Dutch Art in the 17th Century

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, 1632

Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768

The Scientific Revolution

• The development of Royal Societies in the 16th

century – the sharing of knowledge, public demonstrations (Rembrandt, Thomas Wright)

• The move away from Ptolemaic astronomy and a heliocentric view of the universe

• Understanding Nature from Observation, not from authoritative texts or governing bodies

• The Idea that Human Reason can provide for the betterment of human life on earth (as opposed to Faith and Ceremony)

• The profound questioning of authority in any guise

The Modern magician

Blind Love

Questioning Gesture

Candle for Light and Skull

Fascinated Observer

Birdcage – if it lives (or dies)

Moonlight and the Enlightenment (reference to the Lunar Society)

2 sisters, torn between curiosity and distress

The Philosopher

The Bird in a glass Bowl which is about to be sealed and air pumped out

The Experiment With An Air Pump

Our Invitation

Giordano Bruno

• 1548 – 1600

• Burned alive by the Inquisition in Rome

• There is neither limit nor center to the universe – everything depends on the relative point of observation.

• Suggested the vast number of other worlds and universes

Michel de Montaigne

• 1522-1592

• Virulent critic of medieval Scholasticism• “I aim here only at revealing myself, who will

perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me. I have no authority to be believed, nor do I want it, feeling myself too ill-instructed to instruct others.”

• Intellectual detachment is necessary to understanding.

• Proponent of diversity in nature and man, and the need for tolerance.

Rene Descartes

• 1596 – 1650

• Determined to find a unified system of nature based on mathematics

• The first step is to wipe away all earlier and accepted authority

• Believe only in that which can be proved through observation

• Cogito ergo sum

Thomas Hobbes

• 1588-1679

• Pre-social state of man is a life that is “nasty, brutish and short”

• We enter into a social contract based on mutual self-interest

• Sovereignty gains its authority through psychological reasons, not theological

• We are limited in our knowledge of the external world by our interpretations of the stimuli we receive

• Author of Leviathan

John Locke

• 1632-1704

• Concentrated on the faculty of knowledge, or how we come to know what we know -epistemology

• Insisted on natural morality of pre-social man

• Ruling bodies that offend against natural morality must be deposed

• We are born with the tabula rosa

The Principia

• Isaac newton (1642-1727)

• Offered irrefutable proof – mathematical proof – that Nature had order and meaning that was not based on Faith but on human Reason

• The notion of progress in the human mind toward an ultimate end

• If definable laws can be discerned to govern Nature, they can be discerned to govern men and society

• The notion that bodies at a distance are governed in their motion by a specific force that can be measured (gravity).

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Characteristics of Dutch Art:

• No church or aristocracy to commission paintings

• Art has a bourgeois character

• Paintings used to cover bare walls, give pleasure to the eye

• Cheerful subjects, unpleasant ones are given a humorous slant

• Artists worked on the open market, not for patrons: specialization according to subject matter

• Small paintings for small homes

• Subjects were easily understandable, some allegorical representations, no religious ecstasies and few pagan myths

Jacob van RuisdaelPieter de Hooch

Jan Steen

Willem Heda

Pieter Saenredam

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem from the Dunes at Overveen

• Flat horizon of the Netherlands: sky takes up ¾ of painting

• Sullen clouds, dramatically painted

• Receding spaces through dark and light passages

• Bleaching linen manufactured in Holland

• Long strips of treated cloth were spread out to bleach in the fields

• Openness and height, very distant and elevated point-of-view

Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching

Grounds, c 1665

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Jan Steen, The Feast of Saint Nicholas

• Genre painting

• Saint Nicholas has visited the children with various results

• A girl grabs her doll as her mother pleads to look at it, or perhaps asks her to share

• Boy at left is crying over his disappointed gift

• Chaos in search for gifts

• Man on right points out to small child how Saint Nicholas descended the chimney

• Ten figures in a complex arrangement

• Complicated series of diagonals unify figures that seem to bend this way and that in reflection of one another

• Adult meaning to this children’s scene

Jan Steen, 1663

Willem Claez Heda, 1648

Frans Hals, Archers of Saint Hadrian

• Responsible citizen mentality among the Dutch

• No static arrangements; no interaction

• Strong horizontal emphasis with vertical spears punctuating the composition

• Left group around dominant figure of Col. Johan Claez. Loo, his cane indicates his authority

• Right group is a separate unit: Lt. Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot holds a book (minutes of meeting?)

• Back to back groups

• Distinct individuality of figures

• Dynamically grouped with strong diagonals of composition

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Common Motifs in Vermeer’s Paintings

• Checkerboard floor

• Horizontal beam ceiling

• Light from the left

• Heavy drapery and/or map

• Figures seen from the back or side

• Figures occupied in daily pursuit

• Sensitivity to light

• Back wall is always flat against picture plane

Vermeer, The Letter

• Light filtering from a unseen window at left

• We look in, they are unaware

• Figures framed by portal and a curtain

• Smile on servant, surprised look on the woman

• Woman is well-dressed, holding a lute

• A lute was a symbol of serenading, hence of love

• Is a love letter being brought?

• Sense of quiet expectation

Vermeer, Allegory on the Art of Painting

• Painter’s costume, chandelier and maps out of date

• Woman is Clio, Muse of History

• Laurel and garland, holds a trumpet of fame in her right hand

• Map frames “history”

• Nostalgia for bygone days of Catholic rule over Holland and Catholic patronage of artists

• Artist in his studio (Vermeer?)

• Looking in on figures who seem unaware

• Quiet and stillness

• Touches of light flicker across the map, revealing the pulled edges

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Rembrandt, Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp

• First great commission

• Dutch law: open cadavers of executed criminals only, allowed for entertainment purposes like this

• Specific anatomy lesson in January 1632

• Lessons took 4-5 days, Descartes may have attended this one

• Dr. Tulp is singled out seated in a chair of honor

• He wears a broad rimmed hat: academic badge of chairman

• His hands (alone) are prominently shown

• Cadaver’s body compared to the book at right

• Caravaggesque background

• Figures stare out into space

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Rembrandt, The Night Watch

• 18 men portrayed in the commission, represented according to how much they paid, but 29 figures in total, 2 figures cut off when the painting was cut down at left

• Civic guard group getting ready for a march, makes for a lively composition

• Captain Frans Banning Cocq holds a baton in right hand and wears a red sash, wears a gorget of steel barely visible under his white collar

• Captain gestures as if to speak

• Orders given to his lieutenant to march forward

• Central figures come forward

• Use of musket shown: musketeer in red is charging his musket by transferring powder into the muzzle from one of the wooden cartridges attached to his bandolier

• Figure behind Cocq is firing musket

• Third figure behind lieutenant is clearing the pan by blowing off the powder that remained there after the shot

• Deep chiaroscuro

• Liveliness of figures, psychological penetration

The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642

Dutch Painters of the Baroque

Rembrandt, Self-Portrait

• Probed states of human soul

• Changing lights and darks suggest changing of human mood

• Self-satisfied artist at the height of his career

Oath of Claudius Civilis

Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait

• Smile: she greets us casually, as does the fiddler

• Self-assured, charming, sociable

• Meets the viewer’s gaze, as if to speak to us

• Signed her paintings with her initials and a star, punning meaning of her name “leading star”

• Well-dressed while painting

• Quick sure brushstrokes