Moroni: the Riches of Renaissance Portraiture at the Frick Collection

Moroni: the Riches of Renaissance Portraiture 

The Frick Collection, New York 

February 21 through June 2, 2019 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Many of history's greatest creators achieve success because their abundant skills mirror the vision, ideals and needs of the societies in which they live. One may say of such fortunate individuals that they are the right artist in the right place at the right time.

Giovanni Battista Moroni (c.1520-1579) was not one of these artists. Moroni was blessed by neither time nor circumstance. His talent, however, was superlative and his paintings are masterpieces of the highest order.

Moroni is the subject of a brilliant exhibition at the Frick Collection. Moroni: the Riches of Renaissance Portraiture is now in its final days. 

  A view of art works from the Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture exhibition in the East Gallery, Frick Collection; photo: Michael Bodycomb

So important and revelatory is this reappraisal of the little known Italian Renaissance master that a special trip to New York City is in order if you have not seen the show or if you want a second look. Cancel your engagements, adjust your schedule - go to the Frick exhibition and witness the paintings of a truly unsung hero of art.

Why is Moroni not better known? Geography, as we will discuss, certainly plays a major role. But the real reason for Moroni's eclipse is a consequence from what we can call the "end of the Renaissance." This is a little studied, indeed often unrecognized, aspect of cultural history. 

Following the sundering of Christendom by Martin Luther's challenge to Papal authority and the horrific sack of Rome in 1527, the intellectual climate of Europe dramatically changed. The mood of writers, philosophers and artists darkened. A controversial book or painting could alienate the "powers that be," with very painful consequences for the offending author or artist. Even Michelangelo was not above criticism.

Giovanni Battista Moroni, Giovanni Bressani,1562

Moroni's entire working life took place in the altered circumstances of the "end of the Renaissance." 

Moroni's obscurity was further affected by the fact that he was not a native of Florence or a Venetian. He was born in the small town of Albino in Lombardy. He spent almost all of his life there or in nearby Bergamo. Located between Milan and Venice, Moroni’s home ground was not exactly the dark side of the moon. Moroni was rewarded with portrait commissions from the nobles and merchants of Milan and Venice, but he never made an effort to relocate to either of these powerful and wealthy cities.

Little is known of Moroni's inner life but it is almost certainly true that he remained in Albino/Bergamo by choice, rather than by necessity. Moroni's decision to stay close to home is likely to have been motivated, at least in part, by a very sensible character trait in difficult times - discretion.

In 1545, Pope Paul III and the bishops and theologians of the Catholic Church convened a major council to strengthen the Church in response to the break-away Protestant denominations. The council was convened in the Italian city of Trent, located about ninety miles from Bergamo. 

Moroni, in his early twenties, was just entering the prime of life as the council began. He traveled to Trent, where commissions for religious-themed work could be expected. He stayed for a few years, long enough to discover that Church leaders were not pleased with the current trends of art, notably Mannerism with its self-indulgent,erotic paintings, thinly disguised as allegory.

Mannerism was mainly a Florentine school of art. Moroni had trained under another Lombard painter, Moretto da Brescia (c.1498-1554), who rejected the coy sensuality of the Mannerists. 

Moretto, a notably pious artist, specialized in full-length portraits. He also excelled in capturing the growing climate of fear and melancholy which was affecting people all over Europe. Moroni was greatly influenced by Moretto and, on his return from Trent, showed that he could match and even excel him. 

One of Moroni's first full-length portraits is on view in the Frick exhibition. This arresting work shows Gian Ludovico Madruzzo, a Catholic clergyman destined for high places in the Church. Moroni may have met him through Madruzzo's uncle, who was the prince-bishop of Trent. Madruzzo succeeded to the title later in life and was so esteemed that he was selected to deliver the funeral eulogy for Emperor Charles V.

Giovanni Battista Moroni, Gian Ludovico Madruzzo, c.1551-52

For all of his honors and friends in high places, Gian Ludovico Madruzzo does not appear in his portrait to be comfortable or confident. His pose is one of authority, but he stands stiff and “on guard.” Dressed in a black clerical gown, he looks more like an austere Spanish nobleman alert to a slight to his honor. But what really grabs and holds our attention is Madruzzo's facial expression. 

Giovanni Battista Moroni, Gian Ludovico Madruzzo (detail)

Madruzzo regards the viewer with deep scrutiny, bordering on suspicion. It is a tense moment. Just back from a walk with his faithful dog, he confronts a messenger with an official dispatch, or perhaps a favor-seeker begging a moment of his time. Madruzzo's skeptical, haunted expression testifies to the age of anxiety in which he and Moroni lived.

Moretto's influence on Moroni is also apparent in the religious paintings which were the other feature of his work. Moroni utilized the art of his teacher in a strikingly unique manner. 

In his reverential work, Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna and Child, Moroni depicts an aristocratic worshiper in a scene straight out of the devotional practice being formulated by the Council of Trent. The Council was still in cession at the time of the painting, around 1555, and the theologians assembled at Trent were adamant that religious art be direct and understandable statements of Christian faith.

Moroni conformed exactly to the Council of Trent's doctrine, with brilliant psychological handling. The Virgin Mary and the Christ Child are painted in the style of painting by Moretto but the pious "gentleman" is not praying before a painting or a statue. He is worshiping in the living presence of Mary and Jesus.

Giovanni Battista Moroni, 

Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna and Child, ca. 1555

Moroni reveals this by showing the thin golden ring of Mary's halo and her shadow on the wall.  Statues cast shadows but do not have ethereal circlets around their heads. In this subtle way, Moroni is depicting a religious experience of the most profound kind.

Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna and Child is a powerful evocation of contemplative prayer. In the tormented times of the late 1500’s, Catholics were encouraged to meditate on their religious beliefs, as the protagonist is doing , and then put their faith into practice. One of the great books of the time, The Spiritual Exercises by St. Ignatius of Loyola, provided a step-by-step guide to this task. Moroni’s painting illustrates St. Ignatius’ injunction to keep our minds “secluded” by “concentrating instead all our attention on one alone, namely the service of our Creator and our own spiritual progress…”

Moroni’s art, however, was not “secluded” from the everyday rituals and realities of his era. The work ethic of the artisan class, macho male bravado, feminine “wiles” and folk magic all appear in his portraits. In a master stroke, the curators of the Frick exhibition have assembled artifacts from  Moroni’s era which match those in his paintings – often to an astonishing degree.

Giovanni Battista Moroni, Isotta Brembati, c.1555–56

This is best exemplified in Moroni’s full-length portrait of Isotta Brembati (1530-1586), painted around 1556.  Moroni had painted a portrait bust of the same lady about five years earlier, notable for the sharp, calculating look in her eyes. Born in Bergamo, she was a brilliant woman and an accomplished poet, writing in Latin.

Except to note that Isotta Brembati had aged quite a bit in the interim, our attention does not linger on her face very long in in the second portrait. Instead, we focus on her splendid apparel, jewelry and most spectacularly, a martin pelt draped over her shoulder. Directly in front of this magnificent portrait is a display of accoutrements replicating those in the painting.

Giovanni Battista Moroni's Isotta Brembati, with artifacts from the 1500's, on display in the Oval Room of the Frick Collection, photo: Michael Bodycomb

The most extraordinary of these artifacts is the a golden, bejeweled mask covering the marten's head, Bearing the symbol of a dove or the Holy Spirit,  it was an amulet for women of child-bearing years. The fur of the martin, according to folk lore, increased the chance of conceiving a child and protected the mother during pregnancy.

Unknown artist from Venice, Marten’s Head, ca. 1550–59

A golden-headed marten pelt also appears in a splendid portrait by Paolo Veronese of Countess Livia da Porto Thiene, a noblewoman from Vicenza who was pregnant when she posed in 1552. This portrait by Veronese is one of the treasures of the Walters Museum in Baltimore. In 1967, curators at the Walters secured an actual golden marten mask dating to the 1500's to complement the Veronese portrait. Thanks to the generous loan from the Walters, this golden mask and a more modern marten pelt are featured in the Moroni exhibition at the Frick.

Giovanni Battista Moroni, The Tailor ('Il Tagliapanni'), c.1570

Moroni's most famous painting is on view in the Frick exhibition. It is a portrait but not of a countess or clergyman or melancholy humanist. Instead, The Tailor ('Il Tagliapanni') is a true Renaissance man. Exuding intelligence, skill and confidence, the tailor is about to cut a bolt of black cloth, the most costly of fabrics due to the number of immersions in dye to "fix" the color. 

There are no known self-portraits of Moroni but I have an idea that the artist was painting a part of himself when he portrayed this unknown tailor. When Sir Charles Eastlake purchased this work for the National Gallery in London in 1862, he was certain that this showed a nobleman in the guise of a tailor. Close examination of the fabric of the tailor's suit shows that he is wearing cloth "suitable to his station."

The tailor's "station" is that of a master craftsman. Supremely gifted in his difficult trade and a perceptive student of human nature, the tailor had to satisfy the demands and needs of the "high and the mighty" - just as a portrait painter must do. He is the kind of man that Moroni proved himself to be.

Why did Giovanni Battista Moroni stay in Bergamo rather than Milan, Venice, Rome or the court of the Holy Roman Empire? The answer is there in his unforgettable paintings. The  "great' world exists on our doorstep, in our backyard, on our neighbor's face, just as much as it does in a glittering palace or the likeness of a fashionable celebrity.

Three centuries after Moroni died, another Italian genius was asked why he remained so close to home rather than seeking his fortune in the capital cities of Western Europe and the United States. Moroni would have appreciated his reply.

"You may have the universe," Giuseppe Verdi said, "if I may have Italy."

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                Images courtesy of the Frick Collection, New York City

Introductory Image:
Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, c.1520-1579) Bust Portrait of a Young Man with an Inscription, c. 1560. Oil on canvas: 18 5/8 x 15 5/8 inches. The National Gallery, London; Layard Bequest, 1916. Photo: © The National Gallery, London

A view of art works from the Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture exhibition in the East Gallery of the Frick Collection, New York City; photo: Michael Bodycomb

Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, c.1520-1579) Giovanni Bressani, dated 1562. Oil on canvas: 45 3/4 x 35 inches. National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Purchased by  Private Treaty, 1977. Photo: National Galleries of Scotland

Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, c.1520-1579) Gian Ludovico Madruzzo, c. 1551-52. Oil on canvas: 78 5/8 x 45 5/8 inches. Art Institute of Chicago, Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection. Photo: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY

Giovanni Battista Moroni, Gian Ludovico Madruzzo (detail) Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giovan_battista_moroni,_gian_ludovico_madruzzo,_1551-52,_02.jpg

Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, c.1520-1579) Gentleman in Adoration before the Madonna and Child, ca. 1555. Oil on canvas: 23 1/2 x 25 1/2 inches. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection. Photo: Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, c.1520-1579) Isotta Brembati, c. 1555–56. Oil on canvas: 63 x 45 1/4 inches. Fondazione Museo di Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo - Lucretia Moroni Collection. Photo: Fondazione Museo di Palazzo Moroni, Bergamo

Giovanni Battista Moroni's Isotta Brembati, with period artifacts from the 1500's, on display in the Oval Room of the Frick Collection, during the Moroni: The Riches of Renaissance Portraiture exhibition; photo: Michael Bodycomb

Unknown artist (Venetian, 1500's) Marten’s Head, c. 1550–59. Gold with enamel, rubies, garnets, and pearls; modern pelt;synthetic whiskers: 3 5/16 inches (jewel only). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Museum acquisition by exchange, 1967. Photo: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Giovanni Battista Moroni (Italian, c.1520-1579) The Tailor ('Il Tagliapanni'), c. 1570. Oil on canvas: 39 1/8 x 30 1/4 inches. National Gallery, London , purchased in 1862. Inventory number # NG697

Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture at The Frick Collection

Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture 

The Frick Collection, New York City

March 2, 2016, through June 5, 2016 

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The list of foreign artists who have found fame and fortune in Great Britain - or refuge, at the very least - is a long one. Hans Holbein, Claude Monet and John Singer Sargent are just a few who achieved success or gained inspiration on British soil.

One artist who "crossed the Channel" made such a mark that it seems incredible that he was not British-born.  Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641) influenced the visual culture of Britain so profoundly that Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) invoked his name from his deathbed almost a century and a half later.

"We are all going to heaven," gasped Gainsborough with his dying words, "and van Dyck is of the Company."

Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture, now on display at the Frick Collection in New York City, demonstrates the exceptional skill and versatility that earned van Dyck this singular acclaim. 

It is highly appropriate that this exhibition is being mounted by the Frick Collection, for it has one of the finest collections of van Dyck's works in the world. 

By a great stroke of fortune - in more ways than one - Henry Frick was able to buy a matched pair of van Dyck portraits, of the painter Frans Snyders and his wife, Margareta de Vos. Unlike so many husband-wife matched portraits from the Old Master era, these two were not separated.  They can be regularly seen together at the Frick and they anchor this special exhibit of van Dyck portraits.

Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture enables us to see beyond specific masterpieces in order to gain an appreciation of the entire oeuvre of van Dyck's portrait painting. The exhibit cogently integrates van Dyck's preparatory works with his celebrated portraits in oil and less famous etchings. 

Anthony van Dyck, Frans Snyders & Margareta de Vos, ca.1620

The portraits of Frans Snyders and Margareta de Vos testify to van Dyck's well-earned place in the grand tradition of Flemish painting.  But the great age of Flanders was nearing its end by the time that van Dyck painted Frans Snyders and Margareta de Vos. It was in the wider arena of Europe that van Dyck made his mark, in Great Britain most of all. 

A youthful Anthony van Dyck first visited Britain for about six months, October 1620 to March 1621. Returning a decade later, he was appointed "principal painter in ordinary to their Majesties" and was knighted by Charles I. 

Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait, ca. 1620-21

Accounts of his lifestyle made "Vandyke" - as he anglicized his name - seem more of a nobleman than some of the "milords" he painted. As his numerous self-portraits reveal, van Dyck possessed a highly-developed self-regard.

Van Dyck's rapid rise was founded upon his consummate skill. He masterfully captured the character and individuality of the members of Britain's ruling class and of the Italian nobility during his sojourn there, 1621-1627. 

The salient traits of a van Dyck portrait are not the arrogance or conceit that one might expect of seventeenth century aristocrats. Certainly, there are some portraits proclaiming the inflated dignity of van Dyck's protagonists. But elitism was largely a defense mechanism as royal and aristocratic privilege were threatened on many fronts.

When viewing a van Dyck portrait from his 1630's classic decade, what we see most often is fear, melancholy or blank inscrutability spread across these handsome English and Scottish faces. This was the generation who had been admonished in 1624 by John Donne, "never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee."

Van Dyck, naturally, aspired to a very different tone for his art. He wanted to be the "prince of painters and the painter of princes" as his mentor, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), had been. For a brief few years, during the the 1630's, van Dyck seemingly had achieved his goal at the court of Charles I. 

At first glance, the monumental portrait of Queen Henrietta Maria, the French-born wife of Charles I, overwhelms us with a sense of majesty. Van Dyck lavished a huge amount of time and talent on the preparatory sketch, done with chalk on blue paper.

Anthony van Dyck, chalk sketch for Queen Henrietta Maria with Jeffery Hudson, 1633

The fabrics in the sketch glisten and evoke a tactile feel in the same way, if not to the same degree, of the finished work. This is a masterpiece of draftmanship and it is no wonder that this sketch is a prized work in the collection of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

The most telling element of this sketch, however, is the faint, almost invisible, trace of Henrietta Maria's head. Forsaking preparatory drawings, van Dyck reserved the special magic of his painterly technique to achieve a likeness of the queen.

Van Dyck learned his trade from Rubens but the methods they employed in portraiture were vastly different. Rubens made exquisite preliminary sketches, which the Metropolitan Museum displayed in a memorable exhibit during the winter of 2005. Van Dyck, on the other hand, depicted the features of those he painted by intensive scrutiny during sittings. He methodically creating a "living" image through layer after layer of carefully applied color.

The special achievement of the Henrietta Maria portrait is the way it evokes the queen's outward reserve. This magnificent painting does not portray hauteur or conceit. Rather, it is a masterpiece of not showing any emotion. It is a portrait as a mask of concealment. 

