Bosch Bruegel Rubens Rembrandt
Masterpieces of the Albertina
14 March to 30 June 2013
The graphics collection of the Albertina possesses a world class stock of Dutch drawings, the scope
and quality of which make it possible to present the Dutch art of drawing in all its thematic,
technical and stylistic diversity. A top-class selection of 150 works, including larger groups of works
by Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Maarten van Heemskerck, Hendrick Goltzius,
Rembrandt, Anton van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens will be presented in a comprehensive exhibit in
the spring of 2013.
Bosch, Bruegel, Rubens and Rembrandt are the names of four artistic personalities who impressively
demonstrate what a wealth of exceptional talent the Netherlands was able to produce over
centuries. This phenomenon is inseparably linked with the rise of a strip of land that was already
characterised by an unrivalled golden age of economy, science and culture in the late Middle Ages
as part of the Duchy of Burgundy. When, following the death of Charles the Bold in 1477, the
Burgundian heartland fell to France and the "low countries" became a Hapsburg satellite state, this
in fact brought about a stabilisation of the entirely favourable economic situation for this northern
region. Even the declared disengagement of the by now Protestant north from the south, which
remained true to the old faith, in 1580 was unable to slow down this rise in fortunes in either of the
two territories. Although under the rule of governors of the Spanish Hapsburgs, the southern
provinces, with the financial centre of Antwerp, were able to assert their status as a commercial
centre of European calibre; the bourgeois-governed "Republic of the Seven United Netherlands",
with its capital of Amsterdam, was a global trading nation for nearly a century, until the increasing
rivalry between the Netherlands and England was decided in favour of the First British Empire.
This development was of the utmost importance for the fine arts. The Early Netherlandish painting
of northern Burgundy, represented by Jan van Eyck or Rogier van der Weyden, had already
stimulated generations of artists throughout Europe. While their era was still characterised by a
strong sense of uniformity, Dutch art in the 16th century offers an entirely diverse appearance. The
dialogue with antiquity and the Italian High Renaissance had been providing artistic impulses since
the decades immediately following 1500. Thus, a series of local schools was established, each with
their own stylistic tendencies and specialisation in particular themes and tasks, for example, the
"Antwerp Mannerists", who concentrated on high quality ecclesiastical export items, making them
competitive through the use of Italian elements. In addition to religious art, which, especially in the
northern provinces, due to the Reformation and the Iconoclasm, was increasingly being placed in
question, secular pictorial themes also developed. Landscape and genre art found their beginnings
in the puzzling allegories of Hieronymus Bosch, reached a first pinnacle with Pieter Bruegel the
Elder and ultimately dominated the rest of the century.
The development in the individual provinces progressed more or less uniformly until the end of the
16th century. However, with division into the Calvinist north and the Catholic south, the differences
in Dutch and Flemish art became increasingly apparent. In the aristocratically governed south, a
new field of activity opened up with the pictorial culture of the Counterreformation, especially in
the area of large format altarpieces. Flemish art of the Baroque period was soon dominated by Peter
Paul Rubens, who would ultimately become the artistic authority in all of Europe. There, the demand
for history painting, with its biblical, mythological and allegorical subjects, which were traditionally
assigned the highest rank in the scale of themes, was highest. In contrast, secular art reached its
zenith in the Protestant, bourgeois north. The pictorial world that developed there was completely
unspectacular and most of its themes had previously been considered "unworthy of being painted".
When one reads inventories from the time of Rembrandt, one encounters subjects like "een
boerekermis" (country fair), "een blompotje" (small flower vase) or "een kind in de kackstoel" (a child
on the "crap" chair). It appears as if the wealthy merchants, citizens and patricians of the rich north
wished to see their way of life and their very own themes and problems, in short, themselves,
immortalised. Genre paintings, sea pieces, landscapes, still life, interiors and portraits thus provide
insight into the daily life of the bourgeoisie.
The broad diversification of the painting genres and themes also extended to technical practice.
Besides painting, drawing also played an increasingly autonomous role. The uncomplicated use of
paper and quill or pencil made it possible for the artist to capture quickly passing moments of
inspiration, to process details until a perfect result was achieved or to draft minutely elaborate
patterns. Due to the large number of techniques, functions and application areas, the works put to
paper convey a much more differentiated image than painting. A large number of artists succeeded
in both areas, and often in printed graphics as well. Rembrandt is the most prominent example of
this. In contrast, some famous artists, Frans Hals or Jan Vermeer, for example, produced no or hardly
any works on paper of note; on the other hand, a prominent list of exceptional talents can be
compiled, including Roelant Roghman, Jan de Bisschop or Anthonie Waterloo, who were exclusively
or primarily active as draughtsmen.
The Albertina possesses one of the world's most important collections of Netherlandish freehand
drawings of the period extending from 1450 to 1650. The era of the "Flemish Primitives" is
represented by individual, exceptional works from the circle around Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus or
Dirk Bouts, until the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder mark an initial high
point of the select collection. The rest of the 16th century is represented with master drawings from
Gossaert, Heemskerck or Goltzius. However, the focus of the collection is on Holland's "Golden"
17th century, with important works from Rembrandt and his school. The southern Netherlands,
dominated by the house of Hapsburg, are represented by the most famous Flemish masters of their
time: Peter Paul Rubens, Anton van Dyck and Jacob Jordaens.
The exhibit and the catalogue show the extent to which the broad thematic spectrum of Dutch art
of the 17th century, including landscapes, sea pieces, topographical views, portraits, rural genre
scenes, still life, is still firmly rooted in the achievements of previous centuries. For more than two
centuries, looking back at this important artistic tradition provided the inspiration for new artistic
pinnacles.