Cover Page The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/20937 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation. Author: Sun, Jing Title: The illusion of verisimilitude : Johan Nieuhof’s images of China Issue Date: 2013-06-06 131 Chapter 4 The Representation of China Based on the Direct Observation 4.1 An interpretation of the term “na het leven” according to the pictorial conventions of the seventeenth century Before we investigate how Nieuhof produced his “Chinese” drawings, it is necessary to consider the artistic conventions and principles he followed. Because Nieuhof claimed that his drawings or sketches of China were produced from life, a claim used by his brother Hendrik and the publisher Van Meurs as a unique selling point for Het Gezantschap, we first should consider the concept of “na het leven” within the context of the Dutch pictorial conventions in the seventeenth century. The term “na het leven” was first used in the important treatise on the art of painting, Het Schilderboeck (Book on picturing) which was published in Haarlem in 1604. Its author, Karel van Mander (1548–1606), offered “the first fully formed theory of Netherlandish painting, drawing, and printmaking.”193 This treatise discusses many important issues including the landscape as a subject for artists.194 Van Mander argues that young artists should go into the countryside to study and extract the essence of nature and to record it in drawings that they can subsequently translate into paint upon their return to the studio. He does not advise artists to represent the landscape just as they see it; the aim of the landscape images is rather to 193 Chris Murray, Key Writers on Art (London: Routledge, 2003), 77. 194 On the discussion of Van Mander’s theory of art, see Wolfgang Stechow, Northern Renaissance Art 1400–1600: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 57–67; also see Walter S. Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel van Mander’s Schieder-boeck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 12, 97–98. Also see Murray, Key Writers on Art, 77–80. 132 Chapter 4 create the illusion of verisimilitude.195 Therefore, two points need to be addressed here: the idea that the representation of landscapes should be rooted in the study of reality; and the notion that the artist should aim to render nature as it is shown in the eyes of the observer. In respect to the modern study of Van Mander’s theory, David Adrian Freedberg claims that “the phrase naer het leven implies that the work gives the impression of being lifelike and that natural phenomena are depicted as drawn from life.”196 When the twentieth-century concept of “photographic realism” was projected back on Dutch painting of the seventeenth century, it was believed that the old masters had portrayed the visible world as if they had seen it through a camera lens.197 Svetlana Alpers has argued that in the seventeenth century the Dutch paintings were considered a replacement of the eyes; the painter supposedly suppressed his personality when depicting nature, thereby allowing for its objective representation.198 But according to Freedberg, a Dutch landscape painting did not have to represent accurate views, but to provide plausible, harmonious and agreeable scenes.199 Therefore, in traditional landscape painting, nature has been reformed by the Dutch painters’ imagination, either by “conjuring up lunar remoteness as in Hercules Segers’s fantasy landscapes or simply by rerouting a river or 195 Kristina Hartzer Nguyen, The Made Landscape: City and Country in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Prints (Cambridge: Harvard University Art Museums, 1992), 9. 196 David Adrian Freedberg, Dutch Landscape Prints of the Seventeenth Century (London: British Museum Publications, 1980), 11. 197 On realism in seventeenth-century Dutch painting, see Edwin Buijsen, “Tussen Fantasie en Werkelijkheid: 17de Eeuwse Hollandse Landschapschilderkunst” (The Hague: Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal, 1993), 45–52. Also see Bernard S. Myers and Trewin Copplestone, The History of Art: Architecture, Painting, Sculpture, (Feltham: Viscount, 1985), 696. 198 Svetlana Alpers, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century (London: John Murray, 1983). 40. 199 Ibid., 10. The Representation of China Based on the Direct Observation 133 relocating a church spire as in the background of a country scene by Jan van Goyen or Salomon van Ruysdael.”200 In a catalogue of seventeenth-century landscape painting, Bob Haak claims that the realism in Dutch painting of the Golden Age is relative.201 He argues that even though domestic scenes give the impression of having been drawn directly from daily life, the domestic iconography holds a deeper, moralizing meaning. Edwin Buijsen, on the other hand, studies landscapes through an investigation of fantasy and reality in seventeenth-century Dutch pictures. On the basis of Van Mander’s practical suggestions, he argues that it is clear that a good landscape painting must be carefully composed from elements derived from reality and executed with some degree of naturalness, but that the final result must more than surpass reality. Transcending nature was the artist’s greatest objective.202 The disparate elements may not have been discovered in one single location, and some of them may be recognized as certain well-known landmarks from altogether different places.203 The phrase keurlijke natuerlijckheyt (selective naturalism) proposed by Samuel van Hoogstraten probably explains the effect of editing and reforming nature. In his discussion of landscape, this painter gives the following opinion: “Every day we see a thousand unusual and pretty things in the pleasant part of Nature; but one should always turn one’s regard to the most beautiful; and if I had my own way I would turn quite a number of landscape painters away from the all too common and bad 200 Peter C. Sutton and Albert Blankert, Masters of 17th-century Dutch Landscape Painting (London: Herbert, 1987), 1. 201 Buijsen, “Tussen Fantasie en Werkelijkheid: 17de Eeuwse Hollandse Landschapschilderkunst,” 47–48. 202 Ibid., 48. 203 Freedberg, Dutch Landscape Prints of the Seventeenth Century, 10. 134 Chapter 4 choices they make.”204 That is to say, nature should not be represented as it is, but rather, the most beautiful aspects should be selected. In other words, the essence of seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting is that the elements are selected from reality and composed on the basis of “judgement” (oordeel) into “a harmonious and natural-looking entity.” Here, “judgement” means nothing less than interpreting and improving what the painter observes.205 For instance, Pieter Brueghel the Elder crossed the Alps during his visit to Italy in 1550–52 and made many drawings from life. After having returned to his homeland, he assimilated and combined the elements taken from reality and other elements from his own imagination. In so doing, he gave a decisive impetus to the Flemish landscape painting. Many Dutch landscape painters followed this style, Aelbert Cuyp among them. He had travelled up the Rhine as far as Nijmegen and Cleves around 1651–52 and recorded various sights in a sketchbook. Later he used a number of his drawings as working material for his paintings, in which topographical accuracy is usually subordinated to the serene atmosphere of the landscape. Therefore, Buijsen concludes that the majority of Dutch landscape painters composed their paintings “from the imagination” (uyt den gheest) after “drawing from life” (couterfeyten naer het leven) in the open air. Therefore, there are primarily two essential characteristics of the seventeenth-century interpretation of “from life” in the common sense: first, the depictions have to be made on the basis of direct observation; and second, the artists can add imaginary elements or select and compose the elements for a “harmonious and natural-looking entity.” In fact, these two 204 Cited in Freedberg, Dutch Landscape Prints of the Seventeenth Century, 10. 205 Ibid., 48. The Representation of China Based on the Direct Observation 135 characteristics invite us to study the drawings in Nieuhof’s Paris manuscript and the engravings in the printed book, and to investigate how they were produced with the aim of following the convention of “na het leven”. Let us now see how these two characteristics are reflected in the preliminary composition in pencil and chalk, and the later refinement in pen and watercolour of the Paris manuscript. As Nieuhof was not a professional or very skilful draftsman, he probably first copied the design from the original sketches he had made on the spot in pencil and chalk, but as discussed above these original sketches were very rough and he needed to further refine them with pen and ink and watercolour. This may well be the reason why depictions in pen sometimes have different intentions from the depictions in pencil and chalk. If this is the case, the drawings with obvious and detailed depictions in pencil and chalk could be based on direct observation, because they follow closely the sketches made by Nieuhof on site. In this sense, they should represent direct observations and therefore offer a trustworthy representation of China. In the following section, I examine this assumption by selecting some drawings with obvious and detailed depictions in pencil and chalk and then check their specificity and credibility. 4.2 The representation of China based on direct observation Obvious and detailed depictions in pencil and chalk are often discernable