristics, but other ones than the Ter Borch. It was
thus difficult to apply all the characteristics to a single painting, a problem which De Vries had
already pointed out. As not one painting contains all the characteristics, there are various
paintings which contain one or several of the points mentioned by De Vries. This is highly
problematic as there can be a large number of paintings that might thus fall under the ‘realistic’
category. There are many genre scenes in which the pictorial space is framed, yet they might
not possess any other features; do we then call these paintings ‘realistic’ too? The same is true
for all the other characteristics De Vries mentions. As De Vries put so much emphasis on the
56
rendering of fabrics, I concluded that Ter Borch’s type of painting would be deemed more
‘realistic’ than De Hooch’s according to De Vries’ argumentation.
As opposed to De Vries, Sluijter does not point out one style as being ‘realistic’, but discusses
styles in Dutch art in general, thereby not excluding one or the other. Sluijter took a different
approach to the relationship between style and ‘realism’ and argues that the style of painting
cannot be taken out of its context; we should look at style in relation to the function of the
painting and its content. Sluijter states that the style in Dutch art is ‘realistic’, yet was not meant
to merely copy reality. The contemporary viewers were intrigued by pictures that appeared to be
real, and the ‘realistic’ style augments the message that these paintings tried to convey. This
message was portrayed through the use of metaphors, which, in turn, would be depicted
through everyday objects as can be seen in the paintings. It was therefore crucial that the
viewer recognised the objects, and thereby remembered the connotations that came with these
objects. If the style was not ‘realistic’, the viewer might not recognise what was being depicted
and would therefore not understand its meaning. When applying Sluijter’s theory to De Hooch’s
painting, it was found that there are not many ‘everyday’ objects to which his theory could be
applied to, especially compared to the examples Sluijter proposes in his article (which are
paintings also used by the iconologists). This however, is more a concern relating to subject
matter and style. The main issue with this approach to find ‘realism’ in style is of course that not
each style is the same, and it seems unlikely that all the artists had the same function of the
painting in mind as Sluijter proposes. Seventeenth-century genre paintings have often been
labelled as ‘realistic’, yet this general label is now applied specifically to style by Sluijter. If we
were to call all genre paintings ‘realistic’, it would seem a more logical choice to explain this by
their subject matters. In the discussion on subject matter above, it was concluded that both
scenes by De Hooch and Ter Borch depicted ‘realistic’ subject matters to a certain extent. The
same might be said about genre paintings in general. When applying Sluijter’s theory to the
actual painting, it seems that no work truly confirms with his ideas and only raises more queries.
What is interesting in relation to both authors, is that there is more focus on discussing ‘realism’
as style then there is on ‘realism’ as subject matter. The authors discussed both focus on style
as the location for ‘realism’, whereas there has not been such literature for subject matter. This
again brings up the point that the subject matter might be the most obvious place to look for
‘realism’, and many art historians might have taken it for granted that it is here when the
‘realism’ can be found. Both De Vries and Sluijter have shown that there is much more to a
painting and that there are also other aspects where ‘realism’ can be found.
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‘Realism’ as technique
‘Realism’ in relation to technique was also discussed, yet it became obvious that not many art
historians have ventured around this topic (yet). This part has been included because of the
recent interest in technical aspects of paintings in relation to art history Investigating the
technical aspects of paintings has been done for many years and is a well established field, yet
it was not until recently that technique was used to answer art historical questions. I also
consider this to have been a drawback as there has not been much research done in the
relation of ‘realism’ and technique.
De Vries devoted part of his article to it, but the ideas proposed were still very much at an early
stage. De Vries did notice that the Dutch artists paid much attention to stofuitdrukking, which he
connects with the picturesque style. This observation can indeed be supported by what Wallert
found in the paintings by Ter Borch. The artists were aware of how satin dresses looked and
behaved in real life, and tried to emulate that in their paintings through the techniques and
materials they used. Ter Borch for example used pigments of ochre in the parts of the young
woman’s dress in Gallant Conversation in order to depict the reflected light coming from the
wooden floor correctly. This in turn encourages the idea that the artist used reality as a point of
departure and that direct observations from nature helped them create these images. Yet even
if reality was the example for Ter Borch, are the women in their beautiful satin dresses truly
scenes from everyday life? As was discussed in relation to subject matter, the entire genre of
genre painting is defined by its depiction of scenes taken from everyday life, yet how many
women in satin dresses would one encounter in their day-to-day life? Obviously, this depends
on the person and in what social circles they are a part of. Even if Ter Borch did not see the
entire scene as presented to us in the Gallant Conversation, he surely must have seen satin to
know its characteristics. Obviously this raises again the question of whether a fantastic
composition can be considered ‘realistic’ and to what extent these compositions are painted
from life at all; most images were created in the studio, and certainly not at a rich burgomaster’s
house while he is having a ‘Gallant Conversation’. Looking at the technique of the paintings,
another query also arises; how is Ter Borch’s depiction of satin more convincing than that of his
contemporaries, even the ones who also specialised in depicting satin? There are many
possible answers to this question, yet this is a path leading away from the ‘realism’ depicted in
these paintings.
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Another interesting observation in relation to the technique is that the satin dress has been
painted in a smooth manner. Even though there are various paint layers on top of one another,
the entire dress appears to be one smooth surface. Especially when comparing this to certain
parts of the back wall, where the ground and even the structure of the canvas shines through,
the dress is painted in a much finer and precise manner. Furthermore, no individual
brushstrokes can be identified in the dress, which indicated that Ter Borch might have wanted
painted himself out of the picture. The viewer would not see a dress created by paint on a
canvas, yet it would look like a dress as seen in a mirror.
Although no article has specifically focussed on the relationship between technique and
‘realism’, it still is an important aspect which this research has raised. Possible further
investigation into the studio practices by Ter Borch and others, as well as technical analysis of
the works, might bring us closer to an answer.
‘Realism’ as artistic thought
The last possible location for ‘realism’ was found in the artistic mode. This abstract idea proved
to be very different from the previous locations, and the ideas proposed by Smith were
sometimes complex and difficult to grasp. In my opinion this is mostly because of the newness
of Smith’s ideas and the fact that he was the first one to propose such an idea so elaborately.
His article was filled with terms that were both new to me as well as new in the field of art
history, making it difficult to precisely follow his ideas and make them my own. Smith had taken
ideas that were originally proposed by literary critics and applied these to Dutch art. Although
this obviously raises some questions, it can also be seen as an art historian trying to find new
ways around a too familiar subject. As far as I know, no one has ventured to look at the ‘artistic
mode’ for the location of ‘realism’, nor has this aspect of the painting been used to answer other
questions relating to seventeenth-century painting. Smith thus proposes a new way of looking,
with which many art historians, including myself, are unfamiliar. Questions that might arise from
his interpretation mostly derive from the lack of knowledge the reader might have. Smith
proposes the chronotope as an explanation of the ‘realism’ in these paintings. This literary
concept explains the correlation between time and space, and how each event is made up of
these two concepts and are therefore inherent in the chronotope. Time and space are two
abstract concepts which are difficult to relate to. The chronotope, according to Smith, is
expressed in counter-genres (a mixture of various genres in one) as the artist wanted to put into
his paintings what he saw in the world around him. As the already existing genres were not
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capable of holding all of the artists’ perceptions, these new genres emerged which had to take
up the ‘surplus’ of reality. Also this idea of ‘surplus’ of reality that the seventeenth century artist
encountered is difficult to grasp. When applying this theory to De Hooch’s painting, an image
emerges of the artist’s life and perceptions. De Hooch had just moved to Amsterdam when he
painted the picture, and what can be seen is a typical Amsterdam canal house. The painting
would thus depict De Hooch’s own ‘surpluses’ of reality. However, it was found that both the
‘toogkast’ and the statue Perseus were motifs used in a painting from the artist’s Delft period.
This complicated the idea that De Hooch depicted ‘realism’ in his painting through artistic
thought.
Even though the artistic mode of the artist as explained by Smith is rather complicated, the
general idea should not be discarded. The artist does play a crucial role in the painting process,
as was discussed before, as well as his ideas and thoughts. The painter therefore always puts
something of himself into his paintings, something that cannot necessarily be seen in the final
work. Perhaps the artistic mode is also related to other parts of the painting, such as style or
technique, yet further research must be done in order to visualise any of this. For now, I would
suggest to wait and see what other theories Smith and other art historians propose in the future.
Conclusion
Coming up with one concise conclusion for this research is an impossible task. Each of the
locations discussed for ‘realism’ (subject matter, style, technique and artistic mode), have valid
points for containing an aspect of ‘realism’, yet at the same time each of them also bring more
questions to the table. What has become apparent however is that all the elements of a
painting, as discussed in this research, are relevant to the interpretation of a painting. Each
seventeenth century work has a subject matter, painted in a certain style with a certain
technique, and we might assume that the artist also had a certain artistic thought. In a way, this
research has done what both De Vries and Sluijter warned their readers about; separating the
various aspects of a work of art and looking at them as individual entities. In previous decades,
art historians have been criticised for trying to find the meaning of Dutch art by only focussing
on one aspect of a painting rather than seeing the work in its entirety. In my opinion, the same
holds true for trying to locate ‘realism’ in these paintings. If an artist truly had the intention of
‘copying reality’, he would have chosen an object from everyday life, as well as try to portray it in
a style that would make the object seem ‘real’ to the viewer. The conclusion that follows is thus
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only based on the research that has been done so far, and I am certain that more research in all
the above mentioned topics will shed new light on the matter.
