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The Illusion of Flesh in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Portraiture: Gender, Materiality and Immateriality in the age of and .

It is the skill of an accomplished artist who can create the illusion of human flesh and breathe life into representations of the human figure. Art critics and art viewers alike have long scrutinized the illusion of flesh as a means of testifying to the illusion of the artwork as a whole. Not only does a competent (realistic) portrayal of flesh imbue a material representation of the human body with an immaterial essence, life, but also the act of creating skin in such a manner attests to a high level of skill. The artistic representation of skin is very complex and thus presents us with a rich topic for research. As in the words of Art Historian Anne-Sophie Lehmann, the study of flesh brings together three central elements of painting: ‘the painter’s materials, the craft of painting, and the lifelike depiction of the body’1. All these aspects take even more resonance when we consider that the Seventeenth Century was allowing for more experiments than ever with the oil medium, especially in the . It was after all, as Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning put it, ‘’, that was ‘invented to paint flesh’2.

In my research, I will attempt to investigate the material processes that Dutch Seventeenth-Century artists employed to create the illusion of flesh and in doing so will draw connections between practical art history (the tools and materials) and representation. I also intend to explore the differences in the handling of flesh tones between men and women, looking at both the how and, eventually, why.

1 Anne-Sophie Lehmann is an Art Historian who specialises in artistic materials, tools and practices, developing a process-based approach to material culture. Ann-Sophie Lehmann, ‘Fleshing out the body, The ‘colours of the naked’ in workshop practice and art theory, 1400 – 1600’, Body and Embodiment in Netherlandish Art, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art 58, ed. By A. Lehmann & H. Roodenburg, (Zwolle: Waanders 2008) p103. 2 Anne-Sophie Lehman, Marjolijn Bol, ‘Painting Skin and Water: Toward a Material Iconography of Translucent Motifs in Early Netherlandish Painting’, Rogier van der Weyden in Context, (Leuven 2009) p216. 2

I will do this by, where possible, studying pendant pairs of portraits in which the illusion of flesh across the male and female was conceived by the artist at the same time. Pendant portraits are imagined by the artist as a pair and thus, although different grounds can be used and manipulated, the style and light that the figures are rendered in is often comparably similar. The comparable man and woman, or husband and wife, must be of a similar age to make sure their flesh is in more or less the same state. This allows for a fair comparison of the methods and tools used by the artist. I have also looked at a double portrait to compare the illusion of flesh across the sexes, although here, there are different considerations as the couple have been rendered on the same ground.

The material processes employed by the artist to create the illusion have been examined with the naked eye, which where possible, has been supported with technical reports. This limits the examples possible for this research to portraits that are available to view in Dutch Collections. The comparable portraits, or pendant, must be in roughly the same condition and state of conservation.

The portraits that will be examined have been picked to illustrate different examples that span the two of the most popular cities for portraiture production, and Haarlem; my sections have been organised thus. Within one city, the materials and craft of two artists, working at a contemporary time to each other have been examined. In my discussion of Amsterdam Portraitists I have chosen to look at Rembrandt (1606 – 1669) and Abraham van den Tempel (c. 1622 – 1672), looking at examples from both the early and late oeuvre of Rembrandt. From Haarlem, I will investigate the technical processes employed by Frans Hals (c. 1583 – 1666) and Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck (c. 1601/03 – 62).

I will start my looking at some of the contemporary literature and recipe books that gave practical instruction as to how to transform paint into realistic flesh; the invention of oil paint and the affordances it gave to artists being a crucial part of this. 3

The Illusion of flesh: A Historiography.

In exploring the illusion of flesh, it is essential to study the materials and artistic practices within their historical context. The precedence that was given to the processes of creating flesh in the contemporary literature illustrates how important the illusion of flesh was to the critics and artists of seventeenth- century Netherlands; it would seem that painting flesh was an integral part to the whole art of painting. One cannot help recall poet Lucas de Heere’s ode to the Ghent altarpiece when thinking about the affect that a convincing portrayal of human flesh had at the time. Although the ode was written in the 16th Century, it was recalled by (1548 – 1606), a Flemish art historian and theoretician, who was also the student of de Heere, in the Seventeenth Century; it must then have been an example of illustrious artistry to be adhered to. In the ode, de Heere appears to be most struck by the lifelikeness appearance of the figures: ‘How frightened and lifelike Adam stands? Who ever saw more flesh-like body tints?’3. De Heere directly links the representation of the flesh specifically to the overall realistic illusion of the figures and thus demonstrates how it was the capabilities of a skilled artist who could apply flesh color in the right way to bring their figures to life.

Lucas de Heere’s ode also brings to light one of the key concerns within the creation of flesh; flesh ‘tints’, or coloring. Karel van Mander certainly saw colouring as an essential part to creating a successful representation of skin and gives specific instructions as to what colours and paints to use. In the twelfth chapter of his instructive poem ‘Den grondt der edel vrij schilder-const’ (1604), van Mander explains the processes that one should take to achieve flesh tints that ‘glow like flesh’, including the instruction that one should use vermillion as opposed to carmine as carmine is too cold in tone4. To create a warm flesh tone, ochre is recommended instead. For Van Mander, a specific flesh colour ‘requires at least as many different hues as a landscape’ ; shadows and heightening was to be varied and subtle within the creation of flesh, avoiding the stark contrasts of

3 As cited by Lehmann in ‘Fleshing out the body’, p93 & p94 4 Karel Van Mander - As cited by Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p99 4 white and black5. Van Mander goes on to explain how different flesh tints should be mixed depending on the age, gender or profession of the subject; clearly flesh color is tied to the object it denotes. In her carefully researched article ‘Fleshing out the Body. The ‘colours of the naked’ in workshop practice and art theory 1400 – 1600’, Anne-Sophie Lehmann goes on to conclude, by looking at Van Mander’s Schilder-boeck also, that according to Van Mander, the depiction of flesh is so important to the success of a skilled artist that ‘a good colourist is by definition a good flesh painter’6. As Lehmann states, ‘flesh colour’ is the only specific colour that Van Mander uses, elsewhere just using the word ‘colour’ generically.

Anne-Sophie Lehmann goes on to trace the first mention of ‘flesh colour’ in theory to the writer, Jean Lemaire de Belges (c. 1473 – c. 1525), a Walloon poet and historian. Just as Van Mander gives specific instructions on pigments that should and shouldn’t be used in a realistic depiction of human skin, Lemaire’s attitude to the subject is just as complex. For Lemaire, flesh colour is the only colour that needs to be properly made and requires specific attention from the person who is mixing the pigments; it would seem yet again that a certain degree of innate skill comes into the creation of the illusion of flesh, seemingly above many other objects in a painting, at least in terms of correct colouring7. In fact, in the tenth chapter of his ‘Groot Schilderboek’ (1708), Gerard de Lairesse (1641 – 1711) thinks that the realistic depiction of flesh, or ‘Koleur der Naakten’ is such a complex issue that he says ‘I find there is so much to say about it that it is impossible to fit into one chapter’8. For the Art Theorists of the time, and in the wake of the new developments in oil paint which allowed for such a much more realistic portrayals, the illusion of human flesh was a key discussion, a discussion rooted in technical processes. Like Van Mander, De Lairesse notes that there needs to be a difference in flesh colour between subjects, ie. gender or age and talks specifically about which pigments to use for certain cases.

5 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p99. 6 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p99 7 As cited by Lehmann in ‘Fleshing out the body’, p93. 8 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p87 5

The significance of the colour of flesh is again highlighted by the Dutch Art Historian, , in his fascinating book Rembrandt: The Painter at work, in which he discusses the artistic processes of Rembrandt as ‘a painter at work’. Van de Wetering, in a discussion on seventeenth-century colouristic conventions, mentions that flesh tones followed a certain set of rules and like the iconographically significant blue of Mary’s robe ‘had an important status’9. Like Jean Lemaire de Belges and Gerard de Lairesse, Van de Wetering cites Willem Beurs (1656 – 1700), a painter and author, and his recipes in which, he too, ends with the colour of flesh and gives this topic most precedence. Beurs writes: ‘ Just as we humans consider ourselves foremost amongst animals; so, too, are we the foremost subject of the art of painting, and it is in painting human flesh that its highest achievements are to be seen’10. Van de Wetering goes on to explain that the colours with which Beurs recommends for human flesh (Lead white, light ochre, organic yellow, vermillion, red lake, red ochre, terre verte, umber and ‘coal black’) are to be found in the palettes in numerous seventeenth-century paintings and thus one can recognize the creation of flesh tints as formulaic and part of artistic convention. For Van de Wetering, the many manuals, recipe books as well as the physical evidence of the paintings themselves point to the conclusion that ‘the palette for flesh colour represented the worthiest task of the painter’11.

As well as knowing the different colours that were used to create flesh, it is important to know when and how these colours were used and in what layer. In her essay Technical Examinations in Perspective, Petria Noble, then conservator at the , now head of restoration at the , gives a detailed, technical account of how paintings were built up in the seventeenth century. In early modern Netherlandish painting techniques, the imprimatura layer was used and then a subsequent deadcolouring layer to add pure blocks of tonal layers, which added depth to the upper layer of detail and colour. Noble explains that in her explorations of the Portraits in the Mauritshuis,

9 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’, (Amsterdam University Press 1997) p144 10 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p147 11 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p148 6 it is the combination of greyish undermodelling which is sometimes then also combined with brown undermodelling which gives flesh colour its cool undertone12. Noble notes how towards the end of the sixteenth century, artists began to be more economical with their processes, to rise to the growing demand for portraits, and reduced the number of paint layers, often leaving the undermodelling exposed as either shadow or highlight. Noble notes specifically how this was important for creating flesh tints as the underlayers could either be left open or partially covered with semi-opaque layers to produce delicate half- shadows13. This became more popular throughout the century and seems to appear more often than creating flesh tints the other way round; that is painting brownish shadow over bright white and pink grounds. This technique, which was often supported with wet-on-wet rapid brushstrokes, is very evocative of Rembrandt or Frans Hals where colour and tonal effects are more crucial to the creation of the illusion than the form itself. There is much literature on Rembrandt’s ‘loose’ technique that I will go on to relay in my discussion on the illusion of human flesh. In opposition to this, as Noble also records, the illusion of flesh can also be portrayed in a very fine and detailed way as in the works of the fijnschilders. Noble exemplifies this way of working with Casper Netscher who smoothly blended his flesh tones and then added glazes over the top as highlights to produce ‘smooth, highly finished surfaces’14.

In a discussion on the literature of the illusion of flesh, it is difficult not to mention Rubens who is synonymous with his depictions of fleshy corporeal females. In ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’, Karolien De Clippel discusses the artistic processes that Rubens used to create the flesh of his figures and places this within a historical discourse that saw Rubens reacting to a contemporary debate about flesh colouring. For De Clippel, Rubens made the ‘realistic depiction of skin a primary concern’ of his painting15. De Clippel, like Anne-Sophie Lehmann and Paul Taylor traces the discourse around the lifelike

12 Petria Noble, ‘Technical examinations in perspective’, in Ben Broos and Ariane van Suchtelen (eds.), Portraits in the Mauritshuis, (Den Haag/Zwolle 2004) p332 13 Petria Noble, ‘Technical examinations in perspective’ p332 14 Petria Noble, ‘Technical examinations in perspective’ p333 15 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’, Netherlands Yearbook for History of Art, Vol. 58, Issue 1, (2007) p146 7 depiction of skin to Van Mander, who saw something in Italian works, most importantly Titian, that was lacking in the work of the Netherlandish artists. Van Mander noted flesh colour that was warmer, plumper and softer than the ‘fish or stone-like bodies of his compatriots’16. Paul Taylor, in his illuminating article on ‘The glow’ assimilates this warm illusion within flesh as a technique called gloein. According to Van Mander, Hendrik Goltzius brought the technique back from Italy and Taylor shows how artists emulated the illusion by applying a layer of red paint in the undermodelling of the flesh tints. This idea is supported by technical explorations such as those by Petra Noble, previously discussed. For example, the importance of this ‘glow’ within flesh colouring is shown by Van Mander who often praised it. He described The Death of the Virgin by Pieter Aetsen as ‘a very distinguished and artful work’ because it was ‘very glowing in the nude parts and well-coloured’; clearly an effective gloein was integral to the flesh tint itself17. De Clippel discusses Rubens in light of this discourse around the ‘glow’ and flesh tints as Rubens, like Van Mander, noted a tendency for artists to depict their figures in a cold, opaque, un-lifelike way, remarking that human skin should be anything but ‘marble tinged with various colours’18. De Clippel, uses the example of Rubens’s Suzanna (1608) to show how ‘dead marble has made way for living woman’s flesh’ by using a variety of warm tints in the underpainting and creating ‘gentle contours in pure red lake’; pale, cool, fishy tints are nowhere to be seen19 20. For De Clippel, ‘In Ruben’s interpretation the skin is no longer a border or covering of the body but has become part of the flesh beneath’ and in its successful lifelikeness elicits an illusion that makes Rubens’s figures palpable to the viewer and even inspires the desire to touch.21

Alongside the pigments and colouring of flesh, the contemporary literature also gives instruction on what tools an artist should use to correctly achieve certain fleshy effects. Seventeenth-century art theory reveals that there were three main stages in the production of a painting, ‘the inventing, the dead-

16 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p99 17 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p99 18 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p145 19 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p147 20 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p147 21 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p147 8 colouring’ and the ‘working up’22. I have already discussed the dead-colouring and will not go on to look at the ‘working up’ and how certain effects and illusions were achieved. The realistic depiction of skin not only calls for a variation of tones and colour but texture; whether it be wrinkles, marks or pocks, the surface of flesh is uneven and complex. Paradoxically, as advised in much if the literature of the time on the ‘smooth’ style, the paint must be smoothly applied to adhere to the illusion of the painting as a whole. Van Mander in his Schilder-boeck discusses that before a choice of the right flesh pigments is made, the texture and variations in the subject being depicted must be first carefully observed23. This then translates into how the artist must manipulate the paint with the right tools in order to give the right effect. Karel van Mander, Gerard de Lairesse and a bit later, Arnold Houbracken (1660 – 1719) all instruct on the importance of the right brush when creating the illusion of flesh. Van Mander and De Lairesse both recommend vispenseel or visschen brushes which were fanning brushes made out of very soft hair from otters of sea lions so that delicate blending could be achieved24. The soft brush meant that the surface took on an idealised effect and the brush was even sometimes called a ‘sweetener’25.

In her article, Lehmann uses an interesting example to illustrate this idea of ‘sweetening’. She cites an account that Houbracken gave about the artist Nicolaes Maes when apparently he had to even out the realistic pockmarks he gave his patron in her portrait and even them out with a vispeeseel26. Arnold Houbracken cites: ‘A certain lady (whose name I do not wish to mention), far from the fairest in the land, had her portrait painted by him, which he depicted as it was with all the pockmarks and scars. When she arose and beheld herself in all her ugliness she said to him: ‘The devil, Maas, what kind of monstrous face have you painted of me! I do not wish it thus, the dogs would bark at it were it to be carried in the street like this,’ Maas, who saw in a trice what was

22 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p27 23 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p99 24 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p96 25 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p96 26 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p96 9

required of him, said: ‘Madam, it is not yet finished’, and asks her to seated once ore. He took a badger-hair brush and removed all those pockmarks, put a blush on the cheeks and said: ‘Madam, now it is ready, please come and inspect it,’ Having done so she said: Yes, that is how it should be.’ She was satisfied when it did not resemble her’27 It would seem that a realistic representation was not always for the best; it was up to the artist to find a balance between a realistic illusion and a flattering one. This becomes even more relevant in a discussion of portraits, particularly of females, where all too often we see peachy, smooth complexions that could not have always been a faithful description of reality. Indeed, in her discussion of seventeenth-century portraiture conventions from her book ‘Rembrandt’s Women’, Art Historian Julia Lloyd Williams also makes this point. Williams makes reference to smallpox and its marking results on the face, a common illness of the time, and remarks that Maes ‘could not possible have been the only painter who made pockmarks disappear with a wave of his brush’28.

The particular movement of the soft ‘sweetening’ brush, and how it was to be used was also important and similar descriptive vocabulary can be found across the contemporary art literature. Where Van Mander says that flesh paint should be applied ‘softly, meltingly’, de Lairesse describes a ‘swinging, waving’ movement29. All these words point to a process of creation that was fluid but delicate; the flesh must be applied in the same way that it tangibly appears in real life, soft and wavy. However, although much of the contemporary literature agrees on this particular process, there are artistic techniques and nuances within the way an artist uses his brushes that are perceptibly different. These differences can be explained by Ernst van de Wetering’s discussion on Rembrandt’s artistic processes and the debate on the ‘rough and smooth’ manners of painting, which ‘must have been a considerable topic of discussion in seventeenth-century workshops’30. According to De Lairesse, the paint should be

27 Julia Lloyd Williams, ‘Rembrandt’s Women’, (Prestel Press 2001) p30 28 Julia Lloyd Williams, ‘Rembrandt’s Women’ p30 29 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p96 30 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p190 10 applied ‘evenly and lushly’31 which meant that the brushwork across the whole painting should appear smooth and uniform. For De Lairesse, the ‘daubing’ technique which Rembrandt ( and Lievens ) used in their works, created an ineffective illusion as the ‘colours run down the piece like dung’32. Van de Wetering explains how Rembrandt’s brushwork and illusionism is different to the controlled use of elements and smooth brushwork which De Lairesse, and much of the art-theory of the time, advises; it is important to have an understanding of both these manners of applying paint in order to look at the artistic processes in creating the illusion of flesh in more detail. Van de Wetering describes Rembrandt’s ‘daubing’ or, ‘rough manner’ of painting as ‘painterly painting’ which can be associated with Titian’s style and the term sprezzatura33 . The term sprezzatura was translated as ‘looseness’ and often was used in lieu with a nobleman who gave off the air as having ‘effortless nonchalance’34. It is easy to see how this term could be applied to the loose and flowing yet highly skilled illusionistic brushwork of Rembrandt whose, according to Ernst ‘emphasis in his work is on the casualness, the almost chance nature of such effects’35. Ernst links this style of brushwork with Titian who, like Rembrandt, could transform his technique and paint directly onto the canvas without preparatory drawings, ‘tonal and colour values taking precedence over form’36.

Rembrandt could skilfully employ both a ‘rough’ manner or ‘smooth’ effect to his works, including the illusion of flesh. Just as the ‘smooth’ manner created an illusion through its mimetic qualities to real life, the ‘rough’ manner included certain illusionistic tricks, which, although more painterly, rendered a painting with movement and life. Van de Wetering describes how the rapid, loose, and fleeting brushwork of Rembrandt means that contours and under drawings, which can appear contrived, are avoided in the ‘loose manner’. Although brushstrokes are more visible, the illusion is perhaps made more real

31 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p156 32 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p156 33 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p190 34 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p162 35 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p172 36 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p162 11 through the visibility of its human artistic processes as opposed to a false denial of medium although as we will go onto see in my discussion on flesh, both manners have their illusionistic merits in the depiction of skin. In the words of Ernst van de Wetering, the effect of the brushwork of Rembrandt and , manipulated the surface of the picture ‘to produce a mimetic representation of the materials depicted’; the trick of the illusion is textural and not about form. In another book on the painterly exploration of Rembrandt’s techniques, Rembrandt’s Nose, Micheal Taylor similarly describes how the artist uses his brush and the illusion this creates37. For Taylor, ‘the worked paint is the texture of what it depicts’ as ‘the artist’s brush fashions a surface that has bumps and wrinkles, minute troughs and crests, or swirls of impasto that are able to convey the puffiness of a complexion or the weight of a lace cuff’38 39. Colour, light and shade are inextricably linked to the way this brushwork is worked up; heightenings are left to shine through and according to the degree of relief in impasto, the surface can reflect light and create shadow accordingly. Ernst describes how Rembrandt’s brushwork does thus and that his loose brushwork and heavy impasto is skilled artistic procedure and not the result of ‘unfinished’ work as many of his contemporaries believed40.

As previously mentioned, Van Mander talks often when discussing flesh of ‘glowing flesh parts’. A huge part of the literature on flesh was concerned with the properties of oil paint and what this allowed for in the depiction of flesh; with oil paint came translucent glazes and an ability to create thin layers which nuances highlights and shadows to give this ‘glowing’ effect. As Lehmann states in her article ‘Painting Skin and Water - Towards a Material Iconography of Translucent Motifs’, the introduction of oil created a ‘mimetic relation between the medium and actual human skin’; oil paint allows for a smooth transformation from material to representation41. In order to explore these qualities, it is necessary to revisit Paul Taylor’s article ‘The Glow in late Sixteenth and

37 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p190 38 Michael Taylor, ‘Rembrandt’s Nose: Of Flesh & Spirit in the Master’s Portraits’, (Distributed Art Publishers 2007) p51 39 Michael Taylor, ‘Rembrandt’s Nose…’ p51 40 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p220 41 Anne-Sophie Lehman,, ‘Painting Skin and Water…’ p216 12

Seventeenth Century Dutch Paintings’. In this article, Taylor examines the Dutch words ‘gloed’, ‘gloeyentheyt’, ‘gloedich’ and ‘gloeyend’ that appeared often in the contemporary art literature. I think that an understanding of the concept ‘the glow’ is essential in understanding technical processes behind the illusion of flesh. Taylor traces the meaning as having shifted during the century. For Taylor, Karel van Mander employs the term to discuss a technique that was brought back from Italy by Hendrick Goltzius in the winter of 1590, which was different from the way Gerard de Lairesse and Willem Goeree used the in the 1670s and later. Van Mander uses ‘gloeyend’ to describe a way of rendering flesh that he saw as specifically coming from Italian artists. In ‘gloeyend’, Van Mander saw flesh tones that were built up smoothly and fleshy forms that were ‘created almost entirely through smooth modelling’; underpainting and soft undermodelling is used to create fleshy form as opposed to underdrawings which could show through the thin paint layers and appear harsh42. The effect of translucency was achieved by drawing thin glazes over the undermodelling and ground, which in Van Mander’s eyes created ‘a glowing translucent effect’43. It was the coloring however which Van Mander saw as most crucial to a good ‘gloeyend’. Van Mander sees a warmth used by the Italian artists, and then Goltzius and Badens, in the rendering of flesh tones that is in stark contrast to the ‘stony greyness, or pale, fishy, coldish colour that he saw in the human figures in the works of Netherlandish artists44 . For Van Mander, flesh tints should be portrayed with red and ochre tints ‘to express the lifeblood under the skin’45.

Contrastingly, and very interestingly to note, Paul Taylor argues that Gerard de Lairesse, later in the century, took the term ‘glowing’ to mean ‘pure’ but also ‘advancing to they eye’46. In the creation of the illusion of flesh then, we must also think about its spatial relations to the pictorial whole as the glow helps

42 Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 55 (1992) p162 43Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p163 44 Karel van Mander, as cited in Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p162 45 Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p163 46 Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p175 13 to construct a plausible reality. For Lairesse, the glowing manner in the way that Van Mander praised it was not desirable as did not match the colouring of nature. Lairesse thought instead that ‘the glow’ was used successfully when used ‘purely for the power of effect’and that artists such as Rembrandt and Lievens introduced the glow into the fleshy shadows of their figures to help them construct a three-dimensional effect47. In thinking about the spatial term ‘houding’ in which ‘composition and fitting arrangement’ is organised through ideas of symmetry, analogy, harmony and proportion to create a plausible space, the correct blending of shadows around flesh tones is essential to make sure the figures occupy their proper space48. In his Groot Schilderboek , Lairesse explains this by talking about colours which recede and advance towards the eye; the glow of the flesh must be painted correctly so that the figure holds its position in the pictorial space, whether that be in the foreground or background49. This concept was clearly important as is illustrated by a very similar instruction by Samuel van Hoogstraten. Hoogstraten, advises that ‘a girl’s breasts or an outstretched hand’ are usually given ‘a distinct shadow’ on either side in order to make them stand out50.

For Ernst van de Wetering, the debate on the ‘loose and rough manners’ also calls into question this idea of spatial illusion and is a key aspect in understanding Rembrandt’s artistic processes as a painter. This idea of houding and successful pictorial wholes can stem from a correct use of colour, as in the case of De Lairesse, in which bold colours advance and muted colours recede but also by contour and even the texture of the paint itself; all these elements are used by the skilled artist who needs to apply they correctly to create a convincing space. Van de Wetering explains that what Hoogstraten ( and De Lairesse ) means is that thick impasto paint obviously attracts the eye and thus advances towards the viewer, whereas smoothly applied paint recedes as it lacks

47 Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p171 48 Samuel Van Hoogstraten, as cited by Paul Taylor in ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p. 214 49 Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p172 50 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p186 14

‘optical achorage’51. In fact, again Van de Wetering ties Rembrandt with texture citing that the statement ‘Neither one colour of another will make your work seem to advance or recede, but the perceptibility or imperceptibility of the parts alone’ as crucial to how Rembrandt thought and practiced as a painter52. For example, in a description of Rembrandt’s ‘’, Van de Wetering describes how the way the paint is applied aids spatial relations in a way that is useful to a discussion on the rendering of human flesh. Van de Wetering shows that by rendering the woman’s finger with a plasticity in which ‘the dragging hairs of the brush have drawn furrows that catch the light’, the finger catches the light and through is texture, stands out from the smooth pink and grey hand beneath, or ‘dusky background’ as Van de Wetering puts it53. Van de Wetering believes this manner of working with brush gives Rembrandt’s works an atmospheric quality, a statement I believe few could disagree with. Van de Wetering goes on to describe the woman’s face where brushwork too has been used to create the fleshy illusion; ‘the transitions from light to shadow near the woman’s nose are not smooth, but more the result of dragging an almost dry brush over the surface’54. This atmospheric quality is created through how the paint is applied, that is smoothly or through impasto with ‘lumps and cavities’ in the paint surface which through the power of effect determines the successfulness of the pictorial whole. For Van de Wetering ‘The interaction of sharp and blurred elements continuously stimulates the eye to explore the spatial illusion of the image instead of taking for granted what it sees as in the work of so many other artists which faithfully ‘describe’ the reality that is suggested’’55.

After outlining some of the literature then that gives us a broad historical context for the artistic creation of flesh in the seventeenth-century, I will now turn to more gendered considerations and how the literature gives us insight into the different handling of depictions of flesh between men and women. In her research into the workshop practices behind flesh, Anne-Sophie Lehmann cites a

51 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p183 52 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p183 53 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p158 54 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p159 55 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p221 15

Dutch manuscript compiled before 1500 as being one of the first with distinguished male from female flesh colour. In the manuscript, lead white and ‘a little rose’ is recommended for women’s faces, whilst ‘yellow ochre’ should be used for men56. This differentiation shows the basic example of how the two differ and is mirrored in many seventeenth-century paintings; the woman’s pallor is often much paler and cooler than the man’s warmer skin tone. The coloring of women in such way recalls Petrarchan tradition in which feminine ideals were made up blonde hair, black eyes, white skin and red cheeks and lips. Giovanni Marinello’s Gli ornamenti delle donne (1562) exemplifies these ideals and offers some insight into the Petrarchian origins: [The cheeks will be white and red, and nearly tender and delicate, the whitest resembling milk, lilies, white roses, and snow and the vermilion colors a pair of fleshpink roses, and purple hyacinths, as Petrarch writes in the Sonnet, “I will sing of love,” where he says: and the vermilion roses among the snow moved by the breeze . . . And Aristo in the Seventh Canto: The mixed color of roses and lilies Spread across the delicate cheek From which things we gather that four qualities are required of the cheeks, other than their position; that they be white, red, tender and delicate.]57

Although my discussion will be largely based around portraits painted by artists from the Northern Netherlands, I would like to again here turn to Rubens and the literature on the flesh of his females. In a very interesting essay on Rubens’s painting of his wife Helena Fourment, titled Het Pelsken, Margrit Thofner makes a thought provoking conclusion about the joking reference to skin in the title Het Pelsken. Thofner states that ‘The colourful beauty of the painting and its Venus-like sitter is, in fact only transient and skin-

56 Lehmann ‘Fleshing out the body’, p90 57 As cited in Patricia Phillippy, ‘Painting Women. Cosmetics, Canvases & Early Modern Culture’, (Johns Hopkins University Press; 1 edition 2005) p6 16 deep’58. Thofner’s conclusion that Rubens is making a pun about transient beauty is well argued in her essay and in fact, supported by Karolien De Clippel’s on Rubens and how he self-consciously fashioned an idea of femininity in depictions of females and in doing so, defines beauty. Like the Petrarchian ideals in Giovanni Marinello’s Gli ornamenti delle donne (cited above), Rubens’s accentuates feminine virtues such as delicate alabaster skin and pink blushes to highlight the difference between the sexes. Whereas his depictions of men are more true to life, De Clippel argues that Rubens exaggerates ideal female qualities, to do just so, create a tangible difference. De Clippel describes how ‘translated into paint, he made female skin appear even lighter and more transparent and, as such, clearly distinguishes from the heavily tinted carnations with reddish shadows of the male hands, which cannot resist touching it’59. In creating female flesh which was idealized, artists made their sitter’s youthful beauty ephemeral, which in turn reflected on the artist’s abilities as the tempting power of the skin translated into the tempting power of painting. De Clippel cites how Van Mander was well aware of the tempting power of skin and argued that the correct colouring of the flesh in depiction of women ‘might stir sensual desires’60. For De Clippel then, Rubens’s different handling of the flesh between depictions of men and women is about creating difference but also perhaps about the identity of the artist who wants to seduce his viewer through his brushwork.

De Clippel shows how Rubens ‘brought the contrast between male and female skin to a new artistic level’61, not only through the colouring but also through texture and the handling of the brush by making his females ‘fleshy’. This is an idea echoed by much seventeenth-century art theory. In opposition to hard male bodies, Van Mander advises that females should be made of plump flesh ‘with small creases and folds and dimpled hands’62. Like the literature on

58 Margit Thofner, ’Helena Fourment’s Het Pelsken’, Art History, Vol. 27, Issue 1, (Feb 2004) p26 59 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p147 60 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p148 61 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p148 62 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p149 17

Rembrandt also exemplifies, clearly the plasticity, elasticity and overall texture was very important to art-theorists and artists alike. De Clippel concludes her discussion on Rubens’s female nudes by explaining the ‘palpability’ of Rubens’s female forms with two key effects; both of which have been previously discussed in this essay. Firstly, De Clippel praises the colouring which Rubens makes brighter though ‘full use of the grey iprimatura’ and secondly, the fleshy effect which is made ‘through its articulation by folds’63. Colouring and brushwork are clearly essential to creating the successful illusion of flesh and these aspects become heightened when creating differentiation between the sexes.

63 Karolien De Clippel, ‘Defining beauty: Rubens’s female nudes’ p152 18

Dutch Seventeenth-Century Portraiture

It is not only the physical evidence then, left behind in carefully rendered seventeenth century figures, that points to the complexity of the artistic representation of flesh, but the plethora of technical recipes and theory that attests thus. After mapping much of the literature around the subject, both contemporary to the seventeenth century and modern, I will now turn to the paintings themselves. As mentioned in my introduction, it is the achievement of successfully portrayed flesh that breathes life into representations of the human figure. In thinking of an apt genre of comparable paintings to study for my research into flesh then, it seems fitting to look to portraiture. Although portraiture was not the most highly respected type of painting in seventeenth century Holland, it was nonetheless, a most prolific genre and provided a huge percentage of income for artists. Due to this, not only are there a huge number of existing portraits to study, but they offer a great variety of style and technique which can enrich and add breadth to a study on material processes. In addition to this, the study of portraits is key to an understanding of the illusion of flesh as, in the words of portrait specialist Rudi Ekkart in the fascinating overview of portraiture in ‘Dutch Portraits in the age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’, it implies a more or less accurate likeness of a specific person, produced in order to be recognizable’64. The illusion does not only have to successfully convince the viewer that the subject is human but that it is the living, breathing flesh of a specific human.

This takes on even more resonance if we consider the fact that portraiture (and other genres) in the Dutch Golden Age was characterized by its highly skilled . However, we must also be careful when considering the term ‘realism’ in conjuncture with portraits as they do not always portray accurate a truthful representation but a self-presentation. For American Art Historian Harry Berger, Jr. ‘to call a picture a portrait is to accept its fictive claim to be an image

64 Rudi Ekkart, Rudolf E. O, Beverley Jackson, Quentin Buvelot, and Marieke . Winkel (eds.), ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’, (2007)

19 taken “from life”’65. Berger explains that in a portrait, the sitter records him or herself in an pose and therefore in definition ‘to be a portrait sitter. . . is to acknowledge the observer’66 which in turn explains a portrait as a fictive claim. This is important to bear in mind when considering the illusion of flesh in Portraits as ‘realism’ in terms of skin, warts and all, must have been a key concern for the artist in the artistic rendering of his sitter. This brings to the forefront questions that draw connections between practical art history and representation such as ‘what was the definition of a successful illusion in portraiture…. where did flattery fit in?’, ‘Was the rendering of flesh in portraiture supposed to reveal or conceal the truth of the sitter?” and ‘How do these considerations change between representations of men and women and between different artists?’; I will attempt to answer these questions and others later on in my study.

I will begin my object study with a brief outline of the portraiture situation in the Dutch Golden Age. In the introductory essay to ‘Portraits in the Mauritshuis’, Rudi Ekkart explains how in the prosperous Dutch Republic, due to the rise of trade and the structure of the government in the Northern Netherlands, thousands of men and women, of different class and professions, suddenly had the money and ability to be able to hire an artist and immortalize themselves67. A testimony to this is the rise of many militia pieces that were commissioned by the burgers that held a new place in seventeenth century society. Ekkart explains how there was a particular boom in the production of portraiture between 1610-1630 and that from the later half of the 1620s ‘the stream of portrait commissions became a flood’, the number of artists producing them also rising dramatically68. Although Amsterdam held the highest concentration of portrait artists across this time, there were several highly sought after artists working in every large city. One of the most famous of these was Frans Hals who from about 1610 became one of Haarlem’s biggest exports.

