Rembrandt

Self-Portrait with Arm on Ledge

1640

Cabinet House of Petronella de la Court, late 17th century

• made for elite women
• ideal home
• home as center for visual fascination
• emphasis on collecting
• painting in dialogue w/ interior design

Jan van Goyen

Dunes

c. 1630

Rembrandt?

Man with the Golden Helmet

c. 1650

Judith Leyster

Self Portrait

1635

• insist on shower painting
• outfit = status, brushes = skill
• various genres depicted
• trained in Haarlem, apprencticed by Hals

Rembrandt

Nicolas Ruts

1631

• 3/4 length
• nondescript context
• self-made identity (capitalism)
• working activity referenced

Franza Hals

Isaac Massa

1635

• elbow device
• relaxed position, not so staged
• rough stlye
• proto-Impressionist (ephemeral light)

Franz Hals

Feyntje van Steenkiste

1635

• sober, constrained body = sexual metaphor of chastity
• religious dimension (Calvinism, Mennonism)

Peter Paul Rubens

Henry IV Receiving the Portrait of his Wife, Marie de' Medici

1621-25

• series of paintings publicize Marie's remaining political power after being kicked out by Louis XIII
• early modern idea of the independent person
• yet still invested in old institutions (monarchy)
• "divine right": delivered by Zeus and Hera
• battle in background (love and war) = monarchical marriage (Love and territory)
• allegorical elements

Rembrandt

Cornelis Claesz Anslo and his wife Aeltje Gerritsdr. Schouten

1641

• wealthy trader and Mennonite trader
• hand pointing at Bible = importance of the word
• hierarchy: he's teaching his wife but her lips are parted = a dialogue
• women took on greater roles in merchant business = educated women in Dutch Republic
• dynamic composition (use of diagonal breaks convention) wife must've been important

Johannes Verspronck

Portrait of a Man

1640

• gesticulated hand, maybe pointing to wife
• portraits face each other, hung on either side of fireplace
• man always on left (eyes scan left to right, left is position of privilege if woman right she has higher status, ancient heraldry traditions
• gloves: symbols of friendship, sexual connotation, a typical marriage gift from wife, sign of outdoor and public clothing

Johannes Verspronck

Portrait of a Woman

1640

• woman has closed body in closed space (chastity)

Jacob Cats

Marriage

1625

• moralist through booklets and poems
• Grand Pensionary, equivalent to Prime Minister
• most widely read person in Dutch Republic
• private discourse in public sphere
• print used to imprint modes of behavior
• six stages of woman's life: 1) maiden 2) courting woman 3) bride 4) wife 5) mother 6) widow, then dead

Studio of Rembrandt

Jan Pellicorne and his son Gaspar

1634

• son gets the money

Studio of Rembrandt

Susanna van Collen and her daughter Eva

1634

• girl gets coin (materialistic)

Rembrandt

Agatha Bas

1641

• comes out of frame, blurs distinction between subject and viewer's space
• woman has some presence, very high status

Rembrandt

Nicolas van Bambeeck

1641

• man has glove symbol and typical elbow gesture

Peter Paul Rubens

Rubens and Isabella Brandt in a Honeysuckle Bower

1610

Rembrandt

Rembrandt and Saskia

1635

• portrays himself as low-life
• lots of self-portraits (sold on market)
• tronies?

Rembrandt

Self Portrait

1629

• facing us in direct gaze
• two circles in background look like maps

Gerrit Dou

The Quack

1650

• quack = charlatan doctor
• smooth style
• idea of deception
• calls attention to deceptive nature of painting: fear that people will mistake image of actual reality
• depicts lower classes but not meant for them

Jan Molenaer

Painter in His Studio, Painting a Musical Company

1631

• three canvases: actual canvas, painter on right, some in background
• "ars painteca"

Pieter Claesz

Vanitas Still Life

1630

• reflections in glass orb
• skull balances orb
• vanitas: lament of life's ephemerality

Samuel van Hoogstaten

View down a Corridor

1662

• illusionistic, installed behind door, trompe l'oeil
• L: Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire
• dog/cat: only dog returns gaze, cat looks alarmed - voyeurism
• presence of key even though all doors are open
• gendered space, penetrating home = penetrating vagina

Samuel van Hoogstaten

Peep Box

1655-60

• for wealthy collector
• anamorphosis: vanishing point manipulated so invisible when faced straight-on
• silhouette of man = you are the voyeur
• two peep holes = you can see other eyeball
• cupids painted on box = painting is "seductress of sight"
• floor is perspectival with its own patterns, and reminder of domesticity

Vermeer

The Art of Painting

1665

• detailed map of United Provinces before Spain = historical
• laure leaves = Greek fame/glory, historicized history painting
• intrusion/voyeurism neither model nor painter can see viewer
• collision of private/public life - work/live in same space
• reorganized domestic life: increasingly separate public/private merchant life

lament of life's ephemerality

Dirck van Baburen

The Procuress

1622

• representations of prostitute and madam
• immoral imagery
• music = sex

Ter Brugghen

Unequal Couple

1623

• Caraviggisti (Utrecht = Roman = Catholic)
• yet Northern art sensibility of sensuality
• maintains class system by mocking old man

Jan Vermeer

Woman with a Water Jug

1658-60

• window a physical boundary of home in relation to the rest of the country/world (the map)
• 1648: Treaty of Westphalia  1650: stadholder invades Amsterdam than dies
• True Freedom = intense interest in the home
• paintings of the home defined at home
• 
  

Jan Vermeer

Lace Maker

1665

• woman's work: intent on task, virtuous
• she is present, but inaccessible
• her labor mirrors artist's labor

Jan Vermeer

Servant Pouring Milk

1660's

• Dutch products (tