the seventeenth century in europe
introduction
- Rise of Dutch republic most momentous event in the history of the seventeenth century.
- Coincided with the decline of Spain and thirty years war which devastated Germany and destroyed the authority of the Holy Roman Empire.
- Netherlands rebelled against Spanish rule, eventually becoming one of the richest European states.
- Revolt against long established authority throughout Europe.
- Advances made in science, astronomy and mathematics.
- Descartes wrote and published his works on the Dutch republic.
- Speculate thinking didn't have an immediate effect on the arts.
new beginnings in rome
- New life breathed into old forms by two artists - Annibale Carracci and Caravaggio.
- Later seen as the founders of idealism and naturalism.
- Both equally admired in their own time.
- Caravaggio renders texture with illusionistic skill.
- Within a decade Caravaggism spread through Italy to Spain.
- Influx of pictures with dark backgrounds and un idealized illuminated characters.
- Pietro Bellori claimed that Caracci saves painting from mannerism.
- Both artists differed in their working methods.
- Caracci made preliminary drawings where Caravaggio didnt.
- He was a draftsman and would draw everything.
- Wasn't a theorist, but his work came to be a rationalized version of 16th century aesthetic theory, substituting neoplatonic metaphysical 'idea' - derived from art itself.
- Theory would provide basis of all academic teaching for over two centuries.
- He organised gatherings of artists called the Academia deli Incamminati (academy of the initiated).
- Enabled artists to discuss problems in a calm environment.
- Academy generally applied to literary associations at the time.
- First academy of artists established in Florence, 1563 - supplemented training gained in a workshop.
- Acadamies sprung up elsewhere in Italy and northern Europe - most notably Paris - art education more organised than anywhere else.
- Growth of art collecting seemed to coincide with the rise of academies - comtemporary and old masters - led to art dealing.
- Attention diverted from large scale paintings to easel works - now occupying Europe with prime importance. - unique and unparalleled in other cultures.
Baroque art and architecture
- ‘Baroque’ first used as a term of critical abuse.
- Derived from two words current in the sixteenth century.
- Baroco - Italian - referred to tortuous medieval pedantry.
- Barocco - Portuguese - referred to a deformed pearl.
- Both signified deviation from the norm (mid 18th century theorists used them to describe works of art which seemed to them impure or irrational)
- No longer used as a criticism but still used to describe a period in 17th century art.
- Predominately religious emotionalism, dynamic energy, exuberant decorative richness.
- Born in Rome and spread to Europe - including European colonies in America and India.
- Not easy to define Baroque from other seventeenth century styles (such as Naturalist and Classicism styles)
- Art of 17th century best described as a whole due to superficial differences and deeper similarities (various stylistic impulses).
- Creation of strong minded individualists.
- Some great European artists, apart from Rubens, born within a few years of each other.
- Rubens: 1577 - 1640
- Nicolas Poussin: 1594 - 1665
- Gianlorenzo Bernini: 1598 - 1664
- Anthony van Dyck: 1599 - 1641
- Diego de Valazquez: 1599 - 1660
- Claude Lorraine: 1600 - 1682
- Rembrandt van Rijn: 1606 - 1669
Rubens and van dyck
- Rubens stands our due to his age and social background.
- Active high ranking diplomat as well as a painter.
- Son of a prominent lawyer, given a classical education lived in a noble household for a period to be given aristocratic manners, trained as an artist after this.
- Lived and traveled in Italy while pursuing his artistic career.
- Appointed court painter in 1609 (Antwerp, Hasburg regent of the Netherlands).
- Most highly esteemed artist in Europe - same position as Titian in previous century.
- Closely studied works of the Italian masters, copied in drawings and sketches.
- Learnt from the copies he made - explored pictorial representation.
- Had a strong individual character - seen in all works from sketches to paintings.
- Inspired by Titian, Veronese and Bruegel.
- Gave a new, personal idea of female beauty (full-breasted, broad-waisted, womanly, dimpling of flesh)
- In his ‘rape of the daughters of leucippus’ the two women are almost a mirror image of each other (common in 16th century paintings). Rubens used them to enhance dynamic movement.
- Many of his religious paintings were for the Jesuis churches.
- Rubens made studies from life for characters, building up final paintings through colour and light, not line.
- “I am by natural instinct better fitted to execute very large works than little curiosities” Rubens in a letter in 1621 WHA p.g. 573
- “I have never lacked courage to undertake any design, however vast or diversified in subject” Rubens in a letter in 1621 WHA p.g. 575
- Above quotes confirmed by his 3.7 meter high canvas illustrating the life of Marie de Medici - now in the Louvre, Paris.
- Much of his work was started by his team of assistants, he would only add the final touches to a painting (adjusted his prices according to the extent of his participation).
- The rate of painting from his studio has been likened to a factory - misleading as it was a studio directed by a genius, who never let it slip from his control.
- He bought a country estate in 1635, surrounding country inspired a series of paintings, revealing a new aspect of his art.
- Paintings were clearly for himself, with a personal meaning - maybe linked to his land ownership/new wife/family. Possibly a celebration.
- Rubens most notable assistant - Anthony van Eyck.
- Painted both mythological and religious subjects.
- Excelled in portraits.
- Appointed court painter to Charles I in England.
- He portrayed Charles I as the perfect renaissance gentleman.
the easel painting in italy
- Despite the fame of Rubens and van Dyck, the art most sought after was by Italian artists.
- Artemisia Gentieschi - first prominent Italian artist since Sofonisba Anguissolo and Lavinia Fontana.
- Follower of Caravaggio.
- Painting showed her distrust of men.
- Giovanni Francesco Barbieri - another artist from Bologna.
- Had a more painterly style, lighter palette and less dramatic lighting.
- Wanted to satisfy a wider audience with his work.
- His work was almost as extensive and Rembrandt's.
bernini
- Bernini was primarily a sculptor - also a gifted architect, painter and poet.
- Extrovert, sociable, witty in conversation, aristocratic in manner and a good family man, religious - had little interest in philosophical speculation.
- Fast worker, efficient organiser of large team of assistants.
- Dominated the artistic scene in Rome for half a century.
- First made his name with mythological groups and portrait busts.
- Received his first papal commission when 26 years old.
- His designs were traditional but in a new way and offended some contemporaries.
- Sculptures were realistic.
baromini
poussin and claude
- Stone carver by training.
- Employed as a decorative sculptor and draftsman in Rome.
- Later worked under Bernini.
- He was morose, quarrelsome, frustrated and neurotic, eventually committed suicide.
- Bernini said he was sent to destroy architecture.
- He actually had a greater knowledge of ancient Roman architecture than Bernini.
- More concerned with structural problems, work has stronger intellectual than emotional appeal.
- Inspired geometrician - based sculptures on Galilean conceptions of planetary orbits.
velazquez
- Most distinguished painters working in Rome were French (in mis seventeenth century) - Nicholas Poussin and Claude Lorraine.
- Poussin - well educated, could speak Latin, slow as an artist.
- Worked in the studio of Domenchino, mastered their style, commissioned for large alter piece in St Peters - work did not please so never created work for a Church or other Roman public building.
- Concentrated on relatively small pictures for collectors - shared intellectual interests.
- Took inspiration from Venetians such as Titian.
- Attention had to be paid to his work as it needed to be understood rather than just viewed.
- Claude Lorraine and Poussin probably knew each other - got grouped together.
- Were completely different in art as in character.
- Claude - no classical education, trained as a pastry cook.
- He learned to paint as an assistant to a decorative artist in Rome.
- 'Classical landscape' virtually his creation - seen as one of the highest forms of art work thanks to him.
- Had not been recognised as an independent genre until mid seventeenth century (except in the Netherlands).
- His landscapes were bought by kings and aristocracy.
- By 1635 his works were being forged, due to his success.
- Have acquired a timeless appearance.
- Represent the pastoral world of a classical golden age.
- Spent a lot of time with sketchbook, observing undulating pastures and natural light.
- Principal innovation was his treatment of light - unifying his whole composition.
