The Rijksmuseum Bulletin

the rijksmuseum bulletin 196 the rijks pieneman, history painting and the exhibitionsmuseum of the battle of waterloo bulletin ‘A Very Naive and Completely New Manner’: Pieneman, History Painting and the Exhibitions of the Battle of Waterloo • michael putter • n the spring of 1815 the Northern Detail of fig. 17 An artist with the right connections, I and Southern Netherlands, rough - who could capture the national mood, ly the present-day Netherlands and would find it easy to get a commission Belgium, were united in a single for a large history painting. Taking kingdom under the rule of Willem i shrewd advantage of the opportunities of Orange-Nassau. It was the dawn the situation presented, Jan Willem of an optimistic period for artists. Pieneman established himself as the In the Northern Netherlands there leading Dutch artist of his day. With was a general sense, which had been two enormous paintings he was able growing since the eighteenth century, to achieve both national and inter- that the arts had fallen into decline national standing, picturing the Battle after the glory years of the seventeenth of Waterloo – the most important century.1 Government committees event in the earliest years of the United appointed during the reign of King Kingdom of the Netherlands (fig. 1). Louis Bonaparte (1806-10) confirmed this image, and various measures aimed The Battle of Waterloo at raising the arts in the Netherlands to Emperor Napoleon (1769-1821) returned a higher, international standard were from exile in the spring of 1815. Within introduced.2 Most of these measures weeks he had assembled a large army were adopted or implemented by and marched north to drive a wedge Willem i (1772-1843) after 1815. between the British and Prussian King Willem had no personal armies. At that moment there was a interest in art, but he recognized British force in the United Kingdom of the importance of promoting it. A the Netherlands, a country comprising flourishing school of painting would the present-day Netherlands, Belgium help foster inter national esteem for and Luxembourg that had been con- the young king dom and at the same pp. 198-99 ceived at the end of the Napoleonic time provide him with an opportunity Fig. 1 Wars as a buffer state against future to exploit the fine arts for his own jan willem French aggression.4 The infant state nation-building policy. Willem’s pieneman, received its baptism of fire even before kingdom and king ship alike were, The Battle of its establishment had been finalized. after all, new con structs whose only Waterloo, 1821-24. The Northern Netherlands, approx i Oil on canvas, legitimacy lay in contem p orary mately the modern Netherlands, 567 x 823 cm. 3 international politics. For artists, Amsterdam, reflected the old Republic of the particularly history paint ers, this Rijksmuseum, Seven United Provinces, from which opened up enormous potential. inv. no. sk-a-1115. Stadholder Willem v had fled in 1795 197 the rijksmuseum bulletin 198 pieneman, history painting and the exhibitions of the battle of waterloo 199 the rijksmuseum bulletin in the face of a French invasion. Under the command of the king’s Since 1813 the north had been ruled oldest son, the Prince of Orange by Willem-Frederik, the oldest son (1792-1842), the Dutch army, a large of Stadholder Willem v (1748-1806). proportion of whose troops had To bind his southern compatriots previously been Napoleon’s soldiers, more strongly to him, Willem-Frederik joined the British under the supreme immediately proclaimed himself command of the Duke of Wellington King Willem i of the Netherlands. (1769-1852). Fig. 2 willem grebner after m.i. van bree, The Hero of the Netherlands, c. 1816. Mezzotint, 404 x 256 mm. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. rp-p-1903-a-22950; gift of Mrs Brandt, Amsterdam and Mrs Brandt, Amsterdam. 200 pieneman, history painting and the exhibitions of the battle of waterloo On 16 June the French encountered the portrayed important events from first resistance from the Dutch army. the Bible, mythology or Classical At Quatre Bras, a crossroads between Antiquity, and the protagon ists almost Charleroi and Brussels, the Dutch held always symbolized virtues.7 This the French long enough for British changed in the second half of the reinforcements to arrive. The Prince eighteenth century, when painters of Orange led an attack. On 18 June gradually also started to paint subjects 1815 the armies clashed near the village from more modern times (from the of Waterloo, not far from Brussels. Middle Ages onwards), or even the The outcome of the battle hung in the present. There had certainly been plenty balance for most of the day until, as of heroic figures in these periods.8 dusk fell, a Prussian army reinforced These changes began in Great the Dutch and British troops, and the Britain in the second half of the Allies secured the victory. By then the eighteenth century. Artists there Prince of Orange had been carried off started to organize, and in 1768 the the battlefield with a musket ball in his Royal Academy was established. shoulder. France had been defeated This sparked a lively debate about again. Soon afterwards Napoleon the paucity of history painting in was forced into exile on the island of England. Some critics even expressed St Helena. fears that the virtue of young artists The victory was greeted with could be in jeopardy if they could not jubilation in the United Kingdom of express themselves in this, the most the Netherlands. ‘The bloody battle ... exalted genre in painting.9 It was the has assured the independence of American painter Benjamin West, the monarchy of the Netherlands working in London, who came up with for all time,’ wrote the Nederlandsche the solution in 1770. History painters Staatscourant two weeks after the should no longer be dependent on event.5 Waterloo created a bond the whims of kings, nobles and the between the two parts of the new church, but should instead direct their country. The Prince of Orange’s attention to the middle class. West wound was the symbol of the battle painted The Death of General Wolfe (fig. 2). His courage in combat entirely at his own expense, with the reflected to the honour of the royal ultimate aim not so much of selling family and the whole country. Poets the painting, but selling reproductive wrote about Waterloo, printmakers prints. West also staged an exhibition produced engravings and the painters of Wolfe in his own studio, for which of portraits, landscapes and genre he charged an admission fee. To pull in works incorporated Waterloo into the public, West abandoned stories their paintings.6 It was simply a matter from the Bible and Classical Antiquity of time before the history painters in favour of an event that had taken pictured the battle on immense can- place just eleven years earlier and still vases that rivalled the works that had great news value. He had found had glorified Napoleon’s victories in the perfect way of painting history France. works on his own initiative and making it financially feasible. ‘There are ... The Revolution of but two ways of working successfully, History Painting that is, lastingly, in this country, for Battles like Waterloo were not tra d- an artist,’ he wrote in 1790, ‘the one is, itional subjects for history paintings. to paint for the King; the other, to With its considerable level of difficulty, meditate a scheme of your own.’10 West history painting was regarded as the would go on to implement several highest genre in art. This type of art other ‘schemes’. 201 the rijksmuseum bulletin His compatriot John Singleton Copley, Relief of Gibraltar (1783-91), was a who likewise lived in London, had even traditional painting, but at the same greater success with his history paint- time so large that it was impossible ings. Under Copley, canvases became to find a suitable space to show it. In Fig. 3 even bigger and the subjects more the end a ‘magnificent Oriental tent’ anonymous topical, so that they increasingly began more than twenty-five yards long was after francesco 12 to resemble in format and commer - erected in Green Park (fig. 3). bartolozzi, cial exploitation the panoramas that Meanwhile the commercial Copley’s Exhibition were so popular at the time. In the exploitation of history works was of the Siege of panoramas, devised in 1792, a single gaining in popularity on continental Gibraltar in Green canvas was placed all the way round Europe. In 1799 the French painter Park, c. 1850-60. Photomechanical viewers, creating the illusion that they Jacques-Louis David showed his reprint, 99 x 128 mm. 11 were in a city or a landscape. Copley’s Intervention of the Sabine Women London, Defeat of the Floating Batteries at at an exhibition he staged himself British Museum, Gibraltar, also called The Siege and instead of sending the work to the inv. no. 1894,0102.67. 202 pieneman, history painting and the exhibitions of the battle of waterloo Salon in the usual way. In a brochure in Jaffa (1804), shows Napoleon, with he wrote especially for the occasion, utter disregard for his own life, visit- David explained why the commercial ing troops struck down by the plague. exhibition of a work of art was per- Napoleon’s pose is unmistakably Christ- mis sible. An artist exhibiting a single like; he even touches a victim as if he work, David wrote, was no less than a wants to cure him – an allusion that practice that went back to the Ancient many viewers would have recog nized, Greeks.

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