Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 9, Number 2-3, Summer-Fall 2000

EXHIBITS Gerrit Dou: The Lesson of Rembrandt

f there is a common thread running also reflections of Ithrough the paintings of Gerrit Dou, Vermeer, Hals, it is the sense of a mission: to warn us and the other that the things of this world, no matter masters of the how alluringly beautiful they may be— Dutch school. and he painted them so—are ephemeral. What endures is man’s creativity, ‘The Quack’ expressed through man’s works, espe- The painting cially those of artists and scientists, and which, perhaps through man’s loving effort to share his more than any knowledge with others. other, reflects Thirty-five of Dou’s paintings are on Dou’s individual exhibit until August 6 at the National qualities, is “The Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The Quack” (1652), a show, which brings together works satirical depiction from many private collections and of a medical char- museums around the world, is the third latan hawking his in a series of exhibits mounted in the cures to the museum’s new Dutch Cabinet Galleries, gullible [SEE in- contiguous to the permanent Dutch col- side back cover, lections in the West Wing—thus invit- this issue]. Only a ing immediate comparison to the neigh- few short years boring Vermeers, Halses, Rembrandts, before, Holland and other, less familiar contemporaries. had been swept up in one of the Social Nature of Creativity biggest specula- Although little known to today’s general tive financial bub-

public, Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) was the The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, William Hood Dunwoody Fund bles in history— first pupil of Rembrandt, with whom he “Hermit Praying,” 1670. the great Tulip studied for three years in Leiden, before Bubble, when an the master moved to Amsterdam. In his attribution game really misses the point. exotic bulb from Asia Minor could fetch day, Dou (pronounced “Dow”) was one In any period of intellectual and a higher price than a fine home in Ams- of the most respected and successful artistic ferment, such as the Seven- terdam. Ultimately, the unreality of the painters in Holland. His works were teenth-century renaissance in The financial bubble collapsed down to the sought by the great collectors of his time, Netherlands, a genius like Rem- level of real economic activity, as all such and he was paid handsome sums for brandt—certainly the greatest painter of bubbles must lawfully do. Dou might them. his age—will generate, directly through well have had the tulip mania in mind Dou never reached the level of his workshop, as well as indirectly when creating this painting. genius of his teacher, but his works are through the circulation of his works and “The Quack,” set on the outskirts of a beautiful affirmation of the social copies, expanding circles of artists who Leiden, is filled with comic touches: A nature of creativity. While specialists, assimilate the master’s ideas. Rembrandt matronly housewife listens skeptically, art experts, scholars, and academics taught many students, and his studio as her pocket is picked by a small boy, argue endlessly about the provenance produced many fine painters of the peri- while a second lad laughingly observes. and attribution of Old Master paint- od. Although none ever proved to be a On the quack’s table, beside the elixirs, a ings—for example, some years ago genius of Rembrandt’s rank, their works monkey mimics the gestures of the New York City’s Metropolitan Muse- were good enough in many cases—as “doctor.” Meanwhile, a seated woman, um of Art had an exhibit, “Rem- the continuing attribution debates cooking on an open stove, cleans her brandt/Not Rembrandt,” whose subject attest—to fool the experts into thinking baby’s bottom; her conversation with a was the changing opinions as to which they were by Rembrandt himself. In the young girl distracts her from the trick- paintings were by Rembrandt himself, case of Dou, we see not only the direct ster’s spiel. At the bottom left, a boy and which were by his students—this influence of his teacher Rembrandt, but lures a bird toward him, echoing the

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© 2000 Schiller Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission strictly prohibited. gesture of the quack, while a small dog “Astronomer by in the foreground turns his tail on the Candlelight,” charlatan, sniffing the ground for some- 1665. thing more interesting. Behind the quack, leaning out of a window, is the artist himself, with a through the life bemused smile on his face; he is identi- of the mind, by fied by the palette and paint brushes living in such a held in his left hand. way that what we The many contrasts and juxtaposi- do with our mor- tions in the painting help identify its tal lives will have ironic content: the quack’s useless meaning for pos- employment is contrasted to that of the terity. farmer and hunter, shown with the In many of products of their labors; the wary figure Dou’s works, the of the middle-class matron is set against subject is light, the gullible young women taken in by which is used to the quack. Even the background scenery create what the contributes to the joke: the distant Italians call “chia- church seems to scold the tavern, for roscuro” (contrast providing a setting for such disreputable of light and dark), activity; the flowering tree, high above to give form and the heads of the crowd, is placed in plasticity to his opposition to the desicated tree trunk in figures, to create a the left foreground. All these clues help sense of drama, lead us to the central irony of the paint- and to highlight ing: the conniving deceit of the charla- the ideas in the tan, who uses illusory promises to fleece painting. Look, his victims, juxtaposed to the artist’s for example, at power of illusion, employed to create the “Astronomer and communicate the truth—but, a by Candlelight.” truth which can be discovered only by The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles Here, the astrono- the exercise of the viewer’s cognitive mer is surround- powers. old. A grizzled pilgrim is seated with ed by deep shade, reminding us of a his hands folded around a rosary, as starless night. The only light comes Things Don’t Matter they rest on an open Bible. He is seated from a candle he holds in his right hand, Considered to be the founder of the Lei- among ancient ruins; there is a sugges- which casts a warm glow on his face, den school of fijnschilders (fine painters), tion of Gothic arches, as in a cathedral, and lights a celestial globe and the book Dou so perfected his craft that his paint- however humble. A strong light falls on he is reading. The astronomer’s left ings were often admired for their the Hermit’s head; his eyes are open hand, which rests on top of the globe, painterly qualities and exquisite detail and contemplative, and the traditional also holds a compass, a traditional alone. But, Dou’s meticulous attention vanitas elements—extinguished candle, attribute of both geometry and astrono- to detail was employed to draw the hourglass, and skull—are present to my, and thus helps exemplify the quest viewer’s eye, and then his mind, into the remind us of the ephemeral nature of for knowledge. The hourglass is not painting, so that the idea content could mortal life. As in “The Quack,” there is only an astronomical instrument, but be perceived. Precisely this ironic coun- a desicated tree trunk, lit by the same also, reminds us to make good use of the terposition of the superficial beauty of light source that falls on the Hermit; the time we have. the objects in the painting, to the moral tree leans over the Hermit at an angle Dou’s paintings tell us something lesson of the narrative, tells us: Things that echoes that of a crucifix leaning about ourselves. They gently, and don’t matter in the long run, no matter against the opposite wall. The anomaly often humorously, prod us to be better how lovely and alluring; what matters is of the tree trunk in an interior space, people; to look behind appearances, the use we make of our talents to uplift and its association, however subtle, with and superficiality, in order to see and improve the condition of mankind. the Crucifixion, is a broad hint that things as they really are. In this sense, To see this in another context, look there is more to reality than mere Dou was a true student of his teacher at the “Hermit Praying” (1670), which appearances. It tells us that the Hermit, Rembrandt. Dou executed when he was 57 years like ourselves, can overcome death —Bonnie James

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