- His use of light connects him with his contemporaries (who were diverse in every other way) Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, Vermeer and Velazquez.
dutch painting
- Among the many artists who visited Rome in the mid seventeenth century.
- Drawn into the city by ancient ruins of antiquty not contemporarary art.
- Indirectly influenced by Caravaggio - sculpture like realism.
- Philip IV took a liking to him and bought his work throughout his career - his collection allowed Valequez to see the splendour of Venetian art - Titians poesies.
- Brought out his painterly style and indifference to Raphael's linear.
- He entually went beyond titians handling (subtle, broken and fluid strokes) thinly applying paint so the canvas could show through.
- Las Maninas - his highest achievement - highly self conscious, calculated demonstration of what easel painting could achieve - seventeenth century Italian called it 'the theology of painting' as it was a painting about a painting.
- Shows himself as an artist while creating a group portrait - used reflections in mirrors (like van Eyck's arnolfini portrait) has several layers of meaning.
- Painting likened to a snapshot - due to un prepared poses of the characters.
- Rendered with great naturalism - light and depiction of characters.
- Up close his figures appear as smears and blobs of paint.
- Figures seem to have come together accidentally.
- Spectator standing in the position where the king and queen would be in the painting - feel involved almost in the scene.
- Included copies of two works by Rubens on far wall of his painting.
- Carries the secondary theme of painting as a liberal art.
hals
- Dutch republic important in the intellectual life of the seventeenth century - country had freedom of speculation.
- Dominated by protestants, protestant denominations were tolerated, gave refuge to jews and Catholics were banned.
- Unique in other respects - more democratic than there replublics, defensive rather than aggressive in foreign policy, economy based on commerce rather than agriculture.
- Aristocracy went out with the split from Spain.
- Bankers, merchants, shippers and manufacturers constituted the upper class, secular painting flourished under their patronage.
- Easel painting was exclusively being bought - brought it to the height of painting due to development of all genres (landscapes, seascapes, portraits, low life scenes, still life etc).
- Claimed that european art found its most distinctive form in Dutch seventeenth century.
- Little or no demand for altarpieces/large scale devotional images/grandiose architecture or sculpture.
rembrandt
landscape
- Generally regarded as founder of the dutch school of painting.
- Specialized in portraits - usually fellow haarlem citizens, groups and single and portrait like pictures with figures of contemporary life.
- Unrestricted by his sitters, free to work in his own individual manner of painting - used as studies of expression and character.
- His work fell out of favour in 1640's, smoother styles from van Eyck's influence were introduced.
- He was often in debt due to lack of work.
- Rembrandt suffered the same, although differed in every other respect.
- Began painting small, smooth biblical scenes.
- Compositions learned from Rubens, chiaroscuro from Caravaggio.
- He was unusually responsive of the work of other artists, mainly Italian Renaissance artists.
- Used all influence in his own work - reflected as development throughout his artistic life.
- Recognised as leading artist for portraits.
- Created more dramatic group portraits.
- Created thrilling atmospheres with rich contrasts of light and shade, brilliant and drab colour, variety of poses, gestures and facial expressions.
- 'The night watch' regarded as his biggest achievement.
- Reputation declined due to lack of portraits being less in demand.
- Created over a hundred self portraits (paintings and etchings) during his lifetime - unique pictorial autobiography - unlikely his intention - probably studies of character and expression.
- Seems to have thought of himself as a religious painter - not devotional images but sacred items.
still life and genre
- Flemish responsible for development in depicting the undramatic, flat, watery and almost featureless local scene - mastered arial perspective.
- Had no narrative content.
- Large number of dutch landscape paintings survive.
- Not usually commisioned, but painting first for wider audiences then sold on open market - sold largely to merchants, rather than aristocracy.
- Regarded partly as decorations for the home but had some patriotic significance.
- Reminders of the protestant origin.
- Symbolic as they form part of an iconography of nationhood, ideas, memories and feeling that bind nation together.
- Jan van Goyen most gifted and most prolific artist specializing in landscape painting (first half of century).
- Jacob van Ruisdael adopted a less restrictive pallet and used dramatic manner.
- Fascinated by windmills - feature characteristic of dutch country side - been given symbolic meaning by dutch writers. Sails associated with christ's cross, grain ground - with the eucharist. Also illustrated as emblems of fortune, folly and virtue. Unsure how far Ruisdael wanted to convey these meanings if at all.
- Meindert Hobbema studied under Ruisdeal - creating more contemporary and timeless symbolism.
- Aelbert Cuyp developed a completely different style of painting - adopted a light tonality, colourful palette and smooth tenchique like dutch artists who visited italy.
- His canvasses radiate an atmosphere of well being.
vermeer
- Nearly all artists had a speciality at the time.
- A painter of still life would often restrict himself to a single class of objects.
- Willem Kalf one of the most gifted still-life artists.
- Rachel Ruysch- first woman to be recognised internationally as a major artist.
- Still life incorporated symbols - such as mortality (skull) burnt out candle (memento more - reminder of death, reminder to enjoy pleasures of life).
- Traditional of depicting house hold objects went back to the fifteenth century.
- Genre pictures - small in size, sharply detailed represented a familiar world, perfectly adapted for living rooms of middle class houses and mirrored the outlooks of their owners.
- Realism was not the only feature - usually carried moral messages.
- Many allude to sexual transgression - which could be chose to be seen or not by the owner.
- Major artists of this scene Judith Leyster, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch.
- Specialized in moralising genre pictures.
- No more than 35 paintings attributed to him.
- Supported his family as an inn keeper, art dealer as well as an artist.
- Stands out from contempories due to extreme, sensitive rendering of light and predominately blue and yellow colour schemes.
- His luminosity achieved by a virtually new technique - based partly on optical experiements, mainly on observation of interpenetrating reflected colours.
- Captured light in minute pearl like dots.
- Often mistaken for straight forward renderings of daily life.
- One of his paintings thought to be himself, until his widow entitled it the art of painting, which said otherwise.
- Dutch maps of the Netherlands were hung in many houses at that time - appear in a lot of his paintings.
- Presumably allegorical meaning of 'the art of painting' is unknown - perhaps making a claim for painting as a liberal art like Velazquez.
- Dutch artists, along with Spanish, were seeking recognition for their status, trying to disassociate themselves with craft guilds.
- French influence became dominant throughout the Netherlands and Vermeer's game was omitted from academically inspired histories of dutch art - work almost completely forgotten until rediscovered in the mid nineteenth century.
england and france
- Close cultural links between the Dutch republic and England - differening political alliances which led to war twice.
- English books were translated into Dutch, but Dutch had influence on England in the arts.
- Dutch influence dominated decorative arts and domestic architecture.
- Italianate style introduced early in century for royal buildings - by Inigo Jones.
- Inspired Christopher Wren when designing St Paul's Cathedral and 51 parish churches to replace ones destroyed in great fire of 1666.
- Wren was a mathematician and astronomer by training - experimental and practical mind.
- His cathedral was first to be built for the church of England.
- Approached fellow scientists such as Isaac Newton to help work out the design, conducting experiments as it was built.
- Foundations laid in 1675, chancel completed in 1697, but dome and west towers not decided on until 1700.
- Studied engraving for St Peters - Rome and recent Italian and French buildings.
- His designs were more practical.
- Churches were products of exceptional circumstances as arts owed little to church or state patronage - as with the Dutch republic - in late seventeenth century.
- Visual arts enrolled, ordered and paraded in the service of autocracy in France.
- No artistic style more directly expressive of the political ambitions and achievements of a monarch than that named after Louis XIV - began his long personal rule in 1661.
- First task confronting him was the building of the Louvre, Royal palace in Paris.
- Bernini was summoned to advise in 1665 but designs rejected.
- King selected one of two alternative designs - committee had Lebrun, Louis Le Vau and Claude Perrault.
- East front more strictly classical than any other building in France.
- Versailles caught the attention of all Europe - was his intention - became the ideal for every royal household.
- The taste of middle class Dutch and Flemish genre paintings played a part in determining the course of French art.