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Marriage and Family Portraits
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See also:
Jacob
Jordaens
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Jacob Jordaens:
The Artist and his Family
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Jacob Jordaens
The Family of the Artist
1621
Oil on canvas, 181 x 187 cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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In this almost quadratic picture, which entered the Prado from
the collection of Philip IV in 1829, the Flemish painter Jacob
Jordaens proudly presents himself and his family. The view from
below -eye level is practically ground level - lends the subject
dignity. The use of this optical device allows Jordaens to portray
himself in an almost aristocratic light. In 1621 he was made Dean of
the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp and later carried out a large
number of royal commissions, both independently and under Rubens's
guidance.
The composition defines family gender roles. Jordaens himself stands
on the right, one foot casually supported on the crossbar of a
raised chair. His right hand leans on the chair's backrest, while
his left holds the neck of a lute. His wife, wearing elegant clothes
and a large ruff, sits on the left on a lower chair, her arms
casually holding her little girl. In her hands, the girl has a
basket of flowers and an apple. In the middle ground, between
husband and wife, is another girl, who, although also shown
frontally, is the only figure not to gaze directly at the spectator.
The older girl is generally held to be a servant. However, she is
shown here holding a basket of grapes. This role is usually ascribed
to children m seventeenth-century Netherlandish family portraits.
The grape-motif is a symbol for the strength of familiy ties, based
on the old meaning of the Eucharist. The girl is probably between
thirteen and fifteen years old. If she were really the daughter of
the artist, who married the daughter of his teacher Adam van Noort
in 1616, then the portrait could not have been painted in 1620/22,
as is generally supposed, but must have been executed eight to ten
years later.
Jordaens, like Rubens, saw himself as a scholar. Indeed,
notwithstanding his membership in what amounted to a guild for
craftsmen, he saw himself as a highly sophisticated court painter.
This portrait, for example, is full of hidden allusions to his
status and to his - albeit hardly unconventional at the time - ideas
on marriage and the family. A putto at the top left of the painting
suggests marriage is a union based on love, not merely on property.
The putto is riding a dolphin, which, since early Christian times,
had been viewed as an archetypical symbol - often in relation to the
story of Jonas - for Christ's death and resurrection. Marriage is
thus portrayed as a union founded on faith. The parrot in the top
left, a Marian attribute, is, by allusion to the purity of the
Virgin, a cipher for the chastity expected of married women. The dog
behind the artist is a symbol of devotion (compare van Eyck's
Arnolfini portrait,) implying - as a kind of "quid pro quo" for
his wife's promise of chastity - the conjugal fidelity sworn bv the
husband.
As in Frans Floris's family portrait (1561; Lier), the musical
instrument stands for "concordia", family harmony. At the same time,
in recalling Leonardo's description of an elegantly dressed painter
listening to music and standing at his easel, it points to the
artist's privileged status in society. In this sense, it is
interesting that Jordaens has chosen to portray himself in the
privacy of his family, rather than in a professional setting.
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Jacob Jordaens
The Artist and his Family (detail)
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Jacob Jordaens
The Artist and his Family (detail)
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Portraits of Children
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Giovanni Francesco Caroto:
Boy with a Drawing
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Giovanni Francesco Caroto
Boy with a Drawing
As in earlier paintings of St. Luke, Caroto allows the spectator
to compare reality with its representation
(assuming the drawing is the
boy's "self-portrait").
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Derick
Baegert
St. Luke and the Virgin
1490
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It is no longer possible to ascertain whether this small-format
work by the Veronese painter Giovanni Francesco Caroto was
originally intended as a portrait. It shows the smiling face of a
boy with long, flowing red hair. The boy has turned his head out of
profile to look at the spectator and is holding up a child's
scribbled drawing. Probably, however, it is quite correct to see it
as a portrait, since its subject bears no relation to any of the
other genres becoming increasingly established in sixteenth-century
painting. It is remarkable for the way it shows, probably for the
first time in painting, a specifically childlike represention of
reality, giving the spectator an amusing opportunity to
compare the child's view with that of the artist himself.
