eckles prize 2013: 22 reflection essay my essay, “hierarchy,...

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Eckles Prize 2013: 22 Reflection Essay My essay, “Hierarchy, Home, and Homeland: The Dutch Golden Age in Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape,” began as a research assignment that I was both intimidated and unexcited by. However, the challenge it posed encouraged me to think creatively to find a way to do research that interested me and that could contribute something new to art history scholarship. As I delved into my research, I was able to discover how to approach my assigned topic in a way that would inspire my thinking. Through this project, I learned how to organize pages of research into a clearly structured paper and how to incorporate many images and examples into a logical progression. One of the most important aspects of research that I learned through this project and will incorporate into future research is the step of making the topic my own. The theme of group portraiture was assigned to me, but I found that the research I did concerning Dutch Civic Guard portraiture, which dominates the genre, did not excite me. By focusing on a family portrait instead, I discovered that Family Group in a Landscape, a formerly minor painting, was crucial to our understanding of the genre. At first, my research on this painting was very broad because I was unsure of my direction. I knew that I wanted to explore the use of gesture in portraying gender roles, but I also knew that I would not be able to properly discuss the work without addressing the black boy. Thus, I had to examine race relations as well. It came as an “Aha!” moment when I realized that my paper should surround this one painting and address many topics rather than focus on either gender or race, as that narrow view was stopping my research from becoming focused. However, it also would have been incomplete if I were to focus on group portraiture but neglect the topic of Civic Guard portraiture. In Eckles Prize 2013: 22 1

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Page 1: Eckles Prize 2013: 22 Reflection Essay My essay, “Hierarchy, …library.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/eckles/Eckles Prize... · 2014-04-10 · Eckles Prize 2013: 22 . Reflection Essay

Eckles Prize 2013: 22 Reflection Essay

My essay, “Hierarchy, Home, and Homeland: The Dutch Golden Age in Frans Hals’s

Family Group in a Landscape,” began as a research assignment that I was both intimidated and

unexcited by. However, the challenge it posed encouraged me to think creatively to find a way to

do research that interested me and that could contribute something new to art history scholarship.

As I delved into my research, I was able to discover how to approach my assigned topic in a way

that would inspire my thinking. Through this project, I learned how to organize pages of research

into a clearly structured paper and how to incorporate many images and examples into a logical

progression.

One of the most important aspects of research that I learned through this project and will

incorporate into future research is the step of making the topic my own. The theme of group

portraiture was assigned to me, but I found that the research I did concerning Dutch Civic Guard

portraiture, which dominates the genre, did not excite me. By focusing on a family portrait

instead, I discovered that Family Group in a Landscape, a formerly minor painting, was crucial

to our understanding of the genre. At first, my research on this painting was very broad because I

was unsure of my direction. I knew that I wanted to explore the use of gesture in portraying

gender roles, but I also knew that I would not be able to properly discuss the work without

addressing the black boy. Thus, I had to examine race relations as well.

It came as an “Aha!” moment when I realized that my paper should surround this one

painting and address many topics rather than focus on either gender or race, as that narrow view

was stopping my research from becoming focused. However, it also would have been incomplete

if I were to focus on group portraiture but neglect the topic of Civic Guard portraiture. In

Eckles Prize 2013: 22 1

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figuring out how to incorporate the subgenre, my main argument blossomed. Because my

research on Family Group in a Landscape revealed information that seemed very different from

what one usually hears about group portraiture, I was able to bring my early research about Civic

Guard portraiture into the discussion in a way that genuinely interested me, and I could make a

contribution to the field.

In terms of the research itself, I was very overwhelmed in the beginning when my

research questions were unspecific. I felt like I had to read entire books and the notes I was

taking were relatively useless because they had no focus. When I made the decision to split my

paper into sections, the research became much more manageable because I was able to

concentrate on one objective at a time instead of feeling like I had to do everything at once. It

also made my time researching more manageable, since I could switch from one topic to another

when I felt like I was slowing down or hitting a dead end for one section of research. One

prominent success I experienced in my research came about by going on to jstor and searching

the topics of every one of my sections, rewording my search as many times as possible. I believe

I found at least three crucial sources during that session of research.

