•
PASSION AND PATRONAGE:
VAN DYCK, BUCKINGHAM AND CHARLES l
by Ron Harvie Departl"lent of Art Hi~tory McGill University, Montreal March, 1994
• A Thesis submi tted ta the Facul ty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requ i rements of the degree of Master of Arts
(c) Ron Harvie, 1994 • • CONTENTS ABSTHACT ...... ii
ACKNOWLE:DGEM1~NTS ...... iv
LIST OF' ILLUSTRATIONS v
INTRODUC'I' [ON 1
CHAPTER 1: VAN DYCK AND BUCKINGHAM IN 1620-1621
* /l'}(11/1_'' tir/d Vel/!1_, • • . • • • • • 3 * Literary and artistic sources of the painting 7 * Identification of the figures 12 * The question of pat.ronage . . . 26
CHAPTEH II
THE CHAHACT.ERS OF VAN DYCK 1 BUCKINGHAM AND CHAHLES l • * The artist and the courtier 30 * The king and the artist 37 * The king and the courtier 4t'
CHAPTER JII VAN DYCK, BUCKINGHAM AND KING CHARLES IN 1629
* RiT/aJdo ,'wei IInnIdd ...... 55 * Literary and artistic sources of the paint. ing . 57 * The raIe of the theatre 63 * A painting by Honthorst 69 * 'l'he question of patronage 73
CONCLUSION · . . . 78
BIBLIOGRAPHY · . . . 82 • ILLUSTRATIONS · . . . 89 ------• ABSTRACT
The 1632 appointment oÎ Van Dyck as Court Painter by King Charles l changed the course of art in England. But in spi te of i ts importance, the dynamics and mechanics of t.h i s event remain imperfectly understood. This paper suggests that one àe1. .. ermining factor was the Influence of George Vil:iiers, Duke of Buckjngham. An early admirer or Van Dyck, Buckingham in turn incarnated the young artist' s own aspirations to aristocratie status. For Charle , the Duke was a personal partner and aesthetic al ter-ego whose
presence in the King's psyche remained ~trüng long after • Buckingham's assassination in 1628. The examination of certain of Van Dyck's paintings of the 1620's shnws how the interlocking agendas and affinities of the three men combined to affect the evolution of English art .
• iii , , • RESUME
La d~signation de Van Dyck ~ la position de peintre
officiel par le roi Charles l en 1632 a changé le cours de
l'art en Angleterre. Malgr~ l'importance de cet ~v~nement,
les causes restent encore malconnues. Cette th~se propose
que l' ~nf luence de George Vi 11 iers, duc de Buckingham a eu
un effet indirecte su~ cette d~signation. Le duc ~tait un
des premiers admirateurs anglais du jeune Yan Dyck, tandis
que l'artiste, lui, voyait en Buckingham l'aristocrat
Lrilliant qu'il enviait. Du côté de Charles, Buckingham
était partenaire et confjdant dont l'influence continuait
fortement a se faire sentir même après son assassinat en • 1628. L'analyse de certains tableaux des années 1620 révèle comment les ambitions et les affinités des trois hommes
s'entrecoup~ient afin de faire évoluer l'art anglais .
• iv • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To Professor Thomas L. Glen, my faeulty advisor, for his instinctive ability to handle not only this topie, but also this author: he always had exactly the right insights at exa0tly the right moments. Robin Simon, Editor of .4.0<111<' Magazine, London, bestowed a very much appreeiated vote of confidence. And Brenda Cobill, Chuek Pearo, Stephen Borys and David Jones provided on-going moral and oft-needed teehnological support . •
• v • LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Van Dyck, Sir G€'or 9F.! Vi Il ù.'Y';:' iJnÔ L.ü/.ly lùdlwY'.iru!! Në:WTlf.!/'.5 iiU' Ad(ITl,t_'; c:i.nd Venu$, 1620-21, oil on canvas, 224 x 164 cm., private collection. (Source: Arthur J. Wheelock, Jr., ed., Ar/ thon y vùn Dyt.: f.:, New York, 1990.)
2 Van Dyck, VeIIU.'; a7/d "'1d(lnl.5, 1618-20, oil on canvas, 175 x 175 cm., location unknown. (Source: Michael Jaffe, "Van Dyck's 'Venus and Adonis'" TlHi! lJurlinÇ/h·.)T/ Nd(/il.: 17/f' 132 [1990])
3 Tjtian, L.~,.ly i71 iJ {-'ur 141' ap, c.1534, oil on canvas, 96.5 x 63.5 cm., Vienna, Gemaldegalerie. (Source: David Rosand, 1 il lë.W: hl'::, W(lrld a.nd hJ_' Lf.!t7ACy, New York, 1982. )
4 RubE'ns, IIMl/Ir/a FIIur7l1~.!7d: '/-IE.'t Pvlsf..€·",' , 1638-40, panel, 175 x 96 cm., Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum. (Source: Peter C. Sutton, The AQe nf Rubens, Boston, 1993. )
5 Raphael, HeY'~ury and P~y~he, 1511-12, fresco, Rome, Farnes ina. (Source: Michael Jaffe, "Rubens and Raphael", Stut./Je:> t7/ l~enal_'~émC€! /~ U~r(lqu€.' Ilrt • pre':H.'T/U'd to An'thony Blunt (ln hi, t..Oth oJ.rthday, London, 1967.)
6 Van Dyck, flll' Dudu.!,.':' ot" [Jucf.:inyllcHII cJnd hl.'1' Cllildr€'n (detail), 1634-36, oil on canvas, London, Buckingham Palace. (Source: C.R. Cammell, Th€! Ol'e.'iit Du"€! lIt" nu' l, T TI tllwm. London, 1939.)
7 William Larkin, O€.'(lr~7" VlllierJ. 1-1'r~".t l)u/~C! ('If Hud,H/(/h.~m, c. 1616, oil on canvas, 204 x 119 cm., London, National Portrait Gallery. (Source: Sir Roy Strong, rhp EnglL.h ICIIT!, London, 1969.)
8 Cornelius Johnson, G€'(Irqe VIlllf..'r3~ Flr3t Du!.e of' Bud, 1711//1,1.711, 1623-24, oi 1 on canvas , Windsor, Royal Collections. (Source: Cammell.)
9 Rubens, Ci€·(l/"(7(..' VilliE.'r_::;~ Flrst [)uke of Buckingham, chalk and ink, 38.3 x 26.6 cm., Vienna, Albertina. (Source: Ap(lllo 136 [1992])
10 Rubens, [(lUl'-,trléW PortraIt '.11" the Dut:E.' Il't Bucf..ingheim, 1625, panel, Fort Worth, Kimbell A).'t Museum. (S:>urce: • Jaffe, 1990.) vi
• 11 Rubens, Gf'OI"Çlf:.> V.il.1ieY'':'',f f'ir_,t' [)t1"~.. > <'f U(lt;/\iT/qht:~TII, 1625, ail on canvas, Florence, Pitti Pél..lace. (Source: Cammell. )
12 Van Dyck, SIr 0 v ( 1 r CI v Vil 1re y;,. aT/ li 1 H li Y 1\ Il t h c> y 11 / c> Nanners a.E Iidoni_" .'iwd V&flUS (datail). (Source: Jaffe, 1990. )
13 Rubens, KatherIna i'tüne/".s~ [)l.lt::/w ....;. (,l'f [)u'_{,inyh,HIl, 1625, chalk, 36.8 x 26.5 cm., Vienna, Albertina. (Source: Jaffe, 1990.)
14 Van Dyck, r\iltherJru:.> Nclrlnl~/".',~ li/lehv3,," (lt UU'''TT/'llldTn, c.1633, ail on canvas, 74 x 57 cm., private collection. (Source: Jaffe, 1990.)
15 Van Dyck, SJ/" G(.>
16 Van Dyck, Th& CIlrd'lnenl,,,:e lIt" :~ClplP, 1620-21, oi] on canvas, 183 x 232 cm., Oxford, Christ Church. (Source: Apollo 138 [1993])
17 Van Dyck, S€>11'--[lc>rtuut, 0.1635, etching, London, Bri tish Museum. (Source: Chr istopher Brown, V Grl Vy,_", • Oxford, 1982.)
18 Van Dyck, Rlnaldo iwd f.lnnid.3., 1628-29, cil on canVftS, 236.5 x 224 cm., Baltimore, Museum of Fine Arts. (Source: Wheelock.)
19 After Van Dyck, I1rmld<:i aT/,f tllv :-:lfl/:.>pinÇ/ A'lT/iiJ,-fO, 1627- 28, Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (Source: Rensselaer Lee, "Van Dyck, Tasso and the Antj que, " Studle3 in Ue~torn Art: I1ctJ vt thv fN&ntJeth lrlteYl/atlllTii.11 C<"Ti(/I'{>~':; o'f tha f/1.:-tnry ,)'t Ilrt., Princeton, 1963.)
20 Van Dyck, RlT/ald,) and ArmIda, 1632, panel, 57 x 41 cm., London, National Gallery. (Source: Brown.)
21 Titian, 8acred ar'ô f"rl1t"ane L(l~/e (detaiJ j, 1515-16, ail on canvas, 119 x 282 cm., Rome, Galleria BGrghese. (Source: Rosand.)
22 Titian, The 141)/"ÛllP \,It- Venus (detail), 1518, oil on canvas, 173 x 173 cm., Madrid, Prado (Source: Rosand.)
23 Van Dyck (after Titian), Mars and Venus, c. 1623-25, Italian sketchbook, folio 106r, London, British MUR~um. • (Source: Wheelock.) vii
• 24 Roman, EndymJ (ln ~":lir·l:h(lpha~7u.:. (det.all), 3rd oent.ury A. D., Rome, Casino Rospigli'lsi. (Source' Lee. )
25 Roman, Al ,job/" andH/l l4edd l ri 9 (detai 1), 1st. century A.D., Ro@e, Vatican Library. (Source: Lee.)
26 Veronese, The Rape ()f 1-::u./"opcJ, c. 1575, ail on canvas, 240 x 303 cm., Venice, Ducal Palace. (Source: Rosand.)
27 Honthorst, Apol.lo ..:mô Dra.r,..'}., 1628, oil on canvas, 357 x 640 cm., London, Hampton Court. (Source: Christopher White, "1111:' [}/.llçh !)jcfl.J1' (",_, 1.1/ t'h~:,' ColU.'(,('·ion of I-liU' 1'1.'ii.1/J3l y Thl~ r.lu&l.:'n, Cambridge, 1982.)
28 Honthorst, IIpollo .1nd [)lëWi.:i (detail). (Source: White.)
29 Honthorst, IIpollll ar/l.'/ l)ja7/d (detail). (Source: Whit,e.) •
• 1 • INTRODUCTION
The appointment in 1632 of Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641)
as Court Painter by King Charles l (b.1600; r.1625-1649) was
a milestone in the lIves of bath men. It also ahanged the course of art in England. In spite of its importan8e,
however, the mechanics of this event--the hows and whys of
its occurence--are still imperfectly understood. This papor
advances the suggestion that one factor in the King's choice
of Van Dyck was the influence of George Villiers, first Duke
of Buckingham (1592-1628), favorite and partner of two
successive kings of England, James l and Charles l, father
and son.1 • At first glance, this may seem odd: Buckingham was assassinated in 1628, four years before the official
artistic appointment in question, and had had relatively
little contact with Van Dyck during his lifetime (certainly
much less than he had had through his various and complex
nealings with Peter Paul Rubens, for example). But what
contact there was between Buckingham and Van Dyck was
meaningful, and anything meaningful for Buckingham loomed
automatical1y so for Charles, such was the intensity of the
1 Villiers was the last of King James' young favorites. His career was meteoric. First meeting the King in 1614, he became Viscount Villiers in 1616, Earl of Buckingham in 1617, Marquess in 1618 and Duke in 1623. Although aIl these titles were conferred on him by James, Buckingham's power actually increased after the accession of Charles ta the • throne in 1625. 2 • relationship between Duke and King. This was especially true in matters to do with the arts, since both Buckingham and Charles were connoisseurs and avid collectors of art--at times even appearing to be in private competition in this area. This kind of personal affinity between two men continued to determine events even after the death of one partner. In other words, Buckingham's opinions and tastes outlived him--and Buckingham admired Van Dyck. 2 Moreover, Van Dyck likely reciprocated this admiration, thus widening this circle of affinity to include three men. But a triangularity of interpersonal dynamics is only part of the story: equally important is the fact that aIl three men, within their individual contexts, shared similar agendas. • Buckingham had wanted to establish himself as first knight of the realm, to play Lancelot to Charles' King Arthur. Van Dyck aimed at acceding to the position of MoSt princely of painters, ta play Apelles to Charles' Alexander. And Charles was determined to show himself as a prime example of the beauty of royalty, to play King clf England as a mirror image of the King of Heaven .
• 2 Christopher Brown, Van Dyck, Oxford, 1982, p. 56. 3 • CHAPTER l VAN DYCK AND BUCKINGHAM IN 1620-21
Adonis and Venus
In the late ~980's, a picture from a private collection
in the Low Countries appeared on the London art market
(fig. 1). According to its owners, it was a portrait by Van
Dyck of Rubens and his wife.1 Although Identification of
the subject matter rai~led questions, the attribution to Van
Dyck did not, and the pi cture was exh i bi ted at the large
1990-91 exhibition of the artist's works at the National
Gallery in Washington. 2 Subsequently, howp~er, sorne doubts
have been expressed concerning Van Dyck's authorship3 • although the subject of the painting is now universally
1 Geoffrey Barker, "A Duke fit for a King," Art N€lI/:."', (December. 1989). pp. 87-89; Michael Jaffe, "Van Dyck's 'Venus and Adonis'" The Burllrtgtl1n Naqël;:lnt:.·, 132 (October 1990). pp.697-703. Jaffe details the picture's history (or lack of it). It was not recorded in the 1635 inventoryof the Duke of Buckingham's pictures, nor in the sale of pictures inherited by the 2nd Duke. his son. It disappeared until 1842, when it appeared at a sale in Paris of works bequeathed to the Louvre by an English expatriate, Frank Hall Standish. It did not sell and it was claimed by King LouIs-Philippe as his own property. The King then put i t up for sale in London in 1853. It disappeared again until resurfa~ing at another London auction in 1918. where it sold for 7 guineas and vanished once more. apparently to the Low Countrles. until 1988.
2 Arthur K. Wheelock. ed.. Ardh(.IrI y varl Dye/... New York. 1990 . 3 Jeremy Wood, "Van Dyck' s pictures fOi.· the Duke of Buckingham: The elphant in the carpet and the dead tree with • ivy," Apollo, 136 (July 1992), pp. 42-44. 4 • agreed to be not Rubens and his wife but the Marquess of Buckingham and hl_:; wife.
At first glance, the work--now entitled SIr George
Villiers and Lady Katherine Hanners as AJON1~ ~nd Venus and dated to late 1620 or early 1621--has, even for twentieth- centuryeyes, a certain daring, almost shocking aspect. 4 At the same time, there is something amusing about it. Altogether, it seems to convey a feeling of what Michael
Jaffe calls "the learned and the l(luche" which was the culture of the early Stuart court. 5 The picture shows two half-draped figures, a male and female, almost life-size. He, with his deep indigo cloak billowing [,,\,/ay from his body, is shown fron"ta] ly. stepping • forward on rather flimsily sandaled and buskined feet. His right hand flickers across his bare chest, while his left encircles his female companion and rests on her bare back.
His head is turned down and inward so that he gazes upo~ her. She is posed in three-quarter view, almost in profile,
4 Susan J. Barnes says that although the Elizabethans were fond of portraits with allsgorical and symbolic content, "such an image as this, with si tters unclad, is apparently without precedent in either Flemish or English painting." (Wheelock, p. 126.)
• 5 Jaffe, Van Dyck, p. 701. 5 • standing still on minimal red-thonged sandals, with her head turned to look out at the spectator. Her satin robe,
more voluminous than his, is of a brilliant tangerine red.
