Still lifes
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, book ...
were a great opportunity to display skill in painting textures and surfaces in great detail and with realistic light effects. Food of all kinds laid out on a table, silver cutlery, intricate patterns and subtle folds in tablecloths and flowers all challenged painters. Dutch painters produced still lifes in great numbers, revealing the Dutch "love of domestic culture". The English term "derives from the Dutch word ''stilleven''", which came into use about 1650.
Several types of subject were recognised: ''banketje'' were "banquet pieces", ''ontbijtjes'' simpler "breakfast pieces". Virtually all still lifes had a moralistic message, usually concerning the brevity of life – this is known as the vanitas theme – implicit even in the absence of an obvious symbol like a skull, or less obvious one such as a half-peeled lemon (like life, sweet in appearance but bitter to taste). Flowers wilt and food decays, and silver is of no use to the soul. Nevertheless, the force of this message seems less powerful in the more elaborate pieces of the second half of the century.
Initially the objects shown were nearly always mundane. However, from the mid-century ''
pronkstilleven
''Pronkstilleven'' (Dutch for 'ostentatious', 'ornate' or 'sumptuous' still life) is a style of ornate still life painting, which was developed in the 1640s in Antwerp from where it spread quickly to the Dutch Republic.
Development
Flemish artis ...
s'' ("ostentatious still lifes"), which depicted expensive and exotic objects and had been developed as a subgenre in the 1640s in Antwerp by Flemish artists such as
Frans Snyders and
Adriaen van Utrecht
Adriaen van Utrecht (Antwerp, 12 January 1599 – 1652) was a Flemish painter known mainly for his sumptuous banquet still lifes, game and fruit still lifes, fruit garlands, market and kitchen scenes and depictions of live poultry in farmyards. ...
, became more popular. The early realist, tonal and classical phases of landscape painting had counterparts in still life painting.
Willem Claeszoon Heda
Willem Claesz. Heda (December 14, 1593/1594c. 1680/1682) was a Dutch Golden Age artist from the city of Haarlem devoted exclusively to the painting of still life. He is known for his innovation of the late breakfast genre of still life painting. ...
(1595–c. 1680) and
Willem Kalf (1619–1693) led the change to the ''pronkstilleven'', while
Pieter Claesz (d. 1660) preferred to paint simpler "ontbijt" ("breakfast pieces"), or explicit ''vanitas'' pieces.
In all these painters, colours are often very muted, with browns dominating, especially in the middle of the century. This is less true of the works of
Jan Davidsz de Heem
Jan Davidsz. de Heem or in-full ''Jan Davidszoon de Heem'', also called ''Johannes de Heem'' or ''Johannes van Antwerpen'' or ''Jan Davidsz de Hem'' (c. 17 April 1606 in Utrecht – before 26 April 1684 in Antwerp), was a still life painter wh ...
(1606–1684), an important figure who spent much of his career based over the border in
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, . Here his displays began to sprawl sideways to form wide oblong pictures, unusual in the north, although Heda sometimes painted taller vertical compositions. Still life painters were especially prone to form dynasties, it seems: there were many de Heems and Bosschaerts, Heda's son continued in his father's style, and Claesz was the father of Nicholaes Berchem.
Flower paintings formed a sub-group with its own specialists, and were occasionally the speciality of the few women artists, such as
Maria van Oosterwyck
Maria van Oosterwijck, also spelled Oosterwyck, (1630–1693) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, specializing in richly detailed flower paintings and other still lifes.
Life and work
Maria van Oosterwijck was born in 1630 in Nootdorp, a town locat ...
and
Rachel Ruysch. The Dutch also led the world in botanical and other scientific drawings, prints and book illustrations. Despite the intense realism of individual flowers, paintings were composed from individual studies or even book illustrations, and blooms from very different seasons were routinely included in the same composition, and the same flowers reappear in different works, just as pieces of tableware do. There was also a fundamental unreality in that bouquets of flowers in vases were not in fact at all common in houses at the time – even the very rich displayed flowers one by one in
delftware tulip-holders.
The Dutch tradition was largely begun by
Ambrosius Bosschaert
Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (18 January 1573 – 1621) was a Flemish-born Dutch still life painter and art dealer. (1573–1621), a Flemish-born flower painter who had settled in the north by the beginning of the period, and founded a dynasty. His brother-in-law
Balthasar van der Ast
Balthasar van der Ast (1593/94 – 7 March 1657) was a Dutch Golden Age painter who specialized in still lifes of flowers and fruit, as well as painting a number of remarkable shell still lifes; he is considered to be a pioneer in the genr ...
(d. 1657) pioneered still lifes of shells, as well as painting flowers. These early works were relatively brightly lit, with the bouquets of flowers arranged in a relatively simple way. From the mid-century arrangements that can fairly be called Baroque, usually against a dark background, became more popular, exemplified by the works of
(1627–1683). Painters from
Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration w ...
, The Hague, and Amsterdam particularly excelled in the genre.
Dead game, and birds painted live but studied from the dead, were another subgenre, as were dead fish, a staple of the Dutch diet –
Abraham van Beijeren
Abraham Hendriksz van Beijeren or Abraham van BeyerenAlso known as 'Abraham van Bergaren (c. 1620, The Hague – March 1690, Overschie ( Rotterdam)) was a Dutch Baroque painter of still lifes. Little recognized in his day and initially active ...
did many of these. The Dutch were less given to the Flemish style of combining large still life elements with other types of painting – they would have been considered prideful in portraits – and the Flemish habit of specialist painters collaborating on the different elements in the same work. But this sometimes did happen – Philips Wouwerman was occasionally used to add men and horses to turn a landscape into a hunting or skirmish scene, Berchem or Adriaen van de Velde to add people or farm animals.
File:Willem van Aelst - Bloementuil.jpg, , ''Still life with a watch'' (c. 1665), with typical dark background.
File:Heda, Willem Claeszoon - Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie - WGA.jpg, Willem Claeszoon Heda
Willem Claesz. Heda (December 14, 1593/1594c. 1680/1682) was a Dutch Golden Age artist from the city of Haarlem devoted exclusively to the painting of still life. He is known for his innovation of the late breakfast genre of still life painting. ...
, ''Breakfast Table with Blackberry Pie'' (1631); Heda was famous for his depiction of reflective surfaces.
File:Jan Davidszoon de Heem, Still-life with Books and Skull (Vanitas).JPG, Jan Davidszoon de Heem
Jan Davidsz. de Heem or in-full ''Jan Davidszoon de Heem'', also called ''Johannes de Heem'' or ''Johannes van Antwerpen'' or ''Jan Davidsz de Hem'' (c. 17 April 1606 in Utrecht – before 26 April 1684 in Antwerp), was a still life painter wh ...
, '' Vanitas'' (1629)
File:Jan Weenix 003.jpg, Jan Weenix, ''Still Life with a Dead Peacock'' (1692), set in the gardens of a large country house.
Foreign lands
For Dutch artists, Karel van Mander's ''Schilderboeck'' was meant not only as a list of biographies, but also a source of advice for young artists. It quickly became a classic standard work for generations of young Dutch and Flemish artists in the 17th century. The book advised artists to travel and see the sights of Florence and Rome, and after 1604 many did so. However, it is noticeable that the most important Dutch artists in all fields, figures such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, Steen, Jacob van Ruisdael, and others, had not made the voyage.
Many Dutch (and Flemish) painters worked abroad or exported their work;
printmaking
Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniqu ...
was also an important export market, by which Rembrandt became known across Europe. The
Dutch Gift to
Charles II of England
Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685.
Charles II was the eldest surviving child o ...
was a diplomatic gift which included four contemporary Dutch paintings. English painting was heavily reliant on Dutch painters, with Sir
Peter Lely followed by Sir
Godfrey Kneller
Sir Godfrey Kneller, 1st Baronet (born Gottfried Kniller; 8 August 1646 – 19 October 1723), was the leading portrait painter in England during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and was court painter to English and British monarchs from ...
, developing the English portrait style established by the Flemish
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck (, many variant spellings; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Brabantian Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Southern Netherlands and Italy.
The seventh ...
before the
English Civil War
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I (" Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of r ...
. The marine painters van der Velde,
father and
son
A son is a male offspring; a boy or a man in relation to his parents. The female counterpart is a daughter. From a biological perspective, a son constitutes a first degree relative.
Social issues
In pre-industrial societies and some curren ...
, were among several artists who left Holland at the French invasion of 1672, which brought a collapse in the art market. They also moved to London, and the beginnings of English landscape painting were established by several less distinguished Dutch painters, such as
Hendrick Danckerts
Hendrick Danckerts (c.1625 - 1680) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and engraver, mostly of houses in their landscape settings. After some years in Italy, he spent most of his career in London, working for Charles II and his brother.
Biography
D ...
.
The
Bamboccianti
The ''Bamboccianti'' were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherla ...
were a colony of Dutch artists who introduced the genre scene to Italy.
Jan Weenix and
Melchior d'Hondecoeter specialized in game and birds, dead or alive, and were in demand for country house and shooting-lodge
overdoor
An "overdoor" (or "Supraporte" as in German, or "sopraporte" as in Italian) is a painting, bas-relief or decorative panel, generally in a horizontal format, that is set, typically within ornamental mouldings, over a door, or was originally intend ...
s across Northern Europe.
Although the Dutch control of the northeast sugar-producing region of
Dutch Brazil
Dutch Brazil ( nl, Nederlands-Brazilië), also known as New Holland ( nl, Nieuw-Holland), was a colony of the Dutch Republic in the northeastern portion of modern-day Brazil, controlled from 1630 to 1654 during Dutch colonization of the Americ ...
turned out to be brief (1630-54), Governor
Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen
John Maurice of Nassau ( Dutch: ''Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen''; German: ''Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen''; Portuguese: ''João Maurício de Nassau-Siegen''; 17 June 1604 – 20 December 1679), called "the Brazilian" for his fruitful period a ...
invited Dutch artists to paint scenes which are valuable in showing the seventeenth-century landscape and peoples of the region. The two most well known of these artists were
Frans Post
Frans Janszoon Post (17 November 1612 – 17 February 1680) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil In 1636 he traveled to ...
, a landscapist, and a still life painter,
Albert Eckhout, who produced ethnographic paintings of Brazil's population. These were originally displayed in the Great Hall of the Vrijburg Palace in
Recife
That it may shine on all (Matthew 5:15)
, image_map = Brazil Pernambuco Recife location map.svg
, mapsize = 250px
, map_caption = Location in the state of Pernambuco
, pushpin_map = Brazil#South Am ...
. There was a market in Amsterdam for such paintings, and Post continued to produce Brazilian scenes for years after his return to the Netherlands. The
Dutch East Indies
The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...
were covered much less well artistically.
File:Landschap_bij_de_rivier_Senhor_de_Engenho,_Brazilië_Rijksmuseum_SK-A-2334.jpeg, Landscape with sugar mill, Frans Post
Frans Janszoon Post (17 November 1612 – 17 February 1680) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil In 1636 he traveled to ...
File:Frans_Post_-_Brazilian_Landscape_with_a_Workers_House.jpg, Landscape with a worker's house, Frans Post
Frans Janszoon Post (17 November 1612 – 17 February 1680) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil In 1636 he traveled to ...
File:Albert Eckhout - Brazil.jpg, Brazilian Indian warrior, Albert Eckhout
File:Albert Eckhout - Bananas, goiaba e outras frutas.jpg, Bananas, goiaba, and other fruits, Albert Eckhout
Subsequent reputation
The enormous success of 17th-century Dutch painting overpowered the work of subsequent generations, and no Dutch painter of the 18th century—nor, arguably, a 19th-century one before
Van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
—is well known outside the Netherlands. Already by the end of the period artists were complaining that buyers were more interested in dead than living artists.
If only because of the enormous quantities produced, Dutch Golden Age painting has always formed a significant part of collections of
Old Master paintings, itself a term invented in the 18th century to describe Dutch Golden Age artists. Taking only Wouwerman paintings in old royal collections, there are more than 60 in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
and over 50 in the
Hermitage. But the reputation of the period has shown many changes and shifts of emphasis. One nearly constant factor has been admiration for
Rembrandt, especially since the Romantic period. Other artists have shown drastic shifts in critical fortune and market price; at the end of the period some of the active Leiden
fijnschilders {{Short description, 17th-century Dutch artistic movement
The Fijnschilders (literally "fine-painters"), also called the Leiden Fijnschilders ('Leidse Fijnschilders'), were Dutch Golden Age painters who, from about 1630 to 1710, strove to create as ...
had enormous reputations, but since the mid-19th century realist works in various genres have been far more appreciated.
Vermeer was rescued from near-total obscurity in the 19th century, by which time several of his works had been re-attributed to others. However the fact that so many of his works were already in major collections, often attributed to other artists, demonstrates that the quality of individual paintings was recognised even if his collective oeuvre was unknown. Other artists have continued to be rescued from the mass of little-known painters: the late and very simple still lifes of
Adriaen Coorte
Adriaen Coorte (ca. 1665 – after 1707) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes, who signed works between 1683 and 1707. He painted small and unpretentious still lifes in a style more typical of the first half of the century, and was "on ...
in the 1950s, and the landscapists
Jacobus Mancaden
Jacobus Sibrandi Mancadan (c. 1602 in Minnertsga – 4 October 1680 in Tjerkgaast) (subscription only) was a Dutch Golden Age painter mostly known for his pastoral landscapes.
Biography
Mancadan is considered one of the most important Fris ...
and
Frans Post
Frans Janszoon Post (17 November 1612 – 17 February 1680) was a painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was the first European artist to paint landscapes of the Americas, during and after the period of Dutch Brazil In 1636 he traveled to ...
earlier in the century.
Genre paintings were long popular, but little-regarded. In 1780
Horace Walpole
Horatio Walpole (), 4th Earl of Orford (24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English writer, art historian, man of letters, antiquarian, and Whig politician.
He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twi ...
disapproved that they "invite laughter to divert itself with the nastiest indelicacy of boors". Sir
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...
, the English leader of 18th-century
academic art
Academic art, or academicism or academism, is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie ...
, made several revealing comments on Dutch art. He was impressed by the quality of Vermeer's ''Milkmaid'' (illustrated at the start of this article), and the liveliness of Hals' portraits, regretting he lacked the "patience" to finish them properly, and lamented that Steen had not been born in Italy and formed by the
High Renaissance, so that his talent could have been put to better use. By Reynolds' time the moralist aspect of genre painting was no longer understood, even in the Netherlands; the famous example is the so-called ''
Paternal Admonition'', as it was then known, by
Gerard ter Borch
Gerard ter Borch (; December 1617 – 8 December 1681), also known as Gerard Terburg (), was a Dutch genre painter who lived in the Dutch Golden Age. He influenced fellow Dutch painters Gabriel Metsu, Gerrit Dou, Eglon van der Neer and Johan ...
. This was praised by
Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
and others for the delicacy of its depiction of a father reprimanding his daughter. In fact, in the view of most (but not all) modern scholars it is a proposition scene in a brothel – there are two versions (Berlin & Amsterdam) and it is unclear whether a "tell-tale coin" in the man's hand has been removed or overpainted in either.
In the second half of the 18th century, the down-to-earth realism of Dutch painting was a "
Whig taste" in England, and in France associated with
Enlightenment rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...
and aspirations for political reform.