Finally, the system I used to take and organize notes is definitely another research

method that I will take with me for future projects. I found that I was extremely successful in

organizing my ideas and keeping track of page numbers and sources through a color-coded list

system. Because I am an art history major, I also know I will try to create some kind of

presentation before writing future papers, even if I do not have one due, as I did in this case. By

organizing the images first, I was able to figure out a logical order for them and discern what was

important to say about each one. Writing in a presentation format allowed me to organize my

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thoughts in a more colloquial manner before transforming them into the language appropriate for

an essay.

In all, this research project was extremely influential in my growth as a writer and a

scholar. I learned how to take a seemingly uninspiring topic and make it my own and how to

transform what interests me into a unique contribution to the field of art history. Furthermore, I

was able to experiment with my own note-taking system and to discover techniques for

organizing my thoughts. Through this learning process, I have created a research essay that

addresses a new topic in an already well-explored genre and thus contributes art history

scholarship.

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Research Paper

Hierarchy, Home, and Homeland: The Dutch Golden Age in Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape

Throughout the seventeenth century, portraiture was one of the most sought after genres

of painting in the Dutch Republic. The middle and upper classes of Dutch society commissioned

portraits for their ability to communicate specific perceptions of the subject’s wealth and status.

Commissioners of group portraits had these same motives in mind, using group portrayals to

define each subject by their role in relation to others’. This capacity for comparison is group

portraiture’s unique addition to the genre of portraiture, as it allowed carefully calculated

perceptions of the patrons to be created through the subjects’ interactions with each other, not

with the viewer alone. Group portraits were both products and active participants in the cultural

process that took place in Holland during the seventeenth century, and thus give us unique and

important insights into the complex cultural climate of the Dutch Golden Age.1

Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van

Ruytenburch, better known as the Night Watch (fig. 1), of 1642, is arguably the most famous

group portrait of the Netherlands of the seventeenth century. It has come to represent the essence

of the Dutch Golden Age, glowing with the splendor of the Civic Guard’s power and harmony.

The Night Watch, however, is not alone in the genre of militia portraiture. Two striking

depictions of The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, one by Govert Flinck dating to 1642 (fig.

2), the other by Bartholomeus van der Helst dating to 1655 (fig. 3), are now on view and long-

term loan at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These works summarize the intent

1 Ann Jensen Adams, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland: Portraiture and the Production of Community (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 24.

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of all militia portraits to “immortalize the civic pride” of these leaders, who were the face of the

Dutch Republic.2

As magnificent as such group portraits are, however, we resign ourselves to tunnel vision

when viewing them as the sole contributors to the genre of group portraiture. These works do

indeed give insight into important institutions of the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century,

but they cannot show us the full breadth and complexity of Dutch society at the time. For this,

we must look to lesser-known and lesser-celebrated group portraits, such as Frans Hals’s Family

Group in a Landscape (fig. 4), c. 1645–1648, to broaden our vision again.

At first glance, this work is a harmonious depiction of a quintessential upper- or upper-

middle-class family. The two middle figures, man and wife, mother and father, lock eyes

lovingly, their son greeting the viewer with twinkling eyes as if caught in a daydream, totally at

ease. The daughter gazes at her mother in admiration, separated from her by the family servant

who blends into the lush landscape behind them. To the right, the verdant scenery opens into a

dazzling vista, the pinks of the clouds complementing the warmth of the family’s faces and

spirits.

The Dutch of the seventeenth century prided themselves on the equality of their Republic.

Foreigners were often surprised by the freedom of women to socialize with men as they liked,3

and slavery was not legal.4 However, when examining works such as Frans Hals’s Family Group

in a Landscape more closely, many instances of hierarchy are revealed. This work brings great

insight into the family roles and race relations of the Netherlands of the seventeenth century, and

2 Henriette de Bruyn, Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2012). 3 Simon Schama, “Wives and Wantons: Versions of Womanhood in 17th Century Dutch Art,” Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, Women in Art (Apr., 1980), 6, accessed April 21, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360173. 4 Kate Lowe, “The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe,” in Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, ed. Joaneath Spicer (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2012), 26.