This she gathers up in a great swag in front of her so -:. hat
it covers her entire lower body but leaves her breasts and
left shoulder exposed. The gesture, as well as the
expression on her face, is, in contrast ta the male's rather
theatrical pose, casual and matter-of-fact; there is no
attempt at modesty, false or otherwise. Nor is there
anything other than sensual i ty suggestecl by the milky-whi te
expanses of flesh--his as weIl as hers. In fact, the nude
male body demands as much attention as does the female
torse, although ultimately it i8 the inelegant, half • haughty, half-bovine expression on her :face which commands the viewer's attention.
Together, the two people take up most of the space on
the canvas. There is, however, one other figure visible: a
leaping greyhound, wiry and dangerous-looking, rises to the
man's right, as if to snap at his elbow.
The setting of the scene is a country pathway or a
bosky clearing at dawn or dusk. In the small strip of sky
overhead, sorne mauve clouds scud. F-raming the couple on the
right are two tree branches, twisted to gether like a DNA
strand, their leaves forming a thin canopy over thp. figures'
heads. On the left, beneath the bounding hound, i8 a tree • stump entwined wi th shoots of i vy. 6 • The only other details in the picture are the items worn by the woman: pearl earrings and choker, a red and blue pearl-and-ribbon hair ornament and a slim band of gold links inset with jewe1s around her 1eft biceps. Havjng catalogued the compositiona1 elements, it is necessary to examine how this scene has been associated with Venus and Adonis. Ta begin with, it is c1early an al1egorical scene based on a mytho1ogica1 source. By process of elimination, the characters in it--a beautiful, undraped female, a muscular nude youth and a leaping hunting hound- most closely conform to the story of Venus and Adonis. Yet, both Jaffe and Wood note that the "plot" of the paintin,g--or rather, the non-story of two people simply strolling along a • wooded path and stopping for no apparent reason--does not conform to either 0:- the two normally accepted ways of dealing with the two mythological personages. Van Dyck has chosen neither a scene of Venus restraining Adonis from going off to hunt, most famously depicted by Titian, nor the moment when she laments over his body after he has been killed by the boar. Jaffe is not bothered by this. He recalls that Van Dyck often took liberties with standard iconographies and compositions, and notes similarities in the slightly awkward poses of the figures to the artist's treatment of other subjects dating from his first Antwerp • • 7 period. 1615-18.6 This is not to say that he agrees wi th
the judgment, made very early on in the literature, that Van
Dyck was not at his best in historical or mythological
subjects. that he did not have the innate design sen",e of
his two masters. Rubens and Titian.7 For Jeremy Wood,
however. this eccentricity of compositional choice is fi
problem,8 although he accepts the identification of subject
matter, noting sorne very exact similarities--the muscles of
Adonis' legs and his cloak; the pose of the leaping dog--to
another Vpnu~ ~nd Adonis (fig. 2) done by Van Dyck ar0und
1618-20 .
Literary and artistic sources of the painting • Apart from Van Dyck's reflexive reference to an earJier work--c0mbined with his free-wheeling imagination--what
might be the source for his arrangement of the goddess and
her mortal lover? One might expect Ovid's Metamorphoses, and
6 Jaffe, Var, Dyd, p. 701. The author specifically mentions .1/lpl ter and lin t 1 (,Ipf' in Ghent and the Louvre NartyrdoTn (,If St. Seba:.::::tiiJn, where the salnt i5 shown wit.hout the usual arrows piercing his bod~, i.e. before martyrdom.
See also Alan McNairn J The )'0111/9 V.'iW Dyck, Ottawa. 1981, p. 20.
7 Félibien, E.'rdretien :r-ur le:::. Vies & sur les OtWrdve.'s t:les flelrdn~_" ... , Trévoux. 1725, vol 3, p. 449. Van Dyck was "ne possedant pas ni le dessein, ni les autres quaI i tez necessaires pour les grandes ordonnances." See also Sir Lionel Cust, Arlth(my ~/an Dycf,: don lIi:::.iprlcal Dtudy (I{ 111:3 Life and Uor~s. London, 1900. pp. 63-64 .
8 Wood. p. 43. "That Adonis lacks a spear may be a misfortune. but for Venus to lose Cupid and her doves looks • like carelessness." 8 • indeed the Roman poet says that Venus, having been smi tten by Adonis' beauty, " ... became his constant companion. 'l'hough she had always before been accustomed to idle in the shade, devoting aIl her attention to enhancing her beauty, no", she roamed the ridges and woods and tree-clad rocks, her garments caught up as high as her knees ..... 9 In a way, then, Van Dyck has taken Ovid li terally and tried to combine these two rather incompatible images--that of constant companion and roamer of ridges. The overall effeet here,
however, seems closer to idli~g in the shade, thus confusing the narrative. Another source of inspiration in keeping with the eonnection of the painting to England, might be Shakespeare, • whose Venu." and Adonl:3, publi!':hed in 1593 and dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, one of young Villers' early
promoters at court, 10 contains the fol~owing passage: 'Fondling,' she saith, 'since 1 have hernm'd thee here Within the circuit of tais ivory pale, l'Il be a park, and thou shalt be rny deer; Feed where thou wilt, on mountain or in daIe: Graze on my lips; and if those hills be dry, Stray lower, where the pleasant fountains lie. Then be my deer, sinee 1 am such a park; No dog shall rouse thee, though a thJusand bark.' At this Adonis smiles as in disdain,
9 Ovid, The Netamor pho:.:.;e.", (Mary M. Innes, tr. ), London, 1955, p . 239 (Book X, 533-6) . 10 Kevin Sharpe, "Faction at the Early Stuart Court," • History Toda y, 33 (October 1983) , p. 43. 9 • That in each cheek appears a pretty dimple.ll Looking at Van Dyck's picture and reading those verses
engenders a harmonious resonance at least as great as the
one called up by Ovid. If Buckingham commissioned the
painting, he weIl might have discussed the poem with Van
Dyck, since he was proud not only of being well-read but
also of being personally connected wit~ Shakespeare's early
patron, Southampton.
As far as the specifie visual sources for the picture
are concerned, there are two main ones. For the figure of
Venus, the most dramatic antecedent is in Titian's L~~y in d
rur Ur~p (fig. 3), now in Vienna. Titian is central ta an
understanding of Van Dyck's art, and although at this point • the young artist had not been ta Italy to experience the Venetian school first hand, he nevertheless knew it weIl
through the many works owned by his mentor and employer in
Antwerp, Peter Paul Rubens. Julius Held points out that Van
Dyck "saw Titian's work through Rubens'eyes."12
Interestingly enough, in the early 1630's, Rubens himself
painted his second wife, Helene Fourment (fig. 4), in a pose
11 Shakespeare, The Complete Uorks (W.B. Cla~k and W.A. Wright, eds.), New York, 1911, p. 1249. (Lines 229-234; 238- 242) .
12 David Rosand, ed., TitùHI: l1is Uorld and Hi.s Legacy, New York, 1982, p.334. In his contribution to this anthology, Held adds that although Van Dyck skillfully exploi ted the legacy of Ti tian, he also "debased" i t, as "an elegant affectation took the place of self-assumed • nobility. " 10 • uncannily like Van Dyck's Venus. This has led to the hint that Rubens might have seen Van Dyck's 1620-21 treatment of Venus and Adonis on his own trip to England in 1629-30, and been impressed, even influenced, by it.13 The second, even clearer inspiration for this picture is found in Raphael--again via Rubens, who made copious drawings after Raphael during his time in Italy in the early 1600's. Van Dyck would presumably have been familiar with these, as weIl as the engravings of Raphael's work by Marcantonio Raimondi which Rubens almost certainly owned.14 The Raphael work from which Van Dyck may have
copied his pose for Venus and Adonis is Nercur y C()ndc.lct in 9
P5yche ta Olympu$ (fig.5), done in 1518 for Agostino Chigi • at the Villa Farnesina. Again, it is interesting to note that Rubens himself did a painting based on this same sourcp. in 1625-28. It would seem that certain Italian images were common coin for both Rubens and Van Dyck throughout their careers. The technical and stylistic merits of the picture have caused sorne fundamental disagreement between the two scholars who have written most extensively on it. Jaffe believes that the manner of painting--a vigourous, fluent, light impasto--along with the saturated colours and the
13 Jaffe, Van Dyck, p. 700 . 14 Michael Jaffe, "Rubens and Raphael," Studtes tri Renaissance & Baroque Art presented to Anthony Blunt on his • 60th bi r thday, London, 1967, p. 100. 11 • treatment of the hands and feet, place it within the period of Van Dyck's first trip to England. He notes that when it
was hung alongside another work firmly dated to 1620-21, rllf.!
Cordirtertc~? o'f Scipi() at Oxford, th!.. stylistic similarites
became amply evident.15 On the other hand, Wood says that the picture's painterly traits are sa very close to the
Venus restralrting AdvrtlJ, done in Antwerp in 1618-20--and to
bis eye visibly more thickly pigmented than the :.,:,_ l/l'0- -that it, too, was done in Antwerp before Van Dyck's trip to
England, and reworked at a later date into the form it lS in now. He bolsters his theory by pointing out "weaknes3es" in the painting of Venus, which he says betray another, less
competent artist's work--perha~s a studio assistant. Still, • be agrees that Van Dyck was largely responsible for the work, although before and after his trip to England.16 In a third opinion, Barnes seems ta split the difference, noting sorne awkwardness in the female figure--arising from Van Dyck's having to join a from-the-life portrait head to an imaginary nude torso--but stating categorically that the work was painted in England during the artist's 1ô20-21
15 Jaffe, Vart Dyck, p.697. 16 Wood, p. 44. Both Wood and Jaffe point out that in a copy of the sale catalogue of 1842 at the Getty Provenance Index, someone has written "très faible--la femme fait un geste indécent." Whether this was the comment of a • connaisseur or a prude is unknown. 12 • visit.17 This discussion serves to underscore the truth of Ellis Waterhouse's observation that a proper chronology of Van Dyck's important developmental years immediately preceding his long trip to Italy is still lacking.18
Still, the 1620-21 dating cannot be seriously ref~ted.
Id.entification of the figures The problem of dating the work impinges directly on deciphering it, since when it was done helps to clarify who it portrays. Clearly, if the views of Jaffe and Barnes are
correct, the now official title--:~:ir li/..>OY9!> lIilln>/"_, ùTld
LAdy ~atherlne Hanners as Adonls and Venu;-is demonstrably accurate. And, even taking Wood's stance on dating, the • .,"!ramati';,' ()!>y_,nniJ!.> are still the same: aIl that is required is a comparison with other known likenesses of Buckingham and his new wife. A survey of documerJ.tation reveals that exact descriptions of Buckingham are not numerous. Sir Henry Wotton, who knew and worked for Buckingham, chooses an unusual phrase to portray him: "The Duke had continually a very pleasant and vacant face ... " by which he seems to mean honest or non-scheming, since he adds that there was "never
17 Wheelock, pp. 124-26 .
18 Ell is Waterhouse, An thor, y ~'aTl Dyck: Suffer Little • Children t'o Come unto Ne, Ottawa, 1978, p. 9. 13 • man ... whose looks were less tainted by his felicity. "19 The Earl of Clarenèon, who may or may not have met Buckingham (he was nineteen when the Duke was murdered)
never actually describes him beyond g~neral references to his "beauty" and "handsomeness"20 Other con::'emporary descriptions yield bits and pieces. Bishop Hacket writes that "from the Nails of his Fingers--nay, from the sole of his Foot to the Crown of his Head, there was no Blemish ln him. "21 Sir John Oglander remarks on Buckingham's "lovely c.;omplexion" while Sir Symonds d'Ewes echoes uther opinions on the Duke's overall handsomeness, but adds that "his hùnd:..i and face seemed to me, especially, pffeminate and curious. "22 • But the best reporters of phy~ical traits are visual artists. And here, C.R. Cammell's biography proves useful,
including as it does a c,iit.alo9Uf..' rai:'';.lrlné of portraits of Buckingham.23 At the time of publication (1939), Cammell listed eighty pictures purporting to be of the Duke. These
19 Sir Henry Wotton, R~ 11 q(~ 1'oH! /-1o t t'!:11l 1. drl ae , Londoll, 1651, p.17.
20 Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, The Hl3t(lry (lt" tlH' I?f.'br..'llion aT/d Ch'il /-Iar;.' irl c.rlyJùrlll, London, 1704, vol. 1, sec. 14. In fact, Clarendon' s passages of description here seem to come straight out of Wotton.
21 C.R. Cammell, TII~ Greai Vu Id" (11- Buck 1. TI yha1ll , London, 1939, p.79 . 22 Cammell, p. 78. • 23 Cammell, pp. 371-85. 14 • included drawings and unique engravings. Many of the likenesses are considered doubtful, and many of the
paintings are simply later copies of the same few originals.
The well-known artists represented in the group include
Rubens, Cornelius Janssen (Johnson), Daniel Mytens and
Gerrit Van Honthorst. The only Van Dyck on the list is a
posthumous portrait (fig. 6), part of a family group of the
widowed Duchess and her children, done about 1634-6 (several
versions of this picture exist).24
The earliest accepted likeness of George Villiers is
one dated c.1616 (fig.7) in the National Portrait Gallery,
London. It is a full-Iength rendering of the new favorite,
without beard or mustache, in the robes and insignia of the • Order of the Garter, into which he was inducted by King James at the end of April, 1616.25 Cammell attributes the
24 Cammell, p. 383. The author raises the question as ta whether Van Dyck painted a formaI portrait of Buckingham from the life; he feels that it would be extraordinary if he did not, even though no such portrait is now known. Cammell also wonders if Velazquez, too, may have done a portrait of Buckingham in 1623, when the Duke and Prince Charles were in Madrid.
25 Norman E. McClure, ed., ThD Letter3 of John Chambc.orJëu.n, Philadelphia, 1939, vol. l, p. 625. Chamberlain was an observant, objective gentleman whose correspondence provides a particularly precise account of activities at the Jacobean court. Concerning the investiture of Villiers into the Order of the Garter, he notes that the Earl of Rutland w~s inducted at the same time, and regards this as a strange pairing (the Earl's wife was dn "open and knowne recusant" Catholic, while Villiers was "so lately come into the light of the world"). Timp. would make i t even more oddly coincidental: Rutland was the father of Katherine Manners, future wife of the favorite, and Lhe Venus in Van Dyck's • picture. 15 • work ta Mytens;26 the National Portrait Gallery lists it as "artist unknown";27 while Sir Roy Strong gives it to
William Larkin (fI. 1610-20) along with nine other portraits
in very similar style and form whose siLters are aIl
standing on the same carpet.28 The picture evokes the term
"exquisite" in the way that the finest of Elizabethan
miniatures do, al though i t is, in fact, li fe s ized. l t shows
an impossibly tall, slender, fresh-faced boy--Buckingham wm;
in fact twenty-four in 1616--with the most exaggeratedly
delicate and shapely legs. Such a foeus is not surprising:
Buckingham was renowned for his dancing prowess, which he
would calI on during court banquets to rekindle the flagging
spirits of King Jarnes29. The total effect is one of rather • extreme mannerism, a continuation of the forms and styles of the 16th century--a sort of starched and stiffened Nicholas
Hilliard. David Piper says that, apart from showing a few
basic facial features of the sitter, portraiture of this
period was fundamentally merely "a convention of rhetoric,"
26 Cammell, p. 372.
27 David Piper, C,'it';:!lCIf/Uf:.' flf tlHI C.:VI'&7!TE.'e7,th Century Portrai ts in the National Portrait Galley, Cambridge, 1963, p. 39.
28 Sir Roy Strong, Thv [n '-l1 L~h Icon: [11 ;:abethan and ~7dCobf'rH/ Pclrtral turf?, London, 1983, p. 313. One of the otherfJ in this portrait "group" is Susan Villiers, Countess of Denbigh, Buckingham's sister. See also Mary Edmond, "New Light on Jacobean Painters," Thf? Sur 11 ri ot (/7/ i'1aqa;: J ne ~ 118 (1976), pp. 74-83 .
29 Robert Ashton, James 1 by his Contvmporaries, • London, 1969, p. 241. 16 • i ts princ iple that of a "l ighted display-case. "30 It was the last gasp of the Elizabethan tradition, allowed to
continue throughout his reign by James l simply becaus~ the King himself was essentially uninterested in the visual arts, his energies being directed towards the literary.31 The beautiful, rapidly rising new favorite, then, had his first official portrait done in the manner most
acceptable and accessible to his great patron. The style of the piece does not, however, necessarily reflect Villiers' own aesthetic and it would have been characteristic of the man to be thinking, aIl the while that he was posing for
Larkin, of how he must effect a ehange in the way he should be portrayed, if only to differentiate himself from the • King's earlier abjects of desire. Images of Buckingham evolve dramatically. By 1623-4, in a portrait by Cornelius Johnson (fig. 8) now at Windsor Castle, (and likely painted ta mark Buckingham's elevation to the rank of Duke) he appears solid, substantial, a still
beautiful but now primarily powerful man. Gone is the bi}c.lu look of the earlier piece: this portrait shows a man in full command of his public image. It also contains the stirrings
30 Piper, p. xiii.
31 Ashton, p. 12. A contemporary observer noted that "the king's character is much easier to take than his picture, for he could never be brought to si t for the taking of that " (al though there are a number of portraits of the King extant). See also David Howarth, "The arrivaI of Van Dyck in England", The b'urlin9hm "'agazine, 132 (1990), p. • 710. 17 • of seventeenth-century art. The full Baroque appears in Rubens' pictures of the
Duke. In 1625, while in Paris for the proxy wedding of King
Charles, Buckingham met the Flemish master, who, in a way,
was also in the city to mark the same occas ion. 32
Although the relationship between Rubens and Buckingham was
ta become ever more complex and far-reaching over the years,
involving issues of politics as much as--or more i...han--art,
the immediate resul t of this initiaI meeting of the two men
was artistic. Specifically, Rubens drew the Duke fram
life,33 in a sketch (fig. 9) now in Vienna, which
subsequently was ta serve as the bas is for the facial
1 ikeness in a large equestrian portrait, naw lost, 34 as • well as a portrait (fig. 11) now in the Pitti Pal ace, Florence. This sketch, apart from being a splendid example
of Rubens' portrait art, speaks more vividly than any words
could of the artist' s evaluation of Buckingham' s character.
32 Rubens had just finished installing his great series of paintings based on the life of the dowager queen, Marie de' Medici. in her residence, the Luxembourg Palace: the royal wedding date had been the deadline for completing the works. See Julius S. Held, "Rubens' s Sketch of Buckingham Rediscovered," The Burlin9ton i'1aga:..-z'ne, 118 (1976), p. 54'7. See also Hans Vlieghe, Ruben:.::. Poyt'rfJ.lt_"' (11 Ide,difled Sitter:.::: Painted in Ant~',erp (Corpu~~ f?ubvrllcJnum Lud/Alig Burchard XIX~ 2), London,1987, p. 63.
33 Christopher White, Pet I:!r Paul r\Ubt'TI_': Nr,HI tH/d Arti!.~t, New Haven, 1987, p. 190 .
34 This picture was destroyed by fire in 1949. An oil sketch (fig. 10) for i t survives in the Kimbell Art Museum, • Fort Worth. ~ 18 There is a wadness here, a tinge of aversion, but also a
recogni tion of power to be admired, or to be tapped
into.35 There is also more than a suspicion here that
somehow the feel ings were mutual. Thus this fine drawing,
commissioned by the sitter at a high point of his life from
an artist at one of the high points of hl_=' life, i5 surely
the best mi rror before which to hold a11 other 1 ikenesses of
the Duke of Buckingham (unless a certifiabl e Van Dyck
portrait cornes to light) for eomparison and verification.
And i t has been so used by both Jaffe and Wood in their
analyses of the painting of al1egorieal figures under
discussion here. ~ Jaffe notes that the body of the Adonis figure is tao heroie to be cons idered a specifie representation of
Buckingham's physique.36 On a literaI level, this is
clearly true. However, the body's overall sensual:'ty seems
almost over-determined and, therefore, loaded wi th
part.ieular meaning; when Buckingham' s famous legs are
35 Rubens wrote shortly after his fj rst meeting with the Duke: "When l consider the caprice and arrogance of Buckingham, l pi ty the young k1ng, who through false counsel, is needlessly throwing himself and his kingdom into such extremity..... (White, Rubens, p. 189.) In 1627, however, he wrote to Bu~kingham himself: "No accident of fortune or violence of publ ic fate wi Il ever detach my affections from your very humble service, ta which l have myself dedieated and vowed once and for aIl." See Julius S. Held, "Rubens' s Sketch of Buckingham Rediscovered," The BurlingtoTt "lagazine, 118 (1976), p. 548 . • 36 Jaffe, Van Dyck, p. 697. 19 • remembered, they almost take on a personality of their own. But i t is obvious ly the face and head (fig. 12) which
normally determine likeness and herc, Jaffe sees in the
beard and upturned mustache and in the generally bombastic
appearance, a kinship wi th the Rubens drawing.
Wood also links the head of Adonis ta Rubens' s sketch,
but for him this is more of a problem than a solution. The
Duke's hair, judging by earlier portraits, dld not Lake on
the luxuriant curliness seen here until spe~ifically 1625,
when BllCkingham, in Paris, came under the ministrations of
the Duke de Chevreuse's barber.37 Thus, Gays Wood, Van
Dyck's painting could not date from 1620. Tt must be later .
The problem then i8, when? since Van Dyck never agdin saw • Buckingham in persan after early 1621. Wood's theory is that Van Dyck began it in his workshop in Antwerp around 1618-20,
left i t for sorne years, then finished i t after h is return
from Italy in 1628, possibly at the request of the widowed
Duchess of Buckingham as a tribute to her d~ad husband.
Concerning the Simon de Passe engraving, Wood notes
correctly that there are strange discrepancies between the
date engraved (1620), the ti tle accorded Buckingham ("Duke,"
therefore post-1623) and a reference to the Duke's
expedition to the Ile de Ré (1627).38
37 Wood, p. 43. The Duc de Chevreuse was King Charles' stand-in at the wedding ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral . • 38 Wood, p. 43. 20 • This argument becom,3s convoluted, if not untenable, and cannot impinge on the fact that the Adonis figure is indeed
a pllf (f rU t In~, t (If H5e of the Marquess of Buckingham painted in Van Dyck's style of 1620. Such certainty is less provable in the case of the Venus/Katherine Manners figure, although, of course, if the male figure is Buckingham, the female figure is unlikely to be anyone other than his wife. (Buckingham may or may not have been privately profligate, but in public, he was an entirely proper man.) Once again. the question of identification is referred back to Rubens, for the face in Van Dyck's painting is reminiscent of another sketch (fig .
13) in Vienna, a "companion" to the head of Buckingham, one • inscribed (in a later hand) as portraying the Duchess of Buckingham. This work is in poor condition compared to its partner. Rubbed and faded, it looks decidedly less Rubenesque. More than that. if it is to be dated contemporaneously with the other drawing, it cannot have been done from the life. since the Duchess did not accompany
her husband to Paris in 1625. In facto te be an ad Vlvum drawing. it would have had to have been done in 1629 or
1630, when Rubens was in England for the first and only time and when the Duchess, by then widowed, would have been about twenty-seven. Sinüe the face in the sketch looks to be areund that age, this daLing seems possible . • Wood's concept for the Van Dyck painting conforms to 21 • this chronology, and he adds that aIl the work on the picture would have had ta have happened before 1635, when
the Duchess married the Earl of Antrim.39 He also notes
that the choiee of Venus and Adonis as a subject for a
painting somehow eonnected wi th a marr 1age is pecul iar,
considering the gruesome fate of Adonis, gùred ta death by a
boar. However, as a mQm~nto morl for the fatally stabbed
Duke, it makes more sense. Bolstering his belief is the
presence in the picture of a tree stump entwined with ivy.
This, says Wood, is an emblem often seen in Dutch and
Flemish paint.ing, s ignifying the motta .HI1 it:: i t .r d fJ t .r •.HI1 pO:" t·
1II(1Y''t'em ')Ill'i:HI.' (love outlives even death).40
Jaffe, on the other hand, suggests that Rubens indeed • did the sketch in 1625, from a likeness of the Duke's wife carried by Buckingham when he travelled.41 But the proof
of identification of Katherine is not restricted to this one
sketch. Another likeness of the Duchess from the 1630'5 by
Van Dyck himself may be referred ta: a bust-length portrait
(fig. 14) in Belvoir Castle, the Manners' ancestral home.
Mutual resemblances among aIl these images add up ta a
positive identification of the figure of Venus (fig. 15) as
Katherin~ Manners, and an acceptance by Jaffe of the date of
39 Wood, p.44 .
40 Wood, p. 43. • 41 Jaffe, Van Dyck, p. 699. 22 • the painting ta 1620-21.42 Two other considerations affect the dating controversy, one which supports 1620 and the other not. At odds with the accepted date is the simple observation that in 1620, Katherine Manners was sixteen or seventeen years oId; the woman in the picture looks older than that. On the other hand, she is wearing around her upper arm a jewelled circlet, which is identical with the one worn by another
figure identified wi th Buckingham' s bride--the woman in TIIf.!
Cmdinenr::L' 01' Scipi(l (fig. 16), a painting now universally accepted as dating from Van Dyck's first visit ta England (from November, 1620 to February, 1621), although for a long
time considered "of the Schaol of Rubens. "43 • This picture, at Christ Church, Oxford, is the only extant work by Van Dyck depicting an actual historical event. Moreover, it shows a large group of figures arranged in a composition appropriate to a true "history painting. " The identification of the central figures in the work as informaI likenesses of Buckingham ar.d Katherine Manners
depend, as in the Aôoni;.:; iJ7/d Vertu:J, on comparisons with the two Rubens sketches in Vienna. Buckingham's hair and beard as shown in contemporary engravings also cornes into play in • the identification and dating of the piece. In the Sc i pi <'.l,
42 Jaffe, Van Dyck, p. 700 .
43 Oliver Millar, "Van Dyck's 'Continence of Scipio' at • Christ Church," The Burlingtorl '·laga::lne.* 93 (951). p. 125. 23 • however, the couple look to be the correct ages for the bride and groom--he in his late twenties, she somewhat
younger.
Stylistically and compositionally, the work is rlearly
based on Rubens prototypes. 44 But i ts brushwork is loose,
quick, almost flashy. The figures, therefore, seem rather
insubstantial. And there is sorne confus i on in the spatial
relationships. This reflects Van Dyck' s style around 1620,
when he was actively trying to declare a certain
independence from Rubens, wh i le not al to~ether rejecting the
lessons of his mentor. 45
The painting's creation is generally believed ta have
had something to do wi th the marri age in 1620 of the then • Marquess of Buckingham to the daughter of the Ear l of Rutland.46 Its commisisioner has been variously proposed
to have been Buckingham himself in his expanding role as a
collector of art and antiqui ties, 47 or Thomas Howard, Earl
of Arundel, who, in assiduously courting Buckingham's favour
44 Agnes Czobor, "An Oil Sketch by Cornelis de Vos, " The Burlington N.'iga::ine. 109 (1967), pp. 351-55.
45 Sir Oliver Millar, Thf..' lige 01" Chùr 1 f..'S 1, London, 1972, p. 18.
46 Gregory Martin, "The Age of Charles l at the Tate, " The 13urlirlgtlm "1agazlne,f 115 (1973), pp. 56-59; Pamela. Gordon, "The Duke of Buckingham and Van Dyck' s 'Continence of Scipio' ", E:..:-:..:::ays (,ln Van Dyd, , Ottawa, 1983, pp. 53-55. See also Brown. Van l1yck, p. 56 .
47 Millar, Age. P. 18; Alan McNairn, The )'oung Van • Dyck, Ottawa, 1980, pp. 137-40. 24 • at the time, intended the picture as a wedding gift. 48 Another possibility, recently proposed by the present
author, is that Van Dyck's painting was indeed a wedding
present--but from King James himseIf.49 In 1620, the
ageing King had wisely decided ta encourage his energetic
favorite to marry and raise a fami Iy, for he realized that a
settled Buckingham would be more congen ial and tractable
than a totally independent one. Thus, the almost
embarrassingly generous nature of the King50 coupled with
his intense, intimate relationship wi th the Duke51 would
seem to demand a spectacular nuptial gift, and what better
for the young, art-Ioving Buckingham than a picture hy the
young art prod igy from Antwerp? • The reason for the choice of subject is explained by a typological reading of the legend of Scipio with the reality
of the marriage: as Scipio, the legendary Roman conqueror,
deI i vered a captured maiden --inviolate--to her fiance and
fami ly, so James deli vers Katherine Manners, newIy conquered
for the Anglican faith and her virtue thus assured, to her
48 David Howarth, Lord Arundel a7/d his Circl!.'. New Haven, 1985, pp. 156-57.
49 Ron Harvie, "A present from 'Dear Dad'? Van Dyck's 'The Continence of Scipio''', Apollo, 138 (1993), pp. 224-26.
50 Carol ine Bingham, .7 cHlle." l 0 r En 91 artd.II London, 1981. p. 88; William McEIwee, The Wi.se."t Fool in Chri_"tertdom, London, 1958, p. 90 .
51 Roger Lockyer, Buckingham, London, 1981, pp. 19, 28, • 55, 142; Cammell, passim. ~ 25 fiance. 52 Furthermore, a recently discovered letter shows
that Van Dyck probably was brought to England by
Buckingham's brother, Lord Purbe~k, and not by Arundel or
Buckingham himself. 53 This could serve to implicate King James jn a wedding gift "conspiracy" with the Villiers
family, since Buckingham's relatives were aIl highly visible
and very active at court. 54
Finally, the pride of place given Lhe pieLure by
Buckingham at his London residence, York House, indicates
that it had special significance for him beyond its
intrinsic artistic merit. It hung in the house's entrance
room along with only one ether painting--Titjan's Cmperor ~ Ct/Q.I··.l f!_" V cm /'/01" ·;t'l!dc:k. This was honorable CfJmpany, indeed, as weIl as a dramatic statement to any visiter ef
Buckingham' s tastes in painting.
Since the Co~tin~nc~ 01 Gcipio is firmly dated to 1620-
52 The Manners were a leading Cathol ic fami ly and Katherine's mether was particularly vocal in her recusancy. James, who took his pos iLion as head of Lhe Church of England very serious ly, insisted on the br idf~' s convers ion as a condition of the marriage: the king was, in fact, almost a matchmaker in the event. (Lockyer, p. 55.)
53 Howarth, ArrivaI, pp. 709-10. Howarth quotes a letter to William Trumbull, English agent in Brussels, from a friend in London: "The young painter Van Dyke is newly come te the towne ... 1 am tould my Lo: of Purbeck sent for him hither ... " The letter can be "assigned" te October, 1620. J. Douglas Stewart, in a letter to the present author dated February 14, 1994, disagrees with this theory and supports Arundel as the person who brought Van Dyck to ~ England. 54 Lockyer, pp. 34-5, 120. 26 • 21, and since it shows marked similarities ta the Advnis and VeT/U,,; bath in how i t is painted and in who i t portrays, the latter work can be safely ascribed to the same period.
The question of patronage If James did in fact commission the Scipiv for Buckingham, and the painting is the reason for payment to .. Anthony Vandike the sorne of one hundred pounds by way of reward for speciall service by him performed for his Majesty, "55 then interesting possibilities regarding the
genes is of the 1It'/on 1.;' ,HI d V 1.'1 TI tl3 present themsel ves. Barker has suggested, for example, that the King commissioned the second picture for his own "pri vate pleasure." 56 (This • calls ta mind an anecdote reported by Sir John Pope-Hennessy in which Anne of Denmark, James' wife, was discovered by Lord Herbert of Cherbury "lying on her bed with a wax candIe in one hand, and the picture 1 formerly mentioned in the other." The picture was a portrait of Herbert by Isaac Oliver) 57 But might not the work have been ordered by Buckingham
himself as a gift to the King in reciprocity for the Scipio? It still would have been intended for James' own private
55 Brown, p. 52. 56 Barker, p. 89. Barker also wonders whether there was a meT/age' a troi:::- between James, Buckingham and his wife! 57 Sir John Pope-Hennessy, A Lecture nn Nicholas • Hilllard, London, 1949, p. 26. ------
~ 27 pleasure, for clearly it is not a painting suitable for
public display in anyane's Great Hall. Nor was it sa shown.
Nor does it even appear in any inventories. But this in
itself is not unique: Rubens' lIeluTI~' /-' (lit? t' P~J.l.~f..t-!n) was deeraed tao personc.tl ta include among the artist's possessions listed after his death in 1640.58 In other words, the painting originated as a private joke between lovers. The old, unwell King James (who called himself "dear dad and husband" and referred to Buckingham as "my sweet child and wife" )59 enjoying a flamboyantly fleshy picture of his favori te man (who always signed himself as "your humble slave and dogge" and occasionally ~ referred ta the King as "your sowship"!) 60 is a somehow satisfying image. The presence of the topless Marchioness would give it an extra twist, as would the knowledge that the portrayal of Buckingham as Adonis, the hunter, referred to the selection of a noble name for George Villiers in 1617: Buckingham was chosen because i t contained "buck", a word with hunting, as weIl as sexual, connotations.61 Moreover, the illicitly playful ~mbJ~~ct-! would refleet what 58 Jaffe, Van Dyck, p. 703. 59 H.R. Williamson, Gporqe Vz11zers, First Duke of BuckiT/gh«'lTII, London, 1940, p. 164. Of aIl the biographers of Buckingham, Williarnson, the most hostile, provides the best compendium of letters ta and from the Duke. ~ 60 Williamson, p. 264. 61 Lockyer, p. 33. 28 • J. Douglas Stewart has called "a considerable sense of humour" in the work of Van Dyck which has been overlooked.62 And the fact that the young artist could carry off such a commission without lapsing into ludicrousness shows that early on he possessed the same adroitness as his ernploY9r Rubens would evince later when dealing with an equally sticky subject, the life of Marie de' Medici. It also shows that Van Dyck's talents were relevant ta the tastes and requirements of Buckingham, who in 1620, was just beginning his period OI hegemony in England. And this, in turn, demonstrates that Buckingham's Jcastes were advanced. For these pictures--the ~~(.:ipi(l and the Ad~hi~ and VenuJ--are unlike anything seen previously. They • are to English painting what Inigo Jones; Whi tehall Banqueting House of 1619 is to English architecture. Sir Roy Strong has rernarked that the new Banqueting House "changed the course of everyth ing. "63 The same might be said of V':ln Dyck's pictures of and for Buckingham, since, as Richard Wendorf observes: "Van Dyck was not the first painter to reintroduce allegorical motifs in the Stuart period ... But he was responsible for handling them with a grace and wit long lacking in Engl ish portraiture. "64 In order to do i t, of 62 Wheelock, p. 69. 63 Strong, Icon ~ p. 57 . 64 Richard Wendorf, The Elements ot" l.ifo: '8iography and Por tr ai t-'Pal n t lTl 9 ln Stuar t and Geor gi an En gll'in d.~ Oxford, • 1990, p. 90. 29 • course, Yan Dyck required not only an innate talent but also a congenial patron. If that patron wes Buckingham, the situation provides an early example of a sophIstication beyond the norm of a court still generally lingering around the aesthetic embers of the Elizabethan flame.65 But why then did Yan Dyck not remain in England as court painter in 1621? One dnswer is provided by Graham Parry in his discussion of i,he C(lntln~nCi' ,It" S,:lP]O. In noting sorne of the flaws in the picture (the s lack rhythms, awkward figure placement) Parry su{~gests that Yan Dyck was "advised" ta spend sorne t illle in Italy at the feet of the great masters honing and refj ning his techniques. 66 lt has always been assumed that such advice, if indeed ever • proferred, would have come from the Earl of Arundel.67 But perhaps it came from a more (~I)llegial source: the Marquess of Buckingham. 65 Millar, Age.~ p. 18. 66 Graham Parry, ThE.' (JoIden Ag~ {(estor ',j; tIlt.' Culture of the Stuart· Court· 1603--·/·..... , ~~anchesterJ 1981, p. 140. • 67 Cust, p. 24; Brown, V.HI Dyck, p. 52. 30 • CHAPTER II THE CHARACTERS OF VAN DYCK, BUCKINGHAM AND CHARLES l The artist and the courtier Although during their lifetimes, Van Dyck and Buckingham would never have been physically mistaken for one another, a self-portrait drawing (fig. 17) by the artist from the 1630's and a 1625 sketch (fig. 9) by Rubens of the Duke are mutually reminiscent. They convey a connection- intentional or not--of personalities, of attitudes, of arnbi tions. Whether Van Dyck posed himself conscious ly after Rubens' s sketch is a matter of conjecture, but the very inkling of imitation is a reminder that the two men. Van • Dyck and Buckingham, did, in the final analysis, have something in common. Both were favored sons of weIl-off gentry families. Van Dyck. the second son of a prosperous Antwerp cloth merchant, was recognized early on for his prodigious artistic talent and apprenticed at age nine to the senior painter in the Antwerp gui Id, Henrik Van Balen. The boy was apparently equally precocious in other areas, since it is recorded that his father gave him power-of-attorney in a family legal matter at the unusually young age of sixteen.1 Buckingham was also a second son--of a Leicestershire knight, Sir George Villiers, by his second wife. He was also marked at a • 1 Brown, Van Dyck, p. 12. 31 • young age as a boy with unusual potential by his mother, who managed his education and arranged for him to spend sorne time in France in his late teens, prefecting his manly social graces. 2 Van Dyck and Buckingham both moved on to have mentors of particularly high repute. The young painter became a pupil, then an associate of Europe's most important living master, Peter Paul Rubens, sorne time after 1615.3 Rubens later referred to him as his chief assistant, and in the 1620 contract for the ceiling decorations of the Jesult Church in Antwerp, Van Dyck is named as such.4 Buckingham likewise became a student of one of Europe's most important innovators, Sir Francis Bacon, often regarded as the founder • of the modern school of empirical science. This assocIation 2 Wotton, pp. 74-76. He notes that Buckingham was, from his earliest childhood, accustomed to being the "domestick favorite. " 3 Margaret Roland, "Van Dyck' s Early Workshop, the Apc,'stle Series, and the Drunf..erl Sllenu_"," Art Bulletll/, 66 (1984), pp. 211-23. In a masterful analysis of the known documentation concerning Van Dyck' s early relationship wi th Rubens, the author shows conclusively that Van Dyck went directly from van Balen to Rubens as a pupil in 1615 or 1616. After his acceptance into St. Luke's Guild in 1618, he was elevated to the role of assistant. His own independent studio, with his own pupils/assistants, was established only in 1621, and operated only a few months, since Van Dyck left Antwerp for Italy late that year. 4 Wheelock, pp. 17-24. Here Susan J. Barnes reviews the intricacies of Van Dyck's early association with Rubens. See also Cust, pp. 9-15; Brown, Van Dyck, pp. 12-20. For a slightly different evaluation of the Van Dyck-Rubens relationship, see Leo Van Puyvelde, "The Young Van Dyck, .. • The Burlington Hagazine, 79 (1941), pp. 177-85. 32 • also occurred in 1615, on the instigation of King James l, who had determined to make of his new, young favorite a "masterpiece" of learning as weIl as beauty.5 Another common trait of the two rising stars was flashiness. Both were (in)famous fo~ their peacock-like concern with dazzling dress and a delight in showing it off, and this in an age when gentlemen were expected to dress the part! Van Dyck, when he travelled to Italy in 1621-28, was known as 11 pl ttore r.:a~/a 1 i fi>resco on account of his appearance; in fact, his sartorial effects and affectations caused the Flemish artistic community in Rome to shun him.6 Buckingham was also obsessed with self-image. The most egregious example of this occurs in 1625, when the Duke • travelled to France to escort King Charles' new bride, Princess Henrietta Maria, married by proxy in Paris, back to London. His desire to impress the Parisians resulted in his ordering for his trip twenty-nine "rich" suits, one of which, to be worn at the wedding ceremony, cost twenty thousand pounds7--an amazing sum, considering that the expense for the new Whitehall Banqueting House, for example, 5 Lockyer, p. 29. 6 Félibien, p. 442; Wheelock, p. 12. 7 Williamson, pp. 161-63. The excessive expenditure seems to have worked: Buckingham's reputation as a dazzling swashbl~ckler was made. It has endured ever since, especially • in the re~lm of Alexandre Dumas' fictional three musketeers. 33 • was nineteen thousand.8 Beneath this concern with personal surface lies another similarity between the painter and the courtier: their shared aspiration to princely status. There is no doubt that Buckingham always aimed high. Beginning during his lifetime. accusations of a desire to usurp the throne were rife. The truth of these is unproven; nevertheless a list of Buckingham's titles, as enumerated by Williamson. proves h0W successful he was at achieving quasi-royal status: George, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Buckingham, Earl of Coventry, Viscount Villiers, Baron of Whaddon, Great AdmiraI of the Kingdoms of England end Ireland, and of the Principality of Wales, and of t'le Dominions and Islands of the same, of the Town of Calais. and of the Marches of the same, and of Normandy, Gascoigne and Guienne, General, Governor of the Seas and Ships of the said Kingdom, Lieutenant-General AdmiraI, Captain • General and Governor of his Majesty~s Royal Fleet and Army, Master of the Horse of our Sovereign Lord the King, Lord Warden. Chancellor and AdmiraI of the Cinque Ports, and of the Members thereof, Constable of Dover Castle, Justice in Eyre of t;he Forests and Chases on this side of the River Trent, Constable of the Castle of Windsor. Gentleman of his Majesty's Bed-Chamber, one of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council in his Realms both in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Garter, Lord President of the Council, Lord President of the Council of War, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, Steward of the City and College of Westminster. 9 Moreover, Buckingham held aIl this power under two successive monarchs and was only removed from office by an 8 John Summerson, Architecture in B,.itair, 1.5.30 t() 18.30, London, 1953, p. 76. 14.940 pounds. 1 shilling. 1 pence was spent between 1619 and 1622. • 9 Williamson, pp. 11-12. 34 • assassin's knife in 1628. Van Dyck, for his part, was also motivated by aspirations to aristocratie status. His association with Rubens honed his aims, for if Raphael was the prime example of an upwardly-mobile painter of the 16th eentury, Rubens was the paradigm for th3 17th, eclipsing the prestige of Raphael or Titian, and, as both artist and diplomat, achieving a rank and reputation no one else would ever quite attain. Rubens was Van Dyck' s early "role model" as "genius- eum-gentleman. "10 And the contemporary biographer, Bellori, wri tes that Van Dyck' s behavior at twenty "was that of a nobleman rather than an ordinary person; and he shone in rieh garments; since he was accustomed in the circle of • Rubens to noblemen, and being naturally of elevated mind, and anxious to make himself distinguished, he therefore wore ... gold chains upon his chest, and was accompanied by servants. "11 He sought out commiss ions from the rulers of the Spanish Netherlands, the Protestant Prince Frederiek Henry of the United Netherlands, and, ultimately, Charles l of England, who knighted him in 1632. Along with his knighthood, Van Dyek was granted two residences, of which the Most famous was the house at Blackfriars. Here a special stairway was built so that the King and QueelJ, having sailed 10 Sir Michael Levey, Paintirlc'} at Court, New York, 1971, p. 123-24. • 11 Brown, Van Dyck, p. 72. 35 • down the Thames from Whitehall Palace. could disembark directly at Van Dyck's studio ta sit for portraits--or simply visit him at work. as they apparently enjoyed to do.12 This clearly elevated Van Dyck's social standing, as did his habit of lavishly entertaining aIl the top people at court, ta the detriment of both his finances13 and his health. 14 But, unlike Buckingham, he never managed to transfer his official position from one monarch to another, though he did try: in 1641, he travelled ta Paris in a vain attempt ta win Louis XIII's commission for the new decoration of the Louvre. 15 Finally, bath Buckingham and Yan Dyck historically played "second fiddle" in the realm of art. Van Dyck has • always been seen in the shadow of Rubens and Titian. In Sir Lionel Cust's seminal biography, for example. the seventh ward on the first page is "Titian"; the name of Rubens appears in the fourteenth line; near the bottom of page two appears for the first time "Yan Dyck. 00 16 On the other 12 Brown, Van Dyck. p. 153. 13 Félibien, p. 446. 14 Gustav Gluck, "Reflections on Van Dyck's early Death," 1he Burlington fotagazine, 74 (1941>. P. 194. 15 Brown, Van Dyd, p. 220. 16 Cust, pp.1-2. This symbolizes an approach which seems still ta pervade Van Dyck scholarship. See Thomas L . Glen. "In the Footsteps of Rubens: Yan Dyck's lamentation in the Alte Pinakothek. Munich." Gazette des BE'aux-Arts 118 • (1991), pp. 79-86. 36 • hand, while Buckingham is accorded major status as a collector of art, he is generally ranked lower as an expert on it. Both King Charles and the Earl of Arundel earn higher status as setters of tastes and styles. Buckingham is seen as a mere art consumer.!7 Only the hagiographer, C.R. Cammell, maintains that Buckingham led the way in developing the King's aesthetics.18 Although there is, alas, no record of what the two young supernovae thought of each other when they first met in 1620, the assumption of this paper is that the opinions would have been mutually positive and that Van Dyck in particular would have been inspired by someone of his age and class who had attained so much of what he himself • coveted. Moreover, Buckingham would have been impressed by Van Dyck' s brëH'Ura style and would have remembered it even while the artist was long away from England on his six-year sojourn in Italy. A letter dated May, l628, in which a friend, James Hay, reports ta Buckingham that he has visited "Monsr Van-Digs" in Antwerp19 seems to show that Buckingham was interested in re-establishing contact with Van Dyck, who had only just returned to the Netherlands. But they would never meet again: the Duke was murdered on August 26 of the same year. 17 Parry, p. 137; Howarth, Arundel, passim . 18 Cammell, p. 352. • 19 Cust, p. 59. 37 • The king and the artist "It is still uncertain what was the actual motive which caused Charles l to invite Van Dyck to his court" wrote the 19th century biographer, Sir Lionel Cust.20 The uncertainty continues to this day, as witnessed by Arthur K. Wheelock's statement--which reverses the dynamic of the problem--that the reasons for Van Dyck's decision to go to England in 1632 have never been totally understood.21 Unclear motivations, unclear mechanics: both surround Van Dyck's action. Félibien, the seventeenth-century biographer, says tnat money moved the man: believing himself to be underpaid for his work by the burghers of Antwerp, Van Dyck heeded advice to go to England and sell himself to the • King "qui avoit une affection fort grande pour les excellens Peintres. "22 Who gave such advice--his peers, family, 20 Cust, p.85. 21 Wheelock, p. 246. The author here cornes as close as humanly possible to suggesting that the figure of the Duke of Buckingham influenced the event without ever saying so. He names Nicholas Lanier, Endymion Porter and Sir Balthasar Gerbier as important in the wooing of Van Dyck, while neglecting to mention that aIl three men were very closely connected to Buckingham during his lifetime. (Porter, a trusted gentleman servant, was virtually bequeathed by the Duke to the King.) This ommission is especially surprising since Wheelock later says that it was Buckingham who influenced the young Charles' tas tes in art, and not the other way around, as is generally held. 22 Félibien, vol. 3, p. 445. Félibien details a two trip scenario here. First, Van Dyck went to England and did not manage ta catch the King's eye. He then made a second journey (presumably the 1632 move, although Félibien gives no dates) after the king" étai t particul ierement informé de • son mérite." This story was repeated in the 18th century by 38 • patrons--is not stated, thus leaving the fundamental questions unresolved. Cust suggests various intermediaries who might have brought Van Dyck and Charles together: the Earl of Arundel, a famous connoissseur and art collector and/or his wife, an almost equally well-known figure in European circles; Nicholas Lanier, musician, artist, art market agent for the King, whose own portrait by Van Dyck had apparently impressed Charles; Marie de' Medic1, dowager Queen of France and mother of Charles' wife, Henrietta Maria; even Queen Christina of Sweden. Finally, Cust notes that, at the time, credit for the decision was claimed by a 0haracter often described in terms usually reserved for felons and always • portrayed as louche. Sir Balthasar Gerbier. But Cust also proposes the most probable theory: that Van Dyck sought out appointments abroad--in The Hague and London--in order to get out from under the shadow of Rubens, who was back in Antwerp after some time away on diplomatic missions and was ngain receiving aIl the best commissions.23 This was unsupportable to a man like Van Dyck, who, as Cust stresses, was notoriously full of self-esteem.24 Recently, Christopher Brown, reiterates Cust's list of possible go- George Vertue and Horace Walpole. See Horace Walpole, Anecdotes vf Painting in England, London, 1762, vol. 1, p. 319 . 23 Cust, p. 86. • 24 Cust, pp. 85-6. 39 • betweens, but he places mere emphasis on a particular picture as whetting Charles' appetite for the artist: Rinaldo and Armida .• painted by Van Dyck in 1629. Brown's reasoning as to why the artist himself wanted ta leave Antwerp differs from Cust's, at least in its expression, since he says that Van Dyck was simply mesmerized by the idea of courts, aristocratie life and the fantasy that he himself was destined to live as an aristocrat.25 In any case, no matter what the reasons or who the influences, Van Dyck arrived in London in early April, 1632. He was named "principall Paynter in Ordinary to their Majesties "26 and on July 5 he became Sir Anthony, sa dlJbbed by Charles l of England. He was thirty-three years • old. The fact that an artist from a devoutly Catholic, bourgeois background in Antwerp could attain such honours at the court of the most important Protestant monarch in Europe at a time when a person's religious affiliation was as determining--and as problematic--as an individual's ethnicity or nationality is today, is in itself noteworthy. It should be said, however, that by 1632, the court in London had, under the influence of Queen Henrietta Maria, 25 Brown, Van DycA. p.137. 26 Wheelock, p. 53. Sir Oliver Millar, who is cited here, goes on ta note that the relationship bewteen Van Dyck and Charles l is reminiscent of that of Titian and Emperor Charles V a century earlier. This similarity was important ta Van Dyck, both for artistic and personal reasens, since • Titian was one of the major influences on Van Dyck's style. 40 • become very catholic in atmosphere. It actually became fashionable to convert from Anglicanism and many aristocrats did 50 in order to further their careers. King Charles himself strongly disapproved of such conversions, although the public-at-large assumed his connivance and mistrusted him for it. Staunch Anglican and Puritan families shunned the court and actively dissuaded their sons and daughters from associating with it.27 As a devout Catholic, however, Van Dyck fitted right in. His brother, Theodoor, was even invited to London by the Queen to be her personal confessor; the offer was refused. 28 Religious consideration aside, Van Dyck was elevated to this high level by a man reputed to be the foremost • connoisseur and collector of art of his time. None other than Rubens had called Charles "the greatest amateur of paintings among the princes of the world"29 Principal painter to the principal art-lover of Europe: this was a proclamation of Van Dyck's social success and artistic genius at one and the same time and must have been widely interpreted--and envied--as the ultimate victory in the 27 Helen A. Kaufman, Cnnsciei,tiou_, Cavalier, London, 1962, passim. This is the story of Bullen Reymes, a young gentleman attached to the household of Katharine, Duchess of Buckingham, whose mother constantly fears his exposure to Jesuits and other Catholics in court circles. 28 Cust. p. 90 . 29 J. R. Martin and Gail Feigenbaum, Van Dyck a_:: • RelJgJous Artist, Princeton, 1979, p. 32. 41 • struggle by seventeenth-century artists to advance their status in the eyes of the world. Indeed, Van Dyck's position he~ always been seen as a pinnacle, J.R. Martin calls his appointment by Charles the climax of Van Dyck's career.30 It has also often been interpreted in very personal terms. Cust remarks that "a peculiar sympathy seems to have linked together the King and the painter, and it is difficult to separate them in the mind. "31 And Martin concurs, putting the concept into more abstract terms: that Charles and Van Dyck enjoyed a close to-perfect relationship between royal patron and court artist.32 The notion that there was a private, emotional element • in the dynamic which brought Van Dyck ta London is, therefore, not new. This has generally been explained in rather strict, art-historical terms as a manifestation of Charles' personal enthusiasm for painting per S~, or as a reflection of his innate belief that art was a prerogative of royalty. Brown, for example, says that the King's relationship with Van Dyck was a premeditated imitation of the one between Emperor Charles V and Titian in the l6th century.33 30 Martin and Feigenbaum, p. 20. 31 Cust, p.93. See also Wheelock, p . 246. 32 Martin and Feigenbaum, p.32. • 33 Brown, Van Dyck. p. 137. 42 • Michael Levey, meanwhile, believes that the bond between mon arch and painter in London derived its strength from Charles' recognitjon that Van Dyck's talent was one which could properly follow the precepts of Lomazzo, the sixteenth-century theorist whose treatise on art had been translated into English in 1598, and whose ideas had influenced the King's own concepts of painting. Van Dyck, in Charles' eyes, was the only artist who could convey what Lomazzo described as "the dignity which he (the monarch) ought to have." And without falsifying, since the notion that royalty and dignity were synonymous was a major component of Van Dyck's view of the world.34 Yet Levey, too, adds a delicate, emotiOIlal note to his • analysis when he recalls that both the King and the painter shared the defect of being short men. 35 The implication that more than art is at play here seems clear. Henri Focillon also S~6~ a more complex dynamic at work. He says that Charles brought Van Dyck to England, a rude, crude, revolution-wracked backwater specifically in order to help him create a civilized society. 36 The implication that other countries--France, for example--were already far advanced culturally surely reflects a European, 34 Levey, p.128. 35 Levey, p . 129. 36 Henri Focillon, The Life of Form:.." in Art ." New York. • 1948, p. 61. 43 • Catholic point of view. But there is something in Foclllon's idea that Van Dyck was yet another tool used by Charles to stress the legitimacy of his Protestant crown by portraying it as worn by a monarch of suave elegance and pure refinement--the King which Van Dyck has indeed handed down to posterity. Focillon provocatively calls Van Dyck Charles' "secret arbiter"37 and this phrase recurs in Gerson and Ter Kuile, who speak of Van Dyck's ability to convey in his portraits a person's, ev en a king's, secret longing for elegance. "38 The insistence on secrecy as an ingredient in the artist-patron relationship betrays a realizatlon that there is more at work here than meets the eye. What more, exactly, remains unsta~ed. • Recently, Holland Cotter took up this idea, givjng it ft different twist, He suggests thaL Van Dyck's casual posing and dressing of Ch~rles in many portraits may be proof that he is a more subversive artist than anyone has ever thought.39 Again, the message is that something private and mysterious was going on in Van Dyck's work at Charles' court, although perhaps it was based on emotional antipathy rather than empathy. The intimate, conspiratorial--even subversive--aspects 37 Focillon, p. 62. 38 H. Gerson and E.H. Ter Kuile, Art dnd Architecture in 13e19lt.J.m 1600-180Ci. London, 1960, p. 123 . 39 Hol1and Cotter, "Van Dyck: The Subject • Transfigured," Art zn Amerzca, July 1991, p.134. 44 • of Van Dyck's connection with Charles lare recognized, although they have remained, throughout the literature, vague and almost annoying to the writers. Like Hamlet's father' s ghost who ini tiates the whole drama but who is invisible to aIl but Hamlet himself, there is something here which seems to elude the eyes of even the most observant. Could ~his invisible being be the spirit of George Villiers, first Duke of Buckingham, the man who inspired and sustained Charles through his difficult, youthful years as Prince of Wales and the first three years of his reign? To suggest that Buckingham' s influence extended beyond his death in 1628 is not only logical but imperative. And since the Duke ~md the King also shared a passion for art, such posthumous • influence would have been specifically at work in the decision to appoint an offical court painter. There is a document dated 1620, a list of Buckingham's accounts, which includes a sum "g i ven to Vandike, the picture drawer. "40 And during his lifetime he gave place of honour in the entrance hall to his London residence, York 40 Calendar nf State Paper5, Dvmestlc: Addenda 1580- 1625, London, 1872, p. 631. This list of accounts pa id out by Endymion Porter on behalf of the then Marquis of Buckingham is, to this writer, particularly fascinating, I;ince i t is a virtual "portrait in miniature" of Buckingham' s character and priori ties. It lists payments to 'the Lady Marquis 303 1.; Arthur Brett for a pearl :30 1. 10 s.; Sackville Crowe for house expenses 1000 1.; a musician that presented a set of books 10 1.; Sir John Suckl ing 500 1.; Lady Purbeck 200 1.; Vandike the picture • drawer (amount unclear)" ------ 45 • House to Van Dyck' s 7fH~ Ccmt'inence (l'f SCiplc,l.41 "There is no doubt." writes Brown, "that Buckingham took a great interest in Van Dyck. "42 And this interest was honoured twelve years later when Charles knighted Van Dyck in 1632. The kin, and the courtier As discussed above. the $,;ipio might have owed its special status to i ts having been commissioned by King James l on the occasion of Buckingham' s marriage in 1620.43 Such 41 Davies, p. 379. There were only two paintings in the entrance hall, the Yan Dyck and an equestr ian portrait of Emperor Charles V by Titian, "a copy called Titian's Glory being the principal in Spain, now in the Escorial." Presumably these two works were of particular importance tu Buckingham, s ince they were the first things a vis i tor would see--and be 1eft to contemplate while waiting ta be • announced--and thus made a clear statement of the Duke' s artistic priorities. 42 Brown, Varl [)yc{.. ~ p. 56. It may be worth noting here that an objection could be raised as fo110ws: if Buckingham was sa interested in Van Dyck, how is i t that the Duke' s collection of paintings. one of the most extens ive in England at the time of his death and numbering 330 pictures, contained only one work by Van Dyck? (See Randa11 Davies, "An Inventory of the Duke of Buckingham' s Pictures, etc., at York House in 1635," The BurllTlgt(ln i'taqazlTte, 10 (1907), pp. 376-82.) A partially satisfactory answer wou1d be that from 1621-28, the years of the Duke' s most intense collecting activi ties, Van Dyck was travelling and working in Italy, and therefore inaccessible to Buckingham. He returned to Antwerp--i.e. availability to potential English patrons--only in the early months of 1628. (See Susan J. Barnes, Van r)yck irl Italy 1621-8, New York. 1986, p. 21.) The Duke was assass inated in August 1628, so t ime d id not permi t any commerce between the two men. However, even before 1621, Van Dyck was known as the ris ing star of Flemish painting, so it seeming1y would have been possible for Buckingham to acquire sorne of the artist' s early works had he wanted to. • 43 Harvi e, pp. 224-6. 46 • a provenance serves to evoke the most interesting aspect of Buckingham's career: the fact that he was lover and favorite to two kings, James and Charles, father and son. Such a triangular relationship was bound to perplex historians, as i t has done and sti 11 does. Beyond puzzlement, i t has engendered embarrassment, diseomfiture, repulsion. The problem has always been to "permit" two successive kings of England to be in love wi th the same man. It just does not sit weIl. And the incestuous look of the triangle father- lover-son creates a moral backlash, even though morality has nothing to do with it. Thus it is fair to say that James' passion for Buckingham, so openly expressed in public at the time and in the numerous letters which have survi ved, has • (dis) coloured his reputation ever sinee and prevented an objective assessment of his reign until quite reeently.44 Conversely, Charles' feel ings for the Duke, which if anything were stronger and had far greater consequences, 45 seem to have been relegated to footnotes and parentheses in the story of that mon arch 's turbulent life and reign.46 44 Marc L. Schwarz, "James l and the Historians: Towrd a Reeonsideration," .7011rnal wf British Stud.ies, 13, No.2 (May, 1974) , pp. 114-34. The author notes "the general repugnance that has been felt towards the charaeter and, to use a modern term. the 1 ifestyle of James 1. " 45 Wil iamson, p. 173. 46 Kevin Sharpe, The Personal Rule of Charles 1, London and New Haven, 1992, p. 46. Sharpe says that "the love and admiration of Charles for the duke, not physieally expressed, has been much less studied. Yet Charles' letters • to Villiers are uncharaeteristically intimate." See also 47 • The reason for this continuing paradox likely lies in a view expressed by a contemporary observer, the dedicated republican, Lucy Hutchinson. She dismisses Buckingham of having "no meritt but that of his beauty and prostitution" and then, in an often-cited passage, calls King Charles "temperate and chast and serious" whi le those at court who "did not quite abandon their debosheries, had yet that reverence to the King to retire into corners to practice them. ' 17 This expediency has been adhered to gratefully ever since. But Buckingham simply refuses to reti re into his corner. And the way he managed to monopolize simultaneously the affections of two such different men--the bluff, boorish • yet cunning James and the stiff, haughty yet naive Charles-- is one of history's most artful manipulations. Interpretations and evaluations of this feat are varied. To sorne seventeenth-century observers like Clarendon and Wotton, it was simply a phenomenon. The former--a staunch Royalist during the Civil War, a prime moyer of the Restoration in 1660 and the grandfather of two reigning queens of England-- called Buckingham's continuation of favour from one king to the next "a rare felici ty, seldom Charles Carlton, Charles 1: The Perso~al Ho~arch, London, 1983, pp. 108-10 for a late 20th century biographer's attempt to grapple with this problem . 47 Lucy Hutchinson, Hemoirs of the Life of Colonel • Hut,:hir,soTl, London, 1973, p. 46. 48 • known. "48 Henry Wotton--a poet and wit, ambassador to Venice during Most of King James' reign and an art- buying49 agent for the Duke of Buckingham--says that the duke was "now secondly seized of favour, as it were by discent, which l have set down without looking beyond the vaile of the Temple, l mean into the secret of high inclination. "50 Such wording is to be expected of a man proud of his poesy, but it also indicates a des ire to distance himself from something mystical or masonic in the situation. To others at the time, the phenomenon was distinctly disreputable: it reeked of sorcery. Fairholt provides a selection of popular doggerel, for example: • ... Nor shall you ever prove by magick charmes l wrought the king's affection, or his harmes .. 51 This is entirely in keeping with how people at the time perceived the unholy trinity of sorcery. sodomy and heresy as mutually interdependent, or even identical and 48 Clarendon, vol. l, sec. 48. Clarendon states that his seminal work was "begun in the year 1641." 49 Christopher Hibbert, Veniee: The Biography of a City~ London, 1988, p. 128. 50 Wotton, p. 5. This extremely positive account of the reign of Charles l was published, interestingly enough. during the heyday of the Commonwealth. 51 Frederick W. Fairholt, ed. , "Poems and Songs relating to George Villiers. Duke of Buckingham: and his Assassination by John Felton, August 23,1628," Perey • Society, vol. 29, (London, 1850), p.30. 49 • indivisible. 52 Later, the Victorian historian, Gardiner attributed the power of Buckingham to "defects in Charles' character"53 which he lists almost clinically, thus reflecting the tendency of the nineteenth century to apply an apparently scientifically objective diagnostic approach to historical material. A biographer writing in the 1920's, Philip Gibb, takes the stance that Buckingham simply possessed an excess of "personal magnetism" and that his conquest of two kings was not the behavior of a scoundrel but rather that of a kind of "angel" bringing pleasure and excitement into both royal lives.54 And Carlton states flatly that Charles was • "rescued" from his own introverted insecurity by Buckingham. 