Over the years it seems that ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century works of art has always been
taken for granted, without actually questioning what this ‘realistic’ aspect may be and where it is
located. This type of art has for the longest time been dubbed ‘realistic’, yet the examination of
where this can actually be seen in the painting is a more recent development. Especially after
the iconological approach lost prominence, more art historians have delved into this topic. The
goal of this research was to discuss the possible locations of ‘realism’ according to recent
theories, and test them by applying these theories to the actual paintings. Subject matter, where
I believe previous art historians have unquestionably assumed ‘realism’ was located, was
discussed in relation to various ideas. The very word ‘genre’ already points in the direction of a
scene of everyday life and also the familiarisation of the viewer with the subject seemed to
conclude that this is a very rich location for ‘realism’. Both of these points withstood the test
when applying them to the painting by De Hooch. Style is a location which is highly debated
amongst art historians, and De Vries and Sluijter proposed divergent views. Yet neither of their
theories seemed to pass the test when applying them to the painting by Ter Borch and De
Hooch. Each painting has a different style, and pinpointing one as ‘realistic’ automatically
excludes the others. Technique was a location not very thoroughly examined by the authors
discussed, which made it a difficult theory to apply to the paintings. Here it became obvious that
dissecting the various parts of a painting does not necessarily make it easier to examine the
painting as a whole. Yet the ever advancing field of technical research of paintings is getting
more involved in art history, which I am expecting will lead to more investigations into ‘realism’
as located in technique in the future. The artistic mode seems to be the most recent venture to
look at for ‘realism’. This new theory has only recently been published and therefore seems
rather difficult to understand. The terms used by Smith have been borrowed from literature, yet
the ‘newness’ of his ideas should be praised. I am certain more of his ideas will be published in
the future, and I find myself lucky to have conducted this research so soon after Smith’s article
was published as it shows the ever ongoing search for ‘realism’ in seventeenth-century genre
paintings.
In all, I hope that this research has been able to shed some light on the current state of research
in ‘realism’ in Dutch art, and pointed out the different locations where art historians have
possibly found ‘realism’. Next to various locations, the different ideas on what this ‘realism’
exactly is, have also been compared and contrasted. As with any academic research, this paper
61
raised more questions than it set out to answer, and I am confident that in the future many other
art historians will venture to pinpoint where ‘realism’ is located in seventeenth century Dutch art,
be it in subject matter, style, technique or artistic mode, or perhaps a location that has not yet
been thought of.
62
Figures 126
Figure 1 Gerard ter Borch, Gallant Conversation, c. 1653-1655. Oil on canvas, 71x73 cm. Amsterdam:
Rijksmuseum.
126
Copyrights of all pictures belong to their respective owners.
63
Figure 2 Pieter de Hooch, Interior with Women beside a Linen Chest, 1663. Oil on canvas, 70x75.5cm.
Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum.
Figure 3 Jan van der Heyden, Canal Scene in Amsterdam, c. 1670. Oil on panel, 48x58 cm. London: Apsley
House.
64
Figure 4 Nicolaes Maes, The Eavesdropper, 1657. Oil on canvas, 92.5x122 cm. Dordrecht: Dordrechts
Museum.
Figure 5 Gabriel Metsu, The Hunter’s Gift, 1660. Oil on canvas, 51x48 cm. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum.
65
Figure 6 Dirck van Baburen, The Procuress, 1622. Oil on canvas, 101.6x107.6 cm. Boston: Museum of Fine
Arts.
Figure 7 Gerard ter Borch, Parental Admonition, c.1654-1655. Oil on canvas, 70x60 cm. Berlin: Staatliche
Museen.
66
Figure 8 Studio copy of Gerard ter Borch, Parental Admonition, ?. Oil on oak panel, 37x49 cm. Baltimore:
Collection of Dr. And Mrs. Hans Goedicke.
Figure 9 Gerard ter Borch, A Singing Practice, c. 1655. Oil on canvas, 73.8x79.6 cm. Edinburgh: National
Gallery of Scotland.
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Figure 10 Gerard ter Borch, The Messenger, ?. Oil on canvas, 70x54 cm. St. Peterburg: The Hermitage.
Figure 11 Pieter de Hooch, Young Woman Drinking, 1658. Oil on canvas, 69x60 cm. Paris: Musée du Louvre.
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