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can also be compared to Civic militia portraits of the time to allow a better understanding of the

hierarchies of broader Dutch society.

The Importance of Gesture

In order to fully comprehend group portraits of the time, we must start by understanding

the literature that was circulating and the cultural expectations of the elite classes, as these

informed the visual language artists employed. The value and discipline of manners and etiquette

grew as the hierarchy of Holland gradually strengthened.5 Etiquette books were in print as early

as the fourteenth century,6 though most were not translated into Dutch until about 1650.7 The

Dutch elite, however, had a reasonable command of languages and would have learned the rules

of courtoisie and civilité through such means as the Grand Tour, a trip that young men took to

France and Italy.8

Of course, the Dutch would have been most familiar with the manner books of Erasmus

(fig. 5), such as his extremely influential 1532 work, De civilitate morum puerilium. Erasmus,

like all etiquette authors, wrote on the importance of posture and prescribed certain ways of

holding oneself to members of the upper classes. He wrote that well-mannered people must stand

upright with a graceful and natural posture. They must not lean too far in any direction, as

leaning backward was a sign of conceit and leaning forward would appear ungainly.9

5 Herman Roodenburg, “On ‘Swelling’ the Hips and Crossing the Legs: Distinguishing Public and Private in Paintings and Prints from the Dutch Golden Age,” in The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Adele Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), 67. 6 Joaneath Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992), 88-95. 7 Herman Roodenburg, “The ‘Hand of Friendship’: Shaking Hands and Other Gestures in the Dutch Republic,” in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992), 154. 8 Roodenburg, “On ‘Swelling’ the Hips and Crossing the Legs,” 66. 9 Ibid., 65.

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By the end of the seventeenth century, artists had written painters’ manuals, or

schilderboeken, such as Gérard de Lairesse’s 1707 Groot Schilderboek. These works

incorporated the manners of the etiquette books into the language of the arts, as seen in one of de

Lairesse’s illustrations (fig. 6). In his drawing, the elite stand in contrapposto with clear

elegance, while the peasants stand on both feet with bent knees, illustrating both the arrogant

backward lean and the unattractive forward hunch Erasmus warned against. Karel van Mander,

who is known to have taught Frans Hals, authored schilderboeken of his own.10 He, too, stressed

the importance of gesture, though he did not only discuss its importance in signifying class and

status. Rather, van Mander included a discussion of gesture based on gender, emphasizing that

men must act like men, and women must act like women.11 It is important to remember that

artists were already incorporating this kind of visual language into their works in the time

between the publication of manner books and painters’ manuals.

It is also necessary to review the emblem books that were circulating at the same time as

such etiquette books and painters’ manuals. In Andrea Alciato’s Book of Emblems of 1531,

published at almost the exact date of Erasmus’s manner book, there are three emblems that will

be important to consider in viewing Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape. The Symbol of

Faithfulness (fig. 7), emblem on Harmony (fig. 8), and emblem On Wifely Fidelity (fig. 9), all

include figures that grasp each other’s hand. In the emblem On Wifely Fidelity, there is also a

dog pictured by the feet of the couple.

Jan van Eyck employed these emblems of grasping hands and loyal dogs nearly 100 years

before Alciato’s Book of Emblems was even published, in Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his

10 “Frans Hals,” Oxford Art Online, accessed April 17, 2013, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T036318pg1?q=frans+hals&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit. 11 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 85.

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Wife (fig. 10) of 1434. Thus, much like the Dutch comprehension of gesture before the

incorporation of etiquette books into painters’ manuals, these visual cues were engrained in the

people’s understanding of artwork before such emblems were officially published. These

emblems were long enduring, making an appearance in such works as Peter Paul Ruben’s The

Artist and His First Wife Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower (fig. 11), c. 1609–1610,

almost two centuries after van Eyck’s work.

Family Group in a Landscape: The Gesture of Gender

Considering the rules on etiquette, painters’ manuals, and emblem books of the day, we

can now perceive the messages of Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape as the Dutch at the

time would have understood it. The two middle figures, man and wife, greet each other with

great poise, grasping right hands in the well-recognized gesture of marriage and fidelity. They

lock eyes in a moment of mutual understanding, each accepting the role they play in their

relationship as man and wife, mother and father. Though their gaze may suggest a sense of

equality—perhaps that they look to each other for agreement and approval—the man’s role as

the authority is made clear through their physical positioning, which, considering the prominence

of etiquette books at the time, is quite telling.

While the woman must look up to reach her husband’s gaze, the man looks down at her.

His left hand sits atop his hip in a bold declaration of self-possession, his foot extending far in

front of his wife. Thus, he is in a position of control, as she is only able to move forward at his

approval. Furthermore, the man stands to the woman’s right (our left), which was common in

marriage portraiture of the seventeenth century.12 The couple’s positioning also indicates the

husband’s higher status, as the etiquette books of the time taught that one must always stand

12 Ibid., 112.

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behind and to the left of someone of a higher rank.13 This power dynamic illustrates the couple’s

virtues as man and woman: The husband embodies steadfast leadership, while his wife maintains

the virtuous obedience needed to compensate for her status as a “morally weaker” sex.14

The couple’s two children would have learned gender-specific manners, as discussed by

van Mander, from their same-gendered parent, and thus are placed accordingly—son with father,

daughter with mother. The son, following his father’s pose, places his hand on his hip in a

motion of confidence and pride commonly seen in men and boys in family portraits. He, like his

father, stands in the necessary contrapposto prescribed to their elite status. The boy stares out at

us, bridging the gap between our world and theirs, while his sister gazes at her mother for

inspiration, perhaps imagining the role she herself will fulfill as a wife and mother in the future.

The daughter holds a fan and wears gloves, both common symbols of high class and

marriage, and thus may be engaged. Her engagement could explain the placement of the dog that

peeks out from behind her, since the dog symbolizing fidelity was usually seen by the feet of the

couple, as we saw in Alciato’s emblem On Wifely Fidelity and in van Eyck’s Portrait of

Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife. Here, however, it represents both the fidelity of the couple we

see and of the future marriage the daughter will enjoy. Thus, this portrait fulfills its duty in

portraying an admirable image of its subjects. All considered, we see a husband, wife, son, and

daughter, who each fulfill their proper position and role in the family structure, illustrated clearly

through their interactions with each other on the canvas.

Clearly, this patriarchal family system was not unique to the family portrayed by Frans

Hals. In Juriaen Jacobsz’s Michiel de Ruyter and his Family (fig. 12) of 1662, the hierarchical

nature of the family is revealed and portrayed yet again. Michiel de Ruyter commissioned this

13 Roodenburg, “The ‘Hand of Friendship,’” 166. 14 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 100-110.

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portrait to serve as a reminder to his family of his position as father and leader, since he was

gone at sea for most of their lives.15 Thus, even in his absence, Ruyter’s family portrait serves to

declare him the patriarch of a family of proper-mannered and elegant men and women.

Because men were in a position of such dominance in the family, they would have been

the ones commissioning the works, as seen in the case of Michiel de Ruyter and his Family of

1662. Therefore, men had the power to dictate the image of women in such portraits.16 Women

were thought to need male guidance and leadership because they were believed to be impulsive,

prone to excess, and likely to overindulge due to their vulnerability to temptation.17 Naturally,

then, one of the only paintings in which a woman denies a man’s proposition, suggesting her

independence and denial of male dominance and supervision, was painted by Judith Leyster in

her 1631 work, The Proposition (or, Man Offering Money to a Young Woman) (Fig. 13).18

Family Group in a Landscape: The Reality of Race

Returning to examine Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape, we see one more

important indication of hierarchical values. The family’s black servant stands between the

mother and daughter, blending into the landscape as if part of another realm. His brown clothes

contrast with the black dress the family wears as a declaration of their wealth, as black clothing

was expensive and thus viewed as a status symbol.19 This boy is not displayed as another subject

in the portrait, but rather as an object indicating the family’s richness. It is interesting to note that

personal slavery did not exist in Holland, though this of course does not mean that hierarchies

15 Adams, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland, 42. 16 Simon Schama, “Wives and Wantons,” 5. 17 Benjamin B. Roberts, Sex and Drugs before Rock ’n’ Roll: Youth Culture and Masculinity during Holland’s Golden Age (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 81. 18 Schama, “Wives and Wantans,” 5. 19 Joanna Woodall, “Sovereign Bodies: The Reality of Status in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Portraiture,” in Portraiture: Facing the subject, ed. Joanna Woodall (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997), 91.

