University of Cincinnati

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

University of Cincinnati UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date:_May 1, 2006_______ I, __Jennifer Eckman__________________________________________, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Master in Arts in: Art History It is entitled: “Forbidden Indulgences: A Study of Adriaen Brouwer’s Peasant Scenes, 1631-1638” This work and its defense approved by: Chair: Kristi Nelson, PhD______________ Diane Mankin, PhD_____________ Mikiko Hirayama, PhD__________ ______________________________ __________________________ Forbidden Indulgences: A Study of Adriaen Brouwer's Peasant Scenes, 1631-1638 A thesis submitted to the Art History Faculty of the School of Art/ College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Art History Jennifer Louise Eckman 2006 Thesis Committee Chair: Kristi Nelson, Ph. D. Reader: Diane Mankin, Ph. D. Reader: Mikiko Hirayama, Ph. D. Abstract During the seventeenth century, the Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer (1605/6-1638) specialized in low-life images of peasants indulging themselves in forbidden activities such as drinking, smoking, and fighting. A unique element of his work is the expressive body gestures and grotesque facial expressions of the figures. Chapter one addresses several questions such as why Brouwer chose this type of genre and whether or not there is symbolic and moralizing meaning incorporated into his work. Chapter two, three, and four are separated by each indulgence – drinking, smoking, and fighting. In these three chapters, I conduct a formal analysis, with a small portion of iconographical interpretation, of a selection of his peasant scenes within the socio-historical context of the Low Countries during the last period of his career, 1631-1638. To show how Brouwer rendered this subject differently than other Netherlandish artists, his paintings are compared to several of his contemporaries’ works. Acknowledgements I am most grateful to a small group of individuals that have helped me along the way during my struggles of completing this discourse. My greatest appreciation goes out to Dr. Diane Mankin for pushing me to write a better thesis and Dr. Kristi Nelson for her generous support. I am also indebted to my classmates Mary Burzlaff, Bobbie McTurner, and Cate Yellig for reading and correcting my papers. I especially want to thank Maurice Lamar who has been there for me through graduate school and helped me get through it all. Lastly, I want to thank everyone that has assisted me through this process. Contents List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………………. 2 Introduction………………………………………………………………............................ 5 Chapter One “Adriaen Brouwer: The Man and His Work”………………………………... 11 Chapter Two “Drinking: Belligerent Boors”………………………………………………. 23 Chapter Three “Smoking: A Narcotic Ceremony”………………………………………… 36 Chapter Four “Fighting: A Powerful Scene of Unleashed Passion”……………………….. 57 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………. 68 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………….. 71 Illustrations………………………………………………………………………………… 77 1 List of Illustrations Figure 1. Pieter Bruegel, The Flight between Carnival and Lent, 1559 2. Pieter Bruegel, The Peasant Wedding, 1567 3. Adriaen Brouwer, The Smokers, c.1636 4. Adriaen Brouwer, Drinking Company, 1631-38 5. Adriaen Brouwer, Innkeeper, 1631-38 6. Adriaen Brouwer, Tavern Scene, 1631-38 7. Adriaen Brouwer, Five Men Fighting, 1631-38 8. David Teniers the Younger, Peasants Celebrating Twelfth Night, 1635 9. David Teniers the Younger, Peasants in a Tavern, c.1633 10. Adriaen van Ostade, Interior with Drinking Figures and Crying Children, 1634 11. Adriaen van Ostade, Peasants Drinking and Making Music in a Barn, c.1635 12. Adriaen van Ostade, Comedian Reading in a Tavern, 1633 13. Adriaen Brouwer, The Quartet, 1631-38 14. Jan Miense Molenaer, Taste, 1637 15. David Teniers the Younger, Taste, c.1640 16. Jan Miense Molenaer, The King Drinks, c.1634-35 17. Adriaen van Ostade, Peasants Merrymaking, late 1630s 18. Artist Unknown, Emblem from Roemer Visscher, Sinne-poppen, 1614 19. Adriaen Brouwer, Two Cavaliers, 1631-38 20. Adriaen Brouwer, Tavern Interior, before 1631 21. Adriaen Brouwer, The Moerdijk Peasants, 1627-1630 2 22. David Teniers the Younger, Le bonnet vert, c.1637 23. David Teniers the Younger, Tabagie, c.1645-50 24. Adriaen van Ostade, The Smoker, before 1647 25. Adriaen van Ostade, The Smoker at the Window, c.1648-50 26. Gerrit Dou, Painter with Pipe and Book, c.1645 27. Adriaen Brouwer, Smell, 1631-38 28. Adriaen Brouwer, Smoker, 1631-38 29. Adriaen van Ostade, Smoker Leaning on the Back of a Chair, c.1652 30. Gerrit Dou, Old Man Lighting a Pipe, c.1635 31. Adriaen Brouwer, Tobacco Inn, 1631-38 32. Adriaen Brouwer, Pancake Woman, before 1631 33. Jonas Suyderhoef after Adriaen Brouwer, Three Peasants in an Interior, date unknown 34. Adriaen Brouwer, Tobacco Inn, 1631-38 35. Jan Miense Molenaer, A Family Merrymaking, c.1638-42 36. Jan Miense Molenaer, Figures Smoking and Playing Music in an Inn, c.1640s 37. Jacob van Velsen, Musical Company, 1631 38. Adriaen van Ostade, Peasants in a Tavern, c.1635 39. Adriaen van Ostade, Interior of a Barn, with Peasants and Musicians, 1643 40. Joos van Craesbeeck, Brawl at an Inn: “Death is Fierce and Quick (De Dood is Fel en Snel),” date unknown 41. Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants and Soldiers Playing Cards, 1631-38 42. Adriaen Brouwer, Fight Over Cards, 1631-38 43. Jan Miense Molenaer, Battle Between Carnival and Lent, c.1633-34 3 44. Adriaen van Ostade, The Brawl, 1637 45. Adriaen Brouwer, Fight Scene, 1631-38 46. Adriaen Brouwer, Two Peasants Fighting, 1631-38 47. David Teniers the Younger, Le bonnet blanc, 1644 48. David Teniers the Younger, Card Players, c.1644-45 4 Introduction The Flemish painter Adriaen Brouwer (1605/6-1638) painted low-life images during his short artistic career of fifteen years. Humorous depictions of ill-behaved peasants dominate his oeuvre. Because his works are full of pictorial and cultural details, I will conduct a formal analysis, with a small portion of iconographical interpretation, of a selection of his peasant scenes within the socio-historical context of the Low Countries during the last period of his career, 1631-1638. The selected images consist mainly of indoor tavern scenes with only a few figures, who indulge themselves in “forbidden activities”1 such as drinking, smoking, and fighting. Considerably popular during his lifetime, Brouwer’s works were mostly ignored for the following two hundred years until art historians rediscovered him in the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Relatively few books have been written about Brouwer; most scholars attempt to document his life and determine the chronological order and stylistic development of his oeuvre. Unfortunately, little is known about the artist because very few documents about his life are available. However, there are some useful sources such as guild documents that help to interpret his place in history. Here is what we know about Brouwer’s life. He was born in Oudenaarde, in Flanders, in 1605 or January 1606. His father died in 1621/2 when he was sixteen years old but Brouwer was not living with his parents. Between 1621 and 1625 it is unknown where Brouwer resided, but it is speculated that he possibly studied under Frans Hals at this time. By 1625/6 he is recorded in Amsterdam and Haarlem, and in 1631/2 he is known to be back in southern Netherlands in 1 A common phrase adopted by contemporary Netherlandish scholars, such as Margret Klinge in her introduction to Adriaen Brouwer/David Teniers the Younger: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings (Bradford, England: Noortman & Brod, 1982), to describe the luxuries of drinking and smoking favored by seventeenth-century society especially peasants. 5 Antwerp. There he enrolled as a member of the Guild of St. Luke. He remains there until his early death in January 1638; the cause of death is unknown.2 In addition to earlier literature on Brouwer, his paintings were exhibited with other Dutch and Flemish artists at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1932 and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1941. By the 1930s, the majority of his works in the United States were in private collections. The Alte Pinakothek in Munich, Germany houses the largest collection of Brouwer’s paintings consisting of eighteen paintings. I visited the museum in the summer of 2005 and viewing his works sparked my interest in learning more about the artist. However, it seems that no one has conducted an extensive study of individual pieces by Brouwer. By analyzing the compositions closely – comparing his work to his contemporaries, and referring to contextual, cultural, and historical material – I intend to explore the significance of the spatial environment within Brouwer’s tavern scenes and look for the possible symbolic meanings embedded there. Information about Brouwer and a few of his works have been included in many books on Dutch and Flemish art, but the entries are usually brief. The short length of Brouwer’s career, the difficulty in determining the dates and authenticity of his work, as well as his limbo position between Flanders and Holland, may be some of the reasons why art historians have largely omitted him from scholarly discourse. However, during his lifetime, Netherlandish audiences embraced his depictions of rough peasants in tavern scenes for their down-to-earth realism. One of his admirers was Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) who owned at least seventeen of Brouwer’s paintings. 2 Brouwer’s biographical information is collaborated from Klinge’s introduction and Gerard Knuttel’s monograph Adriaen Brouwer: The Master and His Work (The Hague: L.J.C. Boucher, 1962). 6 Brouwer's body of work consists of at least sixty paintings, a few drawings, and a small number of prints. Early in his career, his compositions featured large groups of peasants celebrating outdoors, while later he depicted indoor tavern scenes and landscape paintings with a limited number of figures. Brouwer did not date or sign his work, and much of the information about his paintings is based on historical sources that are not consistently reliable.
