Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2017 Site Specific: The power of place

Dutch in the 17th century

Peter Raissis

13/14 September 2017

Lecture summary: At least since the 16th century landscapes had been discussed as a distinct species of painting and one in which Netherlandish artists excelled. During the 17th century, painters in the northern created a type of naturalistic landscape that was wholly new to European art and which strongly influenced Western landscape painting for the next 200 years.

Dutch landscapes reveal an appreciation of nature for its own sake, and they are markedly different both from the highly artificial creations of earlier Flemish painters as well as the more or less contemporary classical landscapes that were being painted in Rome. Despite the great diversity of style and subject matter within Dutch landscape painting, most artists sought to describe the look and feel of their country as accurately as possible. Even so, their pictures are often a mixture of topographical fact and artistic fiction.

Slide list:

1. Map of the , showing the Seven United Provinces 2. Adriaen Thomasz. Key, William I, Prince of Orange, c.1579, oil on panel, 3. Dirck Delen, A family beside the tomb of Prince William I in the Nieuwe Kirk, Delft, 1645, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum 4. Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne, Fishing for souls, 1614, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum 5. Joachim Patinir, Landscape with Saint Jerome, 1516-17, oil on panel, Museo del Prado 6. , Landscape with the Flight into Egypt, 1563, oil on panel, Courtauld Gallery, London 7. Paul Brill, A wooded landscape with a bridge and sportsmen at the edge of a river, 1590s, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of NSW 8. Flemish school, Cognoscenti in a room hung with pictures, c.1620, oil on panel, London 9. Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with the funeral of Phocion, 1648, oil on canvas, collection of the Earl of Plymouth (on loan to the National Museum of Wales, Cardiff) 10. Claude Lorrain, Pastoral landscape, 1636-37, oil on copper, Art Gallery of NSW 11. Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebekah (‘The Mill’), 1648, oil on canvas, National Gallery London 12. Claude Lorrain, Seaport with the embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648, oil on canvas, National Gallery London 13. Paulus Potter, The bull, 1647, oil on canvas, , 14. , The castle of Bentheim, 1653, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Ireland 15. Jacob van Ruisdael, Wooded hillside with a view of Bentheim Castle c.1655-60, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of NSW 16. Gabriel Metsu, Man writing a Letter, c.1664-66, oil on panel, National Gallery Ireland 17. Gabriel Metsu, Woman reading a Letter, c. 1664-66, oil on panel, National Gallery Ireland 18. Esaias van der Velde, The cattle ferry, 1622, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum 19. , Landscape with two oaks, 1641, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum

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20. Jan van Goyen, Polder landscape, 1644, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum 21. Aerial photograph of polder landscape 22. Pieter Nolpe (after Willem Schellinks), The collapse of the St Anthony dyck near , 1651, etching, Rijksmuseum 23. , View of Deventer seen from the north-west, 1657, oil on panel, National Gallery London 24. Jacob van Ruisdael, Dunes, early 1650s, oil on panel, Philadelphia Museum of Art 25. Jacob van Ruisdael, , c.1670, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art 26. Jacob van Ruisdael, Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede, c.1670, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum 27. Jan Gerrits Swelinck, The spirit giveth life, 1625, engraving, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles 28. Jacob van Ruisdael, View of from the north-west with the bleaching fields in the foreground, c.1670, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum 29. Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds, c.1670-75, oil on canvas, Mauritshuis, The Hague 30. Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with bleaching grounds, c.1670-75, oil on canvas, Kunsthaus Zűrich 31. Andrea Pozzo, Allegory of the missionary work of the Jesuits, 1691-4, ceiling fresco, Chiesa di Sant’Ignazio di Loyola, Rome 32. Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape with waterfall c.1668, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum 33. Jacob van Ruisdael, The Jewish cemetery, c.1654-55, oil on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts 34. Jacob van Ruisdael, Winter landscape with two windmills, c.1675-80, oil on canvas, Private Collection 35. Hendrick Avercamp, Winter landscape with ice skaters, c.1608, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum 36. , Winter scene c.1652, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum 37. Aert van der Neer, River view in winter c.1655, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum 38. Jacob van Ruisdael, Village in winter, c.1665, oil on canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich 39. Aelbert Cuyp, A river scene with distant windmills, c.1640-42, oil on panel, National Gallery London 40. Aelbert Cuyp, The large Dort, c.1650, oil on canvas, National Gallery London 41. Adam Pynacker, Landscape with enraged ox, c.1665-70, oil on canvas, Art Gallery of NSW 42. Aelbert Cuyp, A page with two horses, c.1655-60, oil on canvas, Trust 43. Aelbert Cuyp, An evening landscape with figures and sheep, c.1655-59, oil on canvas, Royal Collection Trust 44. Aelbert Cuyp, The Valkhof at Nijmegen 1650s, oil on panel, Indianapolis Museum of Art 45. Jan van Goyen, View of Nijmegen 1646, oil on panel, Sotheby’s London

Reference:

Seymour Slive, Jacob van Ruisdael. A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings, Drawings and Etchings, New Haven and London, 2001

Arthur Wheelock Jr, Aelbert Cuyp, Washington, 2001

Peter. C. Sutton, Masters of 17th-Century Dutch Landscape Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1987

Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Dutch Landscapes, Royal Collection Publications, 2010

For access to all past lecture notes visit: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/site-specific/