Masters of Darkness

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Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Volume OM Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Picture Editor Every effort has been made by the publisher to is published with generous support from the Rikard Nordström credit organizations and individuals with regard Friends of the Nationalmuseum. to the supply of photographs. Please notify the Photo Credits publisher regarding corrections. The Nationalmuseum collaborates with © Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig Svenska Dagbladet, Fältman & Malmén (p. NQ ) Graphic Design and Grand Hôtel Stockholm. © The Gothenburg Museum of Art/Hossein BIGG Sehatlou (p. NU ) Items in the Acquisitions section are listed © Malmö Art Museum/Andreas Rasmusson Layout alphabetically by artists’ names, except in the case (p. OO ) Agneta Bervokk of applied arts items, which are listed in order of © Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York (p. OV ) their inventory numbers. Measurements are in © RMN Grand Palais/Musée du , Translation and Language Editing centimetres – Height H, Breadth B, Depth D, Paris/Hervé Lewandowski (p. PMF Gabriella Berggren and Martin Naylor. Length L, Width W, and Diameter Diam. © The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles – except for those of drawings and prints, which (Fig. QI p. PN ) Publications are given in millimetres. © RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Ingrid Lindell (Publications Manager), Paris/René-Gabriel Ojéda (Fig. RI p. PN ) Janna Herder (Editor). Cover Illustration © Guilhem Scherf (p. PO ) Alexander Roslin ( NTNU ÓNTVP ), The Artist and his © Bridgeman/Institute of Arts, Detroit (p. PP ) Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum is published Wife Marie Suzanne Giroust Portraying Henrik © Musée des Arts décoratifs, Paris/Jean Tholance annually and contains articles on the history Wilhelm Peill, NTST . Oil on canvas, NPN ñ VUKR cm. (p. PQ ) and theory of art relating to the collections of Donated by the Friends of the Nationalmuseum, © RMN Grand Palais/Musée du Louvre, Paris the Nationalmuseum. Sophia Giesecke Fund, Axel Hirsch Fund (p. PR ) and Mr Stefan Persson and Mrs Denise Persson. © Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Nationalmuseum Nationalmuseum, åã TNQNK /Mauro Coen (Figs, SI NM and NO , Box NSNTS pp. NNQ ÓNNS ) ëÉ ÓNMP OQ Stockholm, Sweden Publisher © Mikael Traung (Fig. T, p. NNQ ) www.nationalmuseum.se Magdalena Gram © Stockholm City Museum (p. NOP ) © Nationalmuseum and the authors http://www.stockholmskallan.se/Soksida/Post/?n Editor id=319 ISSN OMMNJVOPU Janna Herder © Stockholm City Museum/Lennart af Petersens (p. NOQ ) Editorial Committee © http://www.genealogi.se/component/ Mikael Ahlund, Magdalena Gram, Janna Herder, mtree/soedermanland/eskilstuna/ Helena Kåberg and Magnus Olausson. a_zetherstroem_/22850?Itemid=604 (p. NOR ) © http://www.genealogi.se/component/ Photographs mtree/bohuslaen/marstrand/robert-dahlloefs- Natinalmuseum Photographic Studio/Linn atelier/22851?Itemid=604 (p. NOT ) Ahlgren, Erik Cornelius, Anna Danielsson, Cecilia Heisser, Bodil Karlsson, Per-Åke Persson, Sofia Persson and Hans Thorwid. ÉñÜáÄáíáçåëLã~ëíÉêë çÑ Ç~êâåÉëë

Masters of Darkness

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Fig. N Interior from the exhibition Masters of Darkness.

få ÅçåàìåÅíáçå with the major retro - As the name indicates, the source of inspi - include no paintings by the master’s own spective dedicated to Swedish photographer ration for those European artists of differ - hand, they contain a wide range of excel - Hans Gedda at the Royal Academy of Fine ent nationalities loosely referred to as Car - lent works by his followers, many of which Arts in the winter of OMNPLOMNQ (see article avaggisti, was the art of the Lombard mas - have been exhibited only rarely. At the on p. NMN ), the Nationalmuseum also pre - ter Michelangelo Merisi da same time, the display can be seen as part sented a small-scale exhibition of paintings (NRTN ÓNSNM ). The pictorial world of this of an ongoing search for new ways of pre - by artists of the NT th-century international artistic movement was examined through a senting the permanent collections in the Caravaggist movement, as a historical coun - selection of OV paintings from the Muse - refurbished museum building due to open terpoint to Gedda’s contemporary imagery. um’s permanent collections. While these in OMNT . These have traditionally been ex -

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beam of light from a specific source, and accentuated that makes the whole seem vital and alive. Naturalism and fantasy are in constant tension, lending the images a special charge. In Rome until NSMS – the date of his exile from the Papal States after committing a murder – he exe - cuted a series of public and private works that would change the course of European painting. The echo of Caravaggio’s revolution in painting spread widely early on. In NSMP , the Dutch art critic Karel van Mander wrote about the artist, lauding his powerful naturalism. Following his flight from Rome, and even more after his death in NSNM , an increasing number of painters adopted his manner, taking advantage of market demand for Caravaggesque works. All those aspiring artists who flocked to Rome from the beginning of the NSNM s un - til the end of the NSOM s, the decades that saw the influence of Caravaggio’s natural - ism reach its apex, were determined by the Fig. O Interior from the exhibition Masters of Darkness. master’s innovative way of painting. Many of them left after a period of time and es - tablished strong Caravaggesque traditions elsewhere, for example, in the Dutch city hibited chronologically and strictly accord - artistic capital of Europe. Ecclesiastical and of Utrecht. The exhibition Masters of Dark - ing to national schools, but the exhibition secular patronage on a grand scale attract - ness charted the spread of Caravaggio’s pic - Masters of Darkness took a different ap - ed scores of artists from all over Europe, torial innovations throughout Europe and proach. An innovative pictorial language based on parish censuses, as many as two the creative energies it generated for introduced in European painting around thousand between NSMM and NSPM . Here roughly four decades. Caravaggism encom - NSMM was the common thread running they became witness to a true revolution in passed a great diversity of artists who, with through a series of thematic presentations, painting as the Northern Italian artists Car - their varying artistic temperaments and bringing together works by Italian, Spanish, avaggio and Annibale Carracci trans - cultural backgrounds, explored different French, Dutch and Flemish artists, active in formed Italian art, each in their own man - aspects of the master’s art. Italy and elsewhere in Europe during the ner overturning the entrenched Mannerist By way of transition between the twin first half of the NT th century. style that still dominated official commis - exhibitions Hans Gedda and Masters of Dark - Few artists have had an effect compara - sions. By NSMM , with his first public works ness, ’s “portrait” of an el - ble in scale and depth to that of Caravag - for the Contarelli Chapel in the French na - derly man in the guise of a Classical Poet gio. His arrival in Rome in NRVO coincided tional church of San Luigi dei Francesi, and a Vanitas Still Life by an unknown with the election of Pope Clement VIII, Caravaggio had become a universally ac - Northern European artist displayed on the and the papal city was destined to soon be - claimed master of the contemporary art entrance wall were compared and contrast - come the centre of international Car - scene. He created an expressive new picto - ed in a playful manner with Gedda’s pho - avaggism. If the turmoil of the Reforma - rial language, with naturalistically mod - tographs of similar motifs (Fig. N). In the tion and the growing dominance of the Eu - elled figures depicted from life, a theatrical adjoining spacious gallery the exhibited ropean nation states had diminished the construction of narrative, the action in the works were then subdivided into the political and economic power of the papa - foreground, a dark background to focus at - themes of “Genre Painting”, “Saints and cy by NSMM , Rome was still the unrivalled tention on subjects illuminated by a strong Martyrs”, “Biblical Stories”, “Still Life Paint -

Art Bulletin of Nationalmuseum Stockholm Volume OM OMNP NMS ÉñÜáÄáíáçåëLã~ëíÉêë çÑ Ç~êâåÉëë ing” and the “History of Antiquity” (Fig. O), allowing us to witness the dissemination of new subjects and the transformation of older imagery under the master’s influ - ence. Large-format wall texts helped to phrase the hanging, as did the dramatic ef - fect of both the exhibition design and the complex lighting of the individual paint - ings. Texts on all works, audiovisuals, and films, made for an in-depth presentation of this part of the collections. The opening section featured paintings with genre motifs, reflecting in various ways a new type of gallery pictures introduced by Caravaggio and developed by and others (Fig. PF . Few Car - avaggisti succeeded in securing public com - missions on the competitive Roman stage, and many specialised instead in paintings for display in the private art galleries of a powerful new breed of collectors, bankers, princes, and cardinals. Inspired by the stock characters of contemporary popular theatre and picaresque novels, tavern scenes with half-length protagonists en - gaged in drinking and card-playing, amorous affairs, music-making, pick-pock - eting and fortune-telling, found a special resonance with Netherlandish and French artists, as exemplified by Nicolas Régnier’s Sleeper Awakened by a Young Woman with Fire and ’s companion pieces Girl Holding a Glass and Man Playing the Lute. While warning against overindul - gence in sensual pleasures, such images would have been seen by sophisticated NT th-century viewers as intensely humorous entertainment. Like ’s The Flower Vendor, based on a poem by Dutch author Jacob Cats ( NRTT ÓNSSM ), these pictures re - flect the period’s prejudice against, and fas - cination with, an underworld of socially marginalised groups that included Romani as well as mercenaries, prostitutes, card- sharps and petty thieves. Another section of the exhibition was devoted to the new genre of still-life painting in Caravaggio’s spirit, as interpreted by Roman and Fig. P and Q Interiors from the exhibition Masters of Darkness. Neapolitan still-life specialists such as Pietro Paolo Bonzi and Giovanni Battista Recco.

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films, and video art. To further demon - strate these links a short film was shown as part of the exhibition, featuring excerpts from a OMMR BBC interview with the Italian- American film director Martin Scorsese discussing Caravaggio’s influence on his own filmmaking. In connection with the twin exhibitions Hans Gedda and Masters of Darkness, the Nationalmuseum also pro - duced an app containing images of a selec - tion of exhibited artworks with accompany - ing texts, made available free of charge as a download from the Nationalmuseum’s website, Google Play and iTunes.

Exhibition curators Magnus Olausson and Carina Fryklund Exhibition design Henrik Widenheim and Joachim E. Werning Lighting design Jan Gouiedo Fig. R (Francesco Boneri), The Penitent Mary Magdalene. Graphic design Oil on canvas, VV ñ NPR cm. Nationalmuseum, åã NOK Agneta Bervokk Conservation Lena Dahlén and Britta Nilsson One of Caravaggio’s principal aims was to part of the exhibition. A version of the sto - App reform contemporary religious art, to give ry of Judith and Holofernes by Antiveduto Audioapps it a new spiritual depth through the use of Gramatica, another early follower, formed Films an efficient new pictorial language defined a transition to a section of the exhibition Fredrik Eriksson/Le Studio by clarity and piety, one that corresponded devoted to multi-figure history paintings Exhibition coordinator to the spirit of Tridentine reforms. One on biblical themes. In addition to Matthias Anne Dahlström long gallery wall presented examples of Stom’s splendid altarpiece of The Adoration Education officer Caravaggesque Counter-Reformation im - of the Magi, the display featured half-length Jeanette Rangner Jacobsson agery, focusing on individual saints and gallery pictures by Flemish and Dutch martyrs as role models for the Catholic artists not known to have visited Italy, in - faithful. Displayed at the centre of the wall, cluding Jacob Jordaens, Lambert Jacobsz., Francisco de Zurbarán’s iconic image of and Pieter Claesz. Soutman. Finally, as a re - Christ, The Veil of St Veronica, was flanked by minder that some of Caravaggio’s closest the Spaniard ’s two large followers in fact operated in a highly plu - altarpieces, St Paul the Hermit and The Mar - ralistic Roman context that presented tyrdom of St Bartholomew (Fig. QF , and by a se - them with multi-faceted artistic options, ries of half-length private devotional im - the exhibition concluded with a work in ages of penitential saints by, among others, the idealising classicist tradition represent - Cecco del Caravaggio and Francisco Col - ed by the Carracci, Queen Artemisia of Caria lantes. An apprentice and companion of Building the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus by a Caravaggio’s, the mysterious Cecco has re - former Caravaggist, the Frenchman Simon cently been identified as the painter Vouet. Francesco Boneri. A short film about the Today’s visual culture contains wide - recent restoration of his masterpiece The spread echoes of Caravaggist imagery in Penitent Magdalene (Fig. R) was shown as various media, especially photography,

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