AH4157 Reading Flashcards
Mariet Westermann
In luxury beware
Mix of classes-girl in the middle
Dozing woman- head of household, can tell by her clothes
Pig runs off w the tap
Throwing roses before the swine
Proverb on blackboard
Poverty and disease over their head-crutches, lepers rattle, switches
Monkey stopped the clock
Painting = luxury
Disharmony, no family would choose to be painted like that
Eugene Fromentin
Dutch art ‘could not be anything but the portrait of Holland, its external image, faithful, exact, complete, life-like, without any adornment’
Alpers
Descriptive- ‘visual experience of D art’
Shouldn’t apply way of examining Italian art to Dutch art, should consider it in its cultural context
‘Pictures document or represent behaviour. They are descriptive rather than prescriptive’
Michelangelo
Dutch art fails because it tries to do too many things
W. Franits
intro
Dutch social classes determined by behaviour as well as income
flourishing economy and waves of immigration, esp. Flemish, all absorbed into art
Panofsky
symbolism in art, example of religious art
romanesque art- link between old art new and gothic art - christianity
light from the right = divine light
Mary bigger than she should be in proportion to the architecture
symbolism signifies that the painting’s an illusion
Honig
Metsu’s ‘Bird-Seller’ - wants us to read the painting both ways
market place and the city were bound together, interesting that it was dominated by women
market women depicted as much more virtuous than they would have been- concerns about women and their status in the market place
extension of the home, women could go because they were fulfilling their material rather than sexual desires
Eric J Sluijter
nothing about need for deeper meaning/ didacticism in D texts
should bear limitations of iconology in mind
Peter Hecht
works of art have a life of their own
meant art to be amusing and instructive
W. Franits
schools
Leiden- university and textile town, Dou- niche paintings (trompe l’oiel and paragone), van Mieris, v technical way of painting, intellectual, academic
Haarem- wanted a more sophisticated kind of genre paintings, picked subjects that appealed to elite tastes
Delft- former capital but failing economy, interest in perspective- Vermeer, de Hooch, Fabritius
B. Haack
Utrecht- influence of Italy and the Caravaggisti, many went to Rome
Liana di Girolami Cheney
Aphrodite/ Venus- oyster shell- sexual connotations, aphrodisiac
symbol of vanitas
1658 Dutch conquered Portuguese pearl fisheries
Eddy de Jongh
Some Notes on Interpretation.
debate over the importance of the iconological approach
concept of ‘specificity’- are gestures unusual?
meaning of artworks can change depending on what we project onto them
morality and pseudo-morality (tongue in cheek)
Eddy de Jongh
Realism and Seeming Realism in C17th Dutch Painting
seeming realism= realised abstraction
Cats recommended subject matter should be veiled
notions of love and death v imp in Dutch C17th iconology
oysters = love, bubble blower = mock endeavours of human vanity
Steen = innuendo
representations of the five sense shrouded in realism, makes them harder to uncover
watches = symbols of moderation
A McNeil Kettering
ter Borch painted didactic allegories and about how women should be viewed, were they really the Petrachan ideal?
Parental Admonition- brothel scene or title?
satin-v expensive to own and to paint
modelled on his sister Gesina
C W Fock
mix country, town and public buildings, not that any of it didn’t exist, just didn’t exist in the same place
pre1680s, no rugs on the floor
also no marble/tile except in the hallway/ kitchen- too cold
chandeliers=status symbol
curtains weren’t split into two until later in the period
Peter Hecht
The Paragone Debate
1650s- Dou made niche paintings
importance of Zeuxis and Parrahsius
Emmens
Dou = ‘true or classical culture’
S. Alpers
Picturing Dutch Culture
age of observation- prevalence of maps
V. simply let women be which was daring for the time
artists, like women, were trapped in the studio
P Steadman
The Camera Obscura
early invention
moving image
van Hoogstraten could have passed it on to Vermeer
C. Donnellan
blurring of lines between science and art
v realistic- uncanny
L. Vergara
Women, letters and artistic beauty
epistolary scene- same woman in Young Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window, Officer and Laughing Girl and Woman in Blue
maps and backgrounds give clues as to the contents of the letters
E de Jongh
Pearls of Virtue and pearls of vice
several different meanings for pearls, can be positive or negative
positive- emblem of faith (Alleg of Faith)
image of heaven
symbol of Christ
symbol of virginity/ purity
pearls of the Gospel
symbol of marriage
negative- symbol of vanity
worn by whore of Babylon in the Bible
proverb- cast pearls before the swine (give blessing to those who won’t use it)
J. M. Montias
Vermeer’s Clients and Patrons
relatively small list of clients
patron = Pieter van Ruijven- lent 200 guilders to V and his wife bequeathed money to V in her will, v unusual, money normally only left to family.
works then passed down to his daughter Magdalena and to her husband Jacob Dissius
after Dissius’ death, the works were auctioned in the 1696 Dissius auction in Amsterdam and sold for varying prices