The idea of allowing the spectator to form an expert opinion
of the artist's talents by showing reality and its
representation within one painting is prefigured in
paintings of St. Luke and the Virgin by Derick
Baegert and Jan Gossaert. The scribbled figure, which
the boy proudly holds up to view, seems to be a "self-portrait".
The period was one in which artists - in Italy Leon Battista Alberti,
Francesco di Giorgio, Leonardo da Vinci and Fra Luca Pacioli, and in
Germany Albrecht Durer -were studying human proportions in order to
establish a formula for the Classical ideal, in other words the
rational basis for a canon of perfect beauty. At the same time,
however, these artists also began to understand much more about the
deviations from the norms they were establishing. It was this which
led artists like Leonardo and Durer to the caricature. The interest
in children's drawings to which Caroto's painting testifies
probably arose in this context, too. It may have gone hand in hand
with a new interest in specifically childlike patterns of perception
as such, including their manner of portraying reality in drawings,
since the child was no longer merely viewed as a small adult.
Long before Corrado Ricci "discovered" children's drawings for
modern child and developmental psychology, Caroto's example of
"children's realism" showed that aesthetic perception and the
representation of reality were linked to certain mental standards or
developmental stages. As an essay in art theory, the painting
therefore also relativises dogmatic approaches to artistic method.
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Jan van Scorel:
The Schoolboy
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Jan van Scorel
The Schoolboy
1531
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Hans Holbein the Younger
Schoolmaster's Signboard
1516
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Unlike portraits of aristocratic or courtly children, such as
those painted by Agnolo Bronzino or Diego Velazquez,
showing princes and princesses whose prescribed role is evidently
too demanding, whose features are either doll-like or too old, and
who, despite all their privileges, seem robbed of their freedom of
movement, this young burgher with his red beret has such a fresh,
vivacious expression on his face, such a lively desire to learn in
his manner, that he seems already a fully developed, confident
individual.186 Indeed, the difference between this likeness and
portraits of adults, especially those of sixteenth-century
humanists, is only one of degree. The age of the boy, whose alert
gaze is fixed directly on the spectator, is given by an inscription
in Latin as twelve years (AETATIS XII). In his desire to work he has
picked up a quill and looks as if he is about to write something
down. Indeed, in his left hand is a note which is already inscribed.
The writing, like a code, is laterally inverted: "Omnia dat dominus
non habet ergo minus" (The Lord provides everything and yet has
nothing less). This sentence, admittedly rather precocious for a
twelve-year-old, is thematically linked to the words written in
Roman capitals on the painted lower section of the frame: QUIS
DIVES? QUI NIL CUPIT - QUIS PAUPER? AVAR(US) (Who is rich? He who
desires nothing - Who is poor? The miser). Stoic or Cynic wisdom is
expressed here in Christian biblical diction; the postulate of
selflessness is probably directed against the boundless avarice of
usury, a practice which the church had initially condemned, but
later tended to condone. The ideas encapsulated in these quotations
are similar to those of humanists like the Spanish writer Juan Luis
Vives (1492-1540). It was no coincidence that Vives published his
main pedagogical work "De disciplinis" (1531) in the same year as
Jan van Scorel painted his School-boy.
According to Vives, children were born with a spiritual ability to
withstand the base materialism of instinctual avarice; this
spiritual predisposition was the "germ of all art and science".
Jan
van Scorel's Schoolboy was an early treatment of the theme of
childhood, but one in which children were neither infantilised, nor
reduced to their "natural state" — a pedagogical ideology later
propagated during the age of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
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see also:
Velazquez
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Diego Velazquez:
The Infante Philip Prosper
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 Velazquez
The Infante Fhilip Prosper
1660
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During the last decade of his life, Velazquez executed a series of portraits
whose intuitive insight into the "childlike nature behind the facade of regal
dignity"188 makes them possibly the most impressive of their genre.
In 1649, Philip IV of Spain had remarried. His new wife was Maria Anna, the
daughter of Ferdinand III of Austria, who gave birth to the Infanta Margarita
Teresa and Prince Philip Prosper. Velazquez painted several portraits of
Margarita. However, the only existing portrait of the heir to the throne (born
28 Nov. 1657; died at the age of four) is the painting reproduced here (now in
Vienna). The portraits of the royal children were intended for the imperial
court at Vienna. Those of Margarita were sent as presents in the course of
marriage negotiations, for she was betrothed to her mother's brother, Emperor
Leopold I, whom she married in 1666.
Velazquez was required by the court to emphasise the preeminent social position
of the children he portrayed. The portraits must therefore be viewed as official
state
portraits; they depict the regal dignity and nobility of attitude which the
royal sitters had inherited by virtue of birth. Following courtly convention,
Philip Prosper is therefore portrayed standing with his right arm outstretched,
a pose designed to recall the thaumaturgical gesture of a king. It is
nevertheless apparent that the pale, sickly-looking child, who was two years old
at the time, is unable to play - much less understand - the historical role
ascribed to him. His right hand hangs limply and weakly over the backrest of a
red, velvet-covered child's chair, on which his little playmate, a lap-dog, is
lying with its nose and one paw slightly extended.
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Velazquez
The Infante Fhilip Prosper
(detail)
1660
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Over his full-length dress, Philip Prosper wears a white apron hung with various
amulets whose purpose was to protect the frail little heir to the throne against
illness, a practice based on the ideas of sympathetic magic. The portrait may
have been executed on St. Prosper's day, marking the prince's second birthday.
Margarita is the main figure in a group portrait which is probably Velazquez's
most famous work of all: Las Meninas (The Maids of Honour), executed in 1656. The Infanta stands at the centre of the composition; her head,
with its silky, shoulder-length hair, is turned slightly sideways, looking out
towards the spectator. Kneeling down, with her head at the same level as that of
the Infanta, a maid of honour, Dona Maria Agustina de Sar-miento, offers the
Infanta a little pot of drinking chocolate. The other maid of honour, Dona
Isabel dc Velasco, standing a little behind and to the right of the Infanta, is
shown making a curtsey to persons beyond the picture-plane who seem to be
approaching the group and whose position is more or less identical to that of
the spectator. Maribarbola, the coarse-looking dwarf standing in the lower right
corner, seems to be glancing up at approaching persons, too (while Nicolasito
Pertusato, the other dwarf, caught in the act of kicking the dog lying on the
floor, has not noticed them). The spontaneity of the scene is accentuated by the
figure of Velazquez himself, shown stepping back from his work, his palette and
brush in his hands. Only the reverse ot the large-format canvas propped up
against his easel in the lower left of the painting is visible. Also looking out
of the picture are two shadowy figures in the middle distance, and, standing at
the back of the painting on some steps in an open doorway, the court treasurer
Don Jose Velazquez, presumably one of the painter's relatives.
It is quite possible that the figures grouped in this palace interior have
suddenly become aware of the approach of the King and Queen, whose blurred image
appears in a gleaming mirror on the wall at the back of the room (beside
paintings bv Mazo after works by Rubens and Jordaens). As in Jan van Eyck's
wedding portrait for Giovanni Arnolfini, which was in the Spanish
court collection at the time, and may therefore have been known to Velazquez,
fictional borders are broken down with the help of a mirror which reflects
persons outside the picture space.
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 Velazquez
Las Meninas (detail)
1656-57
Oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid
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Dutch Civic Guard Portraits
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see also:
Rembrandt
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Rembrandt:
"The Night
Watch"
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Rembrandt
The Night Watch
1642
Oil on canvas, 363 x 437 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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Rembrandt
The Night Watch (detail)
1642
Oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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Bob Haak has quite rightly pointed out that Rembrandt's
so-called Night Watch "has a greater
historical burden to carry than any other
seventeenth-century Dutch painting". Since the nineteenth
century especially, when Rembrandt was made the object of a
cult of genius, the painting has been obscured by so many
different layers of meaning that it has become inordinately
difficult to throw light on the conditions under which it
was executed. According to popular legend, Rembrandt's use
in this painting of an entirely new method of composition so
appalled his public that his fall into penury was sealed
from that moment onwards. The story draws on the myth of the
unrecognised genius whom an insensitive public condemns to
tragic isolation. This stock device in the rhetoric of
modern art bemoans the fate of the typical secessionist
whose rebellion against the dominant aesthetic is fought out
at the cost of his secure existence.
However, contemporary sources suggest that the painting's
rejection was not as great as was later supposed. Indeed,
the evidence tends to point to the contrary. Despite one or
two, hardly unusual, critical remarks concerning various
practicalities of the painting's execution, Samuel van
Hoogstraten described the composition in his "Schilderkonst"
(1678) as "dashing". It was "so powerful", he said, "that,
according to some, the pictures beside which it was hung
were made to seem like playing cards". Filippo Baldinucci
reported that the painting was received to considerable
acclaim. Rembrandt had "made such a great name for himself
that he is better known than almost any other artist in
these climes". Although it is demonstrable that Rembrandt
now turned away from the group portrait, it would be
difficult to establish a causal nexus between this change of
direction and the financial crisis which overshadowed his
life from then on.
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Rembrandt
The Night Watch (detail)
1642
Oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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Rembrandt
The Night Watch (detail)
1642
Oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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Detail from The Night Watch.
The claw (Dutch: "klauw") of the white fowl
hanging from the girl's belt is a visual pun on the name of the "Klovcniers"
militia company.
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Rembrandt's Night Watch - erroneously named, since
it depicts an event taking place in the shadows, with patches of
sunlight breaking through - belongs to the genre of the "doelenstuk",
or militia company piece. The painting shows members of the
Amsterdam "Kloveniersdoelen" (civic militia company of
harquebusiers). The subject is introduced by a visual pun: the
muskets ("kloven" is Dutch for the butt of a gun) which the men are
holding, or loading and firing. Moreover, Rembrandt has included a
hidden, emblematic reference to the militia company in the middle
ground. At the same time, the detail is accentuated by painting it
in a bright light: a white fowl, shown dangling from the belt of a
dwarflike girl, who may be a sutler - the "claws" (Dutch: "klauw")
of the bird are a visual pun on "Kloveniers".
The painting shows only the more wealthy, upper and middle class
members of the militia company from Amsterdam's District II, the "Nieuwe
Zijde". In fact, the company had several hundred members, while
about four thousand civic guards were organised in the Amsterdam
companies altogether. To become a high-ranking officer of the civic
guards was a means of demonstrating one's rise to political
influence. This certainly applies to the two main protagonists here:
Captain Frans Banning Cocq, with his red sash and sword, and
Lieutenant Willem van Ruijtenburch, with his sunlit yellow uniform,
upon which the Captain's hand, giving marching orders to the
assembled company, casts its shadow. Frans Banning Cocq was the
child of an immigrant from Bremen, who, according to the records,
was initially forced to beg in order to survive, but was later able
to improve his circumstances by working for a chemist. His son
studied, became a Doctor of Law, and was soon a respected member of
Amsterdam society. His marriage to the daughter of the mayor, whose
considerable wealth he inherited at the age of twenty-five, gave him
financial independence and paved his way to high political office in
Amsterdam.
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Frans Hals
Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard
Company
1627
Oil on canvas, 179 x 257,5 cm
Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem
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A static configuration would have made
hierarchical structures more conspicuous. Here they are obscured by
synchronizing temporally unrelated incidents, creating the
impression of a great variety of un-coordinated movements and
impulsive actions.
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Rembrandt's Night Watch breaks with an older genre
of militia company paintings, of which there were two main types:
the banquet group portrait, particularly associated with Frans Hals,
and the full-length civic guard portrait, in which the sitters would
usually be shown parading, with guns and unfurled company banner, in
brightly coloured officer's uniforms. A characteristic of earlier
examples of the genre was their arrangement of figures according to
the principle of iso-cephaly - showing them all the same height - as
seen in works by Dirck Jacobsz (Company of Captain
Dirck Jacobsz) and Cornelis Anthonisz (Banquet
of Members of Amsterdam's Crossbow Civic Guard).
It was not until the early seventeenth century that this schematic
arrangement of figures became less rigid and began to accommodate
the idea of narrative. Compositions which had hitherto stressed
fraternal equality within the militia company now began to emphasise
its hierarchy, gradually transforming the genre of the "doelenstuk"
into the history painting. This is anticipated by the prominence
given to the officers in Thomas de Keyser's Militia Company of
Captain Allaert Cloeck. Rembrandt adapts these formal
developments to his own ends, animating the configural arrangement
as a "whole. Furthermore, he imparts to the setting a dignity and
grandeur otherwise considered the exclusive preserve of the ruling
class. He does this partly, it seems, by inventing the architecture
in the background himself, since the arch cannot be identified as
one of Amsterdam's city gates.
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Thomas de Keyser
The Militia Company of Captain Allaert Cloeck
1632
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
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It has never been disputed that Rembrandt attempted to break down
boundaries between the portrait and the history painting (considered
the highest in the hierarchy of genre paintings at the time), in
other words, that the so-called Night Watch refers to
a particular event in history. The event to which the painting
alludes has never been established, however. According to one
tentative hypothesis, the painting shows the guards assembling to
escort Queen Henrietta Maria of England on 20th May 1642. In this
case, the subject of the painting would be an event which took place
in the same year as the painting was executed. Another theory
suggests the painting may refer to the state visit to Amsterdam of
Maria de' Medici in September 1638. Whatever the correct answer, it
is apparent that Rembrandt's purpose here is to impart nobility to
his bourgeois clientele by showing them as historical agents, a role
hitherto considered above their station. In so doing, he is not far
from illustrating Shakespeare's dictum: "There is a history in all
men's lives" (Henry IV, Act III, 1, 80-81). Ennobling his subject,
however, does not mean depriving his figures of their spontaneity, a
quality indicating bourgeois lack of restraint: a musket going off
behind the Lieutenant, for example, or a man loading a gun, another
beating a drum or boisterous children dressed in a burlesque martial
style.
Turbulence was an essential component of Baroque history painting.
Leon Battista Alberti had defined the guiding principle of the genre
as "varieta": diversity of movement, gesture and pose. In
coordinating elements aesthetically that were not coordinated
historically, Rembrandt gave shape in painting to a principle which
had been postulated for drama in contemporary French Classical
poetics, namely the unities of time, place and action (later
summarised by Pierre Corneille in his "Discours des trois unites",
1660).
The spontaneity of the figures in the painting initially suggests
their autonomy, their democratic freedom from constaint. Closer
scrutiny reveals the opposite, however. Unlike earlier examples of
the "doelenstuk", Rembrandt's composition stresses the dominant
positions of the Captain and the Lieutenant. In an original, uncut
version of the painting, which has survived in the form of a copy by
Gerrit Lundens (London, National Gallery), the emphasis was even
more obvious. Here, the action - the assembly and departure of the
guard - tapers to a formal conclusion in the figures of the
company's two leaders (disregarding the artist's use of lighting,
the device is convincingly revealed in Schmidt-Degener's
reconstruction of the basic plan of the composition).
Paradoxically, the society depicted here appears to allow the
unrestrained expression of individuality, and yet, at the same time,
its structure remains rigidly hierarchical. With the old feudal
system shaken off, hierarchical structures continued to exist, only
now they were based on a consensus achieved by the new principles of
bourgeois democracy. The problem was how to reconcile the new power
structures with individual freedom of development.
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Cornelis Anthonisz
Banquet of Members of Amsterdam's Crossbow Civic Guard
1533
Historisch Museum, Amsterdam
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