Art of the poorly defined time period!
Feb. 17th, 2008 09:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rumtastiqueSo, to start the week, here are two roughly contemporary paintings!
First is a painting by one of the two most important Dutch landscape painters, Jan van Goyen. van Goyen painted with an amazingly limited color palette, though it is unclear why. Some scholars argue for a stylistic shift in the art world that ushered in the "monochrome phase" of Dutch landscape painting. Others maintain that van Goyen was broke, and brown paint was cheaper. In any event, this is his View of Nijmegen, of 1649.
Painted probably only a decade or so earlier by a fellow Dutchman, here is Jan Both's Ruins by the Sea. Both was from the city of Utrecht, the only predominantly Catholic city in the United Provinces. He was trained by the famous painter Bloemart, and like many painters from Utrecht, spent time living and working in Rome. Most of his Italianate paintings, however, are from the period after 1642 when he returned to Utrecht.
What strikes me is that these are almost contemporary works, by people with similar training. last semester, I was working on the first type; this semester has led me to the second. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Italianate landscapes were mostly produced in the only city in the Netherlands with an aristocratic population. The Italianate painters were heavily patronized by the diminutive Dutch aristocracy. I think that the aristocrats saw the evocation of Italy, fused with Dutch staffage figures, as emblematic of the rise of the Dutch Republic, a coming of a new Golden Age, Arcadia reborn in the north.
First is a painting by one of the two most important Dutch landscape painters, Jan van Goyen. van Goyen painted with an amazingly limited color palette, though it is unclear why. Some scholars argue for a stylistic shift in the art world that ushered in the "monochrome phase" of Dutch landscape painting. Others maintain that van Goyen was broke, and brown paint was cheaper. In any event, this is his View of Nijmegen, of 1649.
Painted probably only a decade or so earlier by a fellow Dutchman, here is Jan Both's Ruins by the Sea. Both was from the city of Utrecht, the only predominantly Catholic city in the United Provinces. He was trained by the famous painter Bloemart, and like many painters from Utrecht, spent time living and working in Rome. Most of his Italianate paintings, however, are from the period after 1642 when he returned to Utrecht.
What strikes me is that these are almost contemporary works, by people with similar training. last semester, I was working on the first type; this semester has led me to the second. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Italianate landscapes were mostly produced in the only city in the Netherlands with an aristocratic population. The Italianate painters were heavily patronized by the diminutive Dutch aristocracy. I think that the aristocrats saw the evocation of Italy, fused with Dutch staffage figures, as emblematic of the rise of the Dutch Republic, a coming of a new Golden Age, Arcadia reborn in the north.
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Date: 2008-02-18 11:10 am (UTC)That's a very evocative turn of phrase. Good stuff!
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Date: 2008-02-18 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-18 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-18 10:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-19 12:08 am (UTC)