55 A less sanguine view is taken by Williamson, who believes that Buckingham redirected his attention towards Charles when he realized that he was losing favour--and thus 52 Alan Bray, Homosel 53 S.R. Gardiner, A Hi_",t(lry (If ET/glaT/d urtder the Duke of Buckingham aT/d Charles 1. 2 vols., London, 1875. vol. l, p. 167. The titie of this work is interesting: the order of names would seem to violate normal procedure, but it is just one more way in which Gardner underscores his negative view of the Stuart dynasty. 54 Philip Gibb, The RomaT/ce of George Villiers, First Duke of Buck l T/ gham ,. London, 1930, pp. 5-7 and passim. • 55 Carlton, p. 12. ------_. • 50 power--with James, and that he systematically seduced the Prince in 1623.56 At the other end of the spectrum lies Cammell, who suggests that the bond between Charles and Buckingham dates from early in Villiers' career and was forged between two adolescents (he forgets that the favorite was a sophisticated and travelled twenty-two when he first came to royal attention) who loved concocting boyish pranks to play on King James. 57 Kevin Sharpe articulates the modern view that Buckingham replaced an aIder brother in Charles' affections. 58 Prince Henry, who died in 1612, was seen as a tal!, handsome, clever, cultured, manly paragon of virtue, • whose sudden death at sixteen was considered a dreadful 10ss for England.59 A total contrast to the small, shy, stammering Charles, Henry was, so the theory goes, adored and revered by him. And, since Buckingham displayed similar characteristics, Charles merely transferred his adoration in 56 Williamson, pp. 171-4. The author quickly--and strangely--adds that the seduction did not include "physical relations. " 57 Cammell, p. 90. Cammell takes the concept of sympathetic biography to new heights. 58 Sharpe, Faction, p. 43. 59 Strong, 1 con. p. 56. See also Sir Roy Strong, Henr y Prince (,If "'ales and Englarld's Lost Renaissarlce.. New York, 1986, where the author d iscusses some of the young Prince' s less admirable traits, which would have been aIl too • familiar to his younger brother. 51 • an automatic, almost Pavlovian reaction. Roger Lockyer refines many of these ideas in tracing Buckingham's tra.jectory. He says that while the young Villiers was typical of the favorites of James--a "plaything"--he was ambitious enough to aspire to more. And on the trip to Spain with Prince Charles in 162.:1, he saw how "a favori te (pl'" h/cldo) could establ ish his pol i tj cal supremacy (privanza) and b800me a virtual ruler. "60 So he redirected his considerable energies to focus directly on Charles who, reserved and publicly inept as he was, needed someone ta personify and articulate his views on the divine source of royal authority. And since, in Charles' eyes, Buckingham was a de fur t 0 member of the royal family, the • knot was tied. Although this analysis has its flaws- Buckingham was surely more than a plaything to James, who had elevated the favorite to positions of unheard-of power: Lord High AdmiraI in 1620 and the first, and only, non-roya.l dukedom in fifty years in 1623--i t certainly goes further in constructing a credible continuum for Buckingha.m' s career. It, like aIl the others, however, seems to omit an obvious explanation: that the unhappy, under-endowed, sixteen-year-old Charles had a C(IUP dE' 1'"(Iudrc' for the spectacular "animal" called George Villiers, whose physical attractions were instantly--and almost universally- apparent. His appearance was, after aIl, the reason why • 60 Lockyer, p.465. ------ 52 • Southampton. Pembroke and the Archbishop of Canterbury recognized in him their vehicle to regain influence with the King. 61 And i t has been funadmental to any evaluation of his power and position by observers from Lucy Hutchinson, the contemporary anti-royalist62 to today's Camille Paglia, who points to the Duke as a classic example of the "man of beauty. "63 This is, however, a dangerous type, who should be kept away from poli tics, lest he unbalance or disorder astate, which is what, in Paglia's judgment, Buckingham did.64 Such a verdict is not uncommon and one of the events often held up to sustain it is the trip to Spain by Buckingham and Charles in 1623. Ostensibly for the purpose of hastening the • conclusion of negotiations concerning Charles' proposed marriage wi th the Infanta of Spain. the unusual behavior by the Prince of Wales--the only male heir to the throne of England running off to the land which had launched the Armada--was viewed with incredulity and alarm by many. not 61 Sharpe. Factions, p. 43. 62 Hutchinson, p. 46. 63 Camille Paglia. Se:l.;ual Personae. New York, 1991, p. 165. She goes on to say that the man of beauty is also a dangerous animal whose "insolent narcÎEis ism" when mixed wi th political power can, as it did in the case of Buckingham, "disorder" astate . 64 Paglia, p. 364. In her memorable words, "Today' s Byronic man of beauty is a Presley who dominates the • imagination, not a Buckingham who disorders astate ... 53 • the least by King James. 65 Clarendon reeounts the seene when the two young men insisted on making the trip, at which time the King "threw himself upon his bed ... and fell into new passion and lamentation, that he was undone, and should lose Baby Charles. "66 The daring expedi tion was no doubt Buckingham's idea, although Charles quickly became at least equally enthused at its prospect, and a hint of its germination might be seen in a letter of 1622 from Buckingham to the Spanish Ambassador to London: To conclude aIl with, l will use a similitude of hawking which you will easily understand, being a great falconer. l told you already that the Prince is (God be thanked!) extremely sharp set upon this match and you know a hawk, when she is first dressed and made ready to f ly having a great wi 11 upon her, if the falcouer do not follow it at short time, she is in danger to be dulled ever after. Take heed therefore lest in the • fault of your delays, our prince and falcon gen~le (that you know was thought to be slow enough to begin to be eager after the feminine prey) become not so dull upon these delays as in short time hereafter he will not hop to the lure though it were thrown out to him.67 65 It must be said, however, that the Spanish marriage was central ta James' overall foreign policy. Peace with Spain as a bulwark against the expansion of France had been, sinee 1604, one of the cornerstones of the King's strategy. But by 1623, this may have outlived any useful purpose. And the specifie tactie of the marriage--to obtain Spanish support in ending Hapsburg occupation of James' daugther and son-in-law's land, the Palatinate--was a pipe-dream, although James saw it as the solution to aIl his foreign problems. (Schwarz, pp. 126-27) 66 Williamson, p. 281. 67 Williamson, p. 279. This extraordinary letter is the kind of thing often used as proof of Buckingham's duplicitous, machiavellian nature. But when read in its entirety, it seems to reveal a man candid to the point of • naivety, and to support Clarendon's description of him as • 54 A few months later, Charles and Buckingham rode off, swashbuckling young knights on crusade. Wotton tells of "disguised beards" and "borrowed names of Thomas and John Smith" and "leaping hedges" and buying periwigs in Paris.68 The pair, a10ng wlth only a few servants (including Endymion Porter), arrived in Madrid on March 5; they remained until September 1. No marriage treaty was concluded and out of the trip came nothing but a profound anti-Spanish feeling on the part of Buckingham and, in Sharpe's words, the "galvanisation of a friendship by a political alliance. "69 Or, to put it another way, as does • Williamson, "If Charles fel1 in love with anyone in Madrid, it was with Buckingham. "70 being, even ln the highest passion ... so far from stooping ta any dissimulation whereby his displeasure might be concealed and covered till he had attained his revenge ... " (Clarendon, vol. l, sec. 65) 68 Wil1iamson, pp. 282-85. 69 Sharpe, Factùm w p. 43. 70 Williamson, p. 172. lt was during this trip, on May 18, 1623, that Buckingham was elevated to the rank of Duke in order to give him parity in dealing with the Spanish Duke of Olivares, who held sway over Philip IV. The original title conceived was Duke of Clarence, but it was pointed out (perhaps by the Duchess of Lennox) to King James that this had hitherto been assigned only to princes of the blood . Moreover, so that Buckinghgam would not take precedence over the King's cousin, the Scottish Duke of Lennox, the latter • was made Duke of Richmond on M~ 17. (Cammell, p. 208) ------ 55 • CHAPTER III VAN DYCK, BUCKINGHAM AND KING CHARLES IN 1629 One of the most splendid non-portrait works by Van Dyck is the Rinaldo and Armida (fig. 18), now in the Baltimore Museum of Art. 1 Approximately seven-and-a-half feet square, its subject is a seene from Gerusalemme Liberata, the epic poem about the Crusades written by Torquato Tasso and published in 1581. Tasso's work was immensely popular in the late sixteenth and entire seventeenth centuries and was often plumbed for inspiration by artists and patrons alike. Van Dyck himself did two other known versions of this sarne subject, one (fig. 19) in the Los Angeles County Museum, • dated c. 1627-28.2 and the other (fig. 20). done in 1632 for Prince Frederik-Henry of Orange-Nassau and his wife Amelia van Solms.3 the working drawing for which is in the 1 Gertrude Rosenthal, "The Van Dyck of the Epstein Collection," rl'le Baltimore Nuseum of Art NeNs, 8 (March. 1946). pp. 3-7. Bequeathed in 1951 by an American collector who had bought it at auetion in 1927, the picture had been in the family collection of the dukes of Newcastle sinee the early 18th century. Prior to that. possession can be traced back ta Col. William Webb, who bought it. for eighty pounds, in the Commonwealth sale of the royal collections after 1649. (Wheelock, p. 221.) 2 Rensselaer W. Lee, "Yan Dyck. Tasso and the Antique, .. Studies in Uestern Art: acts of the twentleth international congress o~ the histo~y of art, Princeton, 1963, vol. III, pp. 14-15. The Los Ang~les painting is related ta a drawing attributed to Yan Dyck during his sojourn in Italy 1621-28; the canvas, however, is considered to be a sehool piece because of its "uneven exeeution." • 3 Lee, p. 23. 56 • National Gallery, London. Unlike the Adonis and Venus discussed earlier, the Rinaldo and Armida is the subject of certain specifie contemporary documentation. Two letters concerning the work survive. One written from Antwerp by the artist himself--a rari ty in Van Dyck scholarship--is dated December 5, 1629, and reads in part "the piC1;'.tre which you ordered of me for his Majesty, l have completed, and by your des ire have delivered into the hands of Mr. Pery ... the aforesaid Pery has paid me 300 patacones, which amount ta 72 pounds ster 1 ing." The second document, an extract from the Order Books of the Exchequer in London, is from March 23, 1630, and directs 78 pounds ta be pa id ta "Endymion Porter, Esq., • one of the Grooms of his Majesty's Bedchamber ... for one picture of the Storie of Reynaldo & Armida bought by him of Monsieur Vandick of Antwerpe and delivered to his Majesty without accompt as per letter of privy seal 20 March 1629. "4 Although, as Rosenthal notes, no document outlining the terms of a specifie commission is extant and therefore it is impossible to say who chose the subject matter, 5 it 4 Shirley Mathews and Eric Van Schaack, "The Music in Van Dyck's Rinaldo arld Armzda," Baltimore Nuseum (,If Art Annual 111, Part 1 (1968) p. 9. The discrepancy of six pounds in the two amounts quoted might be assumed to be some sort of commission to Mr. Pery. And the dates are correct: in England at the time, the new year began on March 25, therefore March 20 is still in 1629. See also Cust, p. 85; Rosenthal, p. 5. • 5 Rosenthal, p. 5; Wheelock, p. 222. ~ 57 would appear, judging by Van Dyck's words, that the painting was indeed a commission from Charles 1. Furthermore, since the number of non-portrait, non-religious works in Van Dyck's oeuvre is so sma11, and since the Rinald" and Arm1.da is the only subject from contemporary literature which the artist is known to have painted,6 i t seems safe to assume that the impetus came from the patron. Charles is known to have admired Tasso' s epic--in the Engl ish translation of 1600 by Edward Fairfax--and even carried a copy with him during his final days. 7 Wi th his introspective nature and allegorical bent, he might easi ly have found a parallel between the crusading paladin, Rinaldo, and his own recently ~ lost knight, Buckingham. Mareover, the picture was so well- received by the King that it is said to have helped persuade him to invite Van Dyck to London as court painter. 8 A very personally important connection ta the piece seems, therefore, almost a certainty. Literary and artistic sources of the painting The precise episode represented in the painting cornes from Canto XIV (of twenty) in Tasso' s narrative, 9 which 6 Rosenthal, p. 5. 7 Lee, p. 12. 8 Wheelock, p. 222 . 9 Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata: Jerusalem • Delivered, Detroit, 1987, Canto XIV, lines 60-68. 58 • relates the reseue of Jerusalem from the Moslems (a historieal fact of the 12th century) frequently interrupted with elaborate tales of fantasy and derring-do (aIl pure invention). To modern eyes, Gerusalemme Liberata can be bewi lderingly prolix and full of puzzling lacurlaf!, stranSe plot twists and impossible coincidences. The story of Rinaldo and Armida fits this description. Briefly, however, it concerns Armida, an enchantress allied with the Moslems, and Rinaldo, the most gallant Christian hero. After various unresolved encounters and intrigues, Armida finally decides to lure Rinaldo to an island far from his own territory by means of a beautiful, singing nymph who will luII him to sleep. Armida will then stab him as he siumbers. However, • when she gazes down at hirn, her hatred turns to adoration and her dagger to flowers: this is the moment that Van Dyck has painted. Under a tree on the island, watched by the mermaid-tailed nymph who still sings from her musical score, Rinaldo sleeps. Armida, now passionately in love, drapes her paragon with a floral garland. Borrowing from Correggio, ,'i tian and Rubens. Van Dyck has populated the scene wi th s;everal playful putti who happily encourage and assist J\rmida in her love-work. The composition is a grandly simple one, consisting of two great diagonals which meet at the centre of the left edge of the canvas. The focal point, Rinaldo's armored chest • as the locus of a cirele formed by Armida's arms and the 59 • wreath of flowers, is contained in the angle formed by the diagonals. From the two cherubs shooting arrows in the top right corner of the pictura, the energy flows down to the left, bounces off two more putti, and races back ta the right, across Rinaldo's lap and the pearly-white torso of the water nymph, to a swirling finale in the water churned up by her taïl. This eddying is repeated throughout the work. It occurs spectacularly in the crimson and indigo robes of the female figure as weIl as in the gold cloak over the knees of the sleeping man, the burgeoning roots of the tree beneath his feet and even in the clouds in the sunset sky forming the backdrop for the scene. • Because of the simplicity of the compositionai energy lines and the deliberate, insistent repetition of areas of swirling forms, the painting has been seen as over determined in comparison with representations of similar subjects by Titian or Rubens. 10 In contrast, the almost off-hand way that the high I ight on the warrior' s armor just below his right pectoral becomes the cynosure of the work is seen as proof of Van Dyck's genius for subtlety and his innate ability to convey a dreamy mood. 11 Lee, on the other hand, while agreeing that the picture has a rhetorical, carefully managed quality, feels that it is 10 Rosenthal, p. 6. • 11 Rosenthal, p. 7. 60 • ultimately less intimate in sentiment than might be expected after a reading of Tasso. 12 Most recently, Wheelock is not bothered by the grandiose composition and notes the "sense of grace, beauty and ideal love" which infuse and irradiate the picture. 13 AlI commentators agree, however, on the major influence at play here: Ti tian and the Venetian school. The coloration--rich, deep reds, golds and turquoises--and the law-angle viewpoint demonstrate Van Dyck' s debt to the sensuous art of Venice which had only intensified in him during his travels in Italy. Specifie sources in Titian are several. The figure of the singing nymph, for example. is a distant relative of the • nude woman (fig. 21) in the Ventian master's Sacred and Pr o1'-ane L back is a mirror image of one (fig. 22) in Titian's W()r_"::!hip (')1' Venu_"::!. 14 In the Rinaldo, there is a connection wi th the pose of a sleeping Venus in Ti tian' s l'far _"::! an d VenUE. 15 which Van Dyck had actually sketched (fig. 23). This particular posture seems to have fascinated Van Dyck16 and models for it, although plentiful in Venetian 12 Lee, p. 21. 13 Wheelock, p. 222. 14 Wheelock, p. 222; Lee, p. 23 15 Lee, p. 22. 16 Lee, pp. 16, 17 J 22. 61 • painting, are also numerous in antique works. The figure appears on a sarcophagus (fig. 24) set into the wall of the Casino Rospiglios i in Rome. It is the pose of the groom in the AldllbrandlTli l,.Jedding (fig, 25), one of the most famous of ancient paintings, to which Van Dyck devoted two pages of his Itallan sketchbook. 17 Another Venetian master, Paolo Veronese. can lay claim to an affinity with the creator of the Rlnaldll and Armlôa. Like Van Dyck, Veronese has, as David Rosand points out, suffered a certain loss of affection among later crltics; he is seen as unable ta express "the profound. .. or the sublime. "18 This judgment is undergoing reassessment, but, reputation aside, something of Veronese is visible ln the • Van Dyck painting at hand. The figure of Armida, for example, is the type of female (fig. 26) often encountered in Veronese--statuesque, yet not stony; classical of feature, yet at the same time "classy" looking. She is 17 Lee, p. 22. A further--and most intriguing--possible source for Van Dyck' s Rinaldo i s the Bar ber Hl F aun. Now one of the most renowned of antique sculptures, this marble excavated in Rome is first recorded in receipt for restoration in June, 1628. (Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, TaEte and the Antlque, New Haven, 1981, p. 202. )Presuming i ts discovery sometime before that-- restoration work on the Castel S. Angelo. where i t was unearthed, began in 1624--the statue would have been one of the latest sensations in Rome during the period when Van Dyck was journeying in Italy. Howvwer, the likelihood of his being in Rome after 1624 is slim. (Barnes, p. 21; Wheelock, pp, 75-76.) 18 David Rosand, Pairltlng iTi CiTiquecerdo VeTilce: • TitiaTl!l Veronese, Tintoretto, New Haven, 1982, p. 145. 62 • verging on the gorgeous, a woman secure in her own splendour and power. But the most fundamental link between the two artists lies in what Rosand, speaking of Veronese, calls a commi tment to "the tableau as a sti Il vital theme for pictorial development. "19 That is, Veronese employs a frontal approach, arranging his figures parallel to the picture surface in clear ly demaracated planes, 1 ike people on a stage in front of a backcloth. As a result, a certain shallowness of field occurs, something not generally seen in Titian. Such a frontality, or "tableau" effect is characteristic of Van Dyck's work and is sometimes denigrated: words like "flat"20 and "static"21 are used • to describe his mythological or religious pictures. Another aspect of this technique involves the poses Van Dyck chooses for his fi~ures. Highly emotive attitudes, they often are midpoint positions in a sequence, neither the ac~ of impetus or causation nor the physical manifestation of result or consummation. Thus in the RITtaldn and Armida, Van Dyck has not selected the moment when Armida experiences her epiphany and is trmsformed by her sudden unbidden love for Rinaldo; nor has he portrayed the moment when Rinaldo has awoken to the embrace of Armida and is exPeriencing his own bedazzling 19 Rosand, Paintirlg. p. 148 . 20 Gerson and Ter Kuile, p. 126. • 21 Rosenthal, p. 6. 63 • realization. The action hovers--literally--between the two states, an untenable position, both physically and psychologically. It is aiso ambiguous, open to imaginative interpretation by the viewer. lndeed. it requires such participation. The role of the theatre The resuit of aIl this is a theatrical aesthetic: what the eye sees is faise and temporary but what the mind senses is rea1 and eternal. The form of the theatre known as the "masque" was a central component of English court life, particularly during the Stuart period. Sorne, like Strong, assert that the masque • virtually defines the period, emerging as a distinctive forrn coincidentally with the accession of the Stuart dynasty and its concomitant propagation of the concept of the divine right of kings.22 The masque has its distant roots in rnedieval disguisings and Tudor pageants--the Elizabethan Accession Day Tilts, for example, which became a public spectacle with the sole aim of displaying the mon arch to anyone and everyone possible. During the Stuart period, the masque quickly becarne less populist and more court-centered, ultimately evolving under Charles l in the 1630's into almost as hermetic a pastime as anything seen later at Louis 22 Sir Roy Strong, Art and Po~er: Renaissance Festivals • 1450-1650, Woodbridge. Suffolk. 1984, p. 154. • 64 XIV's Versailles. At this time, the masque had become, as Parry points out, simply a vindication of royal power, though not by specific reference to any contemporary political activity but rather through a display of authority so pervasive and sublime that its exercise is "inevitable, irresistible and benign. "23 Strong defines the intended effect of the masques on the viewer as a comprehension of reality through contemplation of these artifical scenes extolling the harmony of the divine plan and the royal fact: a strictly Platonic world-view.24 The Stuart masque, most typically and famously created by the team of Ben Jonson (words) and Inigo Jones (staging), was largely brought into being by Queen Anne, James l's wife • and Charles l's mother. It was an elaborate and expensive affair, taking months to create, and was generally performed annually just after Christmas and just before Lent. 25 Everyone at court actually performed in the piece, and by 1609, the concept had assumed its final form: "anti-masque" (the exposition of a problem which was performed by actors) and "masque" (the solution, played out by the real courtiers 23 Parry, p. 184. 24 Strong, Ar t • p. 164. They aIl take the view that "power is love; opposition and rebellion are passions unleashed ... the king is order, gentle, civilized, nature and peace. " • 25 Strong, Art, p. 155. 65 • and royal family).26 There were twenty-three principal court masques created between 1605 and 1625--known as Jacobean masques--and ten from 1630 to 1640. called Caroline masques.27 The principal difference between the two types is that the emphasis in Caroline masques was primarily visual. whereas King James' literary bent had always ensured a strong verbal component to the earlier productions. 28 Masques played an important role in Charles' and Buckingham's lives.29 As early as December 1614. for example. John Chamberlain writes "Yet for aIl this penurious world. we speake of a maske this Christmas toward~ which the King gives 1500 pounds. the principall motive whereof is thought to be the gracing of young Villiers and to bring him • on the stage. "30 This masque would have been The Golden Age Restored, performed in 1615.31 26 Parry. p. 49. The first of these pure masques was "The Masque of Queenes" which resulted from Queen Anne's request to Ben Jonson that he compose "sorne de.nce or show that might precede hers and have the place of a foil or a false masque. " 27 Parry. p. 268. 28 Parry. p. 58; Strong. p. 161. Related to this development is the fact that after 1631. Ben Jonson was no longer involved in the writing of the masques; he had broken dramatically with Jones over precisely the issue of visual verbal balance (although. of course. it was Charles. not Jones, who insisted on more "art"). 29 Strong. Art. p. 159 . 30 McClure. vol.I. p. 561. • 31 Parry. p. 268. • 66 In January, 1618, the chaplain ta the Venteian Ambassador to London des cri bes a masque in which "the chief performer being the king's own son and heir, the prince of WaIes, now seventeen years old, an agile youth, handsome and very graceful. .. "32 As the evening progressed, however, King James became bored and irritated at the performance, whereupon Buckil1gham "immediately sprang forward, cutting a score of lofty and very minute capers, with sa much grace and agility that he not only appeased the ire of his angry lord, but rendered himself the admiration and delight of everybody. "33 In 1621, The GYP_"le_" Netamorpho_" 'd. King James' favorite masque,34 was created, with text by Ben Jonson, • music by Nicholas Lanier and staging by persons unknown.35 The occasion for its creation was the visit by the King, first to the estate of the Marquess of Buckingham, newly 32 Ashton, p. 238. For a feeling of what they must have been like, this delightfully detailed description of the Twelfth Night masque of 1618, called For the Honour of Uales p is one of the best extant. 33 Ashton, p. 241. 34 Parry, p. 55. 35 G.J. Callon, Nicholas Larder, His Li'fe and Nu:.=:ic, Ann Arbor, 1985, pp. 34-39. Callon notes that the composer, Lanier, received 200 pounds from Buckingham, double the amount paid to Ben Jonson, and an unusually large sum for what would have been a subsidiary role to Jonson's. He suggests that Lanier must have done more for Buckingham- perhaps the design and decor, sinee Lanier was also an artist. In fact, Buckingham had six miniature portraits by • Lanier in his collection (Callon, p. 62.) 67 • married, at Burley-on-the-Hill, and then to the home of Buckingham's father-in-law, the Earl of Rutland, at Belvoir Castle. Thus, atypically, the masque was performed twice in August at those locations, and again in September at Windsor Castle. It was clearly a great success. Commissioned and paid for by Buckingham, it starred Buckingham as the Captain of the Gypsies. Endymion Porter, his secretary, and husband to his niece, played one of the gypsies, as did Many members of Buckingham's family. It is not recorded whether Prince Charles also performed in it. In any case, from early in their relationship, the two men shared an enthusiasm for theatrical spectacle. So it would have been only natural that upon Charles' succession • to the throne in 1625, the masque quickly should have reached the apogee of its importance--as Buckingham himself did. But no official royal masques were commissioned or performed between January, 1625 and January, 1631. This odd fact is often ignored or glossed over in discussions of the period.36 Or, it is explained by referring to Queen Henrietta Maria, Charles' new wife, who was enamored of her native French styles in dancing and performing. Susan Sykes credits the Queen with bringing the French ballet, and its innovative scenic devices, to London in 1626.37 In this 36 Strong and Parry both overlook it . 37 Susan A. Sykes, "Henrietta Maria' s ' house of delight': French influence and iconography in the Queen's • House, Greenwich, Il Apoll (), 133 (1991), pp. 332-36. 68 • analysis, the Queen became the theatrical member of the ro~r:'\l family, echoing the role of her predecessor, Anne of Denmark. And, indeed, in January, 1626, the Queen oversaw preparation of an entertainment (though not listed in accounts of official masques) at which the King partnered the Queen in the final dance.38 However, later that year at York House, Buckingham put on a more traditional, though "unofficial," masque for the royal couple. This was a theatrical version of his real-life activity of the time: planning and outfitting the first of his expeditions to relieve the French Protestants at La Rochelle. At the climax of the masque, the Duke set forth, accompanied by figures of Fame and Truth and pursued by Envy • and her barking dogs.39 In short, the theatrical world now truly mirrored the real, as the Queen and the Duke competed for supremacy. But it was an unequal struggle: even if she had not been French and Catholic and willfully unco-operative, she could not have bested Buckingham. Years before, Charles had written Buckingham that "there is none that knows me so weIl as yourself"40 and the bond never broke. So while the Queen 38 Elizabeth Hamilton, Herll'ietta fotal"ia., London, 1976, pp. 84-85 . 39 Hamilton, p. 85. • 40 Lockyer, p. 34. 69 • "lived like a nun" at Somerset House,41 Buckingham, whenever he c~';:)se, slept in a room connecting with the King's. And once, when she had seemed to slight his mother, the Duke icily reminded Henrietta Maria tha.t "there had been Queens in England who had lost their heads. "42 A painting by Honthorst There is another work of art which serves to illustrate the situation as it existed and which, coincidentally, conjures up the atmosphere of a court masque at the same time. Called Apcd 10 .m,) Piana (fig. 27), and now hanging at Hampton Court, it was painted by the Dutch artist Gerrit Van Honthorst in 1628. Honthorst was one of the leading members • of the Utrecht school of painters, a group deeply influenced by the work of Caravaggio, who fused realism of subject matter with a dramatic, almost mystical lighting technique. Honthorst came to England in April, 1628. He was hired by Buckingham43 and it is sometimes suggested that the purpose of the trip was to audition for the position of 41 Hamilton, p. 73. 42 Clarendon, vol. l, sec. 83. 43 J. Richard Judson, Gerrlt van Honthvrst: a Piscussion ot- his Position in Dutch Art, The Hague, 1959, p. 113. A letter from Balthazar Gerbier, the Duke's main art agent, to Endymion Porter dated April 5, 1628, reads: "1 trust you will not forget to bring Mr. Honthorst; for the Duke intends to employ him, as weIl as his Maj~sty, who will give him cause not to complain of crossing the sea." Judson interprets this as meaning he was not invited on a trial • basis, although it is hard to see why. 70 • court painter.44 According to Honthorst's assistant (and later well- known biographer) Sandrart, the execution of the Apollo arld Diana was the prime reason for the trip. 45 The picture, which measures approximately twelve by twenty-one feet, is an elaborate courtly allegory. It shows Buckingham, wearing the Order of the Garter, in the guise of Mercury, leading a procession of figures to pay hornage ta Apollo and Diana, impersonated by Charles and Henrietta Maria. The parade consists of the Liberal Arts. (One of the figures, Grammar, has been identified as Katherine, Duchess of Buckingham. )46 The entire scene could be, as Parry observes, the action of a masque compressed into one • moment.47 And although, the King and Queen, perched on their Olympian cloud, are presented as the ultimate patrons, the main message here is that Buckingham is in fact the master of the arts and sciences. The painting is an alrnost too-direct statement (Millar sees in the work an odd 44 Waterhouse, Painting, p. 39. If so, the question arises: why was Van Dyck not approached at this time, since he had just returned to Antwerp? Perhaps the timing was si~ply off: Van Dyck's arrivaI home was only in March, too soon to contemplate another major trip, even had it been proposed. 45 Oliver Millar, "Charles l, Honthorst, and Van Dyck, .. The Burlingtvn Hagazine, 96 (1954), p. 36. 46 Christopher White, The Putch Pictures in the C<.Illectic.lrl of Her Jo1aiesty the Glueen, Cambridge, 1982, pp . 53-54. • 47 Parry, p. 227. 71 • gracelessness and a "rather engaging gaucher if· ") 48 of the idea that it was Buckingham who awakened Charles' interest in the arts and turned him into the "most cultured prince that ever adorned the throne of England. "49 Moreover, the positions of the main figures as painted reveal their relationships in a way that is almost a seventeenth-century demonstration of body language. Far from showing the King and Queen together as "heroic lover and ideally chaste beloved" as Parry claims,50 the picture (fig. 28) places Henrietta Maria as close to the upper outside edge of the scene as possible; she leans backward with one hand raised as if searching for support in the thin air. Her expression is mask-like; her eyes seem unfocussed. • Meanwhile beside her, although resting one hand on her left wrist in what seems a restraining gesture, the bare-chested Charles leans precipitously inward and down as he stretches his other hand imploringly towards Buckingham. The Duke (fig. 29), his own chest dazzlingly bare, does not reach back, but rather leans his whole body forward, and raises his face as if to place his chin in the King's cupped hand. The expressions on the two men's faces are more than implicit: if there are any lovers and beloveds here, it is they. 48 Millar, Charles, p. 39 . 49 Cammell, p. 96. • 50 Parry, p. 227. 72 • Whether or not Honthorst's picture was an audition piece for a court appointment. it ended up in the royal collection. either bought by the King, or given to him by the Duke.51 By the 1630's, when Buckingham was dead and Henrietta Maria had gained some influence with the King. i t is reported by the cataloguer Van der Doort as being "in Store at Whithall ... in ye Passage roome betweene ye Banqueting house & the privie Lodgings"--seemingly not a foremost place of honour.52 Since Buckingham was assassinated in August--perhaps even while the picture was being done--the painting may have always had painful connotations for the King. Furthermore, maybe the directness of the aIIegory exposed personal • feeIil1gs too publicly for a man who was--especially without Buckingham to support hirn--shy and defens ive. 53 And from a formaI point of view, perhaps Honthorst' s composition seemed too much within the traditional English usage of artistic allegory; that is. elaborate and saturated wi th iconic devices which ultimately feel formulaic and over-determined. 51 White, Dut'ch. p. 54. 52 If the Queen had succeeded in almost banishing this work, l t is interesting to note that the other major painting done on Honthorst's brief trip (he left in December) was a group portrait of Buckingham and his family which hung "above the ehimney in the King' s Bedchamber at Whitehall." (White. Dut<:h, p. 56) 53 For a good account of Charles' self-protectiveness and aloofness, see Judi i:~h Richards, ". His Nowe Majestie' and the English Monarchy: the Kingship of Charles l before • 1640, " Past and Present:, 113 (November, 1986), pp. 70-96. 73 • And although the style of the painting might have been seen as modern by both Charles and Buckingham--Honthorst was one of the leading exponents of the new, Caravaggesque sensibil i ty in the north--the busy, crowded canvas might have seemed a touch Elizabethan. But as Wendorf points out, even though the characteristics embodied by allegorical forms or motifs are normally abstract qualities and therefore shared by a variety of indi viduals or situations, the tendency in seventeenth-century allegory was to search for an individualized meaning for any symbolic device--an aim directly at odds with the generalizing norms of allegory.54 In this sense, Honthorst was of his time: the • canvas is loaded with very individualized meaning. But he went too far; he lost the larger, abstract sense. The Ap!l}} (,1 and Diana is out of balance, both compositionally and conceptually. The question of patronale After the death of Buckingham, Charles might have decided that he needed a more appropriate, more aesthetically profound memer, to mor i for his partner. He would have known that Buckingham had re-establ ished contact wi th Van Dyck in Antwerp and he would have recalled the work done in 1620-21 that was so dazz 1 ingly un-Engl ish and new • 54 Wendorf. p. 95. 74 • looking (so Baroque. although, of course, he would not have used the word!) And he would have cornmissioned the creator of the AdOTI1. s alld Venus and C<)rtt Hlerte€' commemorati ve allegory of the same indi vidual. The choice of a subject from Tasso for the work is completely consistent wi th the King' s tastes--he admired GerU$aJ e7llme Li berata enormously--as weIl as with the Duke' s image. Buckingham had often been l ikened by admi rers to a knight-errant. out to protect Protestants. both English and the French Huguenots of La Rochelle, from the anti-Christ of Rome just as England' s Crusaders had defeated the Saracen infidels in the Holy Land. 55 Therefore. to cast Buckingham as Rinaldo is. in this broad sense, perfectly fitting. • But who then do es Armida represent? In Tasso. she is a sorceress. the enemy's henchwoman. who tries to lure Rinaldo to his death on an island--an island which here might correspond ta the Ile de Ré near La Rochelle. whose garrison Buckingham was preparing to relieve at the time of his death. Thus, she could stand for the forces of Papal Rome. which would have succumbed to Buckingham. had he lived. However. considering the personal relationships 55 A. McAlpine. ed .• The Late Kirtg's Goods. London. 1989. p. 86. This image of Buckingham would have gi ven Queen Henrieta Maria a "good" reason (as opposed to simple persona! jealousy) to detest the Duke. She was a staunch French Catholi.c. god-daughter ta Pope Urban VIII and charged by the Pontiff to regain her husband and his country for the Roman faith (Hamilton. p. 41). Obviously, Buckingham stood • square ly in the way. ------~ ---- 75 • discussed above, a more poignant interpretation suggests itself. Armida might personify Queen Henrietta Maria! In this scenario, the painting becomes a silent invitation to the Queen to extend her "love" to Buckingham, now that he is dead and gone. Such a gesture would have helped strengthen the bonds between husband and wife. And, in fact, in late 1628 and 1629, Henrietta Maria did indeed assume the role of confidant to Charles. She also became, at long last, the mother of his chldren. (The future Charles II was born in 1630; the Queen' s first pregnancy in 1629 was unsuccessful. ) 56 Whether Van Dyck' s paint ing was part of any such strategy--and whether or not it worked--is clearly a matter of conjecture. Sti Il, to cast Buckingham as Rinaldo • and the Queen as Armida would be consistent wi th the intricately hermetic tendencies of Charles' mind. It also would suit the slightly provocative wit of Van Dyck. In a way, then, the Rirlaldo ar/d Armzda mili~ht be yet another inside joke, although a more subtle one than the earlier Adonis and Venus. There are two other clues in the picture wh ich may reinforce such a personalized interpretation. The garland Armida drapes around Rinaldo is composed of red and white roses interspersed with what look like laurel leaves, thus certainly potentially signifying "English ft and "hero." And the sheet of music displayed by the nymph in the • 56 Carlton, p. 133. 76 • foreground has local connotations too. In a detailed examination of this passage, Shirley Mathews and Eric Van Schaack come to the conclusion that the notes painted represent a section of Monteverdi, perhaps a phrase from the composer's lost opera, Armida, written in 1627.57 They suggest that Van Dyck knew of the Monteverdi work through Nicholas Lanier, the English composer who was travelling in Italy at the time and who passed through Antwerp in 1628 where he was painted by Van Dyck. 58 But there is more to it. Lanier was, in fact, Master of the King's Music, having been so appointed in 1626.59 He had also been employed by Buckingham as a composer and designer of the Duke's important musical entertainments.60 • His travels in Italy in 1627, ostensibly to study the latest innovations in Italian music, were actually part of Charles' and Buckingham's efforts to acquire the art collection of the Duke of Mantua and to bring it to England.61 Lanier 57 Shirley Mathews and Eric Van Schaack, "The Music in Van Dyck's 'RiTlaJdo and Armida'" Baltimore Nu:..:::eum (.lf Art ArtrtuaJ, III. (1968), pp. 9-16. 58 Mathews and Van Schaack, p. 15; Wheelock, p. 207. This is the Van Dyck portrait which "determined the king to invite him to England a second time. Il (Walpole, vol. l, p. 332. ) 59 Callon, p. 46. 60 His appointment at court no doubt had sorne connection to his relationship with the Duke--most court appointments during Buckingham's lifetime did. • 61 Callon, pp. 260-67; Wheelock, pp. 207-08. 77 • was also an old acquaintance of Van Dyck's, having met the painter during his first visit to England.62 So it would seem entirely possible that the music sung by the nymph in Van Dyck's painting, rather than being by Monteverdi, was composed by Nicholas Lanier, in his role as Master of the King's music, and that the composition was part of a requiem for, or tribute tO, the recently deceased Duke of Buckingham. In the Rinaldo and Armida. then. the larger abstract aspects of allegory come into perfect equilibrium with the individually resonant ones. in the sensuously theatrical Venetian style which Van Dyck had studied and internalized during his seven years in Italy. Both Charles63 and • Buckingham64 shared a long-standing predilection for Venetian art as intense as Van Dyck's. And so the Rirtaldo and Armida can be seen as both a summing up of relationships past and as a taste of things to come during Van Dyck's tenure as Court Painter to King Charles. 62 Howarth, Arundel, p. 246; Wheelock, p. 207; Callon, p. 66. 63 Wheelock, p. 208 . 64 Sir Oliver Millar, "The Literature of Art: the El izabethan and Jacobean Seene," The Bur l trI gt(>rI 11a gaz irte, • 112 (1970 ), pp. 1 7 0 -75 . 78 • CONCLUSION Whi le both the Adon i.s aT/d Vertus and the R inaldo and Armidd can be looked at from various points of view--formal, stylistic, iconographie, substantive--they can also be seen as specifie events in the ongoing relationships between artist and patron. Any work of art is, after a11, a singular object created by a unique individual for another particular person at a specifie time. A painting, therefore, might be called an interpersonal event, s imi lar to any other human connection in the social, psychological or physical spheres. Moreover, the art-event possesses not only aIl the ingredients but also aIl the consequences of such phenomena. • It, like written documentation, like human memory, like bodily scars, lives on as a reminder of its own happening and of the people who caused it to happen. The only difference, perhaps, is that a ~ork of art often lasts "forever, .. hence art-making' s attraction throughout history to people seeking fame or immortality. The Adorl i sand VerlU$ of 1620-21 was commissioned by George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, as a reciprocal gift for his lover, mentor and benefactor, King James I. The King had recently presented the young favorite with another work, the Contlnen,:e (.)t- Scipic'l, which had pleased Buckingham enormous ly. Both works were from the hand of Anthony Van • Dyck, the gifted yc.'lng artist whose style was undergoing a 79 • spectacular synthesis of his own innate feelings for the ambigui ties and intimacies of art wi th the fundamentals of the grand manner learned at the side of his teacher and employer, Rubens (who had himself famously synthesized the Italian and the Flemish, the classical and the realistic streams of painting). Van Dyck' s style was exactly what Buckingham wanted: a ne\'{, cosmopol i tan and spectacular mode. which would not only announce the end of the old Elizabethan-Jacobean tradition in English painting but also establ ish himself, Buckingham, as the arbi ter of taste and judgment in art. For his part, Van Dyck received an invaluable opportunity to display his talents in sorne high profi le royal commissions. Such aspiration ta aristocratie • association was a dri ving force in Van Dyck' s character. One of his Most valuable lessons from Rubens was how to bchave l ike a "prince among painters." Moreover. in Buckingham, the artist met someone his own age from a simi lar background and with Many shared traits who had achieved unheard-of status in an unbel ievably short time. If Van Dyck was dazzled. and if he found himself a new "role model," it is not surpris ing. The Rinaldo and Armida of 1629 was commissioned by King Charles l, son of James l, shortly after the 1628 assassination of the Duke of Buckingham. The relationship of the young King and the Duke was as intensa as the one • between the old King and Buckingham. if not more sa. This 80 • fact astounds and embarrasses historians still, but from the early 1620' s on, Charles and Buckingham developed a shared concept of the noble and manly life, which was Most dramatically demonstrated in the reckless trip by the two "knights errant" to Spain in 1623. In fact, the seeds of the Cavalier image, sa famous later in the king's turbulent life, were planted with and by Buckingham. The Duke's assass inati on was a trauma from which Charles never recovered, and his desire to create a me7llento mor i for his dead partner may have resulted in the RlTlaldo arld Armida. The King commissioned Van Dyck, newly returned to Antwerp from a seven-year stay in Italy, where he had increased not only his familiarity with the great Italian masters but also • his own reputation, to interpret this particular subject, one which can be seen ta portray clearly and unequivocally, yet nobly and high-mindedly, the King's love for the lost Duke. Van Dyck's successful melding of sensuous Venetian colour and atmosphere with classical purity of composition and form charmed the King. A great painting from the artist who, several years before, had also delighted the Duke, was exactly what Charles had hoped for, and it is fair to say that this affected--if not effected--Van Dyck's subsequent appointment as Court Painter. There existed, then, an intricate personal relationship of three men, a triangle described by ability, opportunity • and affinity. And, looking at Van Dyck's share of the 81 • situation, a new answer might be suggested to the intriguing question posed a century ago by Eugène Fromentin: who was the "central orb" in Van Dyck's career?l George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, perhaps . • 1 Eug~ne Fromentin, The Hasters of Past Time, Oxford, • 1948, p. 86. 82 • BIBLIOGRAPHY Alpers, Svetlana. "ls Art History?" Daedalus 106, 3 (1977): 1-13. Ashton, Robert. ~7ame:.:: l by his C('Intemporaries. London, 1969. Barker, Godfrey. "A Duke fit for a King." Art News 88 (December 1989): 87-89. Barnes, Susan J. Van Dyck in Italy. 1621-27. 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London, 1651. • • • 88 • fi~ig. 1. Van Dyck, Sir (}PI)!"I./l:' Villie!"s iil.rll.l l.ddy t • Fig 2. Van Dyck, IIf'11/.l~-. dl/r} 1-10,10111 ' unknown. • • 91 • Fig. 3. Titian, Lollly 111.1 Fl,.lt Hl"ap, c. 1534, Vienna, • Gemaldegalerie . • • Fig. 4. Hubens, fI~'li;'11' t<'lW"mt.'7It: 'f/pt l)e':'/~l'1I', 16:38-1fJ, Vienna, Kunsthistorlsches Museum . • • 83 • Fig. !5. Raphael, Nf'!/,I.:ul"y ëwd I).~·y(:he, 1511-12, Rome, Farnesina . • • • Fig. 6. VAn Dyck, Ihe> [)Ht 111~j; (.If 7-Illt'I,11I!'(Il.lnl d1lt/ 1/1'1' ('Ill 7t/I'I>TI (detail), lR:34-:36, London, Buckin,ç;ham Paldce, • • 95 • Fig. ï William Larkin, ()!~()I'(lt! Villier;::;f rir.:,t [)Uld.! 01: • '~\~l";" .1'IQlhHII, 0.1616, London, National Portrait Gallery . • • fi 19. 1-3 Cornelius Johnson, (/I.tlr '/~' 111 JI r 1>1' • ( 11' ,1 nllr. 1> Il i' I1UI:/, r rll,llldïll, 16?3- 24, H-i nrlS(lr, l • • " • ~'ig . D. Rllben~•. (11.',)1' (ï'C' liT' J lf.!r_:::~ rz!' .' t • 1I32!) , Vienna. Albertina. • • Fig. 10. Rubens, «7W" rl'ldl/ ppr t rd7 t nt tllll nu/l" (lt • l.~u, /dngh,?7I1, 16?5, Fort. North, Kirnbell ArT.. MUf;f~\Jm. • 99 • F'ig. 11. Rubens, George IIrl1i(lr.:::, I-ir_~t nU{d~ of lIw-klTlqh~~m, 1625, Florence, Pitti P~lace . • • 100 • Fig. 12. Van Dyck, ~,:il Of>!)/'!//! V,lli!.'r.: I:HI,I Lruly l',,~tht'r Ut/.! NaT/Tler 3 a~~ IId~,)n 1,15 dnd I/enu.::: (deta:i 1), 1620-21, privôtp. collect ion. • • 101 ~'r, ' :-~." ,'. (, ..,.~r.~, ' ,. ~~ :fi (J... ~~,!;".~,~, ~. r-1 ~'" '. _1 .... i~~ 7'u' II. V J.)'. 1 • :.'t ~, • "t " . "(',.', • " " . " . \'" , .... ~"',. ."t Fig. 1.3. Rubens, K .. d/HUlf1(:! Nùnfll~/":::' .• Ol.lclHi.'3.iJ. of 'Huc:k.inqham, • 1625, Vienna, Albertlna . • 10:: • Fig. 14. Van Dyck, !·\c1.t.'tIf.U'J1/(' NéH/'ifJI' ", [)IH:tH~~':" of UI.l,./~J1It'./II.iTII, c. 1633, private collection . • • 103 • , ...;. '> • (~ - l ':' " ' '. Fig. 15. Van Dyck, Dir <.71.:,>OI"W' V,T.llier:r.~ ëwd I..ëi.:-/y Ka'tIH!!l"iru" Nannel":; a~ l~donL:;- and Venu3 (detail), 1620-21, private (~ollection . • • 104 • Fig. 16. Van Dyck, l'hv (.'(n!C'.rrd"TII,,,I:' nf 8':;/>11'), 16~~O-2L Oxford, Christ Church. • • 105 • Fig. 17. "::ln Dyck. '.:I.'Tt-P()/'tr,-ur, 8.1635, LC1ndon, Brit;isb Musetlm • • j OEi • Fig. 18. Van Dyck, NiT',·lT"fn ,H/":} /11'7nJ.,ja, 162A--?,!1, Baltjr{Jore, 11{useum of Fine Arts . • • 107 • Fig. 19. Aftel' Van Dyck, f.lrrllrt;};l <~n,! 1'1 If:' U.T6'f'P'T'1t:! Nrru:i!,'!o, r.. 1627 -28, Los Ange 1 es C:ounty Museum of Art . • • 108 • :(.,'1 ï, ,..Jl ' ,,~ " Fjg. 20. Van Dyck, Rl~al~o and ArmlJd, 1632, London, • National Gallery, • 109 • Fig. 21. Titian J D,7IC/'!·,.1 and P,'o'(.,ml.:' l,IV!' (de'tail), 1.515-16, • Rome, Galleria Borghese . • • Fig. 22. Tjtian, l'hp WOI'·,:,'/'I7(.) 01" Ve'1I1L, (dp-tf.dl), 1!"i]R, Madrid, Prado. • • 111 .< ( , , .. ,/ • "",...... ,~, -1 Il' ~ P: ~~:1 . Van Dyck (;:::tfl-,er Titlan), N,l/'., "/l,} I/~>TIU', ,-!, rJl'nd tlt l, Rr'i t i:-:;h MU;,8Illll . • • '. .(, -, I~ \. , \ ' , \ \, 1 !-l .'.',', ')' i) , 1 1 1 1 ",1 .1 \ fT 115 • 24. Roman, / Il'!YlIll(ITI ::dl" ,l!,hd,/U_, (IJI~t,-!11), ~î l' dl' t' t li .1 l t' ," A D. , Rome, C,'lsino Rospigliosi. • Fig . 25. Roman, Illdol'I",3rt'.!UIJ {det.al1 ), 1 f":t" CC--:r! t .. u r .ï • A. D., Rome, VatiGan Llbrary • 113 • Fig. 26 Veronese, Ducal Pa 1 ace . • • 114 • Fig. 27. Honthol'st, 11(/(/11n ,mil Vrdrl'~' lfi~!.I1, Londnn, IlfllIlLof,cJ/) Court., . • • 115 • FIg. 213. Honthorst, 111)011(1 rH/,1 D,ana. (detail), 1628, London, Hampton Court . • • 116 • Fig. 29. Honthorst, Apollo iiWr.( [)JëHla (detail), 1628, • London, Hampton Court.