GRAINDELAVOIX Antwerp World Premieres Anno 1600
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
with new CD GRAINDELAVOIX Antwerp World Premieres anno 1600 Divine Interiors Experience churches in the age of Rubens Edited by Claire Baisier Divine Interiors Divine Interiors Experience churches in the age of Rubens Edited by Claire Baisier With contributions by Claire Baisier, Maarten Bassens, Christina Currie, Thomas Fusenig, Ursula Härting, Ulrich Heinen, Jan Nicolaisen, Björn Schmelzer, Joost Vander Auwera and Bernard Vermet Museum Mayer van den Bergh Contents 6 Foreword 8 Introduction Essays 12 Stylistic development in paintings of Antwerp church interiors around 1600 Thomas Fusenig and Ulrich Heinen 22 Catholic life in the churches of Antwerp Ursula Härting 38 Singers in a church: implications of voice, sound and movement in post-iconoclastic interiors by Van Steenwijck, Grimmer and Neeffs Björn Schmelzer Catalogue 59 Architectural painting in Antwerp 103 Architectural painting in the Northern Netherlands Portrayals of Antwerp’s churches 124 The Cathedral of Our Lady (Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekathedraal) 138 The Jesuit Church of St Charles Borromeo (Sint-Carolus Borromeuskerk) 144 St James’s Church (Sint-Jacobskerk) 152 St George’s Church (Sint-Joriskerk) 156 St Walburga’s Church (Sint-Walburgiskerk) 168 Biographies 174 Bibliography 180 CD Graindelavoix. Music for an Antwerp church Foreword Philip Heylen Vice Mayor for Culture, Economy, City Maintenance and Property Management Fritz Mayer van den Bergh (1858–1901) was an inspired is dedicated to the study of Rubens and Flemish art – collector of largely medieval and Renaissance art. Fol- where his research will be continued in an ideal setting. lowing his untimely death, his mother, Henriëtte Mayer A considerable number of paintings from his collection van den Bergh, had a museum built to house his collec- will be on display during the exhibition Divine Interiors, tion, and the general public have been able to admire complemented by paintings, prints and drawings from his legacy there since 1904. In tribute to its founder, the other private collections as well as from major museums Museum Mayer van den Bergh is dedicated to support- in Belgium and abroad. Dr Claire Baisier, the exhibi- ing the private collectors of today. tion’s curator, devoted her doctoral thesis to this area, specifically the documentary importance of church inte- The French collector Bernard Maillet has made the riors by the Antwerp School under the Spanish Nether- study of paintings of church interiors his life’s work. His lands (1585–1713). Collector and art historian have collection has been gathered together over some 40 joined forces to give a platform to their commonly held years, and in 2012 he published an extensive history of passion and to share that passion with the public. church interiors from the Southern and Northern Netherlands that has now become the bible for architec- The exhibition will show how St Charles Borromeo’s tural painting in the Low Countries. At the end of 2016 Church looked before the great fire, how the Cathedral he will be donating all his documentation to the Rube- of Our Lady was restored after Calvinist rule, and how nianum – a centre at the Rubens House in Antwerp that churches were used for networking, celebrating, gossip- 6 ing, begging and even playing. After all, a church was dialogue for a fascinating project in which the visual not only a house of prayer, but also a meeting place for arts, music and tourism are brought together. the whole community of Antwerp. And architectural painters then – equivalent to today’s photographers – We would like to thank the lenders of works for their were perfectly placed to witness this flourishing activity. confidence in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh and for their cooperation with this exhibition; the members The early music ensemble Graindelavoix has made new of the academic committee for their expert input; the recordings, especially for Divine Interiors, of polyphonic sponsors who, thanks to their financial and material music written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries support, have given a helping hand to this venture; and and published by the Antwerp printers Plantin and the permanent staff and trainees of the museum whose Phalesius. It will be heard for the first time at the exhi- great enthusiasm and determination have brought it to bition and will be an essential part of the total experi- fruition. Director Claire Baisier deserves heartfelt ence. Thanks to the cooperation of the non-profit thanks because she has seized the opportunity to realise organisation Monumental Churches of Antwerp, vis- this project and to introduce the public to a less familiar itors can compare in situ the paintings of the past with genre, yet one that is so important to the City of Antwerp. the reality of the present day. Multimedia also allows some lost architectural gems to be brought back to life, albeit in virtual reality. Past and present enter into 7 Introduction Claire Baisier Director of the Museum Mayer van den Bergh Architectural painting is most familiar in works by the Protestant North and Catholic South, and not only painters from the Northern Netherlands such as Pieter because they packed a religious punch. They also had Saenredam (1597–1665) and Emanuel de Witte (1617– value as souvenirs, especially those depicting the 92). However, it is less well known that the foundations Cathedral of Our Lady or the Jesuit Church. The buy- on which this genre was built were laid in sixteenth-cen- ers of such paintings were undoubtedly attracted first tury Antwerp. It is commonly believed that, apart from and foremost by their perspective, the detailed repro- the Neeffs studio, little of the ‘Antwerp school’ was left duction of the architecture and ornamentation – in following the departure of both the Vredeman de Vries short, their decorative value. For that matter, such and Van Steenwijck father and son duos. Nevertheless, paintings included not only church interiors but also German artists such as Willem Schubert von Ehrenberg secular architecture, such as palaces and rooms housing and Anton Günther Ghering came to settle in Antwerp, art collections – though these were far more limited in enrolling in the city’s Guild of St Luke in order to ded- number. icate themselves exclusively to architectural painting. Proof that this was quite a thriving school is borne out The majority of interiors representing existing churches, by the hundreds of paintings by Antwerp’s architectural especially Antwerp’s cathedral, were mass produced for artists that have survived to this day and are much the wider art market. They almost always repeat the sought after in the art market.1 same composition, although populated with different clusters of people painted by an artist specialising in The oldest known interior of an existing church dates figures. In nearly three quarters of cases, these mass- from 1573.2 Hendrik van Steenwijck I painted the inte- produced items were left unsigned and undated by the rior of Aachen Cathedral when he was staying there in artist. To this day they remain very much in demand exile and met with Hans Vredeman de Vries (fig. 1). The because of their decorative appeal. Some of these inte- architectural painting genre emerged from the tracts riors are rendered in such detail that they provide us written by Hans Vredeman de Vries on architecture and with a precise idea of what a building actually looked perspective, notably Architectura (1577) and Perspective like at the time it was painted. These paintings are (1604–5) (cats. 3–4). Consequently, the first architectural unique documents for research into the interiors of both works aimed chiefly to render the perspective of both existing and lost churches in Antwerp. Those with the palaces and ecclesiastical buildings as precisely as possible. greatest documentary value were painted by the Ger- man immigrants Willem Schubert von Ehrenberg and After about 1575, church interiors painted in Antwerp Anton Günther Ghering. Although neither of them was were brought onto the market in large numbers by as prolific as Peeter Neeffs I and II, they are no less in- Abel Grimmer, Hendrik Steenwijck I and II, and Peeter teresting. Owing to their accuracy and feeling for detail, Neeffs I, followed later by Peeter Neeffs II, Willem paintings by both these men, along with those by Jacob Schubert von Ehrenberg and Anton Günther Ghering, to Balthazar Peeters, provide an inexhaustible source of name but a few. At the very end of the turbulent six- reference for the appearance of seventeenth-century teenth century – following the Iconoclastic Fury of 1566 – churches, primarily in Antwerp. paintings of church interiors became popular in both 8 Fig. 1 Hendrik van Steenwijck I, Interior of Aachen Cathedral, 1573, oil on panel, 52 × 73.5 cm, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, inv. 10632 Architectural painting as a genre died out almost com- tant works from Belgian and foreign museums, enabling pletely in the early eighteenth century, only to re-emerge us to present a highly satisfactory overview of the in the nineteenth century within the context of Revival- Antwerp school’s production. We are enormously grate- ism, thanks to artists such as Mathieu Joseph Karel ful to all the lenders for putting their trust in us, and we Hunin (1770 – 1851), Joseph Chrétien Nicolié (1791 – hope that as a result Antwerp’s architectural painting 1854), Jules Victor Genisson (1805–60), Alfred Delaunois will become more widely known and better appreciated. (1875–1941) and André-Joseph Minguet (1818–60), to name some of the most important.3 Nowadays, hundreds of these paintings of church inte- riors are preserved throughout the world, but the great NOTES majority of them are in private ownership and are thus 1 This contribution has been based in large part on Baisier 2008. 2 Hendrik van Steenwijck I, Interior of Aachen Cathedral (Zicht in de Dom van Aken), panel, difficult to track down.