Anthony van Dyck, detail of Queen Henrietta Maria with Jeffery Hudson, 1633

Queen Henrietta Maria, as a French woman and a devout Roman Catholic, was placed in an impossible situation following her marriage to Charles I in 1625. She was never actually crowned Queen of England because of her staunch Catholicism. In militantly Protestant England, Henrietta Maria had to watch her every move and work behind the scenes. This she did, using her influence to aid Catholics in Britain. This only inflamed her Protestant opponents all the more.

Van Dyck was also a devoted Roman Catholic, living and working in what was essentially "enemy" territory. While he was in Italy during the 1620's, however, van Dyck may have felt more secure or perhaps his Italian patrons were less threatened by religious conflict. The portraits that van Dyck painted in Italy are generally less marked by the Hamlet-like introspection that is a notable feature of those he did in Britain.

There is one magnificent exception among van Dyck’s Italian portraits that defies easy categorization.  Shortly after arriving in Italy, van Dyck painted the portrait of the Roman Catholic prelate, Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio. For me, this is the most arresting and unforgettable work in the exhibition. 

Anthony van Dyck, Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, 1623 

I had never seen van Dyck's Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio before. Yet, there is an ineffable "something" in Bentivoglio's expression. If you examined this masterpiece year-after-year, you would be no closer in getting to the emotional core of Cardinal Bentivoglio than after a fleeting glance.

Bentivoglio was a man of contradiction. He was a brilliant scholar and an able diplomat for the Papacy. However, his face as depicted by van Dyck is that of a mystic, not a man of learning or of worldly affairs. 

Although Bentivoglio was one of the last in a long line of Renaissance humanists, he voted against Galileo at his trial. Bentivoglio was a patron of Claude Lorraine and of Girolamo Frescobaldi, one of the most influential musicians and composers of the seventeenth century. Yet, there is not one visual reference to art or to music in this painting.

For all the intricate detail involved in painting Bentivoglio's white linen surplice, I suspect that van Dyck was not much concerned with the external trappings of the Cardinal's life. Rather, he depicted the enigma at the heart of this "prince of the church" - and of all mortal men and women.

There is  perhaps no more intriguing aspect of human existence than the way that children grow into adulthood. Significantly, portraying children was another point at which van Dyck excelled. As Paul Johnson comments in his great study, Art: a New History, "No one ever painted childhood and youth better than this sensitive and engaging Fleming."

Anthony van Dyck, detail of James Stanley, Lord Strange, Later Seventh Earl of Derby, with His Wife, Charlotte, and Their Daughter, ca. 1636

"Sensitive and engaging" are the words to describe the portrait of the daughter of Lord Strange, Earl of Derby. The young girl was most likely Henrietta Stanley (1630-1685). Posing between her parents, she was painted by van Dyck with an astute grasp of character. Looking at her, we realize that van Dyck was well aware that children are not merely adults in embryo but are unique individuals at every stage of their lives. 

This insight into human nature and development is readily apparent in one of van Dyck's supreme achievements, The Five Eldest Children of Charles I, 1637. 

Van Dyke's group portrait is not among the works at the Frick exhibit but rather exerts a virtual presence. This famous work hung above the breakfast table of Charles I at Whitehall and remains one of the most renowned paintings in the Royal Collection. It is chiefly known by the image of the future Charles II resting his arm on the head of a huge mastiff. To the right of the young Charles are two princesses, Elizabeth and Anne. 

On exhibition at the Frick is an oil study of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Anne used by van Dyck to complete The Five Eldest Children of Charles I. Working with very young children, he elected to follow Rubens' example and do preparatory sketches of the facial features of his subjects.

Anthony van Dyck, The Princesses Elizabeth and Anne, Daughters of Charles I, 1637

This is a tremendously compelling work. Tragically, baby Anne died from tuberculosis in 1640. Elizabeth, at age fifteen, succumbed to the same disease ten years later. Queen Henrietta Maria maintained that she died from a broken heart after hearing of the execution of her father on orders of Parliament. 

By the time Charles I was executed in 1649, van Dyck had been dead for almost a decade. Worn out by his staggering work load, the "sensitive and engaging" painter from Flanders died on December 9, 1640. His "grand manner" world was crashing down around him, with the Thirty Years War devastating Europe and civil war erupting in Britain.

Among the unfinished works in van Dyck's studio was an oil painting of a woman whose identity has not come down to us. 

Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of a Woman, c 1640

Once a great beauty, she appears just past her "prime" in this magnificent portrait. Everything about her is starting to diminish or decline. Her hand claws at her heart. The look of wry self-knowledge in her eyes speaks volumes for her, for van Dyck and to us.

In probing the ultimate mystery and majesty of life, van Dyck had no peers and few equals. All the kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, whose portraits grace the galleries of the Frick are long since passed away. But the human soul is immortal. This is what Anthony van Dyck painted to perfection - or as close to it as any artist can go.

***

Text: copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Images Courtesy of the Frick Collection, New York City

Introductory image:
Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) Queen Henrietta Maria with Jeffery Hudson, 1633. Oil on canvas, 219.1 x 134.8 cm (86 1/4 x 53 1/16 in.). National Gallery of Art, Washington; Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.39. 

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), Frans Snyders, ca. 1620. Oil on canvas, 56 1/8 x 41 1/2 in. (142.6 x 105.4 cm) Henry Clay Frick Bequest  Accession #: 1909.1.39 Frick Collection.

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), Margareta de Vos, ca.1620. Oil on canvas 51 1/2 x 39 1/8 in. (130.8 x 99.4 cm) Henry Clay Frick Bequest  Accession #: 1909.1.42 Frick Collection.

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) Self-Portrait, ca. 1620–21. Oil on canvas, 47 1/8 x 34 5/8 in. (119.7 x 87.9 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 49.7.25

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) Queen Henrietta Maria with Jeffery Hudson, 1633. Black chalk, red and yellow (fabricated?) chalks, heightened with white chalk, on blue paper,
16 1/2 × 10 1/8 in. (41.9 × 25.5 cm) École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641)  Detail of Queen Henrietta Maria with Jeffery Hudson, 1633. Oil on Canvas. National Gallery of Art, Washington (see above).

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, 1623. Oil on canvas, 76 3/4 × 57 7/8 in. (195 × 147 cm) Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence 

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) Detail of James Stanley, Lord Strange, Later Seventh Earl of Derby, with His Wife, Charlotte, and Their Daughter, ca. 1636. Oil on canvas,
97 x 84 1/8 in. (246.4 x 213.7 cm) Henry Clay Frick Bequest Accession #: 1913.1.40 Frick Collection.

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) The Princesses Elizabeth and Anne, Daughters of Charles I, Oil on canvas, 11 3/4 × 16 1/2 in. (29.8 × 41.8 cm) Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh; purchased with the aid of the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Scottish Office and the Art Fund 1996

Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641) Portrait of a Woman, c 1640. Oil on canvas, 29 7/8 × 23 1/4 in. (75.9 × 59.1 cm) Speed Art Museum, Louisville; Museum Purchase, Preston Pope Satterwhite Fund 

Girl with a Pearl Earring at the Frick Collection

Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis

Frick Collection, New York City

October 22, 2013, through January 19, 2014

Reviewed by Ed Voves

When I recently visited the Frick Collection in New York City, there was a line of visitors "queuing-up" as the English say, at the entrance. The line stretched nearly a block long and was continually reinforced with new art lovers anxious to get in.
The exhibition at the Frick, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis, is certainly worth the wait. But I suspect that very few people in the daily throng at the door to the Frick come to see Nicolaes Maes' genre masterpiece, The Old Lacemaker, or even the clutch of major works by Rembrandt.

The majority of the art lovers in the line at the Frick come to pay homage to one of the true "beauties" of Holland. They are there to see Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.

This celebrated character study or tronie is given the honor of its own separate gallery. It is a sensible curatorial decision because many visitors approach Girl with a Pearl Earring with a sense of visible anticipation, even with awe, and most want to linger. Some come back for a second or even a third look. Girl with a Pearl Earring exerts a magnetic force, drawing people to her, making it difficult for them to break free.

There are a number of reasons for the magnitude of the attraction of Girl with a Pearl Earring. We know absolutely nothing about this beautiful, enigmatic woman. For that matter, we know very little about Vermeer himself. The painter from Delft kept to himself, holding the world - and his creditors - at bay, while painting one masterpiece after another.

