Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting at the National Gallery, Washington D.C.

Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry 

National Gallery of Art, October 22, 2017 - January 21, 2018

Reviewed by Ed Voves

During the 1600's, the Dutch often compared themselves to the outnumbered Israelites battling against the Philistine hosts. After fighting for eighty years against the mighty Spanish Hapsburg empire, the United Provinces could be excused for a moment of self-congratulation in 1648. When the Treaty of Munster brought hostilities to an end that year, the Dutch had triumphed. David of the Netherlands had slain the Spanish Goliath.

The Dutch art of the Golden Age reflects that incredible victory - but in an unexpected way.  

Following the Treaty of Munster, depictions of military campaigns, never a major facet in Dutch art,  fell out of favor.  The popularity of Biblical scenes, a big feature of Rembrandt's early career, likewise declined. Instead, Dutch Gouden Eeuw artists evoked quiet harmony. Peaceful, "homey" moments for people grown tired of war were the order of the day.

These Dutch masters are the subject of a major exhibition at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington D.C., Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. The National Gallery is the final venue for this exhibit, following earlier displays at the Louvre, Paris, and the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin.

If Vermeer is the headline artist that is because the enigmatic painter from Delft has come to overshadow the other Dutch genre painters in this wonderful exhibit. 

Some of the finest examples of Vermeer's limited oeuvre, like Louvre's The Lacemaker, are on view in this wondrous exhibition. For three months, the Gouden Eeuw will live again and every art lover who can, should journey back in time, via the National Gallery in Washington D.C., to the age of Vermeer.

The NGA exhibit, for all of its celebration of Vermeer, does us the great service of seeing him within the context of his era.

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Gallery view of Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting 

Vermeer actually represents the culmination of the post-Eighty Years War passion for genre painting. Throngs of people rush to see works by Vermeer but they should pay more attention to Gerhard ter Borch, Gerrit Dou, Frans van Mieris and the other Dutch genre painters. Thanks to the NGA exhibition, art lovers will be able to do exactly that.

Several surprises await them.

Gerhard ter Borch (1617-1681) is the unexpected "star" of the NGA exhibit and his works impressed me greatly. I find myself in complete agreement with the curator of the exhibition, Arthur Wheelock Jr, that ter Borch "is in many ways the most intriguing painter in the exhibition and the one who had the greatest impact on his colleagues." 
Wheelock further notes in the exhibition catalog:

Ter Borch mined gestures and expressions of figures to convey emotion, sometimes love or compassion, but also those fleeting moments of uncertainty that usually pass unnoticed by even the most observant friends and family. With these intimate scenes, which emphasised the inner life of his figures, ter Borch transformed the notion of "modern" in Dutch genre painting.

As well as providing new insights, Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting is a valedictory tribute to the great series of Dutch Golden Age exhibits that the NGA has hosted over recent years. These began with the celebrated Vermeer retrospective of 1995-1996. This incredible exhibit displayed 22 of the the 35 known works by Joannes Vermeer, including the  "Mona Lisa of the North," The Girl with the Pearl Earring. 

The 1995-96 Vermeer exhibit was anything but a harmonious affair. The US Government lurched to a halt during the budget feud between Congress and the Clinton administration. Along with a huge snow storm in January 1996, the galleries of the NGA were closed for nineteen days of the Vermeer exhibit's three month schedule. 

The Girl with the Pearl Earring is not making an appearance at this exhibition but a very impressive array of ten other Vermeer paintings are included. There are thirteen works by ter Borch on display, as well as superb examples of the other major Dutch genre painters,  including Gabriel Metsu, Pieter de Hooch, Caspar Netscher and Nicolaes Maes.

It is only natural that the NGA capitalizes upon Vermeer's current superstar status. And most of his works really do stand-out above the rest, though several of ter Borch's paintings more than hold their own. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Johannes Vermeer's Woman with a Pearl Necklace, c. 1662-65

Looking down the galleries of the exhibit, I was amazed to see Vermeer's Woman with a Pearl Necklace glowing in the distance. It was, of course, a brilliant manipulation of overhead lighting to achieve such an effect. But it was the sheer brilliance of Vermeer's handling of natural light over three centuries ago that makes possible such a display of curatorial skill. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Video frame from Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting

The exhibiton presents a short video enabling a "compare-contrast" of Vermeer's paintings with those of the other genre masters. It is clear that Vermeer's Lady Writing, painted around 1665-67, was created with a deep awareness of ter Borch's Woman Writing a Letter.  