[Reitlinger, I, 11-15. Quote p.13] In the 19th century, with a near-universal respect for realism, and the final decline of the hierarchy of genres, contemporary painters began to borrow from genre painters both their realism and their use of objects for narrative purposes, and paint similar subjects themselves, with all the genres the Dutch had pioneered appearing on far larger canvases (still lifes excepted).
In landscape painting, the Italianate artists were the most influential and highly regarded in the 18th century, but
John Constable was among those Romantics who denounced them for artificiality, preferring the tonal and classical artists.
In fact, both groups remained influential and popular in the 19th century.
See also
*
Art of the Low Countries
*
Delft School (painting)
The Delft School is a category of mid-17th-century Dutch Golden Age painting named after its main base, Delft. It is best known for genre painting: images of domestic life, views of households, church interiors, courtyards, squares and the streets ...
*
Dutch School (painting)
Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting.
The ...
*
List of Dutch painters
*
List of painters from the Dutch Golden Age
Notes
References
* "Ekkart": Rudi Ekkart and Quentin Buvelot (eds), ''Dutch Portraits, The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals'', Mauritshuis/National Gallery/Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, 2007,
* Franits, Wayne, ''Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting'', Yale UP, 2004,
* Fuchs, RH, ''Dutch painting'', Thames and Hudson, London, 1978,
* Ingamells, John, ''The Wallace Collection, Catalogue of Pictures, Vol IV, Dutch and Flemish'', Wallace Collection, 1992,
*
Lloyd, Christopher, ''Enchanting the Eye, Dutch Paintings of the Golden Age'', Royal Collection Publications, 2004,
* MacLaren, Neil, ''The Dutch School, 1600–1800, Volume I'', 1991, National Gallery Catalogues, National Gallery, London, ; the main source for biographical details
* Prak, Maarten, (2003) "Guilds and the Development of the Art Market during the Dutch Golden Age." In: ''Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art'', vol. 30, no. 3/4. (2003), pp. 236–251. Expanded version is Prak (2008)
* Prak, Maarten, (2008)
''Painters, Guilds and the Art Market during the Dutch Golden Age'' in Epstein, Stephen R. and Prak, Maarten (eds), ''Guilds, innovation, and the European economy, 1400–1800'', Cambridge University Press, 2008, ,
*
Reitlinger, Gerald; ''The Economics of Taste, Vol I: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760–1960, Barrie and Rockliffe, London, 1961
*
Schama, Simon
Sir Simon Michael Schama (; born 13 February 1945) is an English historian specialising in art history, Dutch history, Jewish history, and French history. He is a University Professor of History and Art History at Columbia University.
He f ...
, ''
The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age'', 1987
*
Shawe-Taylor, Desmond and Scott, Jennifer, ''Bruegel to Rubens, Masters of Flemish Painting'', Royal Collection Publications, London, 2008,
*
Slive, Seymour, ''Dutch Painting, 1600–1800'', Yale University Press, 1995,
Further reading
*
Alpers, Svetlana. ''The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983,
reviewby
Ernst Gombrich
Sir Ernst Hans Josef Gombrich (; ; 30 March 1909 – 3 November 2001) was an Austrian-born art historian who, after settling in England in 1936, became a naturalised British citizen in 1947 and spent most of his working life in the United Ki ...
)
* Franits, Wayne E., ''Dutch Seventeenth-Century Genre Painting : Its Stylistic and Thematic Evolution'', 2018, Yale University Press
* Grijzenhout, F., and Veen, Henk, ''The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in Historical Perspective'', 1999, Cambridge University Press
* Hochstrasser, Julie, ''Still Life and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age'', 2007, Yale University Press
*
*
Alois Riegl, ''The Group Portraiture of Holland'', reprint 2000,
Getty Publications
The Getty Research Institute (GRI), located at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, California, is "dedicated to furthering knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts". , , 9780892365487, first published in German in 1902
fully available online* Fully available online.
External links
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Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...