Dutch Painting II

Rembrandt and Artistic Competition

He cared immensely about artistic competition. Studied famous artists and tried to surpass them. Tried to paint human beings as vulnerable, they have human skin.

Rembrandt 1650-1660

His heroic period. Titian and Caravaggio are new sources of inspiration. Concentrate on single figure or pair of figures, reduce a story to its essence. Limited space, background is a black hole. Warm colors and quiet atmosphere.

Complementary Portraits

Husband sitting on left and wife sitting on right in front of a fireplace. Light coming from the left, which means the mans face is in shadow and is more interesting, woman's face is in bright light

Mondrian and the Amsterdam Luminist Movement

INfluenced by Kandinsky and SLuitjers. More abstract landscapes, especially trees. Luminism is the effect of light on landscapes.

Mondrian and Symbolism and Theosophy

Ideas: Reality could be understood at a higher plane through symbols. The role of the artist to look for universal values behind physical objects. Symbolic value of color and line.

Van Gogh in Arles 1888-1889

Influence of Gauguin and the 17th Century Dutch panorama landscape. Wanted to found a colony of artists in the South of France with him. Colors are bright and crisp. Color and space carry an emotional meaning (chair represents an absent friend)

Rembrandt's Leiden Period II 1629-1632

Influence of the Utrecht Caravaggist movement. Vertical paintings, bright colors disappear, replaces by browns and ochres. One spotlight and the rest is shadow.

Post-impressionists

Challenge to impressionists. Looking for meaning in art. Would do pointilism, dots in primary colors that would flow together.

Romanticism

looking back into the past, mostly the golden age. Recreating the past out of nostaligia for the Golden Age

Van Gogh Auvers Sur Oise 1890

Changed the format of his paintings to panoramas. Tries to find bright landscapes. Brings vibrant colors. Three dimensional space isn't his main concern. Incredibly prolific painter in his final days, more than one painting a day.

Portrait of Jan Six

Combination of many techniques, face and hair means paint is almost sculpted on him. Looking like he is coming home or going out riding/hunting. About a man wanting to be a gentleman.

The Nightswatch by Rembrandt

End of his first Amsterdam period, 1642. Not only a portrait, but also a history painting. Man is commanding marching out, at various stages of reaction to the orders. Strong colors, yellow, black, blue.

The Merry Company by Dirck Hals

Lots of color, opposed to landscapes of the same period. People would buy these paintings to keep their children from behaving like them.

Hendrick Avercamp

1615-1625. Colorful pictures, fine technique, often would use only one hair of his brush. Stage like composition with a horizontal format. Horizontals dominate the composition. Narrative pictures. Evocative of Brueghel.

Narrative paintings

Lots of story in these paintings, can see the story happening.

Utrecht Caravaggist School of Genre Painting

1620-1630. Important members Hendrick Terbrugghen, Dirck van Baburen, and Gerard Honthorst. People from Utrecht would often go to Italy on tours, influenced by Italian art. Large half figures with coarse ffeatures (caricatures). Theme of matchmaking.

Rembrandt Van Rijn

(VERY General information here) His work developed from narrative to dramatic over the course of his life. Rembrandt achieves drama by simplifying the paintings and concentrating on the bare essentials of the story. Rembrandt seems to identify more and more with his Biblical figures. Is often motivated by artistic competition, wants to be one of the all time great artists.

Vincent Van Gogh

1853-1890. Dutch painter. A very religious man from a religious family. Responded to industrialization be believing that God's creation had failed, created intense solitude. Art that transmitted true sentiments was the only consolation left for humans. Mankind can find comfort in nature as it is the second book of the lord. Christ was his hero.

Barend Koekoek

A German landscape painter, but inspired on Dutch landscape artists such as Van Ruisdael.

The Blinding of Simson by Rembrandt

Climax of First Amsterdam period (1632-1640). Strong contrasts in colors, diagonals, human vulnerability, painting the turning point in the story. Strong emotions Action and reaction present here.

Mondrian and Neoplasticism

Absolute abstraction, perfect vertical and horizontal balance. IMpression that painting is a fraction of an ongoing grid. Eventually, feeling that grids are drifting away from the viewer.

The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt

Actually unfinished painting. Example of his detached composition, the figures are fading into the background. Chose the moment of the return because of the drama of the scene.

Rembrandt's Portraits

Around 1630 became well known portrait painter in Amsterdam. Combined fine, rough, broad, and narrow brushstrokes sometiems in the same painting. Often would make his portraits into history paintings. Other notable category are self-portraits that he would make to experiement with technique.

Dutch Genre Painting Characteristics 1650-1675

Colors start to get brighter again, pictures have a vertical format. Picture dominated by a few monumental figures. Quiet atmosphere. Vermeer and others. KNown as the classic period.

Utrecht Caravaggist School

Ca 1625. Hendrick Terbruggen. Large half figures filling up the composition. Figures have crude features, hands in the center of the painting tell the story. Figures close to the surface of the painting.. Light and shadow add drama.

The Haagsche School 1880

Artists living in the Hague, a provincial town at the time. Polders, dunes, fishermen. Noble poverty. Sky is important to express mood in these paintings. Influenced by the Barbizon French painters, which left Paris to get close to nature. Dutch artists wanted to go out into nature and paint what they see.

Rembrandt's 1632-1640 (First Amsterdam Period)

At this point was inspiring his life and work on Rubens. History painting viewed as the most important challenge, but also painted portraits. In history paintings would choose the turning point of the story to paint. Plenty of action and reaction. Painting often composed with strong diagonals.

Mondrian and De Stijl

Back in Holland started experimenting with grids.

Dutch Genre Painting Characteristics 1610-1625

Bright colors, landscapes composed with coulisses (features on the side of a painting designed to break up the space in a painting). Pictures dominated by horizontals, paintings themselves have horizontal format. Birds-eye view, objects seldom overlap.

Rembrandt's Technique

Broad and rough and thin and refined brushwork all combined, often in the same painting. Sometimes uses impasto, almost sculpts the paint on the canvass. Sometimes would use a pallet knife.

Rembrandt School: Govert Flinck

Broad brushstrokes, almost sculpting the paint onto the canvass. Most of the scene is in shadow. Unsuccessful attempt to paraphrase Rembrandt's subjects.

Change in art market tonal period

Conveyed impressions with minimal often imprecise brushwork. This broad, swift brushwork effected the art economy, because paintings were able to be done more swiftly, meaning more of them. Gliding diagonals, low horizon.

The Life of Man by Jan Steen

Curtains in the foreground, referencing story about painting. Old people teaching the young both good and bad habits.

Types of Genre Painting

Defined broadly as scenes of domestic life. Kitchen scenes, men and women touching and flirting, The Prodigal Son (either welcoming him back or showing him spending all his father's money. Market scenes. Also personifications of virtues, vices, senses. Scenes describe abstract notions, a woman looking in the mirror might be sight.

Methods to Discuss 17th Century Painting

Development of careers of individual artists Development of schools in different cities or around influential artists Analysis of developments within one genre

Broad manner and fine manner

Discinction in style of painting within portraits. One with broader brushstrokes and one more refined. Both Rembrandt and Hals use broad manner.

Adam Elsheimer

Dreamy and pastoral Dutch landscape painter. Broccoli trees. Black and white prints were distributed. The trees of Elsheimer influenced history and landscape painting.

Gillis Van Coninxloo

Dutch fantasy landscape painter. Ornamental foliage, panoramic landscape, stage like composition. Use three main colors, called three color perspective to draw the eye through the painting. FIne technique. Teacher of Avercamp and Van De Velde

Christ of the Lake of Galilee by Rembrandt

Example of Rembrandt's First Amsterdam period (1632-1642). Narrative history paintings, focusing on the turning point of the story. COmposition dominated by strong diagonals.

The Denial of St. Peter by Rembrandt

Example of Rembrandt's work in final years. Candle lights the scene, Caravaggist inspiration. Background figures barely there, many actually only sketched in.

Hendrick Terbruggen

Example of Utrecht Caravaggist School . Most prominent example.

Types of Dutch Landscape Painting

Fantasy and Rustic Painting

Types of portraits

Feet piece, Knee piece, Complimentary portraits (man and woman in front of fire place), costume portraits.

Rembrandt 1660-1669

Finals years. Caravaggio is the source of inspiration because of the light sources. Loose and detached compositions, figures seem to be drifting away from each other. Many paintings seem unfinished, some actually are. Foreground figures are defined, background figures drifting into the mist.

Piet Mondrian

From reality to abstraction, a pioneer in abstract art.

Joseph Israels

Genre painter of the Haagsche school. Simple interiors of fishermen. Poverty is not condemned. Quiet, pensive atmosphere.

Van Gogh in Saint Remy 1890

Goes to mental hospital in St. Remy after the ear incident. Was unable to go outside and paint, so painted reproductions based on prints and the asylum itself. Traditional three dimensional space dissolves, interested in dark colors and twisting trees.

Jacob's Blessing by Rembrandt

Good example of intimacy in bible scenes. Limted space, wall closes in behind the viewer, Rembrandt interprets the scene in his own way, both boys are being blessed. Heroic period 1656

Anton Mauve

Haagsche School painter. Also uncle of Vincent Van Gogh. Illusion of being zoomed into part of reality. Autumn landscapes also influenced by Hobbema.

Mondrian in Paris 1911

Influenced by Cubism. Effort to find essence in observed reality. Complex compositions of lines and planes. Did not care about the cubist idea of a fourth dimension. Still starting with nature, wanting to find essence. Trees are favorite subject.

Van Gogh in Antwerp 1885-1886

Influenced by Japanese prints while there. Was going to an art academy but hated his classes. Japanese influence effects the rest of his career (Bright colors, strong contours, unexpected cuts)

Van Gogh in Paris 1886-1888

Influenced by impressionism and port-impressionism. Develops mature technique of thick, short brushwork in different directions with a palette of primary colors. Figures have sharp contours (Japanese prints)

Esaias Van De Velde

Innovative Dutch Rustic Landscape painter. Created new less elaborate technique, landscape was now painted wet-in-wet. Broad swift brushstrokes, sketchy figures added in at the last minute. This innovation was not immediately recognized, meant eventually the paintings could be done faster, thus more of them and they would be less expensive. Abandoned three color perspective.

Romanticism in Dutch Lanscape Painting

Inspired on the 17th century Dutch landscape. Sentimental and conventional. Technical refinement, artist trying to evoke a specific mood.

Sexual Connotations in Genre Paintings

Kitchen scenes with eggs and meat as aphrodisiacs

The Jewish Bride by Rembrandt

Later works. Crosses the borders of genre. Important to focus on their gazes and their hands in the painting. The girl is young and the man is old, could be a father-daughter portrait as well.

Dramatic paintings

Less emphasis on the story and more on the emotions of the figures.

Haarlem II Genre Painting School

Low life scenes with Adriaen Brouwer and Adriaen Oustead. Brothel scenes, with peasants shown as impure and grotesque. Buyers view themselves as above this behavior. Tonal treatment, broad brush, pronounced chiaroscuro effects (Caravaggio)

Van Gogh in Nunen 1883-1885

Made portraits of peasants, obsessed with the ideas of peasant poverty as noble. Thinks man has become a machine, admired the peasants for their hard work and diligence. HIs father died while he was in Nunuen and Vincent blamed himself.

Johannes Vermeer

Member of Delft School. No sense of humor in his paintings, light always from the left of the painting, normally a window. Wanted to create illusion of reality through perspective, light, color. Subjects are calm and without drama. Harmonious proportions and balanced composition. Light is important. Monumental figures.

Adriaen Van Oustead

Member of Haarlem II school of Genre Painting. Recognizable for deep blue tones. Figures not as grotesque.

Gerard Dou

Member of Leiden school of Fine Painting. Intimate and sexual scenes. No contact, subtle illusions to sexuality. Not great with space construction

Haarlem I Genre Painting School

Merry Company: Dirck Hals, brother of Frans. First genre paintings around 1615. From the idea of prodigal son, would paint portraisds of merry companies. Large paintings of young people feasting. Interior is not 3-d and is folded around the figures.

Meindert Hobbema

Middelharmus was main painting. 1689. Student of Ruisdael. Inspired Mauve.

The Night's Watch by Rembrandt

Militia piece. A portrait of a militia but also telling a stroy. Adding some elements, such as the girl, who is the spirit of the company. Despite being a portrait, its highly animated and unified. His largest painting.

School of Jan Van Goyen

Monochrome landscapes, often dominated by water. Low horizon, towering cloud formations. broad, visible brushstrokes. Including Ruyesdael.

Influence of Lastman on Rembrandt

Mostly the female nude. Painted Susanna, vulnerable female nude with triangular composition. Body composition is just wrong.

Portrait of Agatha Bas

No one wanted to marry her , the painting was meant as an advertisement. Rembrandt gave her fish eyes.

