From Court to Republic in Northern Europe Flashcards
Describe the Dutch Identity
-Urban Society
(60% city-dwellers)
-Economic Powerhouse
(traders and bankers)
-Moral Community
(believed that they were ‘appointed by God’)
Three types of painting used to depict Dutch identity
-Landscape
(harmony and anxiety - peaceful landscape,rough maritime)
-Still life
(Wealth, abundance and vanitas - Earthly impermanence)
-Portraits
(Family, Children, Civic groups, Awareness of individual)
Qualities of Genre Painting?
-instill moral virtue
- elevate the everyday
- Cleanliness = clean character
Vermeer characteristics
-Genre scenes
- Sillness
- Ambiguity (dispenses narrative)
- subtle use of palette with some bright clocks
- psychological insight (idea of intruding on intimate scene)
Landscape
-Aelbert Cuyp, The Large Dort, 1650
- Landscape symbolises harmony and success of nation
- cows (wealth), windmills (economic powerhouse, women pouring milk, watched by child, Church of Dordrecht, light through clouds: appointed by God
-Backhuysen, Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast, 1667
- Represents national anxiety and hope
- Light - God will save them
Avercamp, Ice Scene, 1608
- Diverse and inclusive society: young and old, wealthy and poor
- Sharing hardships of cold
- Balace: work and leisure
NB. 17C sever winters
NB. Avercamp death and dumb, yet flourished
Jan Davidz. de Heem, Still Life with Parrots, late 1640s
- exoticism and luxury - earthy impermamence
- Parrots (exotic - international trade) abundance of food - will rot, Lobsters (instability) oysters (sexual excess)
- Manmade objects - man’s achievements: goblets, drapes
-Mytens, The Family of Willem van den Kerckhoven, 1655
- (leading statesman)
- embodies fertile and harmonious marriage
- Father centre, gesture to son (heir), mother coordinating dress
- grapes and flowers - fertility
- cherubs - commemorate dead children
- horse and slave in background - wealth
- harmonious facilities = harmonious republic
-Frans Hals, Charlotte Hooft with her Nurse,
-New generation to continue legacy of new nation
Child is a visual trophy: represent parents’ success
- Nurse enforces child’s status
- Visual contrasts: simple vs. detail, old vs. young
- sitters gazing outDefinition
Frans Hals characteristics
Bold brushstrokes
-Informal poses, direct gaze, gesture with confidence, express mood and character
Rembrandt
- embodies civic duty and care
- scene of action: stress active duties over ceremonial function
- flashes of light and dark, detail, movement
About Rembrandt
-Protestant
- Personal beliefs pervade his work (and -sense of artist)
- Body not idealized like Renaissance
- Viewers sympathises – psychological depth
- Timelessness
- Wife features heavily in his art
- History paintings
van der Helst, Banquet of the Amsterdam Crossbowmen’s Guild in Celebration of the Peace of Munster, 1648
- civic militia - protect and keep ordered nation
- symbolic of peace: handshake, passing horn
- Hierarchy - more central, more importance
- 25 painted individuals - static quality - no real interaction
-Jan Steen, as the Old Sing so Pipe the Young, 1665-8
- Parents’ actions will influence children
- Family united in baptismal feast
- Parrots - symbol of mimicry
- Mother laid-back, open bodice, getting another glass
- Father letting son try pipe and laughing
- Son playing the pipe (alluding to title)
-Jan Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, 1662-3.
- Balance - earthly vs. religious contemplation
- jewels - symbolic of earthly luxuries
- domestic sphere
History Painting
-Bible, history, myth – education required (for symbols and histories) -Employed to articulate identity and success, divine purpose behind nation’s destiny
-Rembrandt, The Descent from the Cross , 1633
- Same and Rubens: Christ’s body illuminate others
- Different: no dignity, Christ in agony, approachable drama – mourners more human and individualised
- Rubens (1612) - heightened emotion, all holding christs body
Dutch Legacy: foreign influence
- Tradition of English landscape – thanks to Dutch
- French transform still life: provoke thought not virtue - Concentrate on essence of thing rather than symbolic meaning
- Goya - Characterisation and psychological truth
What were the three ‘space’ depicted in Dutch society?
-Institutional: Religious and Civic (town hall)
- Communal: Markets, squares, streets
- Domestic: Courtyards (cleanliness )
- NB. Women involvement
Gerard Houckgeest, Ambulatory of the New Church in Delft, c.1651
- political-religious meaning: tomb of William the Orange (reminder of fight for independence)
- work of perspective mastery
Jan van der Heyden, Amsterdam City View, c.1670.
-Clean, architecture maintained and water fresh and still
Gerrit Berckheyde, Dam Square in Amsterdam, 1668.
- symbol of international trade - market next to harbour (trade), first currency exchange bank
- town hall - virtuous govt, civic duty and charity
- communal space (women, men children)
an Steen, A Burgher of Delft and his Daughter, 1655.
- picture of prosperity and social duty
- daughter - dress = symbol of world vanity
- Burgher contemplation whether to grant charity to poor deserving mother and child
- Old Church of Delft in background
Gabriel Metsu, The Vegetable Market, c.1675. - Painting of market on canal provide more accurate view of urban life and lesson on Dutch identity -chaos - hustle and bustle
- Merchant and customer haggling
- The focus of veg reflect national pride
Pieter de Hooch, Courtyard of a House in Delft, 1658.
- Order of this is threatened by outside forces and nature
- Mistress has back to us contemplating – looking onto window of other house another haven of public life
Nicolaes Maes, The Eavesdropper, 1657
- Dinner party, maid seduced by guest (immoral conduct –private interactions, public implications)
- Eavesdropper mediates public and private spheres, positioned at centre - Looking at us, viewers invited in
- Spheres represented by street through door
Pieter de Hooch, A Mother’s Duty, c.1658-60.
- Mother de-lousing child (common 17C activity)
- Children clean – citizens of the nation
- Tranquillity and house cleaning: Gleaming floors
- Outer sunlight