Recommended publications
  • Print He Made After the Latter Work, All Date to 1638
    Fighting Card Players and Death ca. 1638 oil on canvas Jan Lievens 67 x 84.9 cm (Leiden 1607 – 1674 Amsterdam) Signed and dated lower right: J. Lievens JL-107 © 2021 The Leiden Collection Fighting Card Players and Death Page 2 of 7 How to cite Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. “Fighting Card Players and Death” (2017). In The Leiden Collection Catalogue, 3rd ed. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Lara Yeager-Crasselt. New York, 2020–. https://theleidencollection.com/artwork/fighting-card-players-and-death/ (accessed October 02, 2021). A PDF of every version of this entry is available in this Online Catalogue's Archive, and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs. © 2021 The Leiden Collection Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org) Fighting Card Players and Death Page 3 of 7 In 1635 Jan Lievens moved from London to Antwerp, perhaps expecting that Comparative Figures the arrival of the new governor-general of the Southern Netherlands, the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, would usher in a period of peace and prosperity beneficial to the arts.[1] Lievens soon joined the local painters’ guild and settled into a community of artists who specialized in low-life genre scenes, landscapes, and still lifes, among them Adriaen Brouwer (1605/6–38), Jan Davide de Heem (1606–83/84), David Teniers the Younger (1610–90), and Jan Cossiers (1600–71). In 1635, Brouwer depicted these artists in a tavern scene, Smokers, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (fig 1).[2] The most inspirational of them for Lievens was Brouwer, who apparently encouraged Lievens to depict, once again, rough peasant types comparable to those he Fig 1.
    [Show full text]
  • Het Gulden Cabinet Van De Edel Vry Schilderconst Cornelis De Bie, Het Gulden Cabinet Van De Edel Vry Schilderconst 244
    Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst Cornelis de Bie bron Cornelis de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst. Jan Meyssens, Juliaen van Montfort, Antwerpen 1662 Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bie_001guld01_01/colofon.php © 2014 dbnl 1 Het gulden cabinet vande edele vry schilder-const Ontsloten door den lanck ghevvenschten Vrede tusschen de twee mach- tighe Croonen van SPAIGNIEN EN VRANCRYCK, Waer-inne begrepen is den ontsterffe- lijcken loff vande vermaerste Constminnende Geesten ENDE SCHILDERS Van dese Eeuvv, hier inne meest naer het leven af-gebeldt, verciert met veel ver- makelijcke Rijmen ende Spreucken. DOOR Cornelis de Bie Notaris binnen Lyer. Cornelis de Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderconst 3 Den geboeyden Mars spreckt op d'uytleggingh van de titel plaet. WEl wijckt dan mijne Macht, en Raserny ter sijden? Moet mijne wreetheyt nu dees boose schant-vleck lijden? Dat ick hier ligh gheboyt en plat ter aert ghedruckt, Ontrooft van Sweert en Schilt, t'gen' my is af-geruckt? Alleen door liefdens kracht, die Vranckrijck heeft ontsteken, Die door het Echts verbont compt al mijn lusten breken, Die selffs de wreetheyt ben, wordt hier van liefd' gheplaegt, Den dullen Orloghs Godt wordt van den Peys verjaeght. Ach! d' Edel Fransche Trouw: (aen Spaenien verbonden:) Die heeft m' allendigh Helt in ballinckschap ghesonden. K' en heb niet eenen vriendt, men danckt my spoedigh aff Een jeder my verstoot, ick sien ick moet in't graff. Nochtans sal menich mensch mijn ongeluck beclaghen Die was ghewoon door my heel Belgica te plaeghen, Die was ghewoon met my te liggen op het landt Dat ick had uyt gheput door mijnen Orloghs brandt, De deught had ick verjaeght, en liefdens kracht ghenomen Midts dat mijn fury was in Neder-landt ghecomen Tot voordeel vanden Frans, die my nu brenght in druck En wederleyt mijn jonst, fortuyn en groot gheluck.