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and prejudices were not extant. In fact, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, masters brought

their African “slaves” into the Netherlands and surrounding countries and continued to treat them

as such.20

Here we return once again to Andrea Alciato’s Book of Emblems of 1531. The emblem

called The Impossible (fig. 14), otherwise titled The Impossible Task, gives a sense of the Dutch

attitudes toward race at the time. The message that was paired with the image said, “Why do you

wash, in vain, the Ethiopian? Give up. No one can light up the darkness of black night.” In later

editions, a line was added, “Vices that are natural to the man, whether physical or spiritual,

cannot be eradicated.”21 Thus, the black man is used as a symbol of the depravities of mankind,

the blackness of his skin representing both physical and spiritual evils. The image itself portrays

the Ethiopian as a thing to be manhandled, and his lack of resistance could suggest he is a slave.

Images of blacks in portraiture were commonly used as foils for the whiteness of their

masters or mistresses, as in Anthony van Dyck’s portraits Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Cattaneo

(fig. 15) of 1623 and Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page (fig. 16) of 1634. In the

first, it is clear that the black boy is not in control of his own body, but rather must force himself

forward to keep up with his giant, poised mistress. Like the black boy in Family Group in a

Landscape, he is not seen as a subject; rather, he becomes part of the parasol itself, his sole

purpose to serve the white woman and thus magnify her grandeur by comparison. In the second

portrait, the massive white Princess Henrietta holds back her black servant. Her hand serves to

control his movement much like the husband’s leg is used to control his wife in Family Group in

a Landscape. Furthermore, the black servant cranes his neck to gaze up at his mistress, waiting

for his next command in an exaggerated version of the wife’s upward gaze toward her husband.

20 Lowe, “The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe,” 26. 21 Joaneath Spicer, “European Perceptions of Blackness as Reflected in the Visual Arts,” in Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, ed. Joaneath Spicer (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2012), 43–44.

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Hence, by considering van Dyck’s portraits alongside Family Group in a Landscape, another

important indication of hierarchy is raised. While women were lesser than men within the realm

of whiteness, gender became irrelevant once the racial boundaries were crossed.

Aelbert Cuyp’s A Page with Two Horses (fig. 17), c.1655–60, offers a seemingly

different view of a black servant, though it in fact speaks to the same hierarchical values. Though

his master is seen to the side wearing high-class black-colored clothing, the black page takes

center stage, a clear deviation from the portraits of van Dyck. At the time, if a slave or servant

lived with an artisan, he would have lived in part of the artisan’s house and eaten the food given

to him. Servants of noble people, in return, would have been housed, dressed, and fed quite well,

as we see here.22 Moreover, this page is standing in the contrapposto stance indicative of elite

society, suggesting his training in the rules of etiquette. He, however, would not have learned

such manners because his status demanded it of him, but instead would have learned them so he

could properly serve his elite master without offending him. Therefore, this painting once again

displays a black servant not as a subject, but as an object signifying the wealth of his master.

Home and Homeland

Once more, we will be returning to Family Group in a Landscape. During the Dutch

Golden Age, there were many ideas circulating that the family was a microcosm of the state, the

foundation upon which society rested.23 In many genre paintings, such as Johannes Vermeer’s

Officer and Laughing Girl (fig. 18), c. 1657, a map of Holland is placed on the wall to signify

the interconnectedness of family matters and the state.24 Here, the man sits with his back to us,

his arm akimbo in a stance that exudes masculinity as he courts the laughing woman. A map can

22 Lowe, “The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe,” 20. 23 Woodall, “Sovereign Bodies,” 86. 24 Schama, “Wives and Wantans,” 8.

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also be found on the back wall of Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Couple (fig. 19) of 1633, which

even more explicitly brings the realm of married life into the world of the Republic.