65 Harry Berger Jr., ‘Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ and other Dutch Group Portraits’, (Fordham University Press 2006) p30 66 Harry Berger Jr., ‘Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief…) p30 67 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p16 68 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p30

20

Hals’s portrait oeuvre consisted of hundreds of paintings and his career as a portrait specialist lasted over 50 years. Ekkart notes how portraiture from 1610- 1630 was ‘largely characterized by an austere dignity, which sometimes – in the hands of less gifted artists – degenerated into stiffness’69. However, in the figure of Hals, this trend of dry plasticity is transformed into a loose and animated style which came across not only in the relaxed poses of his sitters but the dynamic materiality of the brushstrokes themselves. Ekkart continues the historiography by discussing a flowering of portraiture in Amsterdam between 1630 – 1640 in which there was ‘a noticeable innovative thrust in portraiture in Amsterdam’; this was not only reflected in the influx of artists producing portraits but in a marked change in the type of portraits being produced as convention was experimented upon70. Ekkart mentions Rembrandt and De Keyser as being at the forefront of portrait painting in Amsterdam with artists such as Pieter Codde and Jacob Backer following close behind. From 1640 onwards, Bartholomeus van der Helst is noted as being the dominant influence, alongside Backer, Govert Flinck and Ferdinand Bol71. Pupil of Rembrandt, Nicolaes Maes, later became Amsterdam’s most popular portraitist72.

As previously mentioned, the high demand for portraits all over The Netherlands meant not only that artists were geographically distributed but that the type or portrait being produced varied a lot also. Whether it was family portraits, militia pieces or group portraits made for guilds and societies, many portraits were being produced for many different reasons and on top of this, lots of these were highly skilled and produced very good likenesses to their sitters. However, ‘the most common occasion for having a portrait made was marriage’73. This presents itself very nicely to a study on the illusion of flesh in men and women as it gives an opportunity to compare the sexes either across pendant portraits, produced at the same time by the same artist, or in a solitary double portrait. Although pendant portraits were more common in seventeenth-

69 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p25 70 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p30 71 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p33 72 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p42 73 Rudi Ekkart in Ben Broos and Ariane van Suchtelen (eds.), ‘Portraits in the Mauritshuis’, (Den Haag/ Zwolle 2004) p17 21 century Holland, I have chosen to include a double portrait as well, offering a direct juxtaposition of male and female flesh.

In the next two sections then, I will be focusing my research on paintings that are comparable between representations of men and women from the same artist (marriage portraits), but also comparing between artists. I have chosen 11 paintings from 4 artists; Rembrandt ( with works from both his early and late oeuvre), Abraham van den Tempel, Frans Hals and Johannes Verspronck. I have made this selection as not only do I think these artists are a good representation of portraiture as a whole at the time but they offer variety in style and geographical location. Where Rembrandt and Van den Tempel were working in Amsterdam, Frans Hals and Johannes Verspronck worked in Haarlem. The selected paintings were all painted between 1622-1667 and where possible I have picked comparable pairs that match up either on date or style.

In terms of style, I have picked artists who use very different techniques and processes in their art. In a study on material process, it seems very natural to include both Frans Hals and Rembrandt, both of who are identified with the unique materiality of their works. As Art Historian Christopher D.M. Atkins remarks in his book The Signature Style of Frans Hals, ‘writers insistently characterized Hals’s pictures as made objects’74. Both Rembrandt ( in his ‘loose’ style) and Hals present us with paintings that embrace the artistic act; the illusion is not created by concealing the means used to create it, as many other seventeenth-century artists strived to do, but embraces paint and painting to create life and texture. Both Rembrandt and Hals are often regarded as having added something new to the portraiture conventions at the time, adding character and life to their sitters through pose, technique and style. As Atkins interestingly points out in a discussion on Hals and his uniqueness, ‘explorations of style enable us to approach how early modern artists and audiences saw and comprehended visual material. This is because formal concerns were fundamental to these viewers’; this is of the utmost relevance to my material

74 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity’, (Amsterdam University Press 2015) p13 22 study on the illusion of flesh and it is why I have chosen artists that represent stylistic variety75. Perhaps the most important factor in this selection is that all the paintings are on display or available to view at request in Public Collections in the Netherlands; integral to an investigation of material process possible as it is necessary to scrutinize the object in detail.

I will structure my exploration of the material evidence by separating the material into two sections: Amsterdam and Haarlem. In each section I will discuss the relevant artists, making first conclusions about how a particular artist creates the illusion of flesh and then how this differs across his portrayal of the sexes. I will then compare the material processes deployed across a comparable pair of artists and look at how successful the respective portrayals of flesh are. Due to the fact that I will be looking at portraits, my visual analysis will be focused mainly to the heads and hands of the figures.

75 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p13 23

Amsterdam: Rembrandt and Abraham van den Tempel.

In my discussion of Amsterdam Portraitists I have chosen to look at Rembrandt (1606 – 1669) and Abraham van den Tempel (c. 1622 – 1672). Following in the footsteps (ca. 1576 – 1624) who was at the forefront of the flowering of portraiture in Amsterdam for a long time, Rembrandt established himself as a key competitor in the market from 1631 onwards. From 1631 to 1635, Rembrandt was working in Hendrick Uylenburgh’s workshop, with whom he had contracted a business relationship76. From the workshop Rembrandt was able to produce a substantial amount of portraits, mainly pendant portraits, and quickly became Amsterdam’s most fashionable portrait painter. Ekkart notes that although Rembrandt’s output of portraits declines from the mid-1630s onwards, it was probably not due to a decline in popularity but due to the fact that Rembrandt was concentrating on other genres of painting77. In this period between 1631-1636, Rembrandt produced a huge number of portraits that although fitted with the conventions of the time in pose and composition, were incredibly innovative at the same time. Where Ekkart praises Rembrandt’s ability in this time, noting ‘his gift to make his portraits wholly natural’, Ernst van de Wetering similarly points out Rembrandt’s success in creating portraits that were much livelier than that of his contemporaries78. For Van de Wetering, the success in Rembrandt’s portraits lay in their ability to focus the viewer’s attention ‘by limiting the amount of detail and by using simple but dynamic contours’and thus leading the eye to the face and away from unnecessary ornament and distractions79. Later on his career, what Ernst van de Wetering calls ‘The Fourth Amsterdam Period’ (1558 – 1669), Rembrandt, who after painting very few portraits for a long time, begun to take on commissions again. For Ekkart, and I’m sure many others, it is these late portraits that are ‘among the highlights of his oeuvre’80.

76 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: A life in 180 Paintings’, (Local World BV 2008) p53 77 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p31 78 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p31 79 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: A life in 180 Paintings’ p53 80 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p40 24

It is to these two periods in Rembrandt’s life; The Early Amsterdam Period (1631-1636) and The Fourth Amsterdam Period (1568 – 1669) that I turn for my selection of portraits. These two periods mark a stylistic difference in the way that Rembrandt employs his brush for artistic and illusionary effect. Although Van de Wetering has shown how Rembrandt played between the ‘smooth’ and ‘rough’ styles throughout his career and that his oeuvre was not so strictly divided between ‘early’ and ‘late’ styles, as is most commonly believed, a large concentration of the earlier portraits were much more finely painted than those created in the last years of his life. I will focus my investigation into how Rembrandt creates the illusion of flesh on the pendant portraits of Jacob Trip and his wife Margaretha de Geer, both of which were painted in 1661 (see figs. 3&4). I will look at ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’ (1639) (see fig. 2) and ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaas Tulp’ (1632) (see fig. 1) as a point of comparison and examples from his earlier oeuvre to show how differently Rembrandt can deploy his tools and materials to create an illusion.

In ‘Rembrandt - The Painter at Work’, Ernst van de Wetering notes a difference in technique in the flesh parts in Rembrandt’s figures between his early and late works. Van de Wetering observes ‘a more complicated layer structure’ in Rembrandt’s later portraits than is his earlier ones, which had a simple build-up in the faces81. This is supported by much of Micheal Taylor’s analysis of Rembrandt’s techniques in ‘Rembrandt’s Nose’ in which he relates the multi-layered complex paintwork with a late style remarking that ‘the worked paint is the texture of what it depicts’. Although the paintings from his earlier oeuvre are not pendants and so the flesh between the men and woman can not be compared directly, they still provide us with illustrations of how Rembrandt used his technique in these earlier years to create the illusion of flesh; examples of pendants from his early oeuvre are not available to view in Dutch Collections. To get the commission of ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp’ was a great honour for the young Rembrandt who had just moved to Amsterdam from (fig. 1). It was commissioned by the Surgeons’ Guild for the anatomy lesson that the praekector anatomiae, Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, gave that year; this is

81 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p220 25 was special occasion as there was only one public autopsy held each year. Although each individual is recognisable (of course their had to be a likeness), Rembrandt has positioned the sitters not in the conventional format of a guild group portrait in which all men face out to the viewer, but at different levels in the composition; some look out towards us but most are too intrigued by the unfolding scientific drama in front of them. All men share a common interest and passion for knowledge. Their focus is held not just by the dead criminal who’s arm is being dissected but by Dr. Nicolaes Tulp who is compositionally the pivotal figure; Tulp is the only figure to face right, meeting the gaze of his 7 compatriots who together fit into almost the same amount of atmospheric space as Tulp has to himself on the right. There is an intense play on light and shadow in this group portrait which sees the faces of the men caught in bright light; even the corpse is illuminated. The illuminated corpse in the centre of the composition draws in the viewers gaze to the intricate rendering of the autopsied arm; testifying to both Tulp’s skill, the men’s thirst for knowledge and the skill of Rembrandt as an artist who has portrayed it not only so realistically but with anatomic precision. In an iconological exploration of the painting conduced in 1958, German Art Historian William Hecksher explained that the precision and compositional focus on the arm was informed by Tulp’s wish to compare himself to the famous anatomist Andreas Vesalius82.

This dramatic use of chiascuro in which we see beautifully lit figures against a dark atmospheric background is characteristic of other works in the young Rembrandt’s oeuvre. We see it also in the ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’(1639); the dramatic dark background, which is juxtaposed so strongly against her pale milky skin, is very reminiscent of the atmospheric, dark vignette which encloses the guild members (fig. 2). The skilful management of light that sees strong contrasts of light and shadow in this portrait means that all focus is on the youthful Maria; her pale flesh, feminine features and incredibly richly adorned dress dazzling out from their dark surroundings. There is incredible attention paid to the fine details of Maria’s dress and accessories. Our eye travels from the

82 Ben Broos and Ariane van Suchtelen (eds.), ‘Portraits in the Mauritshuis’, (Den Haag/ Zwolle 2004) p208 26 illuminated pale flesh of her young face, down her long neck on which lies a gleaming string of pearls to the beautifully intricate lace which bedecks her dress. Even her dress is treasure like, gold brocade overlaying a glinting shiny black satin. The whole effect is finished by two more strings of pearls on her delicate wrists at the bottom of the picture frame; the viewer is left to imagine the rest of the finery of her dress that must lay below. This portrait clearly presents Maria, the daughter of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant as an attractive option for potential husbands.

The dramatic contrasts of lighting in both these paintings are important to note in conception to the illusion of flesh as they point to the processes of how the young Rembrandt ‘invented’ his painting, and how he employed his ‘dead- colouring’. It was during the dead-colouring stage that the young Rembrandt must have paid much attention to the relationship between light and dark, clearly so important to the effect of both these paintings. In a technical report of ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’, Petria Noble has found that the ground consists of two layers; Rembrandt first used a red ochreish colour over which he applied a thick grey layer 83. Rembrandt has used this grey to demark the lighter passages of the composition such as the back wall which is lit behind the men; here the layer of brown doodverf which has been applied above the ground is thinner, allowing the grey to shine through more. On top of this were added further layers of sketchier greenish grey paint layers to enhance this lighting yet further. The grey can be seen especially around the contours of the men at the back of the composition where passages have been left not filled in at this doodverf stage to allow for the figures that were to be filled in later. Ernst van de Wetering explains how technical research has shown that this way of systematic working, from the ground to the undermodelling to the final paintlayers, was typical for the young Rembrandt. He worked from back to front in planes ‘starting with the sky in out-door scenes or the rear wall in interiors and finishing with the foreground figures’, aiding the illusion of a correct three- dimensional space84.

83 Petria Noble, ‘Portraits in the Mauritshuis’ p210 84 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p32 27

Likewise, it appears Rembrandt has worked much the same way in this ‘dead-colouring’ stage in the ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’. Although the whole composition is darker, and thus Rembrandt has not had to use the effect of a lighter doodverf to demark passages of light it is possible to see how he built of layers of tonal colour in planes. A brownish-ochre coloured ground was used, as cited in ‘The Rembrandt Corpus III’, which is just about identifiable in the top corners of the painting85. As in the Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp it would also appear that Rembrandt blocked out the space for his figures to be filled in with more apt colouring later on. Rembrandt uses a grey undermodelling layer, certainly for the flesh areas, that can be seen shining through the upper flesh paint layer in the small cracks in the paint surface on the neck and very subtly in the blending around the eyebrows86. The cool grey gives her flesh a pure and youthful quality. The pink that appears in the flesh tones, although delicate, appear warm in this image as they contrast with the strong blacks and whites of her dress, or as Van de Wetering puts it, the ‘sparten colouring’ of this portrait87. The stark colouring is carefully balanced with blurred contours that do not appear sharp. An example of this is the transition from her hair to the background, which carefully and gradually recedes out of the light and into the shadows. The blending of colour and light is further enhanced by the careful and delicate areas of shadow on Maria such as the areas on her wrists under her cuffs and on her chest under the translucent gauze of her collar (fig. 2.1). This careful handling of paint makes the dramatic use of light and shadow almost subtle as Maria has a huge amount of physical presence against her dark background; she stands out but at the same time is part of her surroundings. Achieved through a systematic back-to front working method and careful blending, the atmospheric impression of depth is outstanding in both ‘The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ and ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’.

85 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings III: 1635 – 1642’, (1989) p314 86 Grey undermodelling confirmed , Ernst van de Wetering, ‘A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings III’ p314 87 Ernst van de Wetering , ‘A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings III’ p314 28

After the ‘inventing’ and ‘dead-colouring’, Rembrandt would then go on to the ‘working-up’ stage adding the correct colouring, contouring and detail to the doodverf. I will compare how he does this in the flesh parts of both ‘The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ and ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’. In both paintings, it is evident to see that the flesh parts were some of the most ‘worked-up’ areas with thicker layers of paint, more obvious brushwork and lots of variation in colour. Across both paintings it is possible to see that Rembrandt has work-up the flesh areas by first using a thick layer of greyish under-modelling, which must have contained a lot of lead white. However, where it is possible to see this layer shining through the top layers of detail in both the men in the Surgeon’s guild portrait and in the flesh of Maria, the cool tone of the lead white is much more intense in the female flesh than the male. In 1998, Petria Noble took a paint sample from the nose of one of the men in the portrait. Her findings support this build up of pink flesh tones on- top of a grey layer. In the pink surface layer Noble found that it was made up of lead white, yellow earth, vermillion and organic red lake88. This varied mix attests again to the skill of the artist creating the illusion of flesh who had to carefully mix many colours to create the correct flesh tint.

In ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaas Tulp’ the flesh tint of the men, although warmer than Maria’s, is on the whole quite cool which means that fits with the subdued tonality of their dress and background; this creates pictorial unity between the sitters and their surroundings. The flesh colour gets cooler and the detail in the faces diminishes as the men recede out of the light; the flesh of the two men at the back has the least amount of detail and plasticity. The saturation of the pinky flesh tint of the men has been worked up depending on where the men sit in the light; the more in the shadow, the less saturation and the more grey the tone is. The men in the light, especially the two in the centre of the composition have many more yellow and pink colours in the build of their flesh colour whereas the man on the far left is modelled predominantly in greys (figs. 1.1 and 1.2). This technique aids the correct spatial relations, playing on the use of light and thus strength of colour to make figures recede or advance.

88 Petria Noble, 1998 technical report for ‘The Anatomy of Dr. Nicoloaes Tulp’, taken from www.rembrandtdatabase.org 29

Where Maria’s flesh is cool, pale and untouched, Tulp is flushed with a ruddy red blush which extends across his nose and cheeks (fig. 1.3). However, it is also important to take into consideration that there are problems in comparing Dr.Nicolaes Tulp and Maria Trip directly as they were not conceived as part of a pair. There are factors to take into account such as the difference in ages between Maria and Tulp; his skin marked by age in comparison to her youthful purity. Tulp’s red blush that must have been painted on as one of the final things Rembrandt did, on top of the dry light-pink under-modelling of the face is incredibly naturalistic. It is almost blotchy and catches the light across the cheekbones, fading in colour where the light catches it. The texture also appears thick where the light catches it her. It appears Rembrandt has applied the paint in a more pastose way to subtly mimic the rough texture of his cheeks. Where Tulp’s face is in shadow, especially down the left side under the shadow of his hat, the paint is applied in a much more smooth way. This gives more contrast and makes sure our eye is caught by the more textured areas where the light hits; the cheeks and the eyes. This orders how we view his face and thus aids the spatial relations. The strongly saturated blush gives Tulp the appearance that the blood has rushed to his face in fervour of the anatomy that he is giving; the excited red blush of the guild members who look at him echo this. Their complexions give a sense of immediacy to the portrait as if we have caught them in an exciting moment, mid-action.

Another factor to bear in mind when considering the flesh tones across ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’ and ‘The Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ is that in the group portrait, Rembrandt has had to conceive the different flesh tints of the men as part of the pictorial whole, depicted in different lights. Whereas in the single portrait of Maria, Rembrandt could focus on rendering just her flesh in one light, paying attention to perhaps how the colour realistically appeared in front of him, in the group portrait the various flesh tints of the many faces have to be organised in such a way that the spatial relations of the whole painting make sense; the tints must work together and thus would have been created with this in mind. We are not presented here then with one example of how the illusion of 30 male flesh was created but many examples, dependent more on where they are placed and how this effects the three-dimensionality of the picture. As Ernst van de Wetering notes in ‘The Rembrandt Corpus II 1631-1634’ , in the heads of the three forward-leaning figures in the centre of the composition ‘one can see a definite crescendo of colour and contrast’ (fig. 1.4)89. Where the flesh of the man behind the other two is modelled mainly in a yellowish-brown with grey shadow, the flesh of the two men infront of him is more lit and appears much more red. The flesh of the figure who leans the most forward out of all three, his head extending over the cadaver, is the most saturated; he has bright pink cheeks and nose and thickly applied light yellow highlight on his forehead. The variety of colours which appears as a ‘crescendo of colour’ means that there is a gradual blocking of colour between the figures from shadow to light which means they each hold their proper place in the light and three-dimensional pictorial space; clearly this effects how the illusion of flesh is rendered.

In comparison to the men, especially those rendered in light and thus brighter in colour, Maria’s skin is milky-pure. She too has a blush to her cheeks but it is a mild pink, just a subtle hint, and has been painted much more thinly, the yellow-white youthful flesh shining through. The paint all over her face appears to have been work-up in thin, translucent layers, which have been smoothly applied. It is possible to see grey in the half-shadows of her chin and eyes. The shadows are much less strong than those in the face of the men in the ‘Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ where Rembrandt used dark grey and brown to clearly demark areas of shadow (this can been seen especially in the two men in the middle of the composition and the dark brown shadows around their noses and cheekbones). On Maria’s face the shadows are subtle and never dark, they are either pink, warm brown or pale grey, seen around her eyes. Only on her neck and around her hairline has thinly applied darker brown been used (fig. 2.2). This makes sure that however shadowed, her face still stands out from her dark background, glowing with an almost immaterial presence. Her nose and eyes glisten where the pure white highlights have been applied last; although she

89 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings II: 1631 – 1634’, (1986) p174 31 has not the same lifeblood running through her cheeks that Tulp has, she is very much alive. The paint, although thick, has been applied smoothly and carefully brushed to create her unblemished skin. Only when looking very closely is it possible to discern a few individual strokes such as the highlights on her unmarked nose (fig 2.3). There is a slight movement to the brushwork that gives her otherwise smooth countenance form and a delicate plasticity. The stokes move in different directions to flatter the curves of her face; this can be seen in the curving strokes under her eyes melt into the pink blush under which the stokes move vertically downwards to make the chin flatter than the soft cheek above it. It is perhaps this that Van de Wetering is alluding to when he describes the flesh passages in the ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’ as ‘chubbily-done’; there is a certain roundness to her youthful flesh90. This delicate plasticity is placed into relief when comparing the flesh of her face to her chest which is much flatter as the build-up is simpler and not as worked (fig. 2.2). It would appear that in both Maria’s face and the faces of the men of the surgeon’s guild other tools have been used to create texture. Highlights have been scratched into Maria’s curls which frame her face and Tulp’s moustache. A very fine brush must have been used in both to create the intricate detail and fine lines of the eyes, and for then blending, a ‘sweetening brush’.

From these two examples from Rembrandt’s early oeuvre then, ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ (1632) and the ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’ (1639), we can see how Rembrandt employs different material processes to create an illusion of flesh that is gendered and particular. In terms of flesh tints and pigments used, the men who are rendered in full light, particularly Tulp and the two men in the centre of the composition have much ruddier complexions than Maria Trip. Where their faces are flushed with reds, Maria’s flesh is pale pure, barely touched by a delicate pink flush. Rembrandt has used yellow and ochre mid-tones in the flesh of the men; the flesh tints of Maria are much less saturated. Where the shadows in the female flesh are delicate and cool, dark and warmer browns have been used in the shadows of the male flash. The grey undermodelling appears to have employed more in the flesh of Maria, giving her

90 Ernst van de Wetering , ‘A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings III’ p36 32 cool tonality; the pale flesh paints have been applied on top in thin translucent layers. The paint seems to have been applied more thickly in the flesh of the men, giving it it’s strength of colour, the brushstrokes sometimes more visible than in the portrait of Maria. The smoothness of Maria’s flesh gives it a round, fleshy feel where the male flesh has more plasticity, being marked by the wears of daily life. Although she is younger than many of the men depicted, her flesh definitely appears more idealised than the male flesh. The comparison gives us a good idea of how Rembrandt uses different treatment of female and male flesh; we must however be conscious about the fact that the two paintings are separated by time and context.

Where Rembrandt’s brushwork in these earlier examples from his oeuvre appears controlled and smooth, the brushwork in his later pendant pair of ‘Jacob Trip’ and ‘Margaretha de Geer’, both executed in 1661, is anything but (figs. 3&4). As Ernst van de Wetering describes in his discussion on the rough/smooth debate, Rembrandt’s later works were characterised by an essence of Titian-like ‘sprezzatura’ which showed in Rembrandt’s work as a casualness, ‘the almost chance nature of such effects’91. Although both Jacob Trip and his wife Margaretha de Geer are elderly and thus are not comparable to the more youthful, sometimes idealised representations of flesh that I have elsewhere been looking at, they nonetheless are a beautiful example of how the late Rembrandt used colour, texture and tonal values to manipulate the surface of his canvas and create an illusion. Jacob Jacobsz. Trip(c. 1576 – 1661) was a very wealthy Dordrecht merchant; in 1603 he married Margaretha de Geer (1583 – 1672), the sister of a powerful arms dealer92. Un-conventionally for pendant portraits, Jacob is seated side on, on a chair (conventional formatting) whilst his wife sits straight on, facing the viewer full frontally. Not only is this pose unusual, but it is unusual that the poses of the pair do not match. Although this caused some confusion as to whether the pendant was indeed conceived as a pair, technical research has proven that the grounds of both paintings have the same

91 Ernst van de Wetering, ‘Rembrandt: The Painter at Work’ p172 92 D. Bomford, J. Kirby, A. Roy, A. Ruger (eds.), ‘Art in the making: Rembrandt’, National Gallery London, (2006) p116 33 chemical composition and tone which suggests they were prepared at the same time in Rembrandt’s studio93. The dress of both Margaretha and Jacob is unusual but interesting also. While Pieter de la Court and Catherina van der Voort were swathed in heavy shiny satin, Jacob and Margaretha both wear fairly informal dress, despite Margaretha’s seemingly formal severity. In ‘Rembrandt: Art in the Making’, a catalogue produced by the National Gallery London to present results of research into Rembrandt’s techniques, the observation is made that the gowns of both Jacob and his wife ‘would have been worn in the bedroom or around the house rather than in the street’94.

The ground that is the same in both portraits has been made up of a ‘coarse-textured lower layer of orange-red earth pigment, covered by an upper layer of dull khaki’95. Although the colours are more somber in the portrait of Margaretha, with the ground showing through less frequently, it is this warm ground that gives both portraits their warm and rich tonality. Compared to the ‘Anatomy of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ and ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’, the modelling in the background appears less methodically built up in planes with many layers of thick sketchy doodverf visible on top of the ground. Several different shades are apparent in both portraits, painted wet-in-wet. This light brown doodverf layer can be seen shining through as mid tone in the portrait of Jacob Trip; Rembrandt is much more economical with his paint layers in these later portraits, making full use of the doodverf to connote light and shade for the top layer. Where this layer of doodverf can be seen shining through as mid-tone in Jacob’s beard, it appears as highlight in his cloak, being left open alongside the areas of heavy impasto, creating contrasted movement in tone and texture. This layer of doodverf is important to the illusion of flesh as it can be left unmodified to give shadow tone to the face; I will go on to this in more detail. The doodverf has been used more economically in the portrait of Jacob than with Margaretha and is less visible on the picture surface. There appears to be a different handling in paint between the portraits; the layers appear thicker and more solid in the portrait of

93 D. Bomford, A. Ruger, ‘Art in the Making…’ p169 94 D. Bomford, A. Ruger, ‘Art in the Making…’ p166 95 D. Bomford, A. Ruger, ‘Art in the Making…’ p168 34

Margaretha, heavy ridges of impasto replacing strokes that have been applied more lithely in the portrait of Jacob. There are more passages of movement with the brush stokes with Jacob, which gives the impression of speed and spontaneity; the portrait of his wife is more worked. The fact that less brown shines through the top layer means that the colouring of Margaretha is more stark and monochrome ; where the portrait of Jacob is made up of warm browns and reds, there is much more black and white in the portrait of his wife. The application of colour feels more localised in the portrait of Margaretha , than the more blended brown tones seen in her husband. The use of localised areas of black, white and also red in Margaretha’s flesh highlights the living blood effect of her skin as Rembrandt beautifully creates the illusion of blood that runs in her veins behind her papery thin skin (fig. 4.1). This can be seen particularly the delicate localised flushed blotches of red Rembrandt has applied on the face, especially in the apples of her cheeks and in the furrows above her eyebrows. By allowing less of the brown doodverf to shine through and applying to top layers more thickly, the illusion of these tiny red broken veins is highlighted in a way that they would not be if placed on top of the warmer flesh tones of Jacob. The red of the veins shows up starkly against her pale white skin, giving the illusion that the blood is right at the surface of the flesh; the elderly skin is thin and has become strained, appearing stretched and translucent over the veins.

The main area in which we can see evidence of this ochreish-brown pigment, presumably the ground, is to the left of Margaretha in the background of the painting. However, this passage appears much thinner than the rest of the portrait, which suggests damage. This damage in the background also gives an opportunity to see how Rembrandt built up his paint layers, something that due to the heavily worked impasto is harder to see elsewhere in the portrait of Margaretha. It appears that above the brown ground Rembrandt has applied heavy passages of grey; from light grey to a very dark grey green on the far right of the composition. It is then possible to see how Rembrandt worked in planes, the dark black blocking of the chair visible behind Margaretha to her left (the right side of the picture plane). Rembrandt would have then worked up the figure of Margaretha on top of this, leaving the details that are spatially nearest 35 to the front of the plane till last such as her beautiful ruff and the highlights on her flesh, both of which catch the light in their highlighted brilliance.

Despite there not being the need for a sense of pale idealised female flesh, Margaretha portrayed in all her wizened glory, the tint of the flesh colour is again much paler in the female than the male. If we look at the face tints of both Jacob and Margaretha, we can see that the tints in his face are much warmer; the colour palette of both portraits is easily identifiable as Rembrandt makes no attempt to blend his brushstokes, daubing localised stokes of intense colour onto the canvas. Where in the face of Jacob, Rembrandt uses orangey-reds, pinks and browns, the colours of Margaretha’s face are much cooler, Rembrandt making use of greys, pale pinks and a lot of white. Where there are patches of lead white highlight on Jacob’s face, especially where the light hits his face on the right side of his forehead and nose, it appears to have been painted wet-on-wet above the warmer undertones which gives it a creamy appearance. This warm tone highlights aids the illusion of the portrait as a whole as it fits into the colour palette; a pure white highlight would appear too severe. This creamy colour is much cooler in the face of Margaretha. The difference in the tonality of their flesh tints can be seen in the shadows; where the shadows down the side of Jacob’s face and around his eye and nose are brown, on Margaretha they are dark grey (figs. 3.1 & 4.1). This is due to the more economical style that Rembrandt has deployed for Jacob; the shadows are the exposed doodverf layers, especially down the left side of his face that is cast in shadow.

The doodverf has been used in the hands of Jacob Trip also, shining through in the shadow parts as a dark browny-grey. This can be seen particularly in his right hand that lies in the folds of his cloak (fig. 3.2). Here, much of the grey-brown under-modelling has been left exposed as shadow, the bright white and pink highlight painted over top in impasto to create the texture of the flesh. Contrastingly, Rembrandt has not left the doodverf exposed in the flesh of Margaretha, working up thick layers of grey, pink and lead white tints instead and thus being able to create a colour palette that is different in tone to the ground. 36

In both portraits, a pink has been used to create areas of mid-tone and thus build up texture, highlights and shadow being used either side of it to create relief; this can be seen in the eye-bags of Margaretha, in the creases of her forehead and on her cheeks and chin. Where this mid-tone is pink on Margaretha, it appears red in the face of her husband. If we take Margaretha’s right eye for example we can see how the late Rembrandt used a vast array of different colours to build up the intricate texture and form of her elderly, delicate skin (fig 4.1). Over a thick, pale, pink layer, Rembrandt has applied a dark pink layer to demark where the socket is sunken; above this he uses a heavy dark grey shadow in the upper crease of the socket and around the shadowed contour of the nose. On the eyelid, Rembrandt has blended grey into the pink, wet-on wet, to make the illusion of smoother skin; the light hits the centre of the eyelid which shines pink, the skin thinner here than the rest of the flesh around the eye. Under the dark pink eye-bag, which gives the illusion of soft, sagging skin in its pink fleshiness is an area of white highlight. This is mainly on the right of the pink eye flesh, where the light hits the skin. This highlight creates form and texture; it gives the appearance that the eye-bag is puffy and three-dimensional and that the light has bounced off the raised flesh and reflected onto the smoother skin to the side of it. In just one small section of flesh, a huge number of different coloured paints have been used to work up a nuanced and textured illusion.

Although Maria Trip is much younger and thus of course the illusion of her skin must appear smoother, there is a huge difference in how Rembrandt has worked up colour and tone to create flesh between her and the later painted, Margaretha. If we take Maria’s right eye as a point of comparison, the paint has been applied less pastosely and the build-up is more straightforward (fig. 2.3). The eye is mostly modelled in the same creamy pink tone with fine line details of grey and pink detail on top. The surface detail creates the form of her eye as opposed to the converging strokes of colour used in the flesh of Margaretha, which create shape through colour and tone. This technique of colour and tone being built up to create form has been used elsewhere in both the portrait of 37

Maria and Jacob; it imbues both with a huge amount of plasticity that is real and tangible, the flesh mimicking the actual texture and nuances of skin.

In these later portraits, Rembrandt doesn’t just create form through colour and tone but through the texture of the paint itself. Very characteristic of these later works, Rembrandt used the paint itself, juxtaposing rough impasto with more fluid areas in a deliberately illusionistic way to suggest form. This illusionistic trick has been made full effect of in the wrinkled and wizened skin of the elderly Jacob and Margaretha. The materiality of paint was clearly very important to Rembrandt. His pupil, Samuel van Hoogstraten, who might have been writing in reference to his master’s style, sums up the theoretical ideas behind the avocation of this ‘rough’ style: ‘It is above all desirable that you should accustom yourself to a lively mode of handling so as to smartly express the different planes or surfaces: giving the drawing due emphasis and the colouring, when it admits of it, a playful freedom, without ever proceeding to polishing or blending;. . . it is between to aim at softness with a well-nourished brush. . .for, paint as thickly as you please, smoothness will, by subsequent operations, creep in of itself’96 It is this ‘playful freedom’ which Ernst van de Wetering talks about when he mentions that Rembrandt’s later ‘rough’ style was characterised by sprezzatura and the almost chance nature of effect that this style seems to give off. Clearly Hoogstraten thought the same, the smooth effect ‘creeping in’ as if by chance and by its own will. In both the flesh parts of Jacob and Margaretha the paint has been daubed on in such passages of pastose and non-pastose that substance is created through the substance of the paint.

In comparison to the smooth, unmarked plasticity to which the hands of Rembrandt’s Maria Trip and Abraham van den Tempel’s Pieter de la Court and Catharina van der Voort (to be discussed later on) has been modelled with, the hands of Jacob Trip and his wife, Margaretha, seem to almost protrude from the canvas. The thick and textured style of their modelling illustrates the ‘rough’ style and is in complete opposition to finely handled ‘smooth’ style of the other

96 Rembrandt: Art in the Making p 33. 38 paintings discussed in this section. By looking at both the hands of Jacob Trip and Margaretha de Geer, we can see how Rembrandt employed a huge variety of techniques to create the texture of flesh (figs. 3.2 and 4.2). The illusion here is both realistic and artily. Rembrandt reveals the tools of his artistry, in a way that is completely different from his earlier concealed brushwork, to create the realistic illusion of flesh by mimicking the traits and textures that skin has. As Micheal Taylor describes in his book ‘Rembrandt’s nose’, Rembrandt’s brush ‘fashions a surface that has bumps and wrinkles, minute troughs and crests, or swirls of impasto that are able to convey the puffiness of a complexion or the weight of a lace cuff.’97

A key example of how Rembrandt uses thick impasto to imply the realistic texture of the elderly flesh is in the veins of the hands. On the back of Jacob Trip’s right hand, Rembrandt mimics the texture of the old man’s hand by creating a complex pattern of thick varicose veins, modelled pastosely (fig. 3.2). Light pink pigment has been applied very thickly, mimicking the form of the veins and tendons that run down from the knobbly knuckles. As in reality, the three central tendons are large and have been rendered with the thickest and lightest paint to drawn attention to their round shape. These pale veins are given yet more relief by the fact that the skin surrounding them is dark, giving them depth. In the darkly modelled skin around the large veins Rembrandt has used black detail to intricately mark the skin, giving it the suggestion that it is old, worn and thin, the blood vessels showing through. Although the pattern is intricate, there is a freedom to the brushwork. Rembrandt uses red and brown pigment in the flesh of the hand to again allude to the blood vessels and also to create shadow, such as around the knuckles. Where the hand bends, the round bone of the knuckles is again rendered in thick impasto, here light pink, to suggest its texture. The fingers recede into dark brown shadows, their form barely discernable from the dark background; this means the detailed back of the hand has more impetus, advancing towards us in contrast to the less worked up paint of the fingers, and the cloak that it lays on.

97 Michael Taylor, ‘Rembrandt’s Nose…’ p51 39

Similarly, the flesh of Margaretha’s hands has been modelled with a beautiful attention to texture; the paint being applied even more thickly than in the flesh of her husband. Due to the stark tonal contrasts (previously discussed) of the painting as a whole, and the detail with which the hands are rendered, the pale pinkish flesh of Margaretha’s hands advances towards the eye and we are drawn at once to their presence (fig. 4.2). The paint in the flesh of Margaretha has been much more worked than in the portrait of Jacob and more thickly applied. On her right hand, as in the hand of Jacob, Rembrandt has paid attention to the depiction of the veins and tendons; they stand out raised from the skin that has thinned and hollowed out around it. The tendons on the back of the hand have been applied with thick impasto in a light peachy pink colour which lifts them from their surroundings. Rembrandt also uses passages of thick impasto to create the form of the knuckles. The whitish yellow impasto is employed here to imply individual ridges of bone and tendon in the knuckles. This gives the impression that the frail, thin skin is pulled so taught over it that it is barely visible on top of the round bones.

Where the illusion of texture in the hands of Jacob has been created more with the juxtaposition of thick and thin paint, in the portrait of Margaretha, the paint is applied more thickly and thus Rembrandt uses nuances of localised colour to highlight the passages of relief. Although the thickness of the impasto tendons and knuckles is still visible to the naked eye, Rembrandt works up the shadows and highlights of these in the surface layer of paint. He does this more so than he does in the portrait of Jacob where he employs the under layers of paint for shadow. In Margaretha’s right hand, Rembrandt has used a vast array of different coloured pigments ranging from grey to pink and yellow. These colour nuances support the form, creating shadow and highlight around passages of impasto. Around the pastosely painted tendons, yellow has been used to support the pale peachy pink, illustrating where the thin skin is most strained over the tendon; the yellow highlights this and places it more into relief. Subtle grey shadows have also been used around the tendons to create shadow and allude to their rounded protruding form yet further. Rembrandt has also daubed localised strokes of colour on to the flesh to illustrate the different qualities of elderly skin. 40

This can be seen not only in the white highlights which show where the thin translucent skin (especially on the raised veins, tendons and knuckles) catches the light, but in daubs of dark pink, used to illustrate where the skin is worn, such as around the knuckles. Where the skin is thinnest and most strained over the back of the hand, Rembrandt has used fine lines of blue and dark grey paint to allude to where the smaller veins show through the frail skin.

As well as using his palette, which must have been thickly loaded with varying colours of pigment, to apply thin and thick overlapping and juxtaposing paint, Rembrandt has also used tools to mechanically imply texture. This has not only been done with the paintbrush itself, Rembrandt painting in different directions to create form and shape, but with other tools that can scratch into the surface of the paint, such as a palette knife. In looking at the face of Jacob Trip, especially visible in raking light, it is possible to see small scratches in the surface paint layer on Jacob’s forehead and nose (fig. 3.1). The scratches on the head take the form of small wrinkles. Rembrandt, most likely by using a palette knife, has scratched away the pain to create a recess that in its texture mimics the form of a wrinkle. The scratches on the nose are smaller and do not take the form of wrinkles but are still textural and imitate the complex materiality of skin, which is marked and differentiated. The texture of Margaretha’s forehead appears to have been built up to the same effect, with thick heavy wrinkles. In raking light, I believe it is also possible to see where scratching away the paint has deepened the relief of these wrinkles, but it is harder to determine, as the varnish is thicker (fig. 4.1).

Although a pendant pair of portraits, technical examination has shown that Rembrandt’s ‘Portrait of Jacob Trip’, and his wife ‘Margaretha de Geer’ (both 1661) were built up on the same colour-ground. However, Rembrandt has ‘worked-up’ the canvas in different ways to create the illusion of flesh that is different between male and female. As in the examples looked at from his earlier oeuvre, the flesh tints in the face of the female are much cooler. Where Rembrandt employs orangey-reds, pinks and browns to create Jacob Trip’s flesh, the flesh of his wife is made up with greys, pale pinks and much more white. This 41 is not only due to the specific pigments used but also because of the more economical style that Rembrandt has deployed for Jacob. Rembrandt has exploited the brown exposed doodverf layer in the shadow passages of the male flesh, the brush stokes applied more rapidly and lithely on top. Contrastingly, to create Margaretha’s flesh, Rembrandt has worked up the paint layers much more, using thicker layers and more impasto. This means that Rembrandt has been able to work up a cooler colour palette in the female flesh that is different in tone to the ground and doodverf. By exploring small sections of flesh we can see how Rembrandt, in both portraits, has manipulated the texture of the paint surface in a deliberately illusionistic way to suggest form.

Alongside Rembrandt, there were also many other successful portrait painters such as Pieter Codde, Jacob Backer, Bartholomeus van der Helst, Govert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol and Abraham van den Tempel. Abraham van den Tempel was born in Leiden and, according to Arnold Houbracken, the son of Frisian painter and Mennonite minister Lambert Jacobsz, a respected art teacher98. After receiving training from Jacob Backer between c. 1642 – 46, Abraham van den Tempel (1622/3 – 1672) moved from Leiden to Amsterdam in 1660 and became very popular, being known for his classical style, which had been much admired throughout the century. It is thought that the influence of Backer is evident in several of his earlier biblical and allegorical paintings such as the ‘Maiden of Leden Crowned by ’ (1650-51), which he painted for the Cloth Hall in Leiden99. Whilst starting his career predominantly in history painting, he later turned to portrait painting in Amsterdam and many works of his survive from around the date of 1660. Among his pupils were Frans van Mieris and Michel van Musscher100. Van den Tempel is known for his elegant and handsome figures which in there static poses and more finely painted execution differ hugely from the work Rembrandt was creating at the same time. However, although working in a classical style, producing many individual and group portraits, Ekkart points

98 http://www.wga.hu/bio_m/t/tempel/biograph.html 99 http://www.wga.hu/bio_m/t/tempel/biograph.html 100 http://www.wga.hu/bio_m/t/tempel/biograph.html 42 out that this by no means meant Van den Tempel’s style was old-fashioned’101. His works are a beautiful example of the elegant attention to detail, particularly the rendering of textiles, which was a quality so adhered in the 17th Century Dutch Portrait Painters102. I have chosen to look at the pendant marriage portraits: ‘Portrait of Pieter de la Court’ and ‘Portrait of Catharina van der Voort’, both of which were painted in 1667 and are now on display in the Rijksmuseum (figs. 5&6).

Although Rembrandt’s style in his earlier portraits is remarkably smoother than that of late work, it is still no way near as ‘smooth’ as the work of Van den Tempel. Van den Tempel’s magnificent large pendant portraits hang large and proud in The Rijksmuseum. They are exemplar displays of seventeenth-century merchant wealth; Catharina sits resplendent, almost swamped by her rich satin dress whilst Pieter sits tall and proud, the plush black of his dress juxtaposed again the rich red velvet of his chair. Pieter de la Court (1618 – 1685) was a very successful Dutch economist and businessman. He married his second wife Catharina van der Voort in 1661, she was also very wealthy, the sister of two wealthy Amsterdam merchants. Clearly these portraits, commissioned 6 years after their union are symbols of their powerful statuses. Even the backgrounds attest to this; both Catharina and Pieter are seated under billowing gold drapery while to the left and right of them respectively we can see a glimpse into a fashionable garden. To Pieter’s left is a large stone bust of a man while to Catharina’s right we can see an oversized classical pot. These items along with the amazing detailed rendering of rich fabrics, such a focal point of both portraits, all attest to their power and wealth. The material processes that Van den Tempel has employed to create the illusion of flesh in these two portraits are testament to the fine and refined style so advised, albeit slightly after this time, by Gerard de Lairesse. Taken in isolation with Rembrandt’s earlier style, the fine style of these two portraits almost makes the brushwork in ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr.Nicolaes Tulp’ and ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’ appear

101 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p40 102 Oxford Art Dictionary - http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T083690 43 rough; although subtle, brushwork is much more visible than in these examples by Van den Tempel.

Due to the fine and refined style it is harder to discern the material processes, thicker layers of top-paint concealing preparatory layers. Unfortunately I have not been able to gain access to a technical report, but by looking very closely with the naked eye at the flesh tones, I believe it is possible in some places to see a layer of grey underpainting; this grey shines through the lighter flesh tones built up on top. This is mainly possible to see in the open shadow areas that have been left open such as in the soft grey shadow around Catharina’s eye socket and along the bridge in her nose. The open shadow can also be seen in the same places on Pieter as well as in his chin, along his hairline and in the hollows of his cheekbones. However, although a similar grey underpainting has been employed in both female and male, this is as far as the similarities go in terms of tone between the two.

Like the flesh tones of Dr.Nicolaes Tulp and Maria Trip, the flesh colour of the male has been built up much more and is significantly more saturated than the female. Where Catharina’s face has been built up with thin layers of translucent lead-white, much of the grey shining through giving it a very cool tone, warmer browns, pinks and reds have been used to create the flesh in Pieter’s face (figs. 5.1 and 6.1). In fact, there is hardly any use of strong colour on Catherina’s face. Her flesh colour appears almost monochrome apart from a very faint pink translucent blush on her cheeks, nose, chin and lips. Painting thin translucent layers of dark brown have created soft shadows in the temples of her forehead and on the left hand side of her face; both of which are in shadow (fig. 6.1). In the facial tints of Pieter, it is possible to see how Van den Tempel has built up the colour more. In the broadly lit areas, such as the forehead, cheeks and nose a more pinkish layer has been added to the pale pink layer beneath it (under which is the grey undermodelling) (fig. 5.1). In raking light, I believe it is possible to see that thin translucent areas of shadow have been applied on top, the areas of shadow appearing slightly raised. The glint of white highlight that catches the light right down the centre of Pieter’s face is contrasted beautifully 44 against the dark shadows. The shadow tints vary from brown into dark red in places. On the left hand side of his face where his strong nose casts shadows on his face, in the contour of the edge of his cheek and between his lips the brown shadow has a dark pink glow and was probably created by using a thin dark red glaze over the brown shadow. The red blush on Pieter’s face is slightly irregular (although much more idealised than the blush on Tulp’s face) and gives his face a realistic quality; a quality that his wife’s un-touched skin lacks. His face has more plasticity than hers as the shadows around the contours of his flesh are more blended also; the pale flesh of his cheeks blends into brown shadow and then into the background, which makes his figure at ease with his surroundings. In comparison the pale grey contours of Catharina’s flesh are more severe which gives her a slightly super-imposed feel.

Taken in comparison with Rembrandt’s ‘Portrait of Maria Trip’ and his own portrait of Pieter de la Court, the lack of colour and texture in Catharina van der Voort appears somewhat unrealistic. Although Catharina has characteristic details to her face such as her puffy eyelids and slightly jowly chin, the illusion is not faithful to life. Her pale skin slightly tends towards the ‘stony greyness, or pale, fishy, coldish colour’ that Van Mander saw in the human figures in the works of Dutch artists103 . Although both Catharina and Maria have less brown under-modelling and shadow than all the depictions of males, the grey of Catharina’s flesh is less nuanced and appears more flat. I would argue that this porcelain-like effect is due to a simpler build up, a different use of colour which lacks the red-shadows that ‘gloeien’ requires, and a smoother technique (see historiography for explanation of gloeien). Perhaps a good example of how a ‘glow’ has been used is the comparison of Catharina van de Voort’s hands with those of Maria Trip. Both women’s flesh has clearly been idealised, the pale pureness alluding to the tempting power of female flesh in the way it shines, unmarked. However, if we look at the both Catharina and Maria’s left hand, we can see how this has been achieved in very different ways (fig.6.2 and 2.1). The modelling of Maria’s flesh has been built up in a much more complex way. The

103 Karel van Mander, as cited by Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p162 45 flesh of her left hand has a beautiful range of colour and tone, nuanced delicately to imbue it with life. The paint seems to have been applied more thickly in comparison to her face, thick areas of pale pink, lead white and yellow being used to create light and shade in the fleshy part of the back of her hand. Translucent thin grey and white areas of highlight have been painted on top wet- in-wet to enhance the passages of highlight, especially on the ridges of the knuckles and down into the tops of the fingers (fig. 2.1).

There are also many different shades of shadow used from dark grey slivers along the knuckles to dark brown around the contours of the hand to red glazes which have delicately been placed in the shadows between the fingers, indicating where pink skin reflects upon itself, or in other words, ‘the glow’ which Van Mander so admires. The different colours and shades of highlight and shadow mimic the varied texture and tonality of the back of a hand which in real life, are almost translucent where veins shine through, light catching areas of thinner skin. The delicate pale flesh of her hand at the same time mimics the iridescent quality of the beautiful pearls around her wrist but is also irrevocably different in its materiality; one is imbued with life, blood and veins, the other static.

Contrastingly, the flesh of both Catharina’s hands and arms is much more smooth the build up includes much fewer hues of colour (fig. 6.2). It is harder to discern all the layers as the paint has been applied more thickly but the cool grey tone implies a grey underlayer over which a very pale pink , including much lead white has been implied. The grey can be seen shining through in open shadow in the shadow under her sleeve on her right arm. Where the shadows on the underside of Maria’s hand and between her fingers are dark red, giving her flesh a gloeien, the shadows between Catharina’s fingers have been painted on top in brown, with less nuances of shade. The flesh on her arm, which is as long, pale and elegant as a swan’s neck, is blended in the shadow into the black folds of her skirt by using brown around the contour of her arm. However, due to the stark contrast of milky pale skin and black dress, Van den Tempel has had to employ a different technique, so that the blending between light and dark, in a smooth 46 sytle, does not have the impression of being superimposed and but is at ease with its surroundings. Van den Tempel has used the effect of ronding to blend her pale left arm into the black satin. This can be seen in the three-dimensional roundness to the arm that, where the top and bottom of the arm curves, shines translucently. Van den Tempel has achieved this by applying thin layers of a transparent glaze over the top of the dry surface paint on the curve of the arm and where the flesh meets the black of the dress. Light travels through the thin layer of transparent paint and reflects off the opaque layer below, giving the suggestion of roundness to the arms. This improves the blending and prevents the arm from looking superimposed.

The technique is different from Rembrandt who uses nuances of light and shadow in varying tones to blend forms. For example, where the sleeve falls on the left arm of Maria, delicate rings of red shadow fall upon her arm whereas there is just the slight impression of a grey shadow upon the arm of Catharina (figs. 2.1 and 6.2). The effect of the two styles is very different. The flesh of Catharina appears much more idealised, brushwork hidden to convince us of her real presence. Presumably De Lairesse would have admired the illusion of flesh here, advocating that paint should be applied evenly and lushly to give the whole pictorial space a uniform smoothness. Her smooth skin is also reminiscent of the anecdote previously mentioned in which Arnold Houbracken cites a time that Nicolaes Maes had to ‘sweeten’ out the realistic pockmarks he gave his patron. Although obviously middle aged, Catharina’s skin is unblemished. As Julia Lloyd Williams puts it ‘Not every painted peach-bloom skin would have been a faithful reflection of reality; her youthful qualities, like her wealth, have been immortalised on canvas, very evocative of Van den Tempel’s classical style104.

As in the flesh tones used by Rembrandt, the flesh colour of the male has been built up much more and is significantly more saturated than the female. Catharina’s face is even cooler than any of Rembrandt’s females and appears almost monochrome apart from a barely visibly pink blush. Van den Tempel has

104 Julia Lloyd Williams “Rembrandt’s Women’, p30 47 built up the flesh tints in Pieter de la Court much more than his wife and applies strong colour to the broadly lit areas of flesh (fig. 5.1). To create the cool tone of Catharina’s flesh, Van den Tempel has applied thin layers of translucent lead white over a grey underlayer. The shadow passages in the female flesh are much greyer than in the male flesh, in which Van den Tempel uses browns and reds to create stronger and darker hues. The style is much ‘smoother’ than works from even Rembrandt’s early oeuvre; the brushstrokes have been carefully blended and smoothed in both male and female. The shadows and contour lines of certain features are much sharper in the flesh of Catharina than her husband, making her appearance much more idealised; the flesh of her husband has a higher level of plasticity in comparison. There are less nuances of tone, light and shade in Catharina’s flesh which makes it appear flatter than the male flesh. In a comparison with Rembrandt’s Maria Trip it is possible to see how Van den Tempel has used a simpler build-up in the flesh that Rembrandt. A part of this ‘smooth’ style, Van den Tempel has employed different techniques which do not break away from the even and uniform illusion; where Rembrandt blends shadows and form with very nuanced variants of tone and light and shade, Van den Tempel uses ronding to make sure his contour lines between forms are seamless.

48

Haarlem: Frans Hals and Johannes Verspronck

For 17th Century Portrait specialist Rudi Ekkart, the artistic tone in Haarlem portraiture was set by three men: Frans Hals (c. 1583 – 1666), Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck (c. 1601/03 – 62) and Jan de Bray (1626/27 – 62)105. I will be investigating the artistic illusion of flesh by looking at examples from Hals and Verspronck, who although were working at the same time in the city, present us with very different styles. From around 1610, Hals started producing portraits in Haarlem and continued to do so for over fifty years. Hals’s impact on portraiture at the time was huge and his work ‘continued to shape the genre well after the mid-century’106. His status as a ‘truly remarkable portraitist’ is not just the common opinion now but one thought by his contemporaries also shown not just by those who emulated him, such as Jan de Bray, but in contemporary writing also. For example, Haarlem-born writer Theodorus Schrevelius commented that Hals’s portraits appeared ‘to live and breath’ through his ability to ‘challenge nature with his brush’107 108. Houbracken too mentions Hals’s ‘master-touch’ making a specific reference to the agency of the artist109.

Like Rembrandt, Hals enjoyed a period of high popularity for his portraits between 1630-40 and painted more portraits than any other time in this era. Hals was known for the vibrancy and movement with which he imbued his portraits. Portraiture, in terms of pose and style, was commonly stiff and sober before Frans Hals. Hals incited the genre with dynamism, character, and naturalness and in doing so, in the words of Antoon Erftemeijer, solved the age- old artistic problem of ‘how to get life and spontaneity into a painting’110. It was this ‘life’ and ‘spontaneity’ which enabled Hals to play within the conventions of seventeenth century portraiture, turning it on its head by replacing an obsession

105Rudi Ekkart, ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’, Rijksmuseum-dossiers, (2009) p9 106 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p30 107 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p28 108 Antoom Erftemeijer, ‘Frans Hals: A Phenomenon’, (nai010 publishers 2015) p6 109 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity’, (Amsterdam University Press 2015) p12 110 Antoom Erftemeijer, ‘Frans Hals: A Phenomenon’ p7 49 with ‘realism’ with carefully observed attention to ‘naturalism’. Hals used a loose and vigorous style in which his brushstrokes are fast, bold and most importantly, visible. Hals catches a transitory moment in his portraits which is made thus through his artistry and commitment as a ‘painter’, his works taking ‘full advantage of the medium’111. This idea that the life of his paintings was created through its material artistry was also contemporarily thought of Hals. Karel van Mander, who was thought to have been his teacher wrote that too much ‘precision’ ( such as that that can be seen in the finely painted work of the Leiden fijnschilders) leads to a lack of ‘sprit’; Hals models are painted in such a way that they are always full of life and certainly, spirit112.

In order to look at the material processes Frans Hals used to create the illusion of flesh, it is first important to look at how Hals built up his picture as whole. Having an understanding of the painter at work is not only crucial to interpreting the work as a whole but is critical to interpreting the illusion of flesh which has a complex and detailed layer structure113. After all, as already mentioned in the historiography, it’s complexity attests to a high level of skill, which is why a successful portrayal of flesh was seen as the highest achievement of the artist. Conventionally artists worked in three stages; ‘the inventing’, ‘the dead-colouring’ and ‘the working up’. As Petria Noble explains in her technical report on ‘Portraits in the Mauritshuis’, from the middle of the century, artists started to be a lot more economical in the way that they built up their paintings. This concerns the dead-colouring and working up stages. Noble explains how on top of the support came an imprimatura level on top of which tonal layers of pure colour were added, called the doodverf layer, dead-colouring, or under- modelling. It was this stage which artists began to play with, using the under- modelling to not only give tonal balance to their works but often leaving parts

111 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p11 112 Antoom Erftemeijer, ‘Frans Hals: A Phenomenon’ p7 113 For literature on Frans Hals see Antoom Erftemeijer, ‘Frans Hals: A Phenomenon’, (nai010 publishers 2015),Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals: Painting, Subjectivity, and the Market in Early Modernity’, (Amsterdam University Press 2015), Seymour Slive, ‘Frans Hals’, (Phaidon Press 2014)

50 uncovered so that the under-modelling could shine through as shadow or highlight. Frans Hals was a pioneer of this technique and uses full advantage of the doodverf layers to add depth of detail and colour to his upper layers, particularly in the subtle tone nuances needed for flesh colouring.

In ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ Christopher D.M. Atkins, using technical data collected from a vast number of Hals’s works, describes how Hals builds up a painting in more detail. Atkins explains how Hals’s grounds would differ from painting to painting. The fact that Hals experimented with his ground colours which ranged ‘from white to yellowish ochre to light greys to reddish browns displays the interest and understanding for tone and colour and how it could shape his work114. Hals would then expand on this by adding more complex shades of under-modelling, using the already coloured ground to add depth and give the work unified tonality. Atkins explains how after roughly sketching different areas of the work with dark stokes of paint (as opposed to detailed under-drawing that many other artists employed, such as Johannes Verpronck), Hals would block different areas with different under-modelling. The flesh was an important part of this stage as Hals used a variety of greys, pinks, ochres, browns and reddish under-modelling to create different tones for the faces and hands atop which later on he would add detail. Atkins notes how Hals employed a vast range of different complexions throughout his works, mentioning in particular the difference between the warmer and cooler tones of the male and female complexions and how this was due to the different colours used in this under-modelling stage115. After this, Hals moved on to the ‘working- up’ stage in which he used bold strokes of colour to define forms in more detail.

Interestingly, Atkins explains how the scientific research has shown that the common opinion that Hals’s created his paintings extremely quickly is a misconception. Although the sketchy bold brushstrokes which in many surface passages have been visibly painted wet-in-wet, were often considered to be a reflection of the painting being created in one creative sitting, the research in fact

114 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p53 115 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p54 51 proves that Hals layered paint on top of dry layers also; his paintings must have then been ‘carefully worked up over several sessions’116. Atkins deduces that Hals’s style was thus carefully considered and constructed, and that we must understand the looseness which connoted fast creativity and impulse as being ‘deliberate and intentional’117. This certainly seems the case when one reflects on the amount of thought that must have gone into creating the naturalistic pictorial spaces which his sitters inhabit. Hals worked from carefully thought out layers that shaped his paintings through colour and tone as opposed to line and form. From working back to front, the details on top are the details that we as the viewer see first as they rest on the surface of the painting, giving the paintings a natural illusion of three-dimensionality and depth. The material processes Hals employs are crucial to his style and identity as an artist as Hals’s figures come to life through his brushstrokes; as Atkins succinctly concludes, Hals ‘crafted images that looked like they had been dashed off in the spur of the moment to better express a vital and individualised movement’118.

To illustrate these processes and describe how they aid the portrayal of flesh, I will use evidence from his only double marriage portrait ‘Marriage Portrait of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen’ (1622) (fig. 7). The double portrait of Isaac and Beatrix is one of the jewels of the Rijksmuseum’s collection, hanging in the gallery of honour. I won’t discuss the material processes of the painting as a whole in detail but focus on the techniques that are relevant to how the artist creates the illusion of flesh. It is one of the more iconic of Hals’s work and unique to his oeuvre as it is displays the married couple united together within one frame as opposed to the many marriage pendants Hals painted. Perhaps it is so iconic as it is not only unique to Hals’s oeuvre but unique to marriage portrait convention, there being few portraits existing in which a couple is quite so animated in expression119. The portrait presents us with a man

116 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p12 117 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p12 118 Christopher D.M. Atkins, ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p83 119 For literature on ‘Marriage portrait of Isaac and Beatrix’ see ‘Dutch Portriats: The age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p16 and , ‘Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam: Volume 1 – Artists born between 1570 and 1600’ 52 and woman who gaze out directly to the viewer from their casual seated position under a tree, set in the foreground of a landscape. Isaac reclines languidly against the tree, his mouth partly open in a jovial laugh whilst his wife leans against him, mouth smirking in a knowing smile. The pair appear to be caught in a moment of a shared joke that although is secret only to them, projects onto the viewer a real sense of the fun and relaxed nature of their companionship. The couple’s direct interaction with the viewer is almost taunting, certainly questioning, as we are invited to reflect upon them and their space, yet at the same time kept at distance, as the reason for their smiles is not shared. The couple was once thought to be a self-portrait of Hals and his wife but the couple have been identified as Haarlem merchant Isaac Massa (1586 – 1643) and Beatrix van der Laen (1592 – 1639) whose father was a burgomaster of Haarlem; they were married in 1662, the year the painting was created120.

When standing in front of Isaac and Beatrix, one is struck not just by their animated expressions but the vitality of the work as a whole in which the movement of the bold brushstrokes, plainly rendered on the surface, echoing the energy of the couple. The couple, both their skin and clothes, are painted more thickly, with more layers of thin paint, than the background around them. We can see this as not only is there much more detail but less of the ground and preparatory layers shine through. The landscape around them however is much sketchier. In both the sky and ground around their feet it is possible to see areas of the light beige ground. It has been suggested that in the lower left of the painting, especially around the rocks, it is possible to see the ground as the dark brown wash that once covered it has work away in part121. The ground has then been worked up with areas of tonal doodverf; thin dark-brown underpaint over the dark passages of the painting and thin ochre-grey underpaint for the flesh passages122. The underpaint layer is left exposed and utilised by Hals to define shadow. This can be seen in the flesh tones (to be explained later) and other

120 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p106 121 Jonathan Bikker, ‘Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam: Volume 1 – Artists born between 1570 and 1600’, Rijksmuseum, (Yale University Press 2007) p169 122 Jonathan Bikker, ‘Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’ p169 53 passages of the painting, such as where the brown shines through as shadow in the blue sky to give it depth and adding to a sense of atmospheric houding. The thicker and more detailed paint of the couple projects them forward out of their setting into the viewer, the layers being painted at the end to give them three- dimensionality. The impasto highlights, such as on their faces or the shine of Isaac’s shoe leather or the glint of Beatrix’s ring catch the light source and gleam out at us as if they are caught in movement.

As mentioned in the historiography; both Paul Taylor in his discussion of the glow, and Ernst van de Wetering in his discussion on the artistic techniques of Rembrandt, cite a successful rendering of flesh as being an important part of creating spatial relations in a painting. In this double portrait, it is easy to see how Hals has skilfully used the colours of his flesh tones and texture of the paint itself to adhere to the believable illusion of the whole pictorial space. This is achieved partly through sensitive attention paid to graduation of tone and colour. As well as using the under-layers to give overall tonal balance to the painting, Hals carefully uses localised tone and colour to create contrast and poise. The flesh is a big part of this. Hals beautifully contrasts between the warm flesh tones and the cool greens, blues and browns of the landscape, the delicate balance of these colours giving order to the pictorial space. For example, the warm pink and peach tones give the space horizontal and vertical balance and can be seen from left to right; from Isaac’s face to Beatrix’s right and face, down to her other hand and then across to the faint but same tones faces of the figures in background, and finally to the terracotta pot in the foreground on the far right of the image. A higher degree of saturation in the tones of the figures gives them weight and precedence within the space as these colours advance towards us. As previously discussed, De Lairesse was a big advocate of advising how colour could be used for three-dimensional effect. De Lairesse believed that the shadows or ‘glow’ of the flesh should also be used and blended correctly ‘purely for the power of effect’ so that the figures occupied their proper space. Hals seems to exemplify how to successfully achieve this123. Although the pale flesh of

123 Gerard de Lairesse, as cited by Paul Taylor, ‘The Concept of Houding in Dutch Art Theory’, p171 54

Beatrix’s hand and Isaac’s face is set against dark, black backdrops, the transition from flesh to other is seamless. Hals uses meticulously rendered dark brown and red shadows to blend the pale flesh of Beatrix’s hands; it is barely visible but for a tiny ‘glow’ around the contours (fig. 7.1). Her hands appear as solid entities yet at the same time the contours are not harsh and so do not appear superimposed upon the clothes they rest on. Everything seems to occupy its proper space in the pictorial space. The order of the colour, light reflections and composition again supports Atkins’s conclusion about the thought out, although seemingly incongruous, nature of Hals’s work.

As previously mentioned, on top of the light beige ground that Hals used in this double portrait, he worked up the flesh areas with a thin layer of olive- grey underpaint to lay in the shadows for the flesh tones124. This layer is identifiable in both the flesh tones of Isaac Massa and Beatrix van der Laen, sometimes appearing as slightly bluish in hue, especially when warmer tones have been painted on top or around it. However, where the underpaint has been used by Hals to form a mid-tone shadow in the facial flesh of Isaac, it forms provides the darker areas of shadow in Beatrix’s face. This is because Hals has created different complexions in the flesh of the married couple; where Isaac’s complexion is dark and warm, made up of lots of ochreish tints, Beatrix’s is cool, pale, and feminine (figs. 7.2 and 7.3). In Isaac’s face it is possible to see brown, yellow, pink, red, grey and green whereas in Beatrix’s we see pale grey, pale pink, blue, grey and green. Much more white has been worked into all the pigments in the flesh tints of Beatrix’s face. Due to the difference in their complexions then, Hals has worked up the olive-green underlayer in different ways. In the face of Isaac, we can see the underpaint exposed in the mid-tone areas of the flesh; the shadows being worked up in a darker-olive pigment and brown. A good example of this is the olive-grey hue that can be seen down the right side of his cheek between the red blush and brownish shadow that makes up the edge of his face. The undermodelling shows up here exposed as the mid-tone; the pink/red blush has been painted over the top of it in enough thin layers to cover the

124 Jonathan Bikker, ‘Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam’ p169 55 undermodelling (fig. 7.2). The underpaint can also be seen in the shadow on the right-side of his nose, alongside the highlight. The underpaint has also been exploited by Hals in the darker areas of shadow of Isaac’s face but here, worked up more with thin layers of additional olivey-brown pigment to darken it. This can be seen in the shadow under Isaac’s hat and in the shadows around the edges of his face. This dark brown-olivey pigment has been worked up most thickly in the shadows under Isaac’s eyebrow bones and eyes.

Where the olive-grey underpaint has been exposed as a mid-tone shadow in the warmer and browner complexion of Isaac, in the flesh of Beatrix it has been left uncovered to define the darker areas of her face. In fact, in comparison to the muddy-brown of her husband’s flesh, a pinkish hue forms the mid-tone of Beatrix’s face; pale pinks and whites forming the highlights and the grey underpaint forming the shadows. The exposed underpaint can be seen around the shadows of Beatrix’s eyes and in the shadow beneath her mouth, appearing bluish-grey against the warm pink of her cheeks and lips (fig.7.3). Underpaint has also been exposed in the left side of her face which falls in shadow and appears much greyer than the lighter other side of face, especially in the forehead. As in the flesh of the cheeks of Isaac, where the pink blush stops on her cheeks, the grey underpaint is also visible; here it shows through a very thin layer of pale pink, giving her complexion its cool tonality. In comparison to Isaac, whose flesh shadows are much darker, the only places where the dark shadow tone has been more worked up is in the defining shadows around her eyes and also around the curve of her cheeks and in her dimples, aiding the illusion of the plump, fleshy fullness of her cheeks.

It is not just the tonal and colour nuances that Hals manipulates to create the illusion of flesh but the direction of the brushstrokes themselves. As Antoom Erftemeijer puts it when discussing the dynamism of Hals’s work ‘When one looks at the most typical of Hals’s paintings, one does not experience the visual calm a smoothly-finished painting offers. The observer’s eyes flicker back and forth between diagonals, loose dashes and dots, flowing strokes, zigzags and bolts of lightening’ 56

; For Erftmeijer this gives the figures in Hals’s paintings the impression that they are living and breathing125. It is certainly possible to see how Hals employs this energetic technique in the brushstrokes that form the flesh of Isaac and Beatrix. Hals overlaps his brushstrokes, which he paints in different directions to give form and three-dimensionality to the flesh. This can most easily be seen in the dazzling stokes of local colour, which although give the feeling of being applied somewhat haphazardly, have clearly been thought out as they each contribute in some way to the illusion. An example of this is the bold strokes of yellow that have been used in the face of Isaac Massa; one large stroke has been boldly painted in horizontally across the left side of his forehead while another smaller stroke can be seen at the top of his nose (fig. 7.2). Hals has also used yellow in the small creases of Isaac’s right eye. These very visible splashes of colour catch our attention and appear spontaneous in the freedom of their rendering. However, all instances help shape the form of the flesh. All three areas of yellow create a mid-tone highlight which, showing where Isaac’s flesh catches the light. The highlights are not as pale as the brightest highlights as although catching the light, they represent areas that are flatter than the protruding areas that catch the most light, like the ridge of the rose. The stroke of yellow in the forehead for example marks the area of skin that is not cast under the shadow of Isaac’s hat, and thus lighter, but is flatter than the protruding eyebrow bone beneath it, and so darker than lighter flesh of the eyebrow. This gives the flesh plasticity as Hals implies three-dimensional form through strokes of local colour.

Hals also changes the direction of his stokes to suggest form, working up the flesh wet-in-wet above the dry olive-grey underlayer. An example of this is in Beatrix van der Laen’s right cheek, which falls in light (fig. 7.3). Here we can see how Hals has applied the pink blush in thin layers, working in small, horizontal brushstrokes that go across her cheek. These brushstrokes imply a rounded shape to the cheeks. By varying how thickly and thinly he applies these strokes, Hals creates nuances in the tone, giving the blush a naturalistic feel as if the blood as just rushed to the surface. Where the rounded cheek meets the bottom of her face, Hals has applied a thin layer of pale, pinkish highlight over the

125 Antoom Erftemeijer, ‘Frans Hals: A Phenomenon’, p7 57 underpaint. He has brushed this on in a different direction to the paint in the cheeks, imitating the round curve of the contour of her face and so the strokes appear longer and more vertical. The strokes at the bottom of her cheek sweep down and around the cheek, again giving form and a rounded fullness to her flesh.

Twenty years younger, and for a long while the other leading portraitist alongside Frans Hals in Haarlem, was Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck (c. 1601/ 03 – 62). Both Hals and Verspronck died in the 1660s leaving the field wide open for Jan de Bray, who took over as the most successful Haarlem portraitist. Ekkart notes how despite his skill, Verspronck never stepped into the limelight and ‘led the existence of a quiet, slightly retiring gentleman’126. His name was only put forward once for a seat on the board at the painer’s guild but he lost out to Fran Hals. Although it is not known for sure, Rudi Ekkart suggests that it is likely that Verspronck studied with Hals, his work in the 1630s emulating Hals’s in the pose of his sitters although according to Ekkart, ‘he did not try to emulate Hals’s loose brushstrokes’127. More than 100 of Verspronck’s portraits survive while only a handful of paintings from other genres have been documented, making him very much a portrait specialist128. Although in Verspronk’s earlier works, Hals’s influence is evident his style evolved into something that was very much his own and set himself apart from his popular competitor. Ekkart characterizes Verspronck’s work as being ‘tranquil’, being successful in attaining ‘a balance between light, movement and gravitas whilst paying close attention to detail129 .

I will be looking at how Verspronck builds up a material representation of flesh by looking at the marriage pendant portraits ‘Portrait of Eduard Wallis’ and ‘Portrait of Maria van Strijp’; both were painted in 1635 and are currently on display in the Rijksmuseum (figs. 10 and 11). I will be comparing techniques Verspronck employs with further examples from Hals’s oeuvre, this time the marriage pendant portraits ‘Portrait of Nicolaas Hasselaer’ and ‘Portrait of Sara

126 Rudi Ekkart ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’ p11 127 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p36 128 Rudi Ekkart ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’ p9 129 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals’ p36 58

Wolphaers van Diemen’ (both 1635) (figs 8 and 9). Verspronck provides us with an interesting example as not only was his smooth style vastly different to that of his older contemporary Hals, but much can be learnt about his material processes and working methods thanks to extensive infrared research that has been conducted on his works. I will now go on to discuss Verspronck’s methods, as I did Hals, using much of the technical research that was found out from Ella Hendricks 1988 project in which she submitted all of Verspronck’s paintings to the Frans Hals Museum for scientific examination. Although it is often possible for the discerning viewer to see through a number of paint layers, especially in the works of more economical artists like Hals who leave under-layers visible, the infra-red technology allows for a much more thorough and systematic breakdown of this. This information becomes all the more valuable with an artist such as Verspronck whose top-most paint layers are applied more thickly, often obstructing to the naked eye what lies beneath. Like Hals and De Bray, Verspronck worked from back to front.

However, as seen through the fruitful technical examinations, this started with an important step for Verspronck that was very different from those methods of Hals; he used under drawing, a step Hals rarely used in comparison. Above his white ground, Verspronck used a black chalk to sketch out the contours and form of his portrait; according to Rudi Ekkart the broad form was usually sketched very loosely whilst parts that required more thought such as the face or ruff of a collar were drawn in quite detailed130. The importance of this stage to Verspronck is shown by the infrared results that show how much time he spent over these under drawings, correcting himself and changing the lines many times. In fact in an essay from the Rijksmuseum Bulletin on the technical processes of Verspronck, it is noted that how in the ‘Portrait of Eduard Wallis’ (which I will go on to discuss shortly), it took Verspronck three attempts to position the correct position for the sitter’s eye131. Ekkart explains how the underdrawing had a dual function for Verspronck; to sketch the overall design on which he could add colour and detail in paint later, and, to record details of

130 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’, p25 131 Anna Krekelar, ‘Consistent choices… A Technical study of Johannes Verspronck’ p17 59 the sitter’s face and clothing in the sitting in order to achieve a successful likeness132. Very interesting to note for a study on flesh is Ekkart’s observation on hands. Ekkart explains that through the x-radiography results of many 17th century portraits by a range of artists, it is common to see that hands were rendered in much less detail than faces133. This is because it was not necessary for the artists to individualise the characterisation of the hands as much and in fact, it is possible to see many similarities between hands in portraits suggesting that perhaps artists used stock motifs and techniques that could be shared across different sitters; details and flesh-tones being altered and individualised to match the face.

Verspronck would then begin the painting process by adding tonal layers of doodverf, blocking different areas of dead-colouring depending on the composition. The figures were often blocked in light brown paint on top of which varying thicknesses of darker paint were added to mark out shadow and highlight. Anna Krekeler in the technical study of Verspronck notes how Verspronck’s transitions from light to shadow passages were achieved smoothly and that the ‘lighter part of the background is always to the right of the figure, regardless of the direction of their position or their pose’; this means the light comes from the left134. The flesh areas would have further layers of paint added in greys and also browns to add depth to the flesh colour; these passages of tone can often be seen shining through as shadow or highlight. Verspronck would then ‘work-up’ the final stages of his portrait by painting the individual details such as face, clothing and accessories. The final strokes, from working back-to- front like Hals, would be the areas most projected into the light; this gives the image a sense of depth and atmospheric perspective. Although a lot of these stages and material processes appear similar to that of Hals, it is in this final ‘working-up’ stage where we see the biggest differences between the techniques of the artists. The paint surface is drastically smoother than in the works of Hals, the brushstrokes much more blended and rarely visible on the paint surface. This

132 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’, p25 133 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’, p25 134 Anna Krekelar, ‘Consistent choices… A Technical study of Johannes Verspronck’ p16 60 refined style contributes to a ‘tranquil atmosphere’ that Verspronck’s portraits undoubtedly have135. It is the nuances within this smooth and refined painting style, so often parried against the more expressive and looser style of Hals, that I will now go on to look at in more detail within the creation of the illusion of flesh.

According to portrait specialist Rudi Ekkart, the portraits of Eduard Wallis and Maria van Strijp (1652), on display in the gallery of honour in the Rijksmuseum, are ‘the finest pair of pendants in Johannes Verspronck’s later oeuvre’; it is to these two paintings that I now turn (figs. 10 and 11)136. The pendant displays Eduard Wallis and Maria van Strijp, painted 5 years after their marriage in 1647; the couple were 31 and 25 at the time their portraits were painted137. The pendant presents the couple each sitting sideways on a chair, Eduard on the left and Maria on the right as convention dictated. Ekkart notes how the pose of the couple who are seated and not standing shows a transition in Verspronck’s style which evolved towards the end of his career; it was more conventional for sitters to stand full-length in portraits at this time. Ekkart explains how the sideways seated pose is in fact a ‘derivation from a pose developed by Frans Hals and provides the sitters with a more laid-back informal air, something that is so characteristic of Hals’s works138. Both Eduard and Maria look directly out at us, holding the viewers gaze. Although their expressions are not animated in the same way that Hals’s sitters are, they are neither stiff nor idealised but present us with an air of ease and naturalness, aided by their relaxed poses. Although created in a very different way, the figures appear as lifelike as Hals’s; movement replaced with a meticulous attention to details, which are both believable and natural. While her pose is static, Maria’s hand dangles casually from her chair and her lips are appear ever so slightly turned in subtle but knowing reference to personality. Eduard holds his hat in his hand where Maria holds a fan, making their poses somewhat traditional, as it was standard to hold a prop thus.

135 Anna Krekelar, ‘Consistent choices… A Technical study of Johannes Verspronck’ p19 136 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’, p52 137 P. Biesboer ‘Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745’ p323 138 Rudi Ekkart, ‘Johannes Verspronck and the Girl in Blue’, p52 61

To look at the artistic techniques with which Verspronck created flesh in more detail I will compare aspects from these pendant portraits to Frans Hals’s pendant pair of Nicolaas Hasselaer and his wife Sara Wolphaers van Diemen (painted 1635) (figs 8 and 9). Like Verspronck’s ‘Portrait of Eduard Wallis’, Nicolaas sits side on, leaning on a chair, looking straight out at the viewer. Although he looks out at us, his gaze on closer inspection seems to glide over one’s left shoulder when looking at his, imbuing the painting with a sense of momentary candidacy (fig. 8). However, his pose, although similar is even more informal than Eduard; he leans casually over his chair, elbow jutted out towards the viewer, hand languidly hanging at the right edge of the picture plane. The focus is on his head and shoulders, much of his costume and torso being obstructed by the chair, all the better to show off the finely painted white lace collar and cuffs. His left hand rests confidently on his hip; he has no need for props his self-assured pose and broad shoulders, which seem almost squashed by the frame, say it all.

Where Eduard Wallis and Maria van Strijp are very obviously a pendant pair in their mirroring poses and compositions, the atmosphere of the portraits is somewhat different between Nicolaas Hasselaer and his wife Sara Wolphaers. As Christopher D.M. Atkins puts it in his extensive book on Hals, The Signature Style of Frans Hals, ‘by comparison with the powerful uncombed head of the Amsterdam beer brewer, Sara’s likeness is the very epitome of decorum’139. Where Nicolaas sits casually and confidently, his presence a dynamic experience of bold brushstrokes, wavy hair and jutting elbows, Sara sits still and calm, echoing much of the tranquil modesty of Verspronck’s portrait of Maria. Although her position more stiff, sat more frontally with no chair visible, her arms at her side, she is still calm. Sara appears relaxed through her more traditional pose; her mouth is slightly open as if she is about to talk to the viewer, or perhaps her husband, and her eyes are arresting as she gazes out with poise. Through her demeanour and parted mouth Hals seems to capture her in an intimate way. Even the brushwork which Hals has used is more refined than the looser and rougher strokes employed to depict her husband. Atkins suggests this

139 Christopher D.M. Atkins ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p49 62 difference in decorum between the couple is reflective of the marriage ideals at the time and conventions of marriage portraits in which the man had more freedom and the woman was ‘portrayed as subdued and modest’, accounting for differences in style also140.

Both Verspronck and Hals link their pendants through rendering husband and wife in the same light and colour palette. Both artists employ the use of a light brown doodverf , over a grey ground, for their background. On top of this, thin layers of a dark brown wash have been applied in accordance with the correct lighting of their sitters. However, this has been done to different effect. Where Hals employs loose, open brushwork, brushed across his background, Verspronck delineates careful areas of shadow and highlight. In the Verspronck pendant, for both the man and woman, the light comes from the left and thus the pale brown doodverf is left more open to the right of the sitters. The warm tone of the background gives the figures warmth and ties them together in tone across the two portraits.

Although both paintings in the Frans Hals pendant use a similar warm bright palette, the effect of the ‘dead-colouring’ stage is different than in the Verspronk pendants. Where the tonal colours that have been gradually blended to create areas of light and shadow are similar across the Verspronck portraits, the dead-colouring in Hals’s portraits works more individually and are more specific to one pictorial space. The same tones of brown are used in the doodverf of the backgrounds between Nicolaas and Sara but much less of the dark brown has been used in the portrait of Nicolaas, making the whole effect paler. I would argue that this individualises the sitters more as the paler background creates a colour harmony with the tones used in Nicolaas’s flesh and hair which is individual to him. The darker doodverf in Sara’s portrait is used to enhance the contrasts in her face and hair; the dark brown shines through in shadow more than her husband’s face, which is built up of layers of lighter tones. The light comes from the left in both portraits, shadows cast upon the wall to the right of the figure. There is much less contrast of light and shadow than the Verspronck

140 Christopher D.M. Atkins ‘The Signature Style of Frans Hals’ p49 63

Portraits which gives the pendant a less traditional and more informal air. I will now go on to discuss how the layers of dead-colouring in the respective pendants effects the working-up stage in creating the illusion of flesh.

In her fascinating study on the technical processes of Verspronck, Ella Hendricks notes that after blocking out the rough shapes in his portraits, paint cross-sections taken from the faces in five different Verspronck portraits have shown that he applied very thin layers of translucent underpaint over the dark tonal doodverf to establish the tones of the flesh141. The layers are very thin and grey but lack strong variants of saturated pigment such as black, white and earth pigments. Verspronck builds up his flesh tones lightly and delicately to create gradations which are tonal in comparison to Frans Hals who employs much more colourful underpaint. Hendricks goes on to explain this process in further detail, noting that these thin translucent layers are used even below the palest tones of flesh; the thickness of these ‘washes’ of underpaint has an effect on the surface flesh tone. The paint cross-sections also show that at this stage Verspronck also paints in local highlights of light impasto to help form the ‘monochrome lay-in of the faces’, as opposed to leaving light ground uncovered to shine as highlight142. Verspronck would work-up these flesh tones then by applying more or less thin layers of translucent flesh paint, accentuated by highlights or by darkening the underpaint.

These thin grey underpaint layers have clearly been exploited by Verspronck as we can see where they have been left more exposed to provide cool tones in the flesh of Eduard Wallis and Maria van Strijp. In the flesh of the face of Eduard Wallis, Verspronck has carefully modelled areas of highlight and shadow to create the form of his face, exposing the grey underpaint where necessary. Specifically, Verspronck has used it to create a flesh tone in the mid- tone areas where the flesh is not flushed, nor falling into dark shadow either. We can see this particularly on the left side of his forehead, which falls away from

141 Ella Hendricks, ‘Looking Through Paintings: The Study of Painting Techniques and Materials in Support’, Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, Vol. 11 of Inverse and Ill-Posed Problems, (1998) p246 142 Ella Hendricks, ‘Looking Through Paintings’ p246 64 the light, and in the lower part of his right cheek, where the skin meets the jaw line. It is possible to see that this application of grey has been applied more thickly in the head passage than in the area above the jaw (fig. 10.1). If looking very carefully it is possible to see some brown dead-colour shining through in the shadow around the jaw; the thicker the application of the thin grey layers, the lighter the flesh colour appears. Left exposed, this also creates cooler passages, unmarked by pink flush and saturation. Verspronk has applied thin layers of pink on top of the grey to create the man’s ruddy blush across his cheeks and nose. There are many more red tones across the whole flesh colour of his face than that of the portrait of his wife whose flesh tone is much cooler. The pink appears across Eduard’s face, being mixed with brown where necessary to create shadow such as in the shadow of his cheekbone and around his nose.

Ella Hendricks explains how surface examination of many portraits suggests that Verspronck often skilfully manipulated the thickness of the light flesh colour that has been applied on top of the monochrome-grey deadcolour; he did this by pressing his brush down with various pressures to create a range of tones143. If looking very carefully, it is possible to see where Verspronck has done this to make delicate nuances to the colour of the flesh and enhance the illusion. Around Eduard’s right eye , just visible, below it , and above the brow, it is possible to see very thin brushstrokes of very pale pink highlight; Verspronck has clearly pressed the brush down hard here to make the highlight varied and bright (fig. 10.1). Above Eduard’s left eye, in the grey area of shadow it is also possible to discern fine lines. Here, I would suggest that the effect is different and that the fine brush marks are a result of Verspronck applying a very thin pale pink scumble over the grey underlayer. This allows the pink flesh colour of the lit side of the forehead to blend into the shadowed area successfully, the scumble aiding the transition into the grey underlayer that has been left exposed.

As mentioned, the flesh tones of Maria van Strijp’s face are a lot cooler and, Verspronck exploiting the grey underlayers more than in the portrait of the warmer complexioned Eduard. Maria’s face has been modelled almost entirely in

143 Ella Hendricks, ‘Looking Through Paintings’ p240 65 grey. The areas of more saturated colour, such as her cheeks, forehead and nose, have been applied thinly over the grey, which makes even these areas cooler. Where the surface layer of paint in the warm flesh areas of Eduard is red, presumably being mixed with vermillion, the flesh of Maria is peachier and has been mixed with orange-ochre tones. The brown shadows which we see in Eduard’s face are non existent in Maria’s, only dark grey shadows appear, blending with the grey tones of the rest of her flesh. These dark grey shadows can be seen particularly in the shadows under her hairline, around her forehead, along the hollow of her cheekbone and in the shadowed modelling of her nose (fig. 11.1). The tones of these grey shadows are nuanced and get darker and lighter depending on the light; the lower half of her face is modelled in a darker grey than the top half. Her ‘peaches and cream’ complexion is subtle and wholly feminine; the peachy blush on the apples of her cheeks mimics the hue of her lips, drawing our attention to her pretty features. Although the peachy blush colour is somewhat idealised, Verspronck has made it more realistic by carefully blending it out into the rest of her complexion. This means that it does not have the cosmetic feel that it has been painted on top of the surface. The area of orange-pink pigment is applied most thickly in the apples of the cheeks, where it masks the colour of the grey beneath; Verspronck then blends this out, applying the pink less thickly so that more of the grey shows through. Under the shadow her cheekbone the peachy-pink recedes into a dark pink shadow, made up of the same pigments. The same pink hue can be seen, although a less saturated version, on her forehead. Here is seems to have been applied in a sweeping motion around the centre which is highlighted and paler; the movement of the brush gives it form. The fact that the strong colour of her cheeks, nose and lips is blended out and used in other areas of the flesh makes it natural and part of whole complexion.

The modelling of the face and flesh appears much more regimented in Verpronck’s portait of Eduard Wallis than in Hals’s portrait of Nicolaas Hasselaer. Hals had overlapped his brushstrokes, layering different strokes of complimenting and contrasting colours to work up form through colour and tone, the brushstrokes going in different directions to create shape and 66 movement. Verspronck on the other hand pays much more attention to the final details, working in accents and applying thin layers of colour and tone nuances on top the painted flesh. If we take Verspronck’s portrait of Eduard Wallis for example, we can see how he has carefully modelled the left side of Eduard’s face with detailed attention paid to light and shadow. The pale pink and grey highlight on top of the cheekbone and under the eye has been painted on top of the underlayer in a precise teardrop shape. This area of highlight is contrasted against a very dark brown shadow that falls away from the cheekbone and into the depression below, receding into the jaw line (fig.10.1). The light and shade here has clearly been carefully planned and thought out, the lightest areas of the highlight being added at the end in a detailed manner. The areas of light and shade are specific and almost compartmentalised in comparison to the different parts of the flesh in Hals’s portraits that have been worked up together to create a whole. The skin of both the faces of Hals’s Nicolaas Hasselaer and Sara Wolphaers van Diemen is whole and unbroken by different features.

The flesh in Hals’s Nicolaas Hasselaer has been worked up in a completely different way. Where specific features have been drawn out and different areas of highlight and shadow carefully rendered in Verpronck’s Eduard, the form of Nicolaas has been shaped by many brushstrokes that overlap and work together to form a whole. The form is not drawn out and carefully built up as in the work of Verspronck but shaped through individual stokes of different colours and tonal nuances, giving the portraits a more dynamic feel. We are presented with more of an overall illusion of flesh, and ‘feel’ of Nicolaas’s character, as opposed to the rendering of specific features that create a good likeness. If we look at Nicolaas’s right eye and the area that surrounds it we can see how Hals’ achieves this. In comparison to the eye of Verspronck’s Eduard, where we can identify pink, grey and white (although many different tonal variants of these), around the eye of Nicolaas can be identified many more colours; green, yellow, grey, pink and brown (fig. 8.1).

A comparison of how the two artists approach detail differently is in the detail of their sitter’s right eyes. Where Eduard’s eye is modelled with precise 67 thin lines of browny-pink shadow to form the eyelid, the shape of Nicolaas’s eye is formed with different stokes of colour that create shape without line (fig. 8.1). Under Nicolaas’s right eye we can see how the dark pink of the lid is juxtaposed against a purplish shadow underneath which pushes the pink of the eyelid into relief. Above the eye, pushing the eyelid into relief from the other side is another shadow, here created in greens to mark that the shadow of the eye is formed under a heavy brow. This green tone is picked up in a streak of yellow highlight on top of the ridge of the eyelid. Under the eye, painting rapid, thin layers of dark pink over brown has created the ruddy red complexion; the brown is allowed to show through, giving the flesh a muddy tone. Above the pink, on the very top of the cheekbone has been painted bold whitish highlights, each brushstroke visible; from the visibility of the hairs in the strokes these were most likely applied on top of dry paint. The side of his nose is similarly amazingly modelled in a huge variant of stokes of colour, shade and highlight. The left side of Nicolaas’s face, which falls in shade, is much sketchier; the paint has been applied more thinly with less individual strokes demarking nuances of light and shade. This means that this side of the face recedes from our view and are focus is on the detailed right side that falls in the light.

In summary, Frans Hals uses loose and dynamically applied brushstrokes to incite his figures, and their flesh, with a sense of life and spontaneity. The brushstrokes however are carefully considered, and although have the appearance of rapid impulsiveness, are carefully constructed. Through overlapping brushstrokes and using bold strokes of colour Hals creates form and shape in his flesh passages. Hals manipulates the strokes in the flesh of both males and females to imply three-dimensional form and plasticity. However, within this there are nuances; where the female flesh appears to be softer, smoother and ‘fleshier’, there are more ridges, bumps and harsher forms in the male flesh. In the portraits of Nicolaes Hasselaer and Sara Wolphaerts van Diemen, Hals has expressed this by using more open brushwork in the male and smoother, more refined brushwork for the rounded female flesh. Hals gives an enormous precedence to colour and tone and uses coloured underpaint to his full advantage in creating the illusion of flesh. Hals uses the underpaint to create 68 different complexions. When the ground and underpaint is the same for both male and female (the double portrait), the dark underpaint can be employed for mid-tone in male flesh but as a shadow-tone in the female flesh to make the male flesh appear darker. Where the female flesh is cool, pale and feminine, the male flesh is warmer with more browns and reds (although Hals uses a vast range of different colours and tones in both men and women).

From vast technical research done on Johannes Verspronck, it is known that he uses much more underdrawing than Hals, which gives his work a more detailed and precise feel. Verspronck then uses thin layers of translucent grey paint over his dark underpaint to establish the tones of the flesh. This build-up is more monochrome and tonal; where Hals uses colour, Verspronck builds up monochrome passages of light and shade. Like Hals, Verspronck exploits his underpaint, leaving it exposed to form the cool shadow passages in both the male and female flesh. The flesh tones of Maria van Strijp’s face are a lot cooler as Verspronck has modelled her face with a lot more grey than the flesh of her husband. Where the surface layer of paint in the warm flesh areas of Eduard is red, the flesh of Maria is peachier and has been mixed with orange-ochre tones. In comparison to the bold and colourful underpaint layers that Hals works dynamically into his paintings, Verspronck builds up his flesh delicately with thin layers of paint to create gradual and smooth transitions between passages. Verspronck’s brushwork is much smoother than Hals’s broad strokes; only a few manipulations of the paint are visible where Verspronck has applied pressure to the brush to change the thickness of the paint on the canvas. The brushwork is controlled and precise.

69

Conclusion

Citing French art historian Henri Focillon (1881 – 1943), Dr. Anne-Sophie Lehmann describes the importance of researching technical and material processes for art historical practice. Lehmann summarises Focillon’s views, stating that ‘by viewing technique as process and in trying to reconstruct it as such’ one may understand how the transformation of materials into art occurs144. Within this paper, in which I have investigated the techniques and materials that Dutch Seventeenth-Century artists employed to create the illusion of flesh, I have followed in the thought processes of Lehmann and Focillon. I have attempted to understand how small processes create a specific illusion, which in turn forms part of the illusion of the artwork as a whole. No artistic illusion would be complete without an accurate, realistic and believable representation of human flesh; as mentioned in the introduction, it is the skilled and accomplished artist who breathes life into representations of the human figure.

By exploring works from the oeuvres of four different artists, spanning across two cities, I hope I have illustrated how differently an illusion can appear and within this, how differently it can be created (with a range of different techniques and materials). Mainly I have looked at flesh tints, paint layers and brushwork, looking at how an artist creates flesh and how this can affect the style and illusion of the whole painting. However different the final product, it would appear that it was not just the ‘working up’ stage that was crucial in creating the illusion of flesh, but the ‘deadcolouring’ stage also. All four artists exploit deadcolouring (underpaint) to give their flesh a richness of tone and colour, often exposing underpaint in cool, shadow or even mid-tone passages; this being manipulated differently between females and males. For these 17th century Dutch artists, clearly the many nuances in human flesh that can be marked, worn or not, and varied in texture and thickness, requires a complex build-up; one paint layer is not enough. On the whole, for Rembrandt, Van den Tempel and Verspronck the deadcolouring provides tonal support and gives the

144 Anne- Sophie Lehmann ‘How Materials make Meaning…’ p 10&11 70 flesh gradations of light and shade (but to different extents in the different artists), whereas for Hals it has much more to do with colour. In terms of the working up, brushwork has been applied in many different ways to give the flesh its realistic appearance. Where late Rembrandt and Frans Hals use bold expressive brushwork, the work of early Rembrandt, Van den Tempel and Verspronck is much smoother, the brushwork barely visible. The smooth style of these artists means they have more of a meticulous attention to detail and use line and carefully planned contours to create forms. This is in direct comparison to Hals and late Rembrandt who manipulate converging brushstrokes and colour to create forms. However, where Hals puts more precedence on colour and tonal nuances to suggest shape, the late Rembrandt’s brushwork is much more textural; he manipulates the thickness and properties of the paint on the canvas to mimic the actual qualities of flesh.

After looking at the techniques and materials Rembrandt, Van den Tempel, Hals and Verspronck used to create the illusion of flesh, I then went on to investigate how this differed between representations of men and women. It is first important to point out that in all examples, there is a marked difference between the illusion of male and female flesh. From the degree of difference between the men and women in these portraits, it can be deduced that creating flesh, which was gendered through its particulates, must have been a big consideration for 17th-century Dutch portrait painters. In all examples, the flesh- tints differ hugely. Where the male flesh tends to be warmer, often made up with more reds and browns, the female flesh is delicate and cool. This even appears to be the case in Rembrandt’s ‘Portrait of Margaretha de Geer’ and Abraham van den Tempel’s ‘Portrait of Catharina van der Voort’; although both portray older women, and thus are not governed by youthful idealisation, the complexions are still pale and feminine. This change in flesh tints can often be seen in the shadow tones; where female flesh appears to have been predominantly modelled in grey, much more brown and red is added to the shadow areas of the male flesh.

Another difference that appears commonly throughout the examples is that there appears to be more plasticity to the male flesh. Often, the male flesh 71 appears more varied with more passages of high saturation, texture and even bumps and ridges in the flesh; the representations often appear more ‘realistic’ than their female counterparts. This is in comparison to the flesh of the women, which is often portrayed more smoothly. Frans Hals especially plays with his, using brushwork that is much more open and varied in the male flesh than the female. The bigger expanses of smooth untouched flesh gives the women a rounder and ‘fleshier’ feel. Apart from the depiction of Margaretha de Geer, there is certainly a higher level of idealisation in all the depictions of female flesh. Not only is the female flesh unmarked but its cool tone often makes it almost shimmer with a tempting level of immateriality. It is the placing of this cool, female flesh next to the male representations which gives it a more immaterial feel as the artist sets it up as different in comparison to the ‘real’ representations of the males in which the lifeblood running through their veins is always evident.

It is this binary construction of gender that I believe must have been one of the biggest considerations for these artists in creating the different illusions between males and females. By creating differences in the tone and texture of the flesh, artists were not just being faithful to life and creating a likeness of their sitter but constructing gender boundaries that had representational implications. By exaggerating certain masculine and feminine qualities, i.e. pale petrarchian female skin, the artist could set male, and female up as very much different. De Clippel on her essay on Rubens mentions how youthful and idealised skin can have a powerful tempting power that Rubens was aware of, making the skin of his females even paler and more beautiful. This not only appealed to the sitter, the women’s beauty being immortalised in paint, but it says a lot about the skill and identity of the artist. Not only has the artist the ability to skilfully create a realistic illusion of skin, but to imbue this with further potency, a tempting tangible beauty, is even more impressive; the power to trick but also to seduce one’s viewer through one’s own artistry. The fact that even the older women possess a degree of hyper-femininity attests to this.

Although the research in this paper is predominately materialistic and thus technical, it is interesting to consider some of the implications that artistic 72 decisions can have. Underlying many of these different pictorial representations of men and women are some external qualities that representation can imply, namely how different materials can possess or connote meaning. Recently, Art Historians such as Patricia Phillippy and Thijs Weststeijn have looked at how practical elements of art theory can become attached to connotative meaning, specifically gendered concerns. In ‘Painting Women. Cosmetics, Canvases and Early Modern Culture’, Patricia Phillippy provides a cross-disciplinary study of women as objects and looks at the relationship between paint on canvas and women’s cosmetics. Similarly, in his article ‘The gender of colours in Dutch Art Theory’, Thijs Weststeijn compares cosmetics and paint to form part of a wider argument on how materials can become gendered, i.e. the deceptive and seductive ‘feminine’ quality of oil paint.

Phillippy explains that painting and cosmetics were linked in early modern culture as both became feminised in that time. For Philippy both painting and make-up became associated with woman’s assumed vanity and reflected ‘women’s inherent doubleness’145. Weststeijn also discussed fears around ornament, cosmetics and vanity. Both women and artists had the ability to trick and deceive through their paint. This was clearly a concern for artists as Weststeijn shows how both Van Mander and Van Hoogstraten react to a cosmetic debate in their art historical writings. Van Hoogstraten makes a distinction between flesh tones that are successful because of their ‘naturalness’ and the recognizably artificial ‘cosmetic’: ‘The nature of soft flesh colour is so appealing that no cosmetic can come near’146. Taken in context with the portraits discussed in this paper this at once feels gendered, the flesh of the men always being depicted with much more ‘realistic’ plasticity and colouring than the females. However, the illusion of the flesh of the women is still successful and certainly it would appear that the artists discussed have attempted make the female flesh ‘soft’ and ‘fleshy’; it does not feel artificial. In addition, artists such as the late Rembrandt and Frans Hals call attention to their artistry and materiality, eradicating any fears about the deceptive nature of painting and/or women.

145 Patricia Phillippy, ‘Painting Women’ p24 146 Thijs Weststeijn, ‘The gender of colours in Dutch art theory’, p180 73

However, many arguments that discuss the role of women in Dutch 17th century art appear to minimise female identity in favour of a male artist, who being part of a 17th century patriarchal society, has power over his paintbrush and subject. An example of this is Wayne Franits’s ‘Paragons of Virtue’ in which he discusses hyper-feminine portrayals of women as fictitious constructs that supported a patriarchal society. The women in the domestic genre paintings he discusses (and sometimes portraits) are for Franits not individualised, but because of their idealisation, served to act as ‘types’ for women to look at emulate. In a discussion on portraits, and marriage portraits, which celebrate a union, I am cautious of such gendered concerns. One only has to glance at the works of Frans Hals, some illustrated in this paper, to realise that, certainly his females, have identity and do not pallor in comparison to their male counterparts. I would argue their idealised femininity sets them up as separate and individualised from their husbands and celebrates their feminine qualities by exaggerating them.

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Sources

Rembrandt, ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ (1632), oil on canvas, w216.5cm x h169.5 cm, : The Mauritshuis

Rembrandt, ‘Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Maria Trip’ (1639), oil on panel, h107cm x w83cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Rembrandt, ‘Portrait of Jacob Trip’ (1661), oil on canvas, h103.5cm x w97cm, London: The National Gallery (Exhibited Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum in Late Rembrandt exhibition 2015)

Rembrandt, ‘ Portrait of Margaretha de Geer’ (1661), oil on canvas, h130.5cm x w97.5cm, London: The National Gallery (Exhibited Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum in Late Rembrandt exhibition 2015)

Abraham van den Tempel, ‘Portrait of Pieter de la Court’ (1667), oil on canvas, h133cm x w106cm, Amsterdam: Rijsmuseum

Abraham van den Tempel, ‘Portrait of Catharina van der Voort’ (1667), oil on canvas, h133cm x w106cm, Amsterdam: Rijsmuseum

Frans Hals, ‘Portrait of a Couple, Probably Isaac Abrahamsz Massa and Beatrix van der Laen’ (c.1622), oil on canvas, h140cm x w166.5cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Frans Hals, ‘Portrait of a Man, Probably Nicolaes Hasselaer’ (c.1635), oil on canvas, h79.5cm x w66.5cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Frans Hals, ‘Portrait of a Woman, Probably Sara Wolphaerts van Diemen’ (c.1635), oil on canvas, h79.5cm x w66.5cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, ‘Portrait of Eduard Wallis’ (1652), oil on panel, h97cm x w75cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, ‘Portrait of Maria van Strijp (1652), oil on panel, h97cm x w75cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 1,Rembrandt, ‘The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp’ (1632), oil on canvas, w216.5cm x h169.5 cm, The Hague: The Mauritshuis

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Figure 1.1, detail

Figure 1.2 detail 80

Figure 1.3, detail

Figure 1.4, detail 81

Figure 2, Rembrandt, ‘Portrait of a Woman, Possibly Maria Trip’ (1639), oil on panel, h107cm x w83cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 2.1, detail

Figure 2.2, detail

Figure 2.3, detail 83

Figure 3, Rembrandt, ‘Portrait of Jacob Trip’ (1661), oil on canvas, h103.5cm x w97cm, London: The National Gallery (Exhibited Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum in Late Rembrandt exhibition 2015)

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Figure 3.1, detail

Figure 3.2, detail 85

Figure 4 Rembrandt, ‘ Portrait of Margaretha de Geer’ (1661), oil on canvas, h130.5cm x w97.5cm, London: The National Gallery (Exhibited Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum in Late Rembrandt exhibition 2015)

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Figure 4.1, detail

Figure 4.2, detail

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Figure 5, Abraham van den Tempel, ‘Portrait of Pieter de la Court’ (1667), oil on canvas, h133cm x w106cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 5.1, detail

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Figure 6, Abraham van den Tempel, ‘Portrait of Catharina van der Voort’ (1667), oil on canvas, h133cm x w106cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 6.1, detail

Figure 6.2, detail 91

Figure 7, Frans Hals, ‘Portrait of a Couple, Probably Isaac Abrahamsz Massa and Beatrix van der Laen’ (c.1622), oil on canvas, h140cm x w166.5cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 7.1, detail

Figure 7.2, detail

Figure 7.3, detail 93

Figure 8, Frans Hals, ‘Portrait of a Man, Probably Nicolaes Hasselaer’ (c.1635), oil on canvas, h79.5cm x w66.5cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 8.1, detail

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Figure 9, Frans Hals, ‘Portrait of a Woman, Probably Sara Wolphaerts van Diemen’ (c.1635), oil on canvas, h79.5cm x w66.5cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 9.1, detail

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Figure 10, Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, ‘Portrait of Eduard Wallis’ (1652), oil on panel, h97cm x w75cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 11

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Figure 12, Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck, ‘Portrait of Maria van Strijp (1652), oil on panel, h97cm x w75cm, Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum

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Figure 11.1, detail