Vanitas: Mortality and Morality in 17Th Century Dutch Painting

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Vanitas: Mortality and Morality in 17Th Century Dutch Painting

Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2021 Love, sex and death: The constant companions of art Vanitas: mortality and morality in 17th-century Dutch painting Dr Georgina Cole 17-18 February 2021 Lecture summary: Vanitas, or the emptiness of luxury and worldly pleasure, is a key theme in seventeenth-century Dutch art. This lecture looks at manifestations of vanitas symbolism in still lifes, genre paintings and portraits and explores its connection to prints and popular culture. Through close investigation of select artworks, the imagery of transience will be linked to the religious context of the Dutch Republic and anxieties about material wealth. Finally, we will address vanitas as an artistic exploration of the theme of time. Slide list 1. Rachel Ruysch, Flowers in a vase, 1700, oil on canvas, 79.5 x 60.2 cm, Mauritshuis 2. Bartholomaus Bruyn I, Skull in a niche, first half of the 16th century, oil on canvas, 37 x 30 cm, Hermitage State Museum, St Petersburg 3. Unidentified artist, Portrait of a man in a red cap, c1480, oil on panel, 29.5 × 21.6 cm, Art Institute of Chicago 4. Jacques de Gheyn II, Vanitas Still Life, 1603, oil on panel, 82.6 x 54 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 5. Jan Jansz. Treck, Vanitas still life, 1648, oil on oak, 90.5 x 78.4 cm, National Gallery, London 6. Frans Van Mieris, Boy Blowing Bubbles, 1663, oil on panel, 25.5 x 19 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague 7. Hendrik Goltzius, Quis Evadet?, 1594, engraving, 21 x 15.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art 8. “Every flower loses its scent”, Jacob Cats, Spiegel van den ouden ende nieuvven tijdt (1632) 9. Godfried Schalcken, Old Woman Scouring a Pot, 1660s, oil on panel, 28.5 x 22.8 cm, National Gallery, London 10. David Bailly, Vanitas still life with a self-portrait, 1651, oil on panel, 89.5 x 122 cm, Museum de Lakenhal 11. Frans Hals, The Lute Player, 1623, oil on canvas, 70 x 62 cm, Musée du Louvre References: Alpers, Svetlana. The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2003. Brusati, Celeste. ‘Stilled lives: self-portraiture and self-reflection in seventeenth-century Netherlandish still- life painting’. Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 20, no. 2/3 (1990-91): 168-182. Grootenboer, Hanneke. The Rhetoric of Perspective: Realism and Illusionism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Still-Life Painting. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Honig, Elizabeth Ann. ‘Making sense of things: on the motives of still life’. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 34 (1998): 166-183. Jongh, Eddy de. Questions of Meaning: Theme and Motif in Dutch Seventeenth-Century Painting. Translated by Michael Hoyle. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2000. Proudly sponsored by: .

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REPRODUCTION in the Summer of 1695, Johann Wilhelm, Elector
CHAPTER EIGHT REPRODUCTION In the summer of 1695, Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, visited Frederik Ruysch’s museum, where he undoubtedly saw paintings by Ruysch’s daughters, particularly those done by Rachel. At this time Rachel had just given birth to her first child, but motherhood had not prevented her from continuing her career as a painter. Her sister Anna had given up painting when she married, but Rachel had carried on, and could meanwhile demand high prices for her flower still lifes. In 1699 her success was formally recognized when she became the first woman elected to membership in Pictura, the painters’ confraternity in The Hague. In 1656 the Hague painters had withdrawn from the Guild of St Luke, having been prompted to do so by ‘arrogance’, according to their former guild-brothers, who included the house-painters and decora- tors. The new society was limited to ‘artist-painters’, sculptors, engrav- ers and a few art lovers. According to the new confraternity’s rules and regulations, the guildhall was to be decorated with the members’ own paintings. On 4 June 1701, the painter Jurriaan Pool presented the confraternity with a flower piece by his wife, Rachel Ruysch. Painters often gave a work on loan, but this painting was donated to Pictura, and a subsequent inventory of its possessions listed ‘an especially fine flower painting by Miss Rachel Ruysch’.1 Rachel Many of Rachel Ruysch’s clients were wealthy. The high prices she charged them enabled her to concentrate on only a few pieces a year, each of which took several months to complete.
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