Amsterdam (Rough Guide) - Martin Dunford [183]
Dutch art |
The sixteenth century
At the end of the fifteenth century, Flanders was in economic and political decline and the leading artists of the day were drawn instead to the booming port of Antwerp, also in present-day Belgium. The artists who worked here soon began to integrate the finely observed detail that characterized the Flemish tradition with the style of the Italian painters of the Renaissance. Quentin Matsys (1464–1530) introduced florid classical architectural details and intricate landscapes to his works, influenced perhaps by the work of Leonardo da Vinci. As well as religious works, he painted portraits and genre scenes, all of which have recognizably Italian facets – and in the process he paved the way for the Dutch genre painters of later years. Jan Gossaert (1478–1532) made the pilgrimage to Italy too, and his dynamic works are packed with detail, especially finely drawn classical architectural backdrops. He was the first Low Countries artist to introduce the subjects of classical mythology into his paintings, part of a steady trend towards secular subject matter, which can also be seen in the work of Joachim Patenier (d.1524), who painted small landscapes of fantastical scenery.
The middle of the sixteenth century was dominated by the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (c.1525–69), whose gruesome allegories and innovative interpretations of religious subjects are firmly placed in Low Countries settings. Pieter also painted finely observed peasant scenes, though he himself was well connected in court circles in Antwerp and, later, Brussels. Pieter Aertsen (1508–75) also worked in the peasant genre, adding aspects of still life; his paintings often show a detailed kitchen scene in the foreground, with a religious episode going on behind. Bruegel’s two sons, Pieter Bruegel the Younger (1564–1638) and Jan Bruegel (1568–1625), were lesser painters; the former produced fairly insipid copies of his father’s work, while Jan developed a style of his own – delicately rendered flower paintings and genre pieces that earned him the nickname “Velvet”. Towards the latter half of the sixteenth century highly stylized Italianate portraits became the dominant fashion, with Frans Pourbus the Younger (1569–1622) the leading practitioner. Frans hobnobbed across Europe, working for the likes of the Habsburgs and the Médicis.
Dutch art | The sixteenth century |
The Dutch get going
Meanwhile, there were artistic rumblings in the province of Holland. Leading the charge was Geertgen tot Sint Jans (Little Gerard of the Brotherhood of St John; d.1490), who worked in Haarlem, initiating – in a strangely naive style – an artistic vision that would come to dominate the Dutch in the seventeenth century. There was a tender melancholy in his work very different from the stylized paintings produced in Flanders, and, most importantly, a new sensitivity to light. Jan Mostaert (1475–1555) took over after Geertgen’s death, developing similar themes, but the first painter to effect real changes in northern painting was Lucas van Leyden (1489–1533). Born in Leiden, his bright colours and narrative technique were refreshingly novel, and he introduced a new dynamism into what had become a rigidly formal treatment of devotional subjects. There was rivalry, of course. Eager to publicize Haarlem as the artistic capital of the northern Netherlands, Karel van Mander(see "The Golden Age") claimed Jan van Scorel (1495–1562) as the better painter, complaining, too, of van Leyden’s dandyish ways. Certainly van Scorel’s influence should not be underestimated. Like many of his contemporaries, van Scorel hotfooted it to Italy to view the works of the Renaissance, but in Rome his career went into overdrive when he found favour with Pope Hadrian VI, one-time bishop of Utrecht, who installed him as court painter in 1520. Van Scorel stayed in Rome for four years and when he returned to Utrecht, armed with all that papal