    [Show full text]
  • Title Connection Between Rough Brushstrokes and Vulgar Subjects in Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings Author(S) Fukaya
    Connection between Rough Brushstrokes and Vulgar Subjects Title in Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings Author(s) Fukaya, Michiko Citation Kyoto Studies in Art History (2017), 2: 55-71 Issue Date 2017-04 URL https://doi.org/10.14989/229460 © Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University and the Right authors Type Departmental Bulletin Paper Textversion publisher Kyoto University 55 Connection between Rough Brushstrokes and Vulgar Subjects in Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Paintings Michiko Fukaya 1. Introduction Karel van Mander stated in his Schilder-boeck that painters at the time were accustomed to applying their paint more thickly than before; hence, their paintings were made seemingly of stone relief.1 At the same time, he used the terms “uneven and rough (oneffen en rouw)” and “beautifully, neat and clear (schoon, net en blijde)” as two contrasting manners in the application of paint.2 His comment is followed by a well-known passage referring to Titian’s earlier style, executed “with incredible neatness (met onghelooflijcke netticheyt)” and his later one, “with stains and rough strokes (met vlecken en rouw’ streken)”. In 1604, when van Mander was writing the above passage, it was uncommon among Netherlandish painters to paint so thickly that their paintings might be compared to a relief. Nevertheless, in Lives of the Northern Painters, van Mander mentioned two painters who applied their paint so thick that the canvas could not be rolled or had to be scraped off,3 although such rough manner was more tightly connected to the Italian style. In any event, the dichotomy of the neatness and the roughness of application of the paint was introduced into Netherlandish art theory at the time.
    [Show full text]
  • Experience the Flemish Masters Programme 2018 - 2020
    EXPERIENCE THE FLEMISH MASTERS PROGRAMME 2018 - 2020 1 The contents of this brochure may be subject to change. For up-to-date information: check www.visitflanders.com/flemishmasters. 2 THE FLEMISH MASTERS 2018-2020 AT THE PINNACLE OF ARTISTIC INVENTION FROM THE MIDDLE AGES ONWARDS, FLANDERS WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE FAMOUS ART MOVEMENTS OF THE TIME: PRIMITIVE, RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE. FOR A PERIOD OF SOME 250 YEARS, IT WAS THE PLACE TO MEET AND EXPERIENCE SOME OF THE MOST ADMIRED ARTISTS IN WESTERN EUROPE. THREE PRACTITIONERS IN PARTICULAR, VAN EYCK, BRUEGEL AND RUBENS ROSE TO PROMINENCE DURING THIS TIME AND CEMENTED THEIR PLACE IN THE PANTHEON OF ALL-TIME GREATEST MASTERS. 3 FLANDERS WAS THEN A MELTING POT OF ART AND CREATIVITY, SCIENCE AND INVENTION, AND STILL TODAY IS A REGION THAT BUSTLES WITH VITALITY AND INNOVATION. The “Flemish Masters” project has THE FLEMISH MASTERS been established for the inquisitive PROJECT 2018-2020 traveller who enjoys learning about others as much as about him or The Flemish Masters project focuses Significant infrastructure herself. It is intended for those on the life and legacies of van Eyck, investments in tourism and culture who, like the Flemish Masters in Bruegel and Rubens active during are being made throughout their time, are looking to immerse th th th the 15 , 16 and 17 centuries, as well Flanders in order to deliver an themselves in new cultures and new as many other notable artists of the optimal visitor experience. In insights. time. addition, a programme of high- quality events and exhibitions From 2018 through to 2020, Many of the works by these original with international appeal will be VISITFLANDERS is hosting an Flemish Masters can be admired all organised throughout 2018, 2019 abundance of activities and events over the world but there is no doubt and 2020.
    [Show full text]
  • The Connections of the Thematical and Interpretational Question
    Annamária Gosztola The Interconnections of the Thematical and Interpreational Questions of Flemish Baroque Painting in the Mirror of Dutch Realist Painting Doctoral theses 2007 Introduction The Katalog der Galerie alter Meister. Museum der Bildenden Künste by Andor Pigler, the former General Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, published in 1967, is an indispensable, fundamental publication on the collection of the Old Masters’ Gallery, used even today. The vast, nearly unfollowable growth of the literature and the enrichment of the gallery with new acquisitions since its publishing necessitated its updating. In the spirit of this endeavour, the so-called summary catalogues of the collection have been produced, which contain new attributions, research results and bibliographical data complemented with the reproductions of all the works of art. Parallel to this “fire-extinguishing work” and under the pressure of the international tendencies, the demand for catalogues raisonnés, fully working up the collection, has more and more often arisen since the 1990s. The volume treating the Gallery’s Dutch and Flemish still lifes by Ildikó Ember as well as that discussing the Dutch and Flemish portraits by Rudi Ekkart, head of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, the Hague, are soon to be published. Six chapters of this present dissertation, giving an overview of the history of research and provenance history and containing the emphatic discussion of some more significant works as well as the scholarly treatment of the seventeenth to eighteenth century Flemish genre paintings of the Museum of Fine Arts, form a part of this large-scale professional enterprise. Chapter 1: The history of research of Dutch and Flemish genre painting in the past decades Chapter I of the dissertation contains the past decades’ history of research of Dutch and Flemish genre painting along with its literature and is complemented, in a gap-filling way, with the scholary results of Hungarian experts in this field.
    [Show full text]
  • Adriaen Van Ostade 1646/1648 Oil on Canvas Overall: 94 X 75 Cm (37 X 29 1/2 In.) Andrew W
    National Gallery of Art NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ONLINE EDITIONS Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century Frans Hals Dutch, c. 1582/1583 - 1666 Adriaen van Ostade 1646/1648 oil on canvas overall: 94 x 75 cm (37 x 29 1/2 in.) Andrew W. Mellon Collection 1937.1.70 ENTRY This masterful painting by Frans Hals, which is neither signed nor dated, is unrecorded prior to 1919, when it appeared at a London auction as a self-portrait by the Dutch Italianate painter Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem (Dutch, 1620 - 1683). [1] The identity of the sitter as Berchem cannot be sustained any more than can the attribution to that artist. Berchem’s self-portrait drawing of about 1660 represents a heavier-set person with a more rounded face than that seen in this portrait [fig. 1]. Instead, the artist whom Hals has portrayed here is Adriaen van Ostade (Dutch, 1610 - 1685), the renowned Haarlem painter of rural life. The connection between this painting and Ostade was made by Claus Grimm, who compared this image to two established likenesses of the artist. [2] The first is a small-scale self-portrait in the background of Van Ostade's group portrait of the De Goyer family (Museum Bredius, The Hague) of about 1650. [3] An even more striking comparison is Jacob Gole’s mezzotint portrait of Van Ostade that was executed after a lost painting by the latter’s pupil Cornelis Dusart (Dutch, 1660 - 1704) [fig. 2]. [4] As Eduard Trautscholdt recognized, Dusart must have based his portrait on an earlier representation of the artist; Dusart—who was born in 1660, when his master was fifty years old—depicted Van Ostade as a considerably younger man than he could ever have known.
    [Show full text]
  • Evolution and Ambition in the Career of Jan Lievens (1607-1674)
    ABSTRACT Title: EVOLUTION AND AMBITION IN THE CAREER OF JAN LIEVENS (1607-1674) Lloyd DeWitt, Ph.D., 2006 Directed By: Prof. Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Department of Art History and Archaeology The Dutch artist Jan Lievens (1607-1674) was viewed by his contemporaries as one of the most important artists of his age. Ambitious and self-confident, Lievens assimilated leading trends from Haarlem, Utrecht and Antwerp into a bold and monumental style that he refined during the late 1620s through close artistic interaction with Rembrandt van Rijn in Leiden, climaxing in a competition for a court commission. Lievens’s early Job on the Dung Heap and Raising of Lazarus demonstrate his careful adaptation of style and iconography to both theological and political conditions of his time. This much-discussed phase of Lievens’s life came to an end in 1631when Rembrandt left Leiden. Around 1631-1632 Lievens was transformed by his encounter with Anthony van Dyck, and his ambition to be a court artist led him to follow Van Dyck to London in the spring of 1632. His output of independent works in London was modest and entirely connected to Van Dyck and the English court, thus Lievens almost certainly worked in Van Dyck’s studio. In 1635, Lievens moved to Antwerp and returned to history painting, executing commissions for the Jesuits, and he also broadened his artistic vocabulary by mastering woodcut prints and landscape paintings. After a short and successful stay in Leiden in 1639, Lievens moved to Amsterdam permanently in 1644, and from 1648 until the end of his career was engaged in a string of important and prestigious civic and princely commissions in which he continued to demonstrate his aptitude for adapting to and assimilating the most current style of his day to his own somber monumentality.
    [Show full text]
  • Julius S. Held Papers, Ca
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt3g50355c No online items Finding aid for the Julius S. Held papers, ca. 1921-1999 Isabella Zuralski. Finding aid for the Julius S. Held 990056 1 papers, ca. 1921-1999 Descriptive Summary Title: Julius S. Held papers Date (inclusive): ca. 1918-1999 Number: 990056 Creator/Collector: Held, Julius S (Julius Samuel) Physical Description: 168 box(es)(ca. 70 lin. ft.) Repository: The Getty Research Institute Special Collections 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100 Los Angeles 90049-1688 [email protected] URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref (310) 440-7390 Abstract: Research papers of Julius Samuel Held, American art historian renowned for his scholarship in 16th- and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art, expert on Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Rembrandt. The ca. 70 linear feet of material, dating from the mid-1920s to 1999, includes correspondence, research material for Held's writings and his teaching and lecturing activities, with extensive travel notes. Well documented is Held's advisory role in building the collection of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. A significant portion of the ca. 29 linear feet of study photographs documents Flemish and Dutch artists from the 15th to the 17th century. Request Materials: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the catalog record for this collection. Click here for the access policy . Language: Collection material is in English Biographical / Historical Note The art historian Julius Samuel Held is considered one of the foremost authorities on the works of Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Rembrandt.
    [Show full text]
  • The Five Senses in Painting
    Exhibition press release The five senses in painting Villa Vauban – Luxembourg City Art Museum 19 March > 26 June 2016 The five human senses – taste, smell, sight, hearing and touch – belong to the most varied and most appealing subjects of European painting. Whereas in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the senses had rather negative connotations, being considered deceitful or as a promotion of sin, their perception changed with the increasing scientification of thought in the 17th century. The senses were initially represented symbolically or allegorically. The Dutch painting of the Golden Age gradually replaced the initially symbolical or allegorical representation of the senses with narrative genre scenes. The exhibition presents painting and printed graphics of the 17th to 19th centuries in the form of thematic groups of works. Many international loans from around 20 European museums have been supplemented with the collections of Villa Vauban. A first group of works concentrates on the diversity of allegorical representations of the five senses in Flemish and Dutch 17th-century painting. Large-format allegories and small cabinet paintings with picture cycles by Old Masters like Cornelis de Vos, Adriaen van Ostade, Jan Miense Molenaer, Barent Fabritius, Ambrosius Francken the Younger and Herman van Aldewereld are shown. The second group of works is dedicated to French still-life painting, blossoming since the 1620s/30s, and its approach to the theme of the five senses. Painters like Jacques Linard and Louise Moillon resided in Paris and were associated with a group of Protestant artists that had specialised in this genre. The section also includes a painting of the important Strasbourg still-life master Sebastian Stoskopff (1597-1657).
