Baroque and Rococo
 


     

Baroque and Rococo Art Map

Dirck van Baburen

Samuel van Hoogstraten

Carel Fabritius




see collection:


Abraham Bloemaert


Gerrit van Honthorst


Hendrick Terbrugghen


Gerrit Dou


Govaert Flinck


Nicolaes Maes


Emanuel de Witte



 

The Netherlands in the 17th Century


This period saw a great flowering of Dutch art. and especially of cabinet and small-scale pictures of all types: portraits, landscapes, marine paintings, domestic interiors, architectural vistas, and still lifes. Official commissions were often for group portraits of civic worthies, such as city guilds and military companies in the United Provinces (now The Netherlands). During the 1620s, the established Utrecht master Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651) was a late convert to Caravaggism, influenced by one of his pupils, Gerrit van Honthorst (1590-1656). Like Dirck van Baburen (1595-1624) and Hendrick Terbrugghen, van Honthorst had spent time in Rome. The evocative, atmospheric candlelight in many of his paintings earned him the name ''Gerard of the Night Scenes". But the last flicker of Dutch Caravaggism died away with Terbrugghen's death in 1629; van Honthorst abandoned his earlier style in favour of classicism, and went on to work at the English, Danish, and Dutch courts.
Born in Antwerp, the great portraitist Frans Hals (1581/85 -1666) spent most of his life in Haarlem. He left Mannerist convention behind, restoring truth, vigour, and spontaneity of pose and expression to his subjects, and made the most of his skill at capturing a likeness with swift, sure brushstrokes, as can be seen in his "character" portraits painted during the 1630s. Far in advance of contemporary European artists, Rembrandt van Rijn was not only a painter of exceptional originality but also a superb draughtsman and etcher. In about 1625, he set up a workshop in his home town of Leiden and concentrated on examining how light delineates shapes within evocative atmospheres, while also exploring the inner psychology of his subjects. Over the years, his expressive power grew in subtlety and insight, partly as a result of his experience in painting penetrating portraits. Some 80 self-portraits recorded the phases of his life rather like an autobiography, and later they gradually became more introspective. Immediately after moving to Amsterdam in 1631, he became the most sought-after painter of the day for portraits of the city's haute bourgeoisie. His Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp dates from this period. With his famous The Night Watch (also known as The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenhurch), painted in 1642, Rembrandt created a fresh and unusual interpretation of the group portrait by dividing the figures into several smaller groups, and portraying them moving, instead of in static poses, emphasized by his handling of the complex lighting effects. Rembrandt had many pupils in Leiden and Amsterdam, including Gerrit Dou, Govaert Flinck, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Carel Fabritius, and Nicolaes Maes. In 1650, Fabritius (1622-54) moved to Delft and, inspired by his adopted city, gained a reputation for his vibrant, colourful paintings and his exploration of perspective, demonstrated by his View of Delft (1652). Delft was also home to the painter Emanuel de Witte (c.1617-92), famous for his massive and dramatic church interiors, and Jan Vermeer (1632-75), whose later paintings were generally domestic interiors, peopled by calm figures who are usually occupied in leisure or work activities, and which convey feelings of serenity through their purity of colour and an exquisite, sensuous light.

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Dirck van Baburen

(b Wijk bij Duurstede, nr Utrecht, c. 1594–5; d Utrecht, 21 Feb 1624).

Dutch painter. His father, Jasper van Baburen (d ?1599), had been in the service of Geertruijd van Bronckhorst van Battenburg, Baroness (vrijvrouw) of Vianen, Viscountess (burggravin) of Utrecht, and thus Dirck must have received a better than average education, a fact at least partially confirmed by the innovative and often literary nature of his subject-matter. In 1611 he is recorded as a pupil of the portrait and history painter Paulus Moreelse in Utrecht. It is likely that this was the last year of his apprenticeship. Van Baburen probably left for Italy shortly after 1611, for a document rediscovered in the late 1980s records a signed and dated altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St Sebastian (1615; untraced), executed for a church in Parma. His most important pictures made in Italy were painted in collaboration with David de Haen (d 1622) for the Pietà Chapel of S Pietro in Montorio, Rome, which was decorated between 1615 and 1620. Van Baburen’s paintings for the chapel were mentioned by Giulio Mancini in his manuscript notes, Considerazioni sulla pittura (c. 1619–20); there Mancini claims the artist was 22 or 23 years old when he carried out the commission. One of his best-known works, the Entombment (formerly dated 1617), is still in situ on the altar of the chapel. This much-copied composition reveals van Baburen’s close study of Caravaggio’s famous Entombment (Rome, Pin. Vaticana). In 1619 and the spring of 1620 van Baburen and de Haen were recorded as living in the same house in the Roman parish of S Andrea delle Fratte. Caravaggio’s close follower and presumed student, Bartolomeo Manfredi, was living in the same parish in 1619. Van Baburen must have known the works of Manfredi—if not the artist himself—for both versions of his Christ Crowned with Thorns (c. 1621–2; Utrecht, Catharijneconvent, and Kansas City, MO, Nelson–Atkins Mus. A.) are deeply indebted to Manfredi’s interpretation of Caravaggio’s style and subject-matter. In Rome van Baburen attracted the patronage of Vincenzo Giustiniani, for whom he executed a large Christ Washing the Feet of the Apostles (Berlin, Gemäldegal.), and Cardinal Scipione Borghese, for whom he painted an Arrest of Christ (Rome, Gal. Borghese).

Dirck van Baburen
The Procuress
1622
Oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Dirck van Baburen
San Sebastian atendido por Santa Irene y su criada

 

Dirck van Baburen
Christ Washing the Apostles' Feet

 

Dirck van Baburen
Concert
1623

 

Dirck van Baburen
Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan
1623
Oil on canvas, 202 x 184 cm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
 

see collection:


Abraham Bloemaert

Gerrit van Honthorst

Hendrick Terbrugghen

Gerrit Dou

Govaert Flinck

Nicolaes Maes

Emanuel de Witte