dutch art in the 17th century
TRANSCRIPT
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Dutch Art in the 17th Century
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The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp, 1632
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Joseph Wright of Derby, 1768
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The Scientific Revolution
• The development of Royal Societies in the 16th
century – the sharing of knowledge, public demonstrations (Rembrandt, Thomas Wright)
• The move away from Ptolemaic astronomy and a heliocentric view of the universe
• Understanding Nature from Observation, not from authoritative texts or governing bodies
• The Idea that Human Reason can provide for the betterment of human life on earth (as opposed to Faith and Ceremony)
• The profound questioning of authority in any guise
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The Modern magician
Blind Love
Questioning Gesture
Candle for Light and Skull
Fascinated Observer
Birdcage – if it lives (or dies)
Moonlight and the Enlightenment (reference to the Lunar Society)
2 sisters, torn between curiosity and distress
The Philosopher
The Bird in a glass Bowl which is about to be sealed and air pumped out
The Experiment With An Air Pump
Our Invitation
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Giordano Bruno
• 1548 – 1600
• Burned alive by the Inquisition in Rome
• There is neither limit nor center to the universe – everything depends on the relative point of observation.
• Suggested the vast number of other worlds and universes
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Michel de Montaigne
• 1522-1592
• Virulent critic of medieval Scholasticism• “I aim here only at revealing myself, who will
perhaps be different tomorrow, if I learn something new which changes me. I have no authority to be believed, nor do I want it, feeling myself too ill-instructed to instruct others.”
• Intellectual detachment is necessary to understanding.
• Proponent of diversity in nature and man, and the need for tolerance.
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Rene Descartes
• 1596 – 1650
• Determined to find a unified system of nature based on mathematics
• The first step is to wipe away all earlier and accepted authority
• Believe only in that which can be proved through observation
• Cogito ergo sum
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Thomas Hobbes
• 1588-1679
• Pre-social state of man is a life that is “nasty, brutish and short”
• We enter into a social contract based on mutual self-interest
• Sovereignty gains its authority through psychological reasons, not theological
• We are limited in our knowledge of the external world by our interpretations of the stimuli we receive
• Author of Leviathan
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John Locke
• 1632-1704
• Concentrated on the faculty of knowledge, or how we come to know what we know -epistemology
• Insisted on natural morality of pre-social man
• Ruling bodies that offend against natural morality must be deposed
• We are born with the tabula rosa
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The Principia
• Isaac newton (1642-1727)
• Offered irrefutable proof – mathematical proof – that Nature had order and meaning that was not based on Faith but on human Reason
• The notion of progress in the human mind toward an ultimate end
• If definable laws can be discerned to govern Nature, they can be discerned to govern men and society
• The notion that bodies at a distance are governed in their motion by a specific force that can be measured (gravity).
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Characteristics of Dutch Art:
• No church or aristocracy to commission paintings
• Art has a bourgeois character
• Paintings used to cover bare walls, give pleasure to the eye
• Cheerful subjects, unpleasant ones are given a humorous slant
• Artists worked on the open market, not for patrons: specialization according to subject matter
• Small paintings for small homes
• Subjects were easily understandable, some allegorical representations, no religious ecstasies and few pagan myths
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Jacob van RuisdaelPieter de Hooch
Jan Steen
Willem Heda
Pieter Saenredam
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem from the Dunes at Overveen
• Flat horizon of the Netherlands: sky takes up ¾ of painting
• Sullen clouds, dramatically painted
• Receding spaces through dark and light passages
• Bleaching linen manufactured in Holland
• Long strips of treated cloth were spread out to bleach in the fields
• Openness and height, very distant and elevated point-of-view
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Jacob van Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching
Grounds, c 1665
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Jan Steen, The Feast of Saint Nicholas
• Genre painting
• Saint Nicholas has visited the children with various results
• A girl grabs her doll as her mother pleads to look at it, or perhaps asks her to share
• Boy at left is crying over his disappointed gift
• Chaos in search for gifts
• Man on right points out to small child how Saint Nicholas descended the chimney
• Ten figures in a complex arrangement
• Complicated series of diagonals unify figures that seem to bend this way and that in reflection of one another
• Adult meaning to this children’s scene
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Jan Steen, 1663
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Willem Claez Heda, 1648
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Frans Hals, Archers of Saint Hadrian
• Responsible citizen mentality among the Dutch
• No static arrangements; no interaction
• Strong horizontal emphasis with vertical spears punctuating the composition
• Left group around dominant figure of Col. Johan Claez. Loo, his cane indicates his authority
• Right group is a separate unit: Lt. Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot holds a book (minutes of meeting?)
• Back to back groups
• Distinct individuality of figures
• Dynamically grouped with strong diagonals of composition
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Common Motifs in Vermeer’s Paintings
• Checkerboard floor
• Horizontal beam ceiling
• Light from the left
• Heavy drapery and/or map
• Figures seen from the back or side
• Figures occupied in daily pursuit
• Sensitivity to light
• Back wall is always flat against picture plane
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Vermeer, The Letter
• Light filtering from a unseen window at left
• We look in, they are unaware
• Figures framed by portal and a curtain
• Smile on servant, surprised look on the woman
• Woman is well-dressed, holding a lute
• A lute was a symbol of serenading, hence of love
• Is a love letter being brought?
• Sense of quiet expectation
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Vermeer, Allegory on the Art of Painting
• Painter’s costume, chandelier and maps out of date
• Woman is Clio, Muse of History
• Laurel and garland, holds a trumpet of fame in her right hand
• Map frames “history”
• Nostalgia for bygone days of Catholic rule over Holland and Catholic patronage of artists
• Artist in his studio (Vermeer?)
• Looking in on figures who seem unaware
• Quiet and stillness
• Touches of light flicker across the map, revealing the pulled edges
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Rembrandt, Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Tulp
• First great commission
• Dutch law: open cadavers of executed criminals only, allowed for entertainment purposes like this
• Specific anatomy lesson in January 1632
• Lessons took 4-5 days, Descartes may have attended this one
• Dr. Tulp is singled out seated in a chair of honor
• He wears a broad rimmed hat: academic badge of chairman
• His hands (alone) are prominently shown
• Cadaver’s body compared to the book at right
• Caravaggesque background
• Figures stare out into space
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Rembrandt, The Night Watch
• 18 men portrayed in the commission, represented according to how much they paid, but 29 figures in total, 2 figures cut off when the painting was cut down at left
• Civic guard group getting ready for a march, makes for a lively composition
• Captain Frans Banning Cocq holds a baton in right hand and wears a red sash, wears a gorget of steel barely visible under his white collar
• Captain gestures as if to speak
• Orders given to his lieutenant to march forward
• Central figures come forward
• Use of musket shown: musketeer in red is charging his musket by transferring powder into the muzzle from one of the wooden cartridges attached to his bandolier
• Figure behind Cocq is firing musket
• Third figure behind lieutenant is clearing the pan by blowing off the powder that remained there after the shot
• Deep chiaroscuro
• Liveliness of figures, psychological penetration
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The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, 1642
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Dutch Painters of the Baroque
Rembrandt, Self-Portrait
• Probed states of human soul
• Changing lights and darks suggest changing of human mood
• Self-satisfied artist at the height of his career
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Oath of Claudius Civilis
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Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait
• Smile: she greets us casually, as does the fiddler
• Self-assured, charming, sociable
• Meets the viewer’s gaze, as if to speak to us
• Signed her paintings with her initials and a star, punning meaning of her name “leading star”
• Well-dressed while painting
• Quick sure brushstrokes