Although we resign ourselves to a narrow view of Dutch society of the seventeenth

century when viewing militia portraiture alone, it deepens our understanding of the complexities

of the Republic to view such renderings in light of works like Family Group in a Landscape.

Because family was seen as the microcosm of the state, it is logical to assume that the

prominence of hierarchy that is revealed through family portraiture would be reflected in the

depictions of those who represent the state itself. Thus, we must look beyond the seeming

equality and splendor that portraits of Civic Guards are meant to portray.

In comparing family portraiture to that of the Civic Guard of the time, we must first

identify the visual cues that span both subgenres. The use of emblematic detail to indicate the

character of a group is one part of the visual language of group portraiture that infiltrates both

family and militia portraits. Looking again to The Governors of the Klovenierdoelen (fig.2), by

Govert Flinck, we are met with four well-dressed, serious looking men in the midst of a meeting.

The Dutch at the time, however, would have recognized the ceremonial drinking horn and the

gleaming golden claw, the emblem of the Harquebusiers,25 and thus would have recognized

these men as important leaders.

Like these emblems, the men displayed here represent the civility of the entire

Harquebusiers’ company, though they only embody one faction. While the colonels and captains

oversaw the military functions of the company, the governors were responsible for the

Harquebusiers’ headquarters.26 Showing such men seated around their meeting table was typical

25 De Bruyn, Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam. 26 Ibid.

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by the middle of the seventeenth century27 and was one way of visually declaring authority by

indicating the seriousness of their work. Like the fathers who commissioned family portraits to

assert their abilities as patriarchs, these men used group portraiture to assert their ability to lead

the state.

In Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard (fig. 20), of 1616, Frans Hals

uses gesture to display the splendor and prominence that the Civic Guards wished to portray. In

this portrait, the arm akimbo is employed on the three men closest to the picture plane, radiating

the strength and self-assurance that the Dutch would have wanted to see in their Civic Guards as

much as they did in their male family members. However, these men’s elbows jut out toward the

viewer, declaring a power more vital than that which we see in the boy and father of Family

Group in a Landscape. This magnified depiction of the pose is appropriate to the understanding

of the family as a microcosm of the state: As those representing the state itself, the Civic Guards

had to portray an authority many times as potent as that which we see in singular patriarchs.

Although these two portraits, The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen and Banquet of the

Officers of the St George Civic Guard, first appear to project harmony and equality among the

men displayed, they, too, are permeated with the hierarchies of Dutch society of the seventeenth

century. While anyone could be drafted to the ranks of the ordinary militia, the captains,

lieutenants, ensigns, and sergeants came from the ranks of the political elite.28 Higher-ups like

the governors of The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen often married within the family to retain

such influence.29 In this image, only the governors of the company are portrayed, claiming the

power to represent the entire division. This was normal for Civic Guard portraiture of the time, in

27 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 106. 28 Paul Knevel, “Armed Citizens: The Representation of the Civic Militias in the Seventeenth Century,” in The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Adele Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), 86–88. 29 De Bruyn, Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam.

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which only these highly placed and affluent members of the company were depicted.30

Furthermore, the captain, lieutenant, and standard-bearer of the company are almost always

represented clearly in militia portraiture,31 while the ordinary ranks, made up of the middle class,

were never shown. Even in portraits in which the Civic Guard is seated around a communal

table, seen in both The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen and Banquet of the Officers of the St

George Civic Guard, the man who turns in his chair to address the viewer is meant to represent

the role of the second- and third-ranking officers.32

Though this illustration of rank is perhaps to be expected, these portraits also present an

issue of hierarchy that is subtler than that which we see in family portraiture. In works like

Family Group in a Landscape and Michiel de Ruyter and his Family, the patriarch commissioned

the work in order to portray each family member completely, fulfilling his or her role within the

accepted family structure and gender roles. In Civic Guard portraiture, however, each subject

paid separately according to his placement within the work.33 The captain, lieutenant, and ensign

would have paid the most to have the most prominent position in the piece, while the other

members of the portrait would have been placed according to competitive payment and rank.

Consequently, the seemingly harmonious depiction of the company was infiltrated with

hierarchical tension based on the economic situation of each subject.34 Not only were

hierarchical values employed in deciding who would be portrayed in such grand portraiture, but

they also came into play in creating the compositions of such works.

30 Wolfgang Kemp, Introduction to The Group Portraiture of Holland, by Alois Riegl, trans. Evelyn M. Kain and David Britt (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999), 29. 31 Ibid., 27. 32 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 106. 33 Harry Berger, Jr., Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ and Other Dutch Group Portraits (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 49. 34 Ibid., 51.

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Hidden Hierarchies

While these Civic Guard portraits continue to claim center stage as radiant

representations of the glorious Golden Age, family portrayals are a crucial component to the

genre of group portraiture and, unfortunately, are too often overlooked. They alone have the

capacity to reveal the gender and racial inequalities that are impossible to show in group

depictions of powerful white men. By exploring such family portraits as Frans Hals’s Family

Group in a Landscape, we are able to understand the extreme extent to which such hierarchies

permeated Dutch society, and thus open ourselves to look past the façade of harmony in Civic

Guard portraiture.

When museums like the National Gallery of Art exhibit militia portraits alone in the

genre of group portraiture, it is easy to be fooled by the paintings’ superficial displays.

Consequently, we come to admire works like The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen as

illustrations of the supposed equality and splendor of the Dutch Golden Age. However, when we

are given the opportunity to view group portraits like Family Group in a Landscape, which show

inequality more clearly through the subjects’ gestures and positioning, we are encouraged to

recognize inequality in the entire genre. By comparing the differences in family depictions and

militia portrayals, such as who is commissioning and paying for the work, we are better able to

tune into subtle hierarchies, like tensions of economic status, which Civic Guard portraits try to

conceal.

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Figure 1 Rembrandt van Rijn The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, known as the Night Watch, 1642 Oil on canvas 379.5 x 453.5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Figure 2 Govert Flinck The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1642 Oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam On loan from the City of Amsterdam

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Figure 3 Bartholomeus van der Helst The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1655 Oil on canvas Amsterdam Museum

Figure 4 Frans Hals Family Group in a Landscape, c.1645–1648 Oil on canvas. 202 x 285 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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Figure 6 Figure 7 Gérard de Lairesse Andrea Alciato Groot Schilderboek, 1707. Book of Emblems: Symbol of Faithfulness, 1531

Figure 5 Hans Holbein the Younger Erasmus, 1523 Oil on wood 73.6 x 51.4 cm The National Gallery, London On loan from Longford Castle collection

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Figure 8 Figures 9 Andrea Alciato Andrea Alciato Book of Emblems: Harmony, 1531 Book of Emblems: On Wifely Fidelity, 1531

Figure 10 Jan van Eyck Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, 1434 Oil on oak 82.2 x 60 cm The National Gallery, London

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Figure 12 Juriaen Jacobsz Michiel de Ruyter and his Family, 1662 Oil on Canvas 269 x 406 x 5.5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Figure 11 Peter Paul Rubens The Artist and His First Wife Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower, 1609–1610 Oil on canvas 178 cm × 136.5 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich

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Figure 13 Judith Leyster The Proposition (or, Man Offering Money to a Young Woman), 1631 Oil on panel 30.9 x 24.2 cm Royal Picture Gallery, Mauritshuis, The Hague

Figure 14 Andrea Alciato Book of Emblems: The Impossible, 1531

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Figure 15 Anthony van Dyck Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Cattaneo, 1623 Oil on canvas 242.9 x 138.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Figure 16 Anthony van Dyck Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page, 1634 Oil on canvas 214 x 129 cm Kenwood House, English Heritage

Figure 17 Aelbert Cuyp A Page with Two Horses, c.1655–1660 Oil on canvas 143.2 x 228.1 cm Royal Collection © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

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Figure 20 Frans Hals Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard, 1616 Oil on canvas 175 x 324 cm Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

Figure 18 Johannes Vermeer Officer and Laughing Girl, c. 1657 Oil on canvas (lined) 50.5 x 46 cm The Frick Collection, New York

Figure 19 Rembrandt van Rijn Portrait of a Couple, 1633 Oil on canvas 132 x 109 cm Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

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