Ter Borch's masterpiece dates to a decade earlier. It is a superlative work, with his sister, Gesina, posing as a model. She was a gifted painter and poet in her own right. 

Gerhard ter Borch, Woman Writing a Letter, c. 1655-56

Whether Vermeer, who seldom ventured far from Delft, saw ter Borch's Woman Writing a Letter is a difficult question to answer. But as a member of the Delft-branch of the artist's association, the Guild of St. Luke, Vermeer must have been familiar with the work of ter Borch (who lived in distant Devanter), at least by reputation. 

Johannes Vermeer, Lady Writing, c. 1665

The major difference between these two paintings is the direct gaze of Vermeer's protagonist. She is regarding us, the viewers, rather than being absorbed writing a letter as Gesina ter Borch was.  However, comparison of these works by Vermeer and ter Borch gains in fascination if we include another painting by the latter artist in the discussion.

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Gerard ter Borch's Two Women Making Music, with a Page

This is ter Borch's Two Women Making Music, with a Page, painted about 1657. Gesina ter Borch apparently posed for the singer in the middle of the painting. 

However, it is the page who is the figure of real interest. The adolescent page boy, gingerly bringing in a carafe of beer or cider, looks directly toward us the viewer, just as Vermeer's Lady Writing would do nearly a decade later. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Detail of Ter Borch's Two Women Making Music, with a Page

The bemused look on the page boy's face is so similar to that of Vermeer's Lady that it is almost inconceivable that Vermeer had not seen ter Borch's painting before beginning work on his.

Such is the lack of documentation about Vermeer's life that we are unlikely ever to know if he had the opportunity to travel around Holland to see the work of his contemporaries. We may think that Vermeer was influenced by ter Borch as other Dutch artists were. Yet, we don't know for certain.

We are on much firmer ground to emphasize the cultural connections of these Dutch genre masters during the years following the Treaty of Munster. To a remarkable degree, the shared aspirations and similar standards of work and play among the Dutch people created an emotional atmosphere favoring the creation of these genre paintings.

In his book, Paragons of Virtue, Wayne E. Frantis emphasized the importance of the everyday life and culture of the Dutch people during the Gouden Eeuw. Earlier scholars had been obsessed with “decoding” the symbolism and allegorical references that they saw depicted in Dutch art. 

These didactic elements certainly existed, as can be seen in many of Vermeer's paintings. The painting of the Last Judgment in the background of Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664, is a good example of this subtle moralizing. However, Dutch art from the 1650's onward was firmly grounded in the realities of contemporary Dutch society, which no longer displayed the kind of Calvinistic religious fervor that had characterized the war years. Genre paintings reflected the new intimacy and self-indulgence of Dutch society.

Frantis, one of today's leading scholars of Gouden Eeuw art, broadened the scope of his investigation beyond the visual arts. Frantis found that Dutch literature and music of the period also reflected a “realistic style” as well. Frantis quotes the preface of the Great Songbook of 1622, revealing how the practical, sensible world view of the Dutch permeated even the soaring, impassioned realm of music
. 
Gerbrandt Bredero, (1585-1618) poet, playwright and song composer, wrote in the Great Songbook of 1622 (which was actually published four years after his death) that:

As for me, I have learned from one book only, the book of practice; if I have made some mistakes because of my insufficient knowledge of foreign languages, sciences, and arts, I, unscholarly layman, beg your pardon; be a little tolerant of this Dutchman… I have followed the saying common among painters: Those who come closest to real life are the best painters… 

This digression to the world of music is certainly worth taking given the number of Dutch genre paintings which depict small ensembles or individual musicians or singers.

Jan Steen, Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man, c. 1659

Jan Steen's beautiful Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man (c. 1659) is a superb example of  the intersecting creative realms of art and music. It artfully evokes differing modes of attention, the young woman's on the notes of the musical score, the young man's gaze upon her delicate fingers as they strike the keyboard.

Vermeer's Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, was painted around 1675, a decade and a half after Jan Steen's musical tableau. What is noteworthy here is the emphasis on material cultural, the conspicuous display of expensive musical instruments, sumptuous fabrics and elaborate decor. Art and human artifice, so notable in Steen's painting, have been reduced to a mere pose in Vermeer's.

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, c. 1675

Young Woman Seated at a Virginal was one of Vermeer's last paintings. By the time, Vermeer worked on it, another change was overtaking Dutch art, as evidenced by this painting. The human-scale joys that the earlier genre works had celebrated were increasingly replaced by more attention to a celebration of "worldly goods." It was the Dutch equivalent of "keeping up with the Jones."

I found that the works of Pieter de Hooch in the exhibition confirmed Kenneth Clark's observation in Civilization on the growing elitism of the Dutch genre painters:

In 1660, he (de Hooch) was painting pictures of clean, simple interiors, their ordered space full of light. Ten years later his interiors were very elaborate, and instead of light whitewashed walls there was gold Spanish leather. The people were richer: and the pictures much less beautiful. 

De Hooch's Woman Weighing Coins, painted around 1664, illustrates this surface glitter to perfection. His protagonist shrinks into her rich attire to such a degree that we barely see her face. The room's blaze of garish color differs drastically from the modest red skirt and yellow towel in de Hooch's earlier Woman Nursing a Child with a Child and a Dog (1658). 

Pieter de Hooch, Woman Weighing Coins, c. 1664

To their credit, the Dutch at the end of the seventeenth century did not entirely succumb to crass materialism. Most of these genre paintings, right up to the passing of the Gouden Eeuw, made an effort to balance the affairs of the soul with those of the body. Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance is just the best-known in this respect . 

It is measure of the Dutch achievement in art, science, philosophical inquiry and religious toleration that their Gouden Eeuw came closest to being an actual golden age, more so than any other society in recorded history.

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664

The quiet dignity, simple joys and - occasionally - ribald sensuality that we see displayed in these wondrous genre scenes on view at the National Gallery of Art testify to the core humanity of the Dutch during their golden century of achievement.

God made the world, as the old proverb declares, but it was the intrepid, freedom-loving Dutch who created Holland. These endearing genre scenes from the age of Vermeer are the art works that the Dutch painted on their day of rest.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 
Images courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and Ed Voves

Introductory Image:                                                                                                          Johannes Vermeer (Dutch 1632-1675) The Lacemaker, c. 1670-71, Oil on canvas, transferred to panel. Overall  (framed): 71 x 63 cm (27 15/16 x 24 13/16 in.) Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Peintures, Acquired in 1870

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Gallery view of the Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting exhibit, showing patrons examining Jan Stein's Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man, c. 1659.

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Photo of Johannes Vermeer's Woman with a Pearl Necklace, c. 1662-65, Oil on canvas, framed: 76 x 69 cm (29 15/16 x 27 3/16 in.) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie.

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Photo of the National Gallery of Art video, showing contrasting details of Johannes Vermeer's Lady Writing, c. 1665-67, with Gerhard ter Borch's Woman Writing a Letter, c.1655-56.  

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch 1632-1675) Lady Writing, c. 1665. Oil on canvas,framed: 68.3 x 62.2 x 7 cm (26 7/8 x 24 1/2 x 2 3/4 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Harry Waldron Havemeyer and Horace Havemeyer, Jr., in memory of their father, Horace Havemeyer

Gerhard ter Borch (1617-1681) Woman Writing a Letter, c. 1655-56. Oilil on panel, overall: 39 x 29.5 cm (15 3/8 x 11 5/8 in.) Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Photo of Gerard ter Borch's Two Women Making Music, with a Page, c. 1657. Oil on panel, unframed: 47 × 44 cm (18 1/2 × 17 5/16 in.) Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, ParisPhoto © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée du Louvre)/Franck Raux

Ed Voves, Photo (2017) Detail of Gerard ter Borch's Two Women Making Music, with a Page, c. 1657. 

Jan Steen (Dutch, 1625-1679) Young Woman Playing a Harpsichord to a Young Man, c. 1659. Oil on panel, framed: 60.5 × 51.5 cm (23 13/16 × 20 1/4 in.) The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1871. © The National Gallery, London

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch 1632-1675) Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, c. 1675. Oil on canvas, framed: 73 × 67.5 × 8.5 cm (28 3/4 × 26 9/16 × 3 3/8 in.) The National Gallery, London. Salting Bequest, 1910 © The National Gallery, London

Pieter de Hooch (Dutch 1629-1684) Woman Weighing Coins, c. 1664. Oil on canvas, unframed: 61 × 53 cm (24 × 20 7/8 in.) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Property of Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein. bpk/Gemäldegalerie, SMB, Eigentum des Kaiser Friedrich Museumsvereins/Jörg P. Anders 

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch 1632-1675) Woman Holding a Balance, c. 1664. Oil on canvas.
Framed: 62.9 x 58.4 x 7.6 cm (24 3/4 x 23 x 3 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection     

Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts

Class Distinctions:

Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

October 11, 2015 - January 18, 2016

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Occasionally, when I walk into the galleries of an art museum, I get the sensation that I've stepped onto the pages of an art history book. That feeling often strikes me in MOMA where so many of the great works of early Modernism are displayed in close proximity.

A recent visit to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) provided a similar feeling of crossing a portal of time. The pages I walked onto, however, dealt more with the realm of history than of art. A consciousness of past time occupied the foreground here, matters of foreshortening and brush stroke being pushed a bit  to the side.

That is not to say that the superlative exhibition at the MFA, Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer lacks masterpieces of art. Of these, there are plenty. The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer, on loan from the Louvre, is but one of the celebrated Old Master icons on view.

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668

The theme of Class Distinctions, however, takes a different path than most other treatments of the Dutch Golden Age. Previous exhibits have often stressed the innovations and individualism of the great Dutch artists.

Class Distinctions examines how the revolution in art in the Netherlands provides insight into the social make-up of  the United Provinces during the seventeenth century. The Netherlands, like all of Europe in the 1600's, was divided into tightly circumscribed classes. Significantly, the MFA exhibit brilliantly reveals that interaction, not exclusiveness, was the keynote of Dutch society during that troubled century.

The exhibit also testifies to the connection between the growing tolerance and prosperity of Dutch society and the receptiveness of its citizens  to the arts. To the amazement and incredulity of the envious English, art works were purchased and cherished by all but the poorest Dutch citizens.

"God created the world," as the old proverb states, "but the Dutch made Holland."

And the same was true of the art of the Dutch Golden Age.

Interaction and cooperation enabled the Dutch, beginning in the early Middle Ages, to dredge marshland, build flood barriers and convert marginal land into pasture and farmland. In short, to "make" Holland. These same principles of conduct are apparent throughout the exhibition. Although the first three galleries are devoted to separate classes, the works of art reflect the binding ties of obligation and service which held the United Provinces together.

The first  exhibition gallery is devoted to the upper classes. Despite being surrounded by  other magnificent art works, Frans Hals' dynamic group-portrait, Regents of the St. Elisabeth Hospital of Haarlem, exerts an almost magnetic force.

Frans Hals, Regents of the St. Elisabeth Hospital of Haarlem, 1641

Hals painted Regents in 1641, a year before Rembrandt's fabled Militia Company of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, misnamed the Nightwatch. Like Rembrandt, Hals shows an animated scene of upper class officials performing their civic duty. Unpaid - except in honor and prestige -these Regents undertook vital tasks, insuring that the poor received effective aid and that the lid on dissent was kept securely fastened.

Group portraits were a major artistic innovation of the Dutch Golden Age. Portraits of regents boards were a major sub-genre. According to art scholar Eric Ketelaar, no less than 33 group portraits of regents boards were painted in Amsterdam alone during the peak years of the Golden Age, 1617 - 1686. 

The St. Elisabeth Hospital was in Haarlem, Holland's brewery capital. Most of the Regents of St. Elisabeth Hospital were wealthy brewers and therefore initally of the middle class. Administering to the poor provided them with the credentials to move up in rank, joining the ruling elite of the United Provinces.

Hals painted group portraits of female regents, as did his rival, Johannes Verspronck. It is a pity that one of these portraits of regentessen could not have been included in Class Distinctions. It is virtually the only significant omission in this brilliantly curated exhibit.

Another outstanding work in the first gallery highlights the military  and diplomatic effort needed to protect Dutch society during the Golden Age. Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, painted by Anthony van Dyck, about 1631–32, shows the Stadholder or chief executive of the United Provinces.

The title of Stadholder was a vestige of Hapsburg rule of the Netherlands, similar in rank to the viceroy who ruled Mexico for the Spanish crown. When the Netherlands revolted against the Spanish Hapsburgs in 1568, the position of Stadholder was maintained. 

With self-rule as the motivating force of the Dutch resistance to Spain, the power of the Stadholder might well have been reduced to ceremonial insignificance. The opposite was true. As Stadholder, Frederik Hendrik was the supreme military leader or kapitein-generaal but answerable to the Dutch legislature, the Estates General.

Anthony van Dyck, Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, c.1631

The careworn face of Frederik Hendrik (1584-1647) reflects his difficult position. As Prince of Orange, he was a hereditary nobleman but also the leader of a republic battling for its freedom against mighty Spain. Frederik Hendrik spent his whole career fighting - and beating - the Spanish. He never wore fancy armor in combat as he does in van Dyck's portrait but this battle gear symbolizes his life of service to his county men.

The second - and the central - gallery of the exhibit deals with the broad social category that made the Dutch independence movement a viable enterprise. Ship builders and shop keepers, clergyman and tavern owners, lens makers and artists - all combined and cooperated to form the first recognizable middle class in a modern sense of the term.

With roots stretching back to the 1300's, the Dutch middle class had a degree of influence during the Golden Age that was unmatched by any other nation in Europe. As with the upper class regents and regentessen, the role of women in the contributions of the middle class is readily apparent as well.

Rembrandt's The Shipbuilder and his Wife depicts the interaction of Jan Rijcksen (1560/2-1637) with his wife, Griet Jans. They were a Roman Catholic couple and loyal citizens of the Dutch Republic. Rijcksen was the master ship builder of the Dutch East India Company. Rembrandt's painting, one of his early masterpieces, shows a preoccupied Rijcksen being handed a note by Griet Jans. 

Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Rijcksen and His Wife, Griet Jans, 1633

In Rembrandt's unforgettable work, Rijcksen looks up, perplexed and startled like an absent-minded professor who has just been reminded that his lecture began fifteen minutes ago. Griet Jans, by comparison, is a model of calm and efficiency.

It was a typical situation. Dutch men engaged in politics, war, commerce and science. Dutch women were left to run the homes and very often the family business affairs, thus keeping  the whole enterprise from crashing into ruin. 

Gerrit Dou, Grocery Shop, 1647

Gerrit Dou's Grocery Shop, dated to 1647,  and Adriaen van Ostade's The Fishwife (displayed in the gallery devoted to the Dutch lower class) likewise show the vital role of women in the day-to-day management of Dutch economic life. But women had an inspirational role as well, serving as guardians of what Simon Schama calls  "the moral geography" of the Dutch Republic.

Faced by the awesome, if brittle, power of Spain, followed later by French invasions under Louis XIV, the Dutch could not afford the luxury of always keeping their women at home. Yet the family hearth was of transcendent importance to a people fighting for their independence. Pieter de Hooch evoked the quiet, clean, peaceful atmosphere of the Dutch home in a series of memorable paintings like Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard, painted in 1663.

In de Hooch's painting, a mother and her elder daughter fold and store the family linen. A younger daughter pauses from playing with her hockey stick to watch. The wider world beckons beyond the vestibule or vorhuis of the home but the little girl is learning how the "moral geography" of the Dutch home - and the Dutch Republic - is maintained: by unremitting work and obsessive attention to detail. 

De Hooch's painting testifies to the personal toll that it took to "keep the home fires burning." This particular work is one of the last great family-themed works that he did. After 1663, de Hooch stopped painting scenes with children. Two of his own children died around that time, followed by his wife in 1667. Financial woe added to his anxiety, the art market all but collapsing during the 1660's. De Hooch began painting scenes of elegant ladies and dashing gentlemen, perhaps to entice wealthy clients. De Hooch's muse soon abandoned him and he died in an insane asylum in 1684.

Pieter de Hooch, Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard, 1663

Standing over the door frame in de Hooch's Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard is a curious figure. In his book, The Embarrassment of Riches, Schama identifies the peculiar statue as Mercury, god of commerce. Mercury is holding a bag of coins. Was this an admission by de Hooch of the financial pressures that menaced the "moral geography" of the Dutch home?

Whatever the relation of de Hooch's personal circumstances to the composition of his painting, the use of doorways and the vorhuis as a stage for pictorial drama appeared in other Dutch paintings as well. Jacob Ochtervelt used the door frame and vorhuis as a motif in a number of his paintings. It is the point where the lives of the well-to-do and laboring poor intersect.

Standing on the other side of the doorway in his painting (the introductory image of this review), Ochtervelt shows itinerant musicians. They are performing an impromptu concert for a middle class child and her nurse, with a reward in hand from the lady of the house. 


The charm of this wonderful painting should not obscure its serious theme. In this moment of shared humanity, we can see how the Dutch class system preserved both the lines of demarcation and communication between rich and poor. In this genre scene, we are made aware of how the United Provinces remained united.

Jan van Bijlert, Portraits of the Men from the St. Job Inn in Utrecht Collecting Alms, c.1630

The third and fourth galleries of Class Distinctions display numerous works that depict the lives of the poor or the ways that the social classes mingled, associated and worked together. Portraits of the Men from the St. Job Inn in Utrecht Collecting Alms by Jan van Bijlert is particularly noteworthy.

The fourth gallery has a surprise in store, even for art lovers like me who expected great things from Class Distinctions. Ronni Baer, the MFA curator who planned the exhibition, prepared a stunning mini-exhibit of three tables, each set with the dinnerware and table accouterments of the three Dutch classes during the 1600's. The pieces were meticulously selected from art collections from the Netherlands and the United States. 


I was transfixed by this ingenious and moving display of artifacts from the everyday lives of the Dutch people. It was like a door had been opened to the Golden Age and I was permitted to stand in the vorhuis to get a glimpse.

A contrast of the Upper & Lower Class table settings in the Class Distinctions Exhibit.

Ann and Graham Gund Gallery *Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston



It is impossible to give a true sense of this insightful display in an online review like this. By grouping photos of the upper and lower class table settings, I hope to enable the brilliantly orchestrated sense of contrast to be apparent. 

The Middle Class table setting in the Class Distinctions Exhibit.

Ann and Graham Gund Gallery *Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

With a more detailed view of the middle class setting, hopefully the feeling of kindred experience that this tableau engenders can be grasped as well.

This year has been extraordinarily rich in wonderful art exhibitions. I will not be so foolhardy as to pick an Academy Award-style "best exhibit" for 2015.  However, Class Distinctions: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer does deserve an extra word of praise.

Like Job Berckheyde's Baker, announcing that his baked goods are ready and waiting for rich and poor alike, the MFA exhibit sounds the trumpet of our common humanity. 

 

Job Berckheyde, The Baker, about 1681



Whether we wear an elegant lace ruff or a woolen scarf about our necks, we are all children of God. And like the Dutch folk of the Golden Age, we are all fed with the bread of life from God's table.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Images courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Introductory Image:     
Jacob Ochtervelt (Dutch, 1634–1682), Street Musicians at the Door, 1665 Oil on canvas, 68.6 x 57.2 cm (27 x 22 1/2 in.) (Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Eugene A. Perry in Memory of her mother, Mrs. Claude Kilpatrick 

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632–1675), The Astronomer, 1668, Oil on canvas, 51.5 x 45.5 cm (20 1/4 x 18 in.)Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures 

Frans Hals (Dutch, 1581 to 1585-1666), Regents of the St. Elisabeth Hospital in Haarlem, 1641, Oil on canvas, 153 × 252 cm (60 1/4 × 99 1/4 in.) Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 

Anthony van Dyck (Flemish, 1599–1641), Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, about 1631–32, Oil on canvas, 114.3 × 96.5 cm (45 × 38 in.) The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Mary Frick Jacobs Collection 

Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669), Jan Rijcksen and His Wife, Griet Jans, known as "The Shipbuilder and His Wife", 1633, Oil on canvas, 113.8 x 169.8 cm (44 5/8 × 66 3/4 in.) British Royal Collection 

Gerrit Dou (Dutch, 1613–1675), Grocery Shop, 1647, Oil on panel, 38.5  x 29 cm (15 1/8 × 11 1/2 in.) Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures 

Pieter de Hooch (Dutch, 1629–after 1684), Interior with Women beside a Linen Cupboard,1663, Oil on canvas, 70 x 75.5 cm (27 5/8 x 29 3/4 in.) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. On loan from the City of Amsterdam 

Jan van Bijlert (Dutch, 1597–1671), Portraits of the Men from the St. Job Inn in Utrecht Collecting Alms, about 1630–1635, Oil on canvas, 76.3 x 115.3 cm (30 1/8 x 45 3/8 in.)  Centraal Museum

Job Berckheyde (Dutch, 1630–1693), The Baker, about 1681, Oil on canvas, 63.3  x 53 cm (25 × 20 7/8 in.) Worcester Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Milton P. Higgins 

Photos of the Class Distinctions table displays at the Ann and Graham Gund Gallery © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston