Stories in Gilded Frames
Dutch seventeenth-century paintings with
biblical and mythological subjects
Lyckle de Vries
Amsterdam University Press
The publication of this book is made possible by a grant from the Prins Bernhard
Cultuurfonds.
Cover illustration: Pieter Lastman, Orestes and Pylades, 1614, panel, 83 x 126 cm.
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
Cover design: Suzan Beijer, Amersfoort
Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout
Amsterdam University Press English-language titles are distributed in the US and
Canada by the University of Chicago Press.
isbn
nur
978 94 6298 147 8
654
© Lyckle de Vries / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2016
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no
part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner
and the author of the book.
Every efffort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations
reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this
material is advised to contact the publisher.
For Eva Boom
An object is frequently not seen,
from not knowing how to see it …
I will instruct you how to see it.*
* John Herschel, as quoted by Charles Babbage in:
The Decline of Science in England, 1830, 210.
See: R. Holmes, The Age of Wonder, Londen (Harper
Press), 2008, 477, 504.
Table of contents
Preface
11
1. Introduction
What, how and why?
13
13
2. Large-scale paintings: How it began
The international standard
Maerten de Vos
Otto van Veen
Peter Paul Rubens
Recognising classicism
Dutch rebellion
Hendrick Goltzius
Karel van Mander
Cornelis Cornelisz.
Abraham Bloemaert
Joachim Wtewael
A diffferent scale
Recognising mannerism
19
19
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
25
27
28
29
30
3. Small-scale paintings: How it began
Collectibles from Italy and Antwerp
Hans Rottenhammer
Adam Elsheimer
Jan Brueghel I and Hendrick van Balen
The others
Dutch cabinet paintings: Lastman
Mythology
The passion
Style cut to measure
A borderline case
Landscape or background?
Honselaersdijck
Cornelis van Poelenburgh
Abraham Bloemaert
Promising young men
Lastman and Rembrandt
Rembrandt and Lievens
More light
A diffferent style
33
33
34
34
35
36
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
44
45
47
48
49
4. Large-scale paintings: Back to normal
An international style in Holland
Cornelis Cornelisz.
Hendrick Goltzius
Abraham Bloemaert
In the periphery of the court
Gerard van Honthorst
Pieter de Grebber
Salomon de Braij
Art for merchant kings
Jacob Backer
Jacob van Loo
51
51
51
52
54
56
56
58
59
60
61
63
5. Large-scale paintings: Baroque attempts
Rubens’ religious and political propaganda
Rubens’ altar pieces
Poetry and propaganda
Light and dark and drama
Gerard van Honthorst in Rome
Gerard van Honthorst in Utrecht
Dirck van Baburen
Hendrick ter Brugghen
Rembrandt’s theatre of horrors
Abraham and Isaac
Samson
Tobias
65
65
66
68
69
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
6. Small-scale paintings: Beyond baroque
Rembrandt in the 1640s
Rembrandt’s classicism
Rembrandt, Lastman and someone else
Three pupils
Govaert Flinck
Ferdinand Bol
Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
Some more pupils and followers
79
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
7. Monumental canvasses for public buildings
Huis ten Bosch Palace
The triumphal procession
Birth, education and mission of the prince
The drapers’ hall of Leiden
Abraham van den Tempel
89
89
91
93
94
95
The assembly hall of the States of Holland
Adriaen Hanneman
Amsterdam’s new town hall
The offfijices
The gallery
96
96
97
98
101
8. Large-scale paintings: The second half of the century
Specialists and others
Nicolaes Berchem
Jan de Braij
Karel Dujardin
Adriaen Backer
Jan van Noordt
Gerard de Lairesse
103
103
104
104
106
107
107
108
9. Large-scale paintings: New possibilities
Monumental art for the private home
Ferdinand Bol
Gerard de Lairesse
Augustinus Terwesten
War and peace, justice and politics
Holland’s freedom endangered
The Hof van Holland
111
111
112
113
114
114
116
118
10. Small-scale paintings: The last quarter of the century
Between history and genre painting
Caspar Netscher
Godfried Schalcken
Adriaen van der Werfff
121
121
122
122
124
11. Exceptions
Four outsiders
Rembrandt
Arent de Gelder
Jan Steen
Nicolaes Berchem
127
127
127
130
131
133
12. Addition and subtraction
Left out
The end?
The canon
135
135
136
138
13. The actors
Patrons and their wishes
The churches
The national and provincial authorities
The towns
Paintings in the private home
The choice of subject matter
Artists and their choices
Four kinds of stories
High and low
The all-round master
Emotions
Size and scale
Art historians and their problems
Decline and ‘decline’
A longer or a shorter Golden Age
Rediscovery
New perspectives
Style and styles
141
141
141
143
144
145
147
149
149
150
151
152
153
154
154
156
157
158
159
Notes
161
List of illustrations
Colour illustrations
Comparative illustrations
Illustrations (by name of artists)
Illustrations (by subject)
165
165
171
172
174
Illustration credits
177
Bibliography
179
Index (artists’ names)
183
Preface
Fifty years ago this book could not have been
written. Many of the paintings it illustrates
were hidden in museum storage rooms, others were hanging in the home of little-known
private collectors. When they were auctioned
they did not receive much attention, and rarely
fetched record prices. Much has changed since
then. Hendrick Goltzius, Pieter Lastman,
Hendrick ter Brugghen, Jan de Braij, Caesar
van Everdingen, Gerard de Lairesse among
others were incorporated in the canon of Dutch
seventeenth-century painting. Many of them
were represented in important expositions and
some were honoured with a one-man show.
Their panels and canvasses with biblical and
mythological scenes are highly appreciated, no
less than the landscapes, still lives and genre
scenes of their contemporaries.
Paintings with biblical and mythological
subjects are mostly called history paintings,
but they do not illustrate events from the
Anglo-Dutch wars. In this context, the old
word history means story, tale. History painters
were storytellers with paint and brushes. One
of them may have turned a biblical story into
a horrifying drama. Another may have found
a charming idyll in a mythological fairy tale.
Both categories offfer examples of erotic entanglements. In the analysis of the one hundred
paintings reproduced the focus is on the way
in which painters told their stories. The reader
is invited to rethink the choices an artist made
during the creative process.
Many museum visitors feel uneasy about not
having enough background information. Sometimes, they introduce their questions with,
I’m afraid I don’t know much about art but … .
Generally, such modesty is contradicted by
the sharp-witted observations they precede. It
might be better to say, I am not very experienced
in looking at art but … . This book tries to help
the reader train his eyes by proposing simple
questions such as: how did the painter put his
composition together? What did he do to make
his story more convincing?
This is a book about paintings, not painters.
Their private lives, opinions and emotions will
not be touched upon. But paintings that are
typical for their oeuvre will be amply discussed.
Rembrandt’s bankruptcy will be passed in
silence, but the development of his oeuvre will
be expounded with characteristic examples.
The list of illustrations was the fijirst part of
this book to be completed. When it was fijinalized the text was added to explain what had
be to explained. This approach resembles the
making of an anthology of poems or short stories. A selection like this cannot be complete.
The writer acted as a one-man commission,
deciding by ballot on admission or rejection.
Given this decision, the diffferences in importance had to be made clear. The fact that more
paintings by Rembrandt were chosen than of
any other artist will amaze nobody.
Not every name mentioned in this book
sounds familiar. Although presently narrative
paintings are highly valued, the museum audience at large has not yet fully discovered the
charms and qualities of this specialism in art.
Until now, there was no book presenting the
most important masters of history painting in a
coherent survey. This coherence is found in the
diffferent styles applied by groups of artists and
in the way these changed in the course of time.
The work of a painter was not completely determined by the style of the group to which he
belongs, but he was never entirely free of it. In
between these extremes the painter developed
12
his personal idiom and his individual qualities.
Looking for and fijinding such marks of quality
enhances one’s enjoyment of art, I believe.
Never forget that all these paintings were made
to be enjoyed.
Footnotes are not the best expedient to stimulate the enjoyment of art. I tried to limit their
number as far as possible. They primarily refer
to the sources of my ideas and opinions. As a
result, many recent publications of great importance remain unmentioned, while a number
STORIES IN GILDED FRAMES
of half-forgotten titles are highlighted. Friends
and colleagues made valuable suggestions in
their letters, e-mails and conversations. It is impossible to mention them all but I gladly make
an exception for (in alphabetical order): the late
Anton Boschloo, Charles Dumas, Margriet van
Eikema Hommes, Edward Grasman, Richard
Harmanni, Milko den Leeuw, Eric Jan Sluijter
and Pieter Vis. I am very grateful for their help.
Illustrations 87-89, S would have been lacking if
John Stoel and Marco Sweering had not generously made their photos available.
1.
Introduction
What, how and why?
To the best of my knowledge, there is no agreement yet on the question of what art is and,
consequently, we do not know what an artist
is. Let us assume that professional artists do
or make something, trying to reach the best
possible result. The concepts of art and quality
are closely linked, both being undefijined and
indefijinable. It is not easy to determine what
an artist of some centuries ago was trying to
do and how he hoped to create the highest
possible quality. Given that we are unable to
interrogate Rembrandt and Jan Steen about
their intentions, we must limit ourselves to
questions about what those painters did and
how they did it.
In another book I attempted to peep behind
the scenes of the Dutch genre painters of the
seventeenth century, hoping to fijind an answer
to the questions what they did, how they did
it, and why.1 Now it is the turn of the history
painters, the artists who applied themselves
to the depiction of mythological, historical
and biblical stories. This answers the question
about the ‘what’ for the time being. In our
time, the translation of stories into images
is the work of theatre directors, fijilm makers
and the creators of comic books. Some three,
four centuries ago a painter could only make
motionless images, even if he tried to suggest
some form of movement. This is closer to the
trade of a draughtsman making comic books
than to the performing arts or the fijilm. Series
of paintings telling one continuous story were
not common in The Netherlands; this book
discusses fijive of them {18-19, 44, 74, 85, 88-89}.
As a rule, the painter made a comic book with
just one image. This presupposes a spectator
who is familiar with the illustrated story, or at
least with the genre to which it belongs. And it
requires an artist who knows how to bring the
quintessence of a story to life when there is no
room for digressions.
Three hundred and fij ifty years ago there
were no museums. Paintings hung in public
buildings or private homes. Most of the people
who had a chance to inspect them were familiar with the narrative chapters of the bible and
would recognise the depicted scenes. Presently
this is not always the case and therefore I will
explain briefly which story goes with which
picture, trying to show how the two relate. In
many cases the painters did not stick to the
letter of their text. When they were about to
set up a new work, they did not start by reading
but by consulting their collection of prints. This
taught them how their contemporaries and
famous predecessors had solved the problem
at hand. Consequently, they continued the
pictorial tradition, as it is called, which made it
easier for the audience to understand what they
were looking at. After all, all Towers of Babel
and all Noah’s Arks more or less look the same.
Very often the pictorial tradition was stronger
than the urge to illustrate a venerated text.
And sometimes there was a practical reason
to diverge from the text, for instance when the
illustrated story takes place at two diffferent
locations {67-68} or when something invisible
plays a role {8, 54}.
Latin is taught at a dwindling number of
schools and presently mythological stories
are even less known than biblical ones. In the
seventeenth century only a small minority
could read Latin, but this was no problem for
the artists or their patrons. Most narrative
scenes discussed in this book were taken from
14
Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This widely read book
was available in a number of Dutch translations. The best known stories were illustrated
in numerous prints with explanatory captions.
It is not always certain that a painter had read
more than these six or eight lines of verse. Tales
from other literary sources {13, 38, 93} and
stories about the history of the Netherlands
{74, 96} were less frequently illustrated, and
therefore the average seventeenth-century
spectator may have had to ask for some explanation. Sometimes the subject of a painting
can only be understood in the context of the
place for which is was made, a court of justice
for instance {88-89}.
Even the most thrilling story loses its fascination when told by a dull person. In history
painting presentation is at least as important as
content. Body language is of great importance
to the painter of narrative scenes, no less than
to the theatre or fijilm maker. With attitudes,
gestures and facial expressions the artist had to
make understood what his fijigures were doing
and how they reacted to each other; here, much
depends on the suggestion of movement. Figures in the paintings in this book are climbing
{7}; walking stealthily {22, 23}; dancing {17, 18};
beating an animal {19, 20}; falling down {53};
and frequently, they are flying {8, 10, 20, 44, 5052, 54, 68, 72, 79, 87, 100}. Arrows are whizzing
through the air {88} and objects are falling to
the ground {50, 51}. The movement of a fijigure in
a painting or drawing only makes a convincing
impression if it gets enough room. On the flat
surface of a canvas or panel, space is suggested
mostly with the help of colour and light. The
‘what’ of telling stories in paint, therefore, is
closely linked with the ‘how’ of the master’s
style and the quality of his work.
As a schoolboy of some ten years old I visited
the Panorama Mesdag in The Hague; it must
have been my fij irst museum visit and I was
so impressed that, for a moment, I thought I
STORIES IN GILDED FRAMES
saw smoke rising slowly from the chimneys.
Because seventeenth-century painters were
aware that such a delusion is rare, and mostly
only happens to the uninitiated, they addressed
the spectator in two diffferent ways. Some artists tried to intensify the suggestion of movement as much as possible, concentrating the
spectator’s attention on one dramatic turningpoint in the story. In a split second something
seems to be happening that the viewer cannot
shake himself loose from. Hopefully, he will
forget for a moment that he is not looking at
reality. Rembrandt did something like this in
two horrifying scenes, Abraham sacrifijicing
Isaac {51} and his Blinding of Samson {53}. This
approach goes together with great attention
for strong facial expressions, something that
these paintings have in common with certain
kinds of cartoons.
Artists knew that this approach was not
without the risk of failure, choosing therefore
a diffferent strategy: underacting as opposed
to overacting. Feelings can be subtly suggested
instead of being acted out in a theatrical way.
In Rembrandt’s David and Jonathan {55}, David
bursts into tears at a moment when his face is
hidden from the spectator. It is a moving image
all the same because the spectator is stimulated
to identify with the story, and to continue the
narration in his mind where the painter left offf.
This restrained style of storytelling frees the
painter from the obligation of concentrating
on a single moment of fate. He may even fijind
a way to suggest the passing of time. In Rembrandt’s Denial of Saint Peter {97} the apostle
is accosted by a maid servant while a second
person is about to interrogate him, and a third
one’s curiosity is piqued. Having assured each
of them in turn that he did not know Jesus, the
Lord will look him in the face and Peter will
realise what he has done. That moment has not
yet come but the steps towards this turning
point can be counted already.
INTRODUC TION
An artist’s choice for the fijirst or the second
strategy, or something in between, is an aspect
of his style. The quality of his work depends
largely on his ability to tell stories convincingly.
Style and quality are the central issues of this
book, but how should they be judged? There is
no standard measuring rod. I have tried to act,
not as an art historian, but as an art critic writing a review of an exhibition of contemporary
art. This makes comparison my most important
tool. Luckily, I had assistance from the artists
themselves.
Most painters did not work on commission,
but rather for the fijiercely competitive open art
market. They constantly compared their own
work with the products of their colleagues,
certainly when these were more successful.
The ideas of plagiarism and copyright hardly
played a role, but emulation certainly did. An
artist was supposed to choose good examples
from the oeuvre of his contemporaries and
predecessors and not just imitate, but try to
surpass them. This concept of emulation adds
an element of contention to art production:
try to do the same as someone else, but do it
slightly better. All being well, this would result in a series of paintings that looked rather
similar, difffering however in quality: a better
colouring, a more refijined lighting, a stronger
composition, a more gripping narrative style,
etc. Rembrandt regularly used works by Pieter
Lastman as an example {19-20, 57-58}; Jacob
Backer found his examples with Rubens {38,
39, H, I}. The ultimate form of emulation occurs
when a painter tries to surpass his own earlier
work in an improved second version, as Van
Baburen {48, K} and Rembrandt did {50, 51}.
The critic who compares paintings, looking
for stylistic similarities and for diffferences in
quality, is doing what the same as the painters
themselves did all the time.
Of the three questions I posed, the one about
‘why’ is the most difffijicult. The major part of a
15
young painter’s vocational training consisted
of making copies of works by his master and
others. When at last he began his own studio
he would continue to use the subjects he had
grown familiar with, and his master’s style had
become second nature. What he produced had
to be easily saleable, a good reason not to make
anything shockingly new. Not every painting
resulted from a well-considered, highly personal decision. Biblical subjects were popular
in Holland in the seventeenth century, but less
so than landscapes and portraits. This predilection for the Bible was not, however, the result of
the painters and their audience being staunch
Calvinists. In fact, a sizeable minority of the
artists and their audience were Catholics, but
obviously Catholic paintings are relatively rare.
A painting with a clearly Calvinist message is
even less common. The main reasons for an
artist’s choice of subject matter were practical:
the speciality he had been trained in and the
general acceptability of his products on the art
market.
Seventeenth-century Holland should be
called Protestant or Christian, rather than
Calvinist, I believe. Religion was expressed
and organised in a hundred diffferent ways, but
there was a generally accepted ethics of daily
life that hardly ever formed a point of contention, the discussions among some learned
theologians aside. Erasmus, Spieghel, Coornhert and others had given the art of morality or
the art of living well a strong bias of humanism,
making human ratio an important touchstone.
The widely read poet Jacob Cats was their successor who popularised their ideas further.
The predominant culture of the period was
Catsian-bourgeois rather than Calvinistic. In
this context, paintings with religious subjects
were neither religious manifestos, nor appeals
for conversion. They referred to a generally
known corpus of stories applicable to a wide
range of situations. Rembrandt’s David and
16
Jonathan {55} speaks of God’s influence on the
course of history, but also of friendship. Lastman’s Expulsion of Hagar {16} tells the origins
of the Jewish people, but also about the loss
of a child. Poverty puts a heavy burden on the
marriage of an elderly couple, even in the case
of the pious Tobit and his wife Anna {21}. The
buyer of a painting was free to link the story
in the painting he had acquired with his own
situation: had his parents lived in poverty? Had
he experienced the loss of a child? Which friend
was dearest to him?
The above presupposes that ‘how’ and ‘why’
were closely linked in the minds of makers and
buyers of biblical paintings. The Word of God
is unconditionally true for a believer, but the
question of whether a story about poverty, loss
or friendship is convincing, depends largely on
the way it is being told. A collector of paintings
may have had a preference for certain subjects,
but if this had been the only criterion he might
as well buy cheap prints and have them framed.
He expected that his prize was an art work of
high quality, telling a story in a fascinating way.
Therefore, his criteria were: the distribution
of human fij igures over the imaginary space
behind the frame; their movements through
space; the body language indicating their
mutual relations through gestures and glances;
the suggestion of emotions in their faces; the
distribution of light and colour bringing out the
illustrated story; the composition keeping everything together and showing it to advantage.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
scholars and men of letters in Italy and France
worked hard to build a theory of the arts,
but it did not take root in the Low Countries
before 1700. Two of its criteria were adopted by
many Dutch artists all the same: decorum and
probability. With or without a basis in theory
these must have seemed to be very reasonable
demands. Every detail has to be in accordance
with the main subject. An inn keeper making
STORIES IN GILDED FRAMES
salacious remarks at the wedding of a biblical
couple was certainly an offfence against decorum {99}, but Jan Steen dared to make this kind
of joke. A king is not supposed to wear a commoner’s clothes, and a simple citizen wearing
an ermine coat also goes against the combined
rules of decorum and probability. In a biblical
scene, modern utensils such as a telescope are
out of place as they are improbable or even
impossible. Another rule was adopted from
the theory of writing poetry and drama; that
is, that the unity of time should be maintained.
This is an elegant way of asking once more for
probability. It may have been tempting for a
painter to enrich his story with scenes from
earlier or later chapters to make his work
more easily understood. After about 1610 the
combination of two diffferent moments in time
in a single frame was deemed unacceptable,
but, until then, Cornelisz. and his friends did
precisely this {4}.
These criteria also applied to paintings
made on commission. In these cases, too, the
painter would closely watch his competitors
and predecessors, but now it was the patron
who determined the choice of a subject and its
interpretation. This happened with or without
the painter’s involvement. The meaning of large
canvasses in public spaces is enhanced by the
room, the function and importance of which
they express {34, 63-74, 77, 88-89}. Form and
style of altars and other ecclesiastical works
of art are highly determined by their function,
which may limit the role of narration {1, 2, 30,
42, 43}. The same holds true for religious paintings in private homes, which played a role in
prayer and devotion {14, 15}.
Most collectors did not limit themselves
to narrative scenes such as history and genre
paintings. They bought townscapes and church
interiors; landscapes with mountains, forests
and rivers, with dunes and beaches, or meadows with horses and cattle; marines with men
INTRODUC TION
of war, trading vessels or fij ishing boats; and
still lives with flowers and shells, with food,
with everyday utensils or valuable curios,
etc. In the early seventeenth century these
collections were distributed over all available
walls, but in the course of time the owners of
distinguished houses would set a room apart
for their art collection, the so-called kabinet. It
emphasised the status of the owner’s collection
of prints, drawings, paintings, Roman coins and
statuettes. A visitor who was admitted to such
a room was confronted with a wide variety of
objects. A painter tasked with contributing to
such a cabinet knew that he had to live up to
the highest expectations.
Most collectors also seem to have opted for
a variety of styles. Style is not just the greatest
common divisor of the characteristics of all
painters in a group. In the eyes of a collector,
style was the way in which an artist managed
to bend that collective style his own way. A connoisseur did not just buy a Samson {22, 23}, but a
Lievens or a Rembrandt with a subject he liked;
he did not buy a mannerist, but a Bloemaert
{6}. I hope that the reader of this book will not
17
base his judgement solely on the question of
whether or not the illustrated stories fascinate
him. Ultimately, each work of art must be
judged by the standards the maker set himself.
For some, beauty was the highest goal {31, 39};
for others, the demonstration of inventiveness
and virtuosity {6, 7}; others still focussed on the
expression of vehement emotions {48, 53}. This
choice is of importance for the way in which
a painter presents his stories. Carefully constructed beauty cannot always be combined
with the expression of fij ierce emotions that
require wild gestures and contorted faces. Not
every painting has as strong an afffijinity with
comic books as Rembrandt’s Blinding of Samson
{53}, but stories told in a diffferent tone may be
no less thrilling, gripping, moving or amusing
{13, 16, 32, 55, 56, 76}. Not all painters presented
in this book have the same renown as Johannes
Vermeer or Frans Hals. I hope this will make
reading it and inspecting its illustrations a voyage of discovery. When the reader continues his
exploration in the museum I will have reached
my goal.