Franz Conde (T1684607)

A226 Exploring art and visual culture

TMA 03
January 2015

How and why did the art and visual culture of the Netherlands differ from that of other
European countries during the seventeenth century?

In 1579 seven provinces of the Spanish Netherlands united against the rule of Phillip II, King
of Spain. Tacit independence was achieved by a truce in 1609 and formal independence
recognized by the Treaty of Münster in 1648 (Gaiger, 2013, p. 66). This geo-political
reconfiguration fostered changes in society that allowed the young rebel state to develop into
a world power (Hell, et al., 2014, p. 8). The ensuing social and economic changes impacted
all aspects of human endeavour, including its art and visual culture, making the Dutch
‘Golden Age’ a key period of distinctiveness within the art history discourse (Honour &
Fleming, 2009, p. 591). What characteristics did all the Dutch art and visual culture of this
period had in common? Were these characteristics different from those of other European
nations at the time? What reasons were there to contribute to this uniqueness?
The first notable characteristic of the Dutch visual culture of this period is the establishing of
portable easel painting as the dominant form of art, signalling a departure from the hitherto
European tradition where the prevalent manifestations were still large-scale devotional
paintings, sculpture and grandiose architecture (Gaiger, 2013, p. 67). In France, for
example, which was consolidated under the hegemonic rule of Louis XIV, the great majority
of the visual culture of the period took the form of architecture, gardening, palace furnishings
and sculpture (Honour & Fleming, 2009, pp. 604-605). In Rome, where Popes also
commanded absolute power, the visual culture was almost monopolized by Bernini’s grand
public projects (like St. Peter’s Square) that theatrically combined architecture, urbanism,
sculpture and painting (Richardson, 2013, pp. 29-33). This proliferation of easel-painting
reflects directly on the sources financing the production of art. In France the arts were
‘enrolled, ordered and paraded’ in the service of the autocracy of Louis XIV (Honour &
Fleming, 2009, p. 604) and as an additional instrument of the state control of the arts, in
1660 Louis XIV minister Colbert called Charles le Brun to reorganize the Académie Royale
(Jordan, 2001). In contrast, in the newly formed Dutch Republic, painting was at the service
of several different sectors of society. There was, of course, a continuation of private
patronage in the form of prestige-seeking large-scale paintings that were commissioned by
the emerging republican civil authorities (civic guards, guild members or governors of charity
houses) (Hell, et al., 2014, p. 19), but unlike France, there was an open market for easel
painting where the emerging middle classes (butchers, bakers, blacksmiths and cobblers)
were buying small-scale paintings to adorn their houses or workshops (Honour & Fleming,
2009, p. 591). Furthermore, as additional evidence of painting becoming an autonomous
pursuit, while in the rest of Europe painters would normally hold a place in court or a
dedicated workshop, in the Netherlands it was mostly a freelance activity pursued by
entrepreneurs from their own homes (Alpers, 1994, p. 161).
There are two formal characteristics of these popular small-scale genre paintings -1.3 million
paintings were produced between 1640 and 1659 alone - that Joshua Reynolds noticed
during a 1791 survey: the seemingly inane subject matter depicted by the artists and the
technical virtuosity or ‘truth of representation’ achieved in portraying it (Gaiger, 2013, p. 67).
Worthiness of subject matter was an important concept for eighteenth century art
academicians and Dutch painting, when measured against these assumptions, reveals itself
as local, inward looking, depicting the present rather than a mythical or historical event, and
naturalistic rather than idealistic. In portraiture for example, instead of saints, kings, classical
history characters or the aristocracy, low-rank citizens are featured: maids, peasants,
guardsmen, the working class. Although the heads of state were the Princes of Orange, the
Dutch provinces were largely self-governed by elite families that deposited a great degree of
power in independent agencies. For example, order-keeping would be in the hand of militias
(Rembrandt’s Nightwacht is just one of innumerable examples of large-scale group
portraiture commissioned by these newly rising agents of power), and governors of
charitable institutions (hospitals, alms-houses, orphanages) were instrumental in securing a
safe social environment for trade and commerce (Hell, et al., 2014, p. 95). In landscape, the
elsewhere favoured Arcadian idealism epitomized by Poussin and Claude (Haywood, 2015),
had given space to a topographically realistic depiction of the Netherlands: flat polders, dikes
and windmills, sand dunes, wide menacing skies.
The meaning and function of Dutch painting of this period is the subject of an ongoing
debate in art history. Joshua Reynolds evaluation of inanity has been relegated in favour of
interpretations that are not necessarily exclusive. Eddy de Jongh’s iconological approach
has established possible hidden meanings with moralizing functions (Gaiger, 2013, p. 84),
while the other key characteristic noticed by Joshua Reynolds of ‘truth of representation’ has
been interpreted by Svetlana Alpers as a way of surveying the world, art being the lens for
making sense of the visible, having a descriptive function rather than a narrative one and in
line with the Enlightenment scientific curiosity for understanding the world (Alpers, 1994).
Although painting was of such significance, architecture can render yet more differences with
the rest of Europe. While in France and Italy grand buildings were still a powerful vehicle to
convey Aristotelian ‘magnificence’, as in Versailles Palace and St. Peter’s Square, in the
Netherlands the urban landscape was being constructed with a different purpose and
façade. Jacob van Campen’s eclectic Town Hall in Amsterdam, for example, borrows more
from discreet classical lines than from the theatrical grandeur of Bernini. Het Loo (the royal
summer residence) is visible more restrained than its French counterpart (despite the Dutch
Republic being one of the most powerful and rich countries of the seventeenth century) and
designed to look like large gentleman’s house rather than a palace (Rem, n.d.). The
urbanization of Amsterdam, had also a subdued egalitarian façade. The golden bend of the
Herengracht, then and now Amsterdam most exclusive location, was built as a sequence of
Dutch neoclassic houses of diverse styles, set amid warehouses where goods were loaded
and unloaded by barge along the canal, and without the direction of a centralized entity, with
the design of houses left entirely to the taste and purse of the builder (Rijksmuseum, n.d.).
Although painting and architecture were such a significant part of the visual culture of the
Dutch Republic, and both a reflection of society and active participants in imparting
innovative society values (Gaiger, 2013, p. 91), there were other manifestations of the
contemporary visual culture that are worth considering. The trade monopoly of the Dutch
India Company with Asia made available fine porcelain table sets, tiles, porcelain flower-
holders that complemented ‘Tulipmania’ (another Dutch consumerism craze) from China and
Japan. Porcelain became for the first time in Western history a highly demanded decorative
commodity that inspired the establishing of a sizeable earthenware industry in Delft (Jorg,
1998). This phenomenon seems to signal a widespread commoditizing of the contemporary
visual culture (Barker, 2013, p. 6). Art & visual culture going beyond its courtly and religious
function -a function still very much alive in seventeenth century France, Italy and Spain-, and
becoming a widespread life-style choice, decorative paraphernalia, a matter of taste, or an
investment artefact with market-regulated exchange value. Thriving consumerism in a highly
commercialized society, relieved from the strict counter-reformation guidelines and enjoying
freedom of scientific and philosophical thought that harboured thinkers like Huygens,
Spinoza, Descartes, Galileo and Locke.
There are intrinsic limitations in grouping all art and visual culture produced in the
Netherlands during the seventeenth century under the same label. There are abundant
examples of artists producing artworks perfectly in tune or in continuation with neighbouring
European styles (e.g. Caravaggism and history paintings) (Gaiger, 2013, pp. 75-77). And
there are also several examples of contemporary painters, other than the Dutch, exhibiting
comparable technical dexterity and achieving similar ‘truth of representation’. In fact, there
would be other possible art taxonomies that would rightfully group together painters
according to ‘truth of representation’ or preferred subject matter like Vermeer and
Velazquez, van Dijk and Rembrandt, Snijders and Weenix or Poussin and Jacobsz van
Geel, without using geopolitical provenance as a defining characteristic. Nevertheless, there
are a series of ubiquitous Dutch traits, like its independence from traditional conventions in
art, the proliferation and treatment of art as a commodity in the open market, the openness
to foreign influences catalysed by the VOC, the increasing pre-enlightenment preoccupation
with understating the world beyond a religious perspective, that also make the label of Dutch
art of the Golden Age a very useful and valid one. A concurrence of political, social,
economic, philosophical and scientific changes made the Dutch Republic the first consumer
society (Porter, 2009) fostering the transition of art and visual culture from functional to
autonomous (The Open University, 2015), a culture that owes very little to church or state
patronage, unlike France, Italy or the Spanish Netherlands (Honour & Fleming, 2009, p.
603).

WORD COUNT: 1500

 
BIBLIOGRAPHY

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