    [Show full text]
  • The Image and Identity of the Alchemist in Seventeenth-Century
    THE IMAGE AND IDENTITY OF THE ALCHEMIST IN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NETHERLANDISH ART Dana Kelly-Ann Rehn Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the coursework requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Studies in Art History) School of History and Politics University of Adelaide July 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS iii DECLARATION v ABSTRACT vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 ALCHEMY: A CONTROVERSIAL PROFESSION, PAST AND PRESENT 7 3 FOOLS AND CHARLATANS 36 4 THE SCHOLAR 68 5 CONCLUSION 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY 103 CATALOGUE 115 ii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1 Philip Galle (After Pieter Bruegel the Elder), The Alchemist, c.1558 118 FIGURE 2 Adriaen van de Venne, Rijcke-armoede („Rich poverty‟), 1636 119 FIGURE 3 Adriaen van Ostade, Alchemist, 1661 120 FIGURE 4 Cornelis Bega, The Alchemist, 1663 121 FIGURE 5 David Teniers the Younger, The Alchemist, 1649 122 FIGURE 6 David Teniers the Younger, Tavern Scene, 1658 123 FIGURE 7 David Teniers the Younger, Tavern Scene, Detail, 1658 124 FIGURE 8 Jan Steen, The Alchemist, c.1668 125 FIGURE 9 Jan Steen, Title Unknown, 1668 126 FIGURE 10 Hendrik Heerschop, The Alchemist, 1671 128 FIGURE 11 Hendrik Heerschop, The Alchemist's Experiment Takes Fire, 1687 129 FIGURE 12 Frans van Mieris the Elder, An Alchemist and His Assistant in a Workshop, c.1655 130 FIGURE 13 Thomas Wijck, The Alchemist, c.1650 131 FIGURE 14 Pierre François Basan, 1800s, after David Teniers the Younger, Le Plaisir des Fous („The Pleasure of Fools‟), 1610-1690 132 FIGURE 15
    [Show full text]
  • HNA Apr 2015 Cover.Indd
    historians of netherlandish art NEWSLETTER AND REVIEW OF BOOKS Dedicated to the Study of Netherlandish, German and Franco-Flemish Art and Architecture, 1350-1750 Vol. 32, No. 1 April 2015 Peter Paul Rubens, Agrippina and Germanicus, c. 1614, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1963.8.1. Exhibited at the Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD, April 25 – July 5, 2015. HNA Newsletter, Vol. 23, No. 2, November 2006 1 historians of netherlandish art 23 S. Adelaide Avenue, Highland Park, NJ 08904 Telephone: (732) 937-8394 E-Mail: [email protected] www.hnanews.org Historians of Netherlandish Art Offi cers President – Amy Golahny (2013-2017) Lycoming College Williamsport PA 17701 Vice-President – Paul Crenshaw (2013-2017) Providence College Department of Art History 1 Cummingham Square Providence RI 02918-0001 Treasurer – Dawn Odell Lewis and Clark College 0615 SW Palatine Hill Road Portland OR 97219-7899 European Treasurer and Liaison - Fiona Healy Seminarstrasse 7 D-55127 Mainz Germany Contents Board Members President's Message .............................................................. 1 Obituary/Tributes ................................................................. 1 Lloyd DeWitt (2012-2016) Stephanie Dickey (2013-2017) HNA News ............................................................................7 Martha Hollander (2012-2016) Personalia ............................................................................... 8 Walter Melion (2014-2018) Exhibitions ...........................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE (1610 – Haarlem – 1685)
    VP4338 ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE (1610 – Haarlem – 1685) A Tavern Interior with Peasants smoking and drinking Signed on the mantelpiece: A. v. Ostade On panel - 10 ⅝ x 12 ⅞ ins. (27 x 32.8 cm) PROVENANCE Sale of J. -B. van Lancker, Antwerp, 1835, lot 76 (2050 francs) MM. Tardieu fils, Paris, 1840 Sale, Héris (Biré Collection), Paris, 25 March 1841, lot 32 (4900 francs) M. Stayaert van den Busche, Brussels, 1856 Vicomte de Buisseret, Brussels Sale, Galerie S. Luc, Brussels, 29 April 1891, lot 83 Martin Colnaghi, London, 1895 Charles Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, 1897 Galerie Weber, Hamburg, 1912 Beaufort Sale, American Art Association, New York, 21 October 1937, lot 16 Private collection, Germany, until 2009 LITERATURE John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters, London 1829-42, suppl., p. 104, no. 86 Charles Blanc, Le Trésor de la Curiosité, 1857-58, vol. II, p. 444 Sedelmeyer Gallery, The Four Hundred, Paris, 1897, no. 27 C. Hofstede de Groot, A Catalogue Raisonné…, 1908, vol. III, no. 277 EXHIBITED Royal Academy, London, 1895, no. 84 NARRATIVE This little tavern scene is one of Ostade’s many interpretations of a familiar theme. Five peasants are pictured in the dusky interior. In the foreground, is a seated man, wearing a conical hat, who lights his pipe from a pot of embers. His companion, dressed in a reddish jacket, stands before him, leaning his left arm on the back of a chair and holding a jug in his right hand. A pipe and a wrap of paper containing tobacco lie on the seat of the chair.
    [Show full text]