There is also the legend of Girl with a Pearl Earring. The painting lingered for decades, unremarked and unrecognized as a work by Vermeer until the mid-1800's. It was purchased for the princely sum of two guilders and change by Arnoldus des Tombe in 1881. Des Tombe was encouraged by the art historian Victor de Stuers, a passionate advocate of the work of Vermeer, whose reputation had earlier been eclipsed by Rembrandt and Hals.

Girl with a Pearl Earring was donated to the Royal Collection of the Netherlands. It is housed in the museum known as the Mauritshuis, currently being renovated. Girl with a Pearl's visit to museums in the U.S., of which the Frick is the last venue, is a result of this museum rehab. We probably will not be seeing her again in the U.S. any time soon.

Who is this young woman in the improvised turban, this "Mona Lisa of the North" as some now call her? Was she a serving girl in Vermeer's household? His daughter? A professional model? We are unlikely to ever know.

I think it fair to say that Girl with a Pearl Earring is the perfect symbol of the Dutch Golden Age. During this burst of creative energy spanning the seventeenth century, the people of the Netherlands beat back the armies of the Spanish Empire and Louis XIV of France, while creating the first recognizably modern, free market society in the Western world. These political and economic deeds were complemented by a remarkable degree of religious tolerance, major scientific innovations and soaring achievements in the visual arts.

Examples of the rich artistic heritage of the Dutch Golden Age are on view in the second gallery of the Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals exhibit - provided you can tear your gaze away from Girl with a Pearl Earring.

The selection of works from the Mauritshuis testifies to the diversity of Dutch art during the seventeenth century. The incredible range of genres and of technical virtuosity produced in such a small nation is sometimes hard to fathom.

Consider the paired portraits by Frans Hals of husband and wife, Jacob Olycan and Aletta Hanemans. With her plump, flushed cheeks offset by the neck ruff and headpiece which were the height of fashion in 1625. Aletta Hanemans conforms to the stereotype of female beauty of the Dutch Golden Age.

 

Frans Hals, Portrait of Jacob Olycan

Hals' portrait of Jacob Olycan, presents an altogether different image. Olycan's dark piercing eyes and sallow skin are the features that we associate with the Spanish enemies of the Dutch during this period. Yet Olycan was a brewer from Haarlem and an officer in the St. George Militia Company. Hals painted Olycan in a group portrait of the St. George Militia officers at a banquet in 1627. A more Dutch scene could hardly be imagined.

Vincent van Gogh praised Hals, commenting that he painted with twenty-seven different shades of black. Where did this Spanish-style obsession with black originate? Frans Hals (1582-1666) was born in Flanders, present-day Belgium, which remained under Spanish control after the Dutch revolted, led by the indomitable William of Orange in 1568. But Hals' parents fled from Antwerp to escape the Spanish in 1585 when he was a young child. Any Spanish influence upon his painting, therefore, could only have been indirect and marginal.

Hals was one of the greatest portrait painters in the history of art. He needs no chain of influences to explain his grasp of color and form, his "rough style" or his insight into human character.

Artists of the Netherlands during seventeenth century, however, did possess unrivaled access to the material culture of the entire globe. Thanks to the intrepid - and aggressive - outreach of Dutch maritime trade, all manner of things - Chinese porcelain, lacquerware from Japan, art prints from Italy - were easily attainable to Dutch artists. So vast was the Dutch control of world trade that the English, who had fought as allies against Spain, were infuriated at being locked-out of colonial trade zones and European markets. Warfare broke out between England and the Dutch Republic, with a heavy loss of ships and lives. Samuel Pepys, in his famous diary, records the exasperated comment of a fellow advisor to King Charles II, "By God, says he, I think the Devil shits Dutchmen."

The Dutch themselves were apprehensive about the effect of the unprecedented wealth flowing into their nation during the 1600's. This was particularly true during the first half of the seventeenth century when the strict commandments of Calvinist religious doctrine still dominated Dutch society.

Pieter Claesz, Vanitas Still Life.

 

Pieter Claesz was a German-born artist who settled in the city of Haarlem. Claesz specialized in still-life paintings. His Vanitas Still Life from 1630 reinforced the Sunday preaching of Calvinist ministers that life is short and worldly pursuits are ultimately in vain. The toppled wine glass, the dying flame of the oil lamp and the cracked, pitted skull are obvious reminders of such sermons.

