Quiz 2 BANDR

Willem Buytewech Merry Company, c. 1620-22, Netherlands

Buytewech's barely a dozen of extant paintings illustrate the transition from moralising allegorical depictions to independent genre pictures. This picture, painted around 1620, still shows Mannerist features in the brilliant colours of the costumes then fashionable and the slightly mannered movements, but already creates the impression of a realistic depiction of an elegant scene. However, the symbolic meanings of the objects were not unknown to art lovers of Buytewech's time, and they may have recognised the woman of mature beauty entertaining the merry young men as the World-Woman. In medieval iconography she personifies the allure of sinful earthly pleasures and has a globe on her head, which is probably replaced here by the map. The objects on the table, the floor and the wall, along with the monkey, can also be interpreted as symbols of the five senses. Willem Pieterszoon Buytewech (1591/1592 - September 23, 1624) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, draughtsman and etcher. He is one of the early specialists in the merry company type of subject in Dutch genre painting. His contemporaries named him "Gheestige Willem" (Jolly or spirited William). Life Buytewech was born and died in Rotterdam. He was the son of Pieter Jacobsz, a cobbler and candlemaker. He learned his trade in Haarlem, where he became a member of the artists' guild (Haarlem Guild of St. Luke) in 1612, together with Hercules Segers and Esaias van de Velde.[1] Frans Hals, who was a member of this guild since 1610, had much influence on Buytenwech's work, as shown by the many drawings that the latter made after Hals's paintings. After his marriage on November 10, 1613 with Aeltje van Amerongen, of a patrician family, he returned to Rotterdam. There Hendrik Martenszoon Sorgh was one of his pupils. Buytewech was primarily a graphic artist, mostly of landscapes and genre pieces, but occasionally also of biblical and allegorical themes. Of his paintings only eight have survived to this date, all genre pieces, most depicting merry companies. Willem Buytewech's Merry Company He died at the age of only 32 or 33 of unrecorded causes. His son Willem Willemsz Buytewech (1625-1670), born after his death, would become a painter as well. It is suggested that Herman van Swanevelt could have been his pupil.