246 BOEKBESPREKING Jacob Van Campen, Schilder En Bouwmeester

BOEKBESPREKING for a forecourt. He also, to an extent that is hard to define, designed architecture for these patrons, and he must have served them much as Daniel Marot served their successors Jacob van Campen, schilder en bouwmeester 1595-1657. two generations later-designing and directing the execu- By P. T. A. Swillens. 302 pp. (19 figs.) Assen. tion of complex schemes of decoration and able to turn his hand to architecture as well. It was through his know- Ten years after Hendrik de Keyser's death in 1621 his ledge of architecture, however, that he first came to work colleague in the City Works of Amsterdam, the chief master for the Stadholder's circle (the Mauritshuis and Huygens' mason Cornelis Danckerts, published the first monograph house were mentioned by Anslo as early as 1648 as bearing on a Dutch architect, his Architectura moderna. Not all De witness to his architectural skill) and Huygens' resounding Keyser's works are included, but the picture that it gives and repeated praise was almost exclusively for his architec- is balanced, and it perceptively lays stress, even in its title, tural achievements: he was the 'vindicator of Vitruvius'. on a change in Dutch architecture which was heralded in it was he who 'admonished Gothic curly foolery with the De Keyser's works. The Haarlem painter and architect stately Roman, and drove old Heresy away before older Salomon de Bray wrote in the introduction: 'Our present Truth'. flourishing age, in which we see the true [i.e. Roman] Within three years of his first contact with the Stad- architecture as resurrected, gives the same to us so libe- holder's circle Van Campen was working for the city rally... that it may be hoped that Architecture ... will government of Amsterdam, for whom he built a city gate, arrive at its highest level once again'. De Bray, a generation the city's first theatre, and finally the Town Hall, now younger than De Keyser, had himself contributed to this Palace, which is one of Holland's most splendid seven- resurrection in the design of 1629 for Warmond Castle teenth-century monuments, determining the forms not which Saenredam copied, and he must have known his only of its architecture but also of its painted and sculp- contemporary Jacob van Campen, at that time also living tured decoration. He also built at least two houses for in Haarlem, whose house for Balthazar Coymans of 1625 private patrons in addition to that of Coymans, built is illustrated in Danckerts' work. Significantly the plan of or was concerned with the building of a number of chur- this house is given while no plan of a house by De Keyser is ches, and, again for Amsterdam, designed a vast church shown. In spite of an uneven site and old walls which were tower. He designed organ-cases, pews, a pulpit, and the used in the new building both its free fa?ades were given tombs of national heroes. He could devise a neat piece of a classically-designed arrangement of salients and openings city planning. He executed many paintings, including parts new in Dutch domestic architecture, and it seems as though of the decorative schemes which he designed, and as a pain- this revolutionary step towards three-dimensional unity ter-though his work as such was not outstanding-he had (made possible by the unprecedented measure of placing the a number of pupils. As an architect he apparently had none ridged roofs of the underlying Gothic structure parallel though Post and others made drawings for him; yet if we with the street frontage) has been recognised. are believe Huygens it was Van Campen who brought De Keyser worked mainly for Amsterdam, as the city's renaissance architecture, in the true sense of the term, to first architect (as opposed to master builder) but his train- Holland and he clearly had great influence. The buildings ing under his craftsman father and Cornelis Bloemaert with which he was connected seem to support Huygens' must have been traditional. Van Campen did not belong to claim, though other architects and Huygens himself had a the builders' profession as it then was practised in the share in the achievement. It was certainly he who married Netherlands, but, as a young painter, became interested in the new architecture to the Rubensian baroque, in the architecture in Italy. From 1634 he was employed by first instance in collaboration with Huygens, at a time when amateurs at the Stadholder's court whose tastes were not classical forms and baroque imagery were put to use in bound by Dutch tradition-Prince Frederik Hendrik and Dutch literature by members of a circle to which Huygens Amalia van Solms, Prince Johan Maurits and Constantijn belonged and with which Van Campen himself had dealings. Huygens-as a designer of painted and sculptured decora- Except in Huygens' poetry and correspondence the tion, of a garden (though for this, in the instance we know literary documentation of Van Campen's career is never- of, the Stadholder preferred his own design), even of railings theless lamentably scanty. There is no informative bio- 246 graphy written before the 1720s and such early references in the years being dealt with. In the case of Van Campen's as are known are scattered and are hard to piece together. larger works this system is bewildering; the history of the Not one letter by him survives, there are no documented decoration of the Oranjezaal, for instance, is told in six preparatory drawings, and we have no statements by him instalments, and that of the Amsterdam Town Hall (in- about the arts which he practised. These facts, together cluding early plans for the building) in no less than thirteen. with the wide variety of his works and his status in his own The lack of an index in a book so arranged it little short of day as a Dutch architect of a new kind, do much to explain catastrophic and detailed chapter headings do not make why no monograph on him appeared for over three cen- good the deficiency. Since it is the author's stated purpose turies after his death in 1657. Mr. P. T. A. Swillens is very to treat of Van Campen's life and artistieke streven, roughly much to be congratulated on his courage in providing one. te be translated as artistic ideals or aims, rather than to He has succeeded in bringing together a surprisingly large discuss the works in detail this criticism may perhaps ap- amount of information concerning Van Campen and has pear irrelevant. Yet one may wonder whether in view of the patiently built it up to form an almost year-to-year account lack of other documents and of the primary documentary of his career and a catalogue of his paintings and drawings. importance of the works themselves an examination of Van No such figure as Van Campen can be understood with- Campen's works category by category would not have out reference to the events of his time, and Mr. Swillens thrown more light on his artistic purpose. Mr. Swillens gives has done well to cast his net widely. He refers to Van an invaluable time-table, but many of the wider issues are Campen's relations (or possible relations, as in the case hardly raised or are brushed over: one looks in vain, for of Rubens) with his patrons in The Hague and Amsterdam example, for some discussion in concrete terms of Van and with others in the same circles, with fellow artists in- Campen's much spoken of Vitruvianism (for which an cluding pupils, and, most usefully, with other architects; account of Vitruvius is no substitute), of the nature of his here suggested links with Philips Vingboons in the 1630s are decorative schemes, of the break with tradition noticed in particularly interesting. He also provides many particu- his designs for tombs, of his share in the revolution in lars concerning Van Campen's family and its connections. Dutch domestic architecture which took place in the 1630s, Information published earlier by Weissman, Vermeulen, and or of the change that he brought about in the design of the others and in Mr. Swillens' own articles on Van Campen is Dutch protestant church, which was of international con- brought together. Mr. Swillens' earlier list of Van Campen's sequence. drawn and painted works (including lost works) has been It is thus for its formidable array of facts that Mr. furnished with documentation and expanded and there are Swillens' book will be most valued, and as a pointer to a other new discoveries, among them that Van Campen was very wide range of sources-among which, it may be added, consulted by the city authorities of Rotterdam about repairs the revealing account of the Mauritshuis with which Pieter to the tower of St. Lawrence and that he made a design for Post prefaced his drawings of that building is published this, which, however, was not followed. Van Campen's virtually in extenso for the first time. Yet one may get the versatility is brought out very clearly; we see him-in spite impression that Mr. Swillens is sometimes too ready to of the 'inborn slackness' of which he accused himself-re- accept statements made in his sources without further en- sponsible for large and intricate works being carried out quiry, from De Bray's statement of 1631 that the (street) concurrently in different places, and some of the difficulties faqade of Coymans' house was Van Campen's-clearly not which are hinted at may well be explained by this.

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