Perhaps the most notable feature of this superbly crafted work is the way that Claesz treated the pages of the large folio. These are so jagged and brittle that they would crumble at the merest touch. With this master stroke, Claesz affirms that even knowledge and scholarship, major concerns for the scientific Dutch, will pass away.

Rembrandt's "Tronie" of a Man with a Feathered Beret was painted in 1635, during a decade of bravura portraits and major biblical scenes. The term "tronie" is derived from the Dutch word for "face." Tronies were smaller works, character studies or depictions of people in exotic garb. Rembrandt, flush with funds from his portraits, invested in all manner of hats, clothing and gear which he could use as props in his paintings. The fantastical hat and gleaming armor in this tronie were no doubt part of his collection, later auctioned-off after his bankruptcy in 1656.

 

Rembrandt, "Tronie" of a Man with a Feathered Beret

A close look at Rembrandt's "Tronie" reveals that it is a cautionary work like Vanitas Still Life by Claesz. The dashing beret, worthy of one of Hals' cavaliers, strikes a hollow note when we examine the puffy features and creased brow of Rembrandt's protagonist. Is he the recipient of bad news? Has he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and realized his own mortality? Whatever the case, there is real fear in the eyes that flash at us from the picture. Here we can begin to see the origins of the introspection and self-knowing that were to transform Rembrandt's later portraits and self-portraits into the most insightful evocations of human character ever painted.

The fleeting nature of life is further attested to by another astonishing painting on view at the Frick, The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius. This wondrous painting is a trompe l’oeil masterpiece. Fabritius delicately balances brilliant handling of the feathery plumage of the goldfinch against an equally expert depiction of the wall plaster. Is that a real bird posed on a sunlit wall or is it a "trick of the eye" that we are looking at?

Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch

Tragically, Fabritius, Rembrandt's most brilliant pupil, was killed the same year as this amazing work of art was created. On October 12, 1654, a gunpowder factory in the city of Delft, where both Fabritius and Vermeer lived, exploded. Hundreds of people perished, including Fabritius. His studio was burned and much of his work was consumed in the flames.

A year later, another talented pupil of Rembrandt, Nicolaes Maes, painted The Old Lacemaker. It is a sentimental genre work, but also one liberated from allegorical or didactic content.

Nicolaes Maes The Old Lacemaker

In the last decades of the seventeenth century, Dutch taste favored comforting images of hearth and home. The long years of constant warfare led to a reaction against grand visions of life or preachy moralizing. It was, perhaps, the beginning of the end of the Dutch Golden Age. But Maes' The Old Lacemaker also testifies to the patient, industrious and quietly courageous character of the Dutch people who had made the Golden Age possible in the first place.

Of course, we want to see Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring more than a picture of an old lady making lace. But if there is one lesson to be learned from these masterpieces from the Mauritshuis, it is that beauty can be found almost everywhere we look. Living as they do, in a small corner of Europe hemmed in by the North Sea, the Dutch have nurtured this faculty for appreciating the world around them to a remarkable degree.

And so, when the Girl with a Pearl Earring turns her gaze upon us at the Frick Collection, we are transfixed by that gleam in her eyes. It conveys a visible, lively sense of humor and humanity, pouring out from the soul of Girl with a Pearl. It beams from her eyes, turning the space beyond the picture plain into a place of wonder.

It is the look that defined the Dutch Golden Age - and perhaps ours as well.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Images Courtesy of the Frick Collection, New York City

 

Introductory Image: Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675). Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665. Oil on canvas: 44.5 x 39 cm. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Frans Hals (1581/1585–1666). Portrait of Jacob Olycan (1596–1638), 1625. Oil on canvas: 124.8 x 97.5 cm. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Pieter Claesz Vanitas Still Life, 1630. Oil on panel: 39.5 x 56 cm. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669). "Tronie" of a Man with a Feathered Beret, c. 1635. Oil on panel: 62.5 x 47 cm. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Carel Fabritius (1622–1654). The Goldfinch, 1654. Oil on panel: 33.5 x 22.8 cm. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Nicolaes Maes The Old Lacemaker, c. 1655. Oil on panel: 37.5 x 35 cm. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague.