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The Dutch Golden Age: a New Aurea Ætas? the Revival of a Myth in the Seventeenth-Century Republic Geneva, 31 May – 2 June 2018

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The Dutch Golden Age: a New Aurea Ætas? the Revival of a Myth in the Seventeenth-Century Republic Geneva, 31 May – 2 June 2018 The Dutch Golden Age: a new aurea ætas? The revival of a myth in the seventeenth-century Republic Geneva, 31 May – 2 June 2018 « ’T was in dien tyd de Gulde Eeuw voor de Konst, en de goude appelen (nu door akelige wegen en zweet naauw te vinden) dropen den Konstenaars van zelf in den mond » (‘This time was the Golden Age for Art, and the golden apples (now hardly to be found if by difficult roads and sweat) fell spontaneously in the mouths of Artists.’) Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 1718-1721, vol. II, p. 237.1 In 1719, the painter Arnold Houbraken voiced his regret about the end of the prosperity that had reigned in the Dutch Republic around the middle of the seventeenth century. He indicates this period as especially favorable to artists and speaks of a ‘golden age for art’ (Gulde Eeuw voor de Konst). But what exactly was Houbraken talking about? The word eeuw is ambiguous: it could refer to the length of a century as well as to an undetermined period, relatively long and historically undefined. In fact, since the sixteenth century, the expression gulde(n) eeuw or goude(n) eeuw referred to two separate realities as they can be distinguished today:2 the ‘golden century’, that is to say a period that is part of history; and the ‘golden age’, a mythical epoch under the reign of Saturn, during which men and women lived like gods, were loved by them, and enjoyed peace and happiness and harmony with nature. Following Hesiod, Virgil and Ovid, the principal authors of the Renaissance evoked the myth of a golden age and presented it as a model for the ideal society.3 This was equally the case for the young Republic of the United Provinces. From the sixteenth century onwards, Dutch artists expressed the desire to revive the golden age of ancient art. This mythical revival sometimes takes the shape of a legitimization of historical events: “The Netherlands begin, like in the old days, to grow and bloom, and the golden age in which our ancestors lived and for which we yearned so long, commences. It was the sole means to revive oppressed lands, and so the citizens are honored for eternity: as such the Masters win the hearts of their subjects”4 This mythical revival could likewise serve as a justification of the political choices of the Seven Provinces. This is apparent when, in 1604, Karel van Mander remarks that it is necessary that the “kings” and “lords” are “fair and wise in the countries that they govern” and that “man” enjoys a “safe, calm and joyous life thanks to the application of good laws and unbending THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE: A NEW AUREA Æ TAS? justice”, so that one may speak of a ‘golden age’ (gulden Eeuwe).5 But in general the reference to the golden age functioned as a factual statement. A year after the truce between the United Provinces and the Kingdom of Spain was signed, the poets Dirk Woutersz Kolenkamp and Jacob van der Schuere were very satisfied with the prosperous new society in which they lived: “Oh! such a golden age that blooms here in our country! The golden age of Saturn certainly seems to have reappeared here today”.6 Within the context of that which we might call an ‘imagined community of the golden age’ – following the words of Benedict Anderson (1983)7 – historians, philosophers, lawyers and theologians but even more so painters, poets and playwrights were mobilized in the seventeenth century to participate in the formation of the Dutch Golden Age. Organized within the project “Un Siècle d’Or? Repenser la peinture hollandaise du XVIIe siècle” (2017-2021), this conference is devoted to the artistic construction of the Dutch Golden Age during the seventeenth century. It will address four themes with regard to the Dutch Golden Age: the myth, the role of time, of space and of society. 1. The Golden Age and its myths In the introduction of the conference we seek to define the use and functioning of myths in the construction of historical and political imagined communities in early modern Europe, specifically in the United Provinces during the seventeenth century. Several questions will be addressed: § What can be understood by a myth and, more specifically, a visual myth, in the seventeenth century? § In what manner is the concept used and which disciplines or main theories are involved? (e.g. Francis Bacon) § What is the function of mythological descriptions and in particular those that describe a golden age (Ovid, Vincenzo Cartari, Cesare Ripa, etc.)? 2. The ‘time’ of the Dutch Golden Age The first aspect of the Dutch reinterpretation of the golden age that will be addressed is that of the ‘time’ of the myth, in other words: the manner in which the seventeenth-century Dutchmen conceived and constructed the relation between their ‘golden age’ and that of the Ancients. § Did Dutch artists see and construct the Golden Age as a mythical past or rather as a radiant future? § If indeed it was treated as a mythical past, did it take the shape of a nostalgic or perhaps reactionary or even revolutionary relation with the past? Was this ‘return to the old days’ presented as a potential reality? § In which artistic disciplines was the concept of the Golden Age most discernible? In pastoral literature (Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, Johan van Heemskerck) and its visual counterparts (Gerrit van Honthorst, Abraham Bloemaert)? Or in theological justifications of the ‘destiny of the people of God’, as it was expressed by certain 2 THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE: A NEW AUREA Æ TAS? poets (Joost van den Vondel, Claes Jacobsz Wits, J. Boeckaert), in the trail of preachers (Jacob Boehme, Johannes Rothe)?8 § If we follow the assumption that the seventeenth century was treated as a radiant future: How was this presentist discourse manifested in texts and visual art works? And how was the Dutch Golden Age distinguished from the golden age of antiquity? § What was the role of artists and poets, to whom Johan van Heemskerck explicitly attributed the initiative of the construction of the “golden age of today” (gulde eeuw van heden)?9 3. The ‘space’ of the Dutch Golden Age After the discussion of the time of the Golden Age, we will reflect on its imaginary spaces. The myth of the Golden Age was initially articulated within the context of Greek and Latin mythological literature. These landscapes were thus originally associated with the characteristics and topoi of ideal landscapes of the Classical Antiquity and the Mediterranean: sunny and pleasant weather; extraordinarily fertile fields and orchards; the humanity living in a true harmony with Nature in all its generosity.10 § Was this image of a primitive golden age central in artistic representations of the subject? If so, how did artists deal with the depiction of cities and urban elites? Especially since, in the pastoral tradition, the golden age was explicitly opposed to the absence of values in the city and the court?11 § In which manner was the idyllic image of The Netherlands communicated to non- European regions such as South America, Africa and South-East Asia, whose inhabitants regularly came into contact with Dutchmen? In the literature of explorers and historians, those lands are often compared to the golden age of the first period of man12 and represented by Dutch painters (Franss Post). § Did Dutch painters, such as portraitists (Frans Hals), landscape painters (Paulus Potter, Jacob van Ruisdael, Adriaen van de Velde) and painters of everyday life (Pieter de Hooch, Jan Steen, Adriaen van Ostade), aim to construct the image of another type of golden age, more idiosyncratic and in line with the social, economic and environmental reality of the Dutch Republic? § Can we distinguish places that were of particular importance in the creation of the myth of the Golden Age (Haarlem, Utrecht,13 Amsterdam)? § To which degree did the realistic or fantasized reality of the countryside have a function in the visual depiction of innocence and of barbarism (e.g. Adriaen van Ostade, Cornelis Bega, Cornelis Dusart)? § Furthermore, did the untainted and rural vision of the golden age of ancient times – in which the first men lived in harmony with nature, without needs and content with eating that which was offered to them – exist in the seventeenth-century Netherlands, a culture in which the effort to domesticate and dominate Nature and profit to the utmost from its resources appears to have been the rule? 4. The ‘society’ of the Dutch Golden Age The subject of the place of nature in the Golden Age automatically leads to questions about its culture, that is to say: the societal model that such a myth could or should propagate. 3 THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE: A NEW AUREA Æ TAS? § Did the Dutch support an optimist reading of the golden age, following antique authors as well as certain philosophers such as John Locke?14 If so: in what manner and by means of which themes (e.g. happiness, peace, harmony with nature, Christian or secular virtues of chastity, honesty and charity)? § Did the myth, dubbed the ‘erotic communism’ of the golden age by Ernst Robert Curtius,15 in which “all men lived for all women” and “all women lived for all men” (“toutes pour touz et touz pour toutes / Chascune pour chascun commune / Et chascun comun à chascune”, Jean de Meung),16 and which is evident in many pastoral texts,17 explain the importance of scenes of seduction in seventeenth- century Dutch painting? Or should we perhaps interpret these scenes as the condemnation of behavior that was deemed incompatible with the emergence of an emphatically Christian if not Calvinist
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