Characteristics of Haagsche School Landscape Painting

No repoussoirs, minimal golden age influence. Often autumn or winter, dominated by greys and blues. The object of the painting is in the center of the composition. Dreamy atmosphere in general. Influence of the development of photography, looks like a lens has zoomed in on the object and the painting continues outside of its borders.

Winter Scene by Esaias Van De Velde

Not narrative, only a few figures. Scene dominated by a mill. Can feel the cold.

Joachim Patenir

Notable early 16th century Dutch landscape painter. FLying over the landscape, nothing overlaps. Painted Charon crossing the River Styx.

Cornelius Van Haarlem

Notable member of Haarlem School of Mannerist

The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals

Only appears to be laughing because of upturned mustache. Sitting and lit as though he was a woman because he is unmarried. His arm is portruding out from the picture into our world. Looking down, and not straight at us. A dynamic portrait. Use of disorderly brushstrokes that don't make sense from far away.

The Merry Drinker by Frans Hals

Prominent broad brushstrokes. ABle to evoke emotion based on his portraits. Use of props to identify the man who is the subject of the painting.

Pieter De Hoogh

Painted interiors of well-to-do burghers. Show virtues of women with no negative implications. Emphasis on architecture and space construction. A Little Street notorious example.

Rembrandt and Landscapes

Painted these mostly from 1642-1650 in a time of personal distress. Occasionally would evoke religion with small narrative elements (in this painting the pilgrim is moving towards the church)

Gerard Honthorst

Painter of night scenes in Utrecht Caravaggist School. Often one source of light, a single candle. Fond of scenes of madams, clients, prostitutes Chiaroscuro.

Impressionists

Painting only for creating an impression of a scene, no deeper meaning. Manet, Monet, Renoir. Art is done for its own sake and is mere decoration.

Rembrandt's Mature Work in General 1642-1669

Period marked by loss, his wife had died. Suggestion of drama in simple compositions. Key moment in the story, turning point. Indirect lighting, only a small part of the scene. Preference for intimate dramatic moments, only slight gestures. Unconcerned with particular genre of painting.

Judith Leyster

Portrait painter, one of Hals' best students.

Van Gogh's Letters

Recorded all his moods and thoughts often written to his brother Theo.

Influence of Titian and Raphael on Rembrandt

Rembrandt's Dinae, evocative female nude inspired by Titian

Frans Hals' Portraits

Revolutionary attempt to represent people and their personalities through a genre once thought to be stiff. Creates notable variation, through changes in poses and use of props. Vivid brushwork.

Jacob Van Rueysdael

Self-branded landscape painter. Example of Dutch rustic landscape painting. Painted View over Haarlem, Mill at Wijk bij Duurstede. Clouds and water dominate the paintings.

Bathsheba with David's Letter by Rembrandt

Shows the nude in Rembrandt's mature work, part of his heroic period 1650-1660. Anatomy is still off. Light radiates from the picture itself, there is no light source in the painting. Shows her sorrow at husband's death, Rembrandt caught the turning point. Vulnerable and sorrowful, not erotic.

Dutch Rustic Landscape Painting

Spacious, suggestion of humidity in the atmosphere. Towering clouds and low horizon. Developed in Haarlem, water is usually important. Artist wanted to paint the essence of nature, thus not true to life, instead a reconstruction. Vertical formats and quiet atmosohere.

George Breitner

Started as member of the Haagsche school, specialized in painting horses. Was also a photographer, used photography for the starting point in many of his compositions.

Rembrandt's Prints and Drawings

Started in Leiden, influenced by Lucas Van Leyden. Preferred etchings to engravings (could make fewer copies, they were collectors items). Would copy Lucas's prints, but would zoom in on the center.

Mondrian Landscapes

Started out as a landscape painter working in the Haagsche School. Haagsche School influenced his work until 1904 or so. Water in almost every landscape, worked a lot with reflections in water. No human beings in landscape, tend to be monochrome. Bold brushwork inspired by Hals and Rembrandt.

Rembrandt's Leiden Period I 1625-1629

Strongly influenced by Pieter Lastman. Starts with colorful paintings with violent getures. Composition in triangles. Similar to Ulysses and Nausicaa

History Paintings 1590-1630

Subjects from the Bible and mythology. Moment just before the climax of the story is represented.

The Potato Eaters by Vincent Van Gogh

Sympathized with the appalling conditions of these peasants. Used earth tones to show their quality of life. INcreased drama by changing perspectives, focused on hands in the center of the composition. Monochrome shows Haagsche School influence.

Landscape painter's view of the Netherlands

The Netherlands is the land of paradise. Pride in Dutch prosperity and native soil, as well as Dutch ingenuity. Dutch landscapes are the Second Book of the Lord. You could find God through examination of the landscape.

Winter Scene by Hendrick Avercamp

The bridge closes the middle ground from the background, beyond the bridge the background is hazy. Very precise style. Typical Avercamp

Mondrian and Jan Toorop

Went to live with him in Domburg in Zeeland. The sea can be seen everywhere there. Toorop was a divisionist, and he changed his artistic style regularly. Fascinated by light and landscapes. Mondrian took to divisionism, importance of light and frontality of the paintings.

Jan Van Goyen

Tonal period landscape painter. Also painted cityscapes, such as Leiden and Nijmegen. Water is dominant factor in many of his paintings.

The Ferry by Esaias Van De Velde

Tonal work by Esaias, one of his most famous paintings. Lots of greys and browns, rapid brushwork. Able to create suggestion of wind.

Dutch Genre Painting Characteristics 1625-1650

Tonal, almost monochrome period. Called the tonal period. Browns and grays dominate. Fewer objects, less narrative pictures. Repoussoirs (dark objects in the foreground that push the eye back) used instead of coulisses.

Art After 1890

Total freedom for artists. Included forerunners of Cubism. Artists are prophets of a new society. There was also a view of art as a cult of individualism.

Van Gogh's Early Life

Tried and failed at many thigns, being an art dealer, being a preacher. Admired Frans Hals and Rembrandt.

Pieter Lastman

Tutor of Rembrandt Van Rijn. Amsterdam pre-Rembrandtists. Painted Odysseus and Nausicaa

Sinterklaas Avond by Jan Seen (the feast of st nicholas jan steen)

Typical Jan Steen painting is a crowded household scene. Composition is actually thoughtfully done and dominated by triangles. Combines certain groups through interaction, the pouring wine. Looking at the different ages of man, there are people in all stages of life. Also taste as one of the sense because people are eating.

Interpretation of Genre Painting

Up until 1950s, we thought they were realistic, now we think its a reconstruction of the world. Moralizing paintings, bad habits projected onto the lower classes. meant to scare people.

Hendrick Terbruggen

Utrecht Caravaggist school member. Famous for flute player.

Gauguin in Arles with Vincent

Wanted him to come and start the artist's colony with him. Sunflowers painted as a welcome to Gauguin. Lead to the ear incident.

Influence of Rubens on Rembrandt

Wanted to become the artist of humankind. Both human emotions and human skin. Not interested in Rubens's heroism, more interested in his own kind of realism, shown here in Deposition

Rembrandt 1642-1650

Wanted to reinvent himself and his art because his wife had died. Raphael is a source of inspiration. No longer produces history paintings, looking at landscapes near Amsterdam. Harmony Achieved through simplification. Bright colors. Concentrate on the vital people to the scene, intimate scenes. Balance of horizontals and verticals, move away from the diagonals. Also paints most of his landscapes during this time.

Van Gogh in The Hague

Was an apprentice to Anton Mauve, who was an uncle of his. Formative years, drew inspiration from the Haagsche school. Began as a sketch artist, not a painter.

Portrait of Nicholas Ruts by Rembrandt

Wearing old fashioned furs, because he was a fur merchant. Holding a note and looking at the viewer gives the painting a story.

Haarlem School of Mannerism

ca 1590. Cornelius Van Haarlem most notable. Nudes in twisted poses. Unnatural flesh color. Figures rotate around a central point. Want to shock the public. Monumental format.

Amsterdam Pre-Rembrandtists

ca 1615. Pieter Lastman, tutor of Rembrandt Van Rijn most notable. Narrative gestures with extravert emotions. Figures seem to stand on a stage. Arranged in triangular groups. Bright colors, attention to fabrics and still life.

Leiden School of Fine Painting

ca 1650. Small,expressive paintings with technical refinement. Incredibly expensive. Few, richly dressed figures. Gerard Dou. Subtle allusions to sexuality.

Delft School

ca 1660-1675. Interior homes of well-to-do burghers. Emphasis on space construction. Warm interior scenes, with bright colors. Pieter de Hoogh and Johannes Vermeer are notables.