Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2006 Gerrit Dou: Seventeenth-Century Artistic Identity and Modes of Self- Referentiality in Self-Portraiture and Scenes of Everyday Life Denise Giannino Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF VISUAL ARTS, THEATRE AND DANCE Gerrit Dou: Seventeenth-Century Artistic Identity and Modes of Self- Referentiality in Self-Portraiture and Scenes of Everyday Life By Denise Giannino A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2006 The members of the Committee approve the thesis of Denise Giannino defended on June 12, 2006. ____________________________________ James J. Bloom Professor Directing Thesis ____________________________________ Paula Gerson Committee Member _____________________________________ Robert Neuman Committee Member Approved: ______________________________________ Paula Gerson, Chair, Department of Art History _______________________________________ Sallie E. McRorie, Dean, College of Visual Arts, Theatre and Dance The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee members: Dr. Bloom, Dr. Neuman and Dr.Gerson for their time and generosity. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to Dr.Bloom for his willingness to work with me long distance. I would also like my friends and family for their continued support. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………………………v Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………………...viii INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………………………….1 1. DOU AND THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT OF LEIDEN: GUILDS, THE MARKET FOR PAINTINGS AND ARTISTIC TRENDS ………………………………………………...11 2. SELF-PORTRAITURE, THE ARTIST IN HIS STUDIO AND GENRE SCENES: MODES OF SELF-REFERENTIALITY ………………………………………………………………...24 3. PERSONA AND IDENTITY ACROSS GENRES: REMBRANDT, JAN STEEN AND SAMUEL VAN HOOGSTRATEN ………………………………………………………….....47 CONCLUSION …………………………………………………………………………………52 APPENDIX: FIGURES ………………………………………………………………………...54 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY ...………………………………………………………………69 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH …………………………………………………………………...79 iv LIST OF FIGURES 1. Gerrit Dou. The Hermit. 1670. oil on panel. 46 x 34.5cm. National Gallery Washington, Timken Collection….……………………………………………………………………………54 2. Gerrit Dou. The Grocery Shop. 1672. oil on panel. 48.8 x 35cm., Royal Collection London..54 3. Gerrit Dou. The Night School. c.1623-65. oil on panel. 53 x 40.3cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam….……………………………………………………………………………………55 4. Gerrit Dou. Woman at a Clavicord. c.1665. oil on panel. 37.7 x 29.8cm. Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London….………………………………………………………………………55 5. Gerrit Dou. Man with a Pipe at a Window. c.1645. oil on panel. 48 x 37cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam……………………………………………………………………………………….56 6. Gerrit Dou. The Violin Player. 1653. oil on panel. 31.7 x 20.3cm. Princely Collections, Vaduz Castle, Liechtenstein..……………………………………………………………………………56 7. Gerrit Dou. The Quack. 1652. oil on panel. 112 x 83cm. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam..……………………………………………………………………………………….57 8. Gerrit Dou. Self-Portrait. c.1645. oil on panel. 12.4 x 8.3cm. private collection, Spain……..57 9. Gerrit Dou. Self-Portrait. 1635-38. oil on panel. 18.3 x 14cm. Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museums…………………………………………………………………………………………58 10. Gerrit Dou. Artist in His Studio (Self-Portrait). 1647. oil on panel. 43 x 34.5 cm. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden.…………………………………….58 11. Gerrit Dou. Self-Portrait. 1663. oil on panel. 54.7 x 39.4cm. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri (Purchase: Nelson Trust)……………………………………………59 12. Gerrit Dou. Self-Portrait. c.1665. oil on panel. 59 x 43.5cm. private collection, Boston.......59 13. Gerrit Dou. The Violin Player (Detail). 1653. oil on panel. 31.7 x 20.3cm. Princely Collections, Vaduz Castle, Liechtenstein………………………………………………………..60 14. Gerrit Dou. Man with a Pipe at a Window (Detail). c.1645. oil on panel. 48 x 37cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam……………………………………………………………………….60 15. Gerrit Dou. The Poultry Shop. 1670. oil on panel. 58 x 46cm. The National Gallery, London…………………………………………………………………………………………...61 16. Gerrit Dou. The Poultry Shop (Detail). 1670. oil on panel. 58 x 46cm. The National Gallery, London…………………………………………………………………………………………...61 v 17. Jan Steen. The Drawing Lesson (Detail). 1665. oil on panel. 49.2 x 41.3cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles…………………………………………………………………………...61 18. Rembrandt van Rijn. Self-Portrait (Detail). 1640. oil on canvas. 102 x 80 cm. The National Gallery, London………………………………………………………………………………….62 19. Gerrit Dou. Artist in His Studio. c.1630-32. oil on panel. 59 x 43.5cm. Colnaghi, London...62 20. Rembrandt van Rijn. Artist in His Studio. c.1627-28. oil on panel. 25 x 32cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Zoe Oliver Collection. Given in Memory of Lillie Oliver Poor)……………63 21. Johannes Vermeer. The Art of Painting. c.1662-68. oil on canvas. 120 x 100cm. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna……………………………………………………………...63 22. Gerrit Dou. Artist in His Studio. 1649. 68.5 x 54cm. Ehemals Wien, Galerie St. Lucas……64 23. Gerrit Dou. The Grocer’s Shop. 1647. oil on panel. 38.5 x 29cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris...64 24. Gerrit Dou. The Doctor. c.1660-65. c.1660-65. oil on panel. 38 x 30cm. Statens Musuem for Kunst, Copenhagen………………………………………………………………………………65 25. Gerrit Dou. Astronomer by Candlelight. c.1665. oil on panel. 32 x 21.2cm. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles…………………………………………………………………………...65 26. Gerrit Dou. The Violin Player. 1665. oil on panel. 40 x 29 cm., Staatliche Russian Museum, Moscow…………………………………………………………………………………………..66 27. Rembrandt van Rijn. Rembrandt and Saskia in the Scene of the Prodigal Son in the Tavern. c. 1635. oil on canvas. 161 x 131 cm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden………………….66 28. Jan Steen. Self-Portrait as a Lutenist. c.1660-63. oil on panel. 55.3 x 43.8cm. Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid……………………………………………………...…67 29. Jan Steen. The Doctor’s Visit. c.1660-65. oil on panel. 46 x 36.8cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art…………………………………………………………………………………………..…67 30. Samuel van Hoogstraten. Trompe l’oeil Still-life. 1664. 45.5 x 57.5cm. Dordrechts Museum…………………………………………………………………………………………..68 31. Samuel van Hoogstraten. Still-life. c.1666-68. oil on canvas. 63 x 79 cm. Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe……………………………………………………………………………68 vi ABSTRACT Gerrit Dou (1613-1675) is among the many artists in the Dutch Republic whose paintings, as well as professional activities, display a preoccupation with the status of painting as a liberal art and the status of the painter as a learned, esteemed individual. This is especially apparent in his self-portraits and the contemporary texts that extolled his skill as a painter. His paintings gained international fame for their minutely detailed, meticulously crafted, and finely wrought surfaces. At the beginning of his long career, he was praised by individuals like Philips Angel and Jan Orlers as someone to be imitated artistically and emulated professionally and personally. Despite his fame in the seventeenth-century, Dou is not nearly the household name that Rembrandt is at present; however, his art and life have received a fair amount of scholarly attention over the course of the past century. The overwhelming majority of previous studies conclude that much of Dou’s oeuvre is concerned with the art of painting. While scholars are correct in identifying this theme as central to Dou’s images, they have yet to connect this theme as it relates to the projection of self, apparent in his self-portraits and scenes of the artist in his studio and his representations of individual genre figures. I contend that there is an extension of self-reflection and self-projection from Dou’s self-portraits to his studio scenes and genre paintings, and that studying these sets of images in relation to one another reveals a more complete understanding of identity. His scenes of an artist in his studio and individual genre figures set in niches act as an extension of his self-portraits, whereby Dou’s self-consciously constructed identity as an ideal or exemplary artist without superior is reflected in both his genre paintings and self-portraits. He shows himself in a variety of roles, complementary to the theme of the art of painting. Dou is pictor doctus, alter deus, one who paints amoris causa, a painter whose virtuosity and skill has no equal - in imitating nature his paintings surpasses nature itself in their ability to deceive animals as well as people (including other artists). He is a painter whose invention is motivated by inspiration and imagination as much as knowledge and learning. Dou constructs and presents himself allegorically in the self-portraits and employs a similar mode of construction in the genre paintings. Dou plays specific elements off each other within his compositions, such that their juxtaposition provides a commentary not only on the theme of the art of painting, but also more specifically on the identity of the artist. Genre vii paintings like Man with a Pipe at a Window (c.1645), the Violin Player (1653), The Doctor (1660-65), and the Girl Peeling Carrots (1646) fashion meaning and reference the artist in ways similar to the self-portraits. However, the more