february 2020 february NEW RESEARCH ON ART AND ITS HISTORY FEBRUARY 2020 the burlington magazine no. 1403 vol. 162 vol. 1403 no. Northern European art Van Gogh’s Oslo self-portrait | A rediscovered bust by Niclaus Gerhaert | Winckelmann and England Pieter de Hooch in Delft | Van Dyck in Munich | Tony Garnier in Lyon | Nam June Paik in London COVER_FEB20.indd 2 20/01/2020 20:17 Exhibitions conservation service (on materials grandfather clock with a ship 17. Stranded whale they also adapted ‘fluitschips’, their and technique). This sturdy volume automaton have been thoughtfully near Beverwyck, reliable transport ships for the Baltic 1 by Jan Jansson will sit prominently on the Van Dyck installed. The exhibition provides after Jan Pietersz trade, so that these vessels could hunt shelf and be frequently consulted in insights into the history and Saenredam. 1618. whales in the Arctic. Merchants sent the future. character of Dutch whaling and the Engraving, 38.6 by 58.6 cm. (New these modified whaling ships to the 1 Catalogue: Van Dyck: Gemälde von opportunities it provided for artists Bedford Whaling spawning and feeding grounds that the Anthonis van Dyck. Edited by Mirjam to demonstrate their creativity, Museum). Dutch had discovered at Spitsbergen Neumeister with contributions by Eva Ortner, Jan Schmidt and Julia Thoma. issues that were explored further Island (known today as Svalbard) and 420 pp. incl. 400 col. ills. (Alte Pinakothek in an accompanying symposium.2 Jan Mayen Island, recognisable by its and Hirmer Verlag, Munich, 2019), €39.90. ISBN 978–3–7774–3336–3. The paintings vary in quality, towering volcano, Beerenberg. The from masterpieces such as Ludolf Dutch pursued a ‘shore-based’ method Backhuyzen’s Whaling in the Polar Sea of whaling, which they learned from (Fig.18) to provincial, yet energetic, French and Spanish Basques who also De Wind is Op!: Climate, Culture works by minor Dutch and Flemish whaled in this area. In the shallow and Innovation in Dutch artists. Despite that unevenness, one waters off these islands they would Maritime Painting senses the abiding pride of the Dutch harpoon and kill bowhead whales. New Bedford Whaling Museum in their prowess for hunting whales Bowhead whales float after death, 2nd July 2019–1st May in the Arctic’s frigid waters. which allowed seamen to flense them The impact of climate change (cut the blubber from the carcass) in by arthur k. wheelock jr on Dutch whaling is an important their small whaling boats. Seamen leitmotif in this exhibition. The would then transport strips of blubber Filled with paintings and prints ‘Little Ice Age’ is often discussed to shore for butchering and rendering that depict Dutch whaling in the in the context of skating scenes by into oil in furnaces (tryworks). This seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Hendrick Avercamp (1585–1634), but type of whaling with fluitschips is this engaging and informative it also affected the character of Dutch seen in one of the largest and most exhibition, curated by Christina whaling in the seventeenth century. dramatic of the paintings in the Connett Brophy and Roger Mandel, The harsh cold that froze rivers exhibition, Amsterdam whaleships at is drawn almost exclusively from and canals changed ocean currents, Jan Mayen, attributed to Bonaventua works in the New Bedford Whaling which impacted trade routes to Peeters (1614–52), where smoke rises Museum’s permanent collection. Asia and America. The Dutch were on the beach from trywork fires. In Over twenty paintings, including particularly innovative in coping the painting’s foreground, a capsized pen paintings, maps, pen-and-wash with these climate challenges. They boat, with seamen climbing on its drawings, Delft tiles, ships’ furniture not only built sledges to transport overturned hull to save themselves, and a remarkable eighteenth-century goods across frozen inland waterways, emphasises the treacherous nature of this battle between man and the whales they hunted. At Jan Mayen Island, casks of processed oil would be stored in tents or sheds until whaling vessels returned to Amsterdam or other Dutch harbours. Whale oil was in great demand for lamps since it burned bright and clear. In 1614, in an attempt to market whale products and to keep the price of oil artificially high throughout Europe, a group of cities formed a Dutch whaling cartel, the Noordsche Compagnie (Northern Company). The cartel, however, had only limited success, as independent merchants also sent whaling ships to the Arctic. The growth of the whaling industry was considerable: by 1670 almost 150 Dutch whaling ships were active in Arctic waters. The ‘shore-based’ approach to whaling at Jan Mayen Island proved unsustainable, in part because Basque marauders destroyed the 150 the burlington magazine | 162 | february 2020 EXHIBITIONS_FEB20.indd 150 20/01/2020 19:47 Exhibitions Dutch processing facility there in 18. Whaling near ice flows populated by polar whaleboat nearby flense a whale so 1631, and in part because of climate in the Polar bears. The captain of the large that its blubber could be processed Sea, by Ludolf change. Extreme cold caused shallow Backhuyzen. vessel at the right, De Vergulde Walvis into whale oil. Once the blubber had harbours to freeze, but whales also c.1700. Oil on (The Golden Whale), identifiable by been rendered into oil, the oil would began to migrate to Greenland canvas, 96.5 by 122 cm. (New the carved and brightly painted be stored on board until De Vergulde because the cold affected ocean Bedford Whaling whale on its stern board, probably Walvis returned to the Netherlands. currents. In the whaling grounds Museum). commissioned this painting. The Few artists actually sailed to off Greenland the entire process of Dutch whaling flag, a right whale the Arctic with whaling vessels and rendering blubber into oil had to superimposed upon the white band many paintings depicting Dutch ships be done on ship, which induced the of the Netherlands tricolor, flies from navigating raging Arctic seas and Dutch to modify the designs of their her taffrail. Backhuyzen, who sailed battling enormous whales are largely whaling vessels. They constructed in the North Sea to study wind, waves fanciful. The names of those who broad, arched-stern whaling ships, and light, carefully studied whaling commissioned these works are rarely called bootschips, that were more vessels in Amsterdam’s harbour known, although dramatic images of capacious and stable, and better and accurately painted the vessel as whaling in inhospitable realms would suited for whaling than the fluitschips. well as the activities of open-water have appealed to those connected to Backhuyzen’s painting features whaling. In the centre foreground, he the whaling industry. To place these a Dutch fleet consisting entirely of depicted seamen in a small whaleboat imaginative visions of Dutch whaling bootschips engaged in open-water harpooning a thrashing bowhead in context, the exhibition opens by whaling off the coast of Greenland, whale, while seamen in another presenting late sixteenth-century the burlington magazine | 162 | february 2020 151 EXHIBITIONS_FEB20.indd 151 20/01/2020 19:48 Exhibitions paintings and prints that depict The Mayor and the Architect and photographs, it underlines the 19. The cattle terrifying storms and whales, images Archives Municipales de Lyon creative urban context within which market at La Mouche, that allude to man’s deep-seated fears 16th October 2019–21st March Garnier worked. And by being in Lyon, Lyon, by Tony of the sea. In a print after Marten de it allows the visitor to seek out the Garnier. 1928. Photograph, 13 by by andrew saint reality and the present condition of Vos (1584–85), for example, Jonah is 18 cm. (Archives cast from a floundering ship before much that is on display. The upshot is municipales de being swallowed by a gaping whale, The mayor featured in this exhibition’s sometimes rewarding, sometimes not. Lyon). whereas in an engraving by Theodoor title is the charismatic Edouard Garnier’s reputation will always Galle (c.1600) a wrecked ship Herriot, who ran the city of Lyon like rest on his utopian cité industrielle flounders in a turbulent sea filled a fiefdom from 1905 until his death in (Fig.20). The son of a Lyon textile with enormous, threatening whales. 1957. The architect and the show’s hero designer and amateur painter, he Some of the mysteries is Tony Garnier (1869–1948). Garnier studied architecture in the local art surrounding deep-sea mammals were – not to be confused with the designer school before transferring to the Ecole dissipated in the early seventeenth of the Paris Opéra, Charles Garnier des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1890, where century when a few sperm whales (1825–98) – hogs the limelight in the he mastered the prevailing blend of washed ashore in the Netherlands, roll-call of Lyon’s twentieth-century classicism, clear planning and modern one near Beverwyck in 1601 and architecture. He spent his whole adult construction. In due course he was another near Katwijk in 1617. Painted career in the city, and so one must sent to Rome. From there, alongside and printed images of these events go to Lyon to get a material flavour dutiful reconstructions of antique sites, reveal the fascination that these of his work, a fine town hall in the he shocked the Beaux-Arts authorities beached whales had on all social levels Paris suburb of Boulogne-Billancourt in 1901 by sending home an elaborate of the populace: huge crowds came to apart. Architectural exhibitions, design for an ideal industrial city. It was gawk, while scientists measured and of course, are always bedevilled by failed, provoking a row that brought conducted scientific experiments, abstraction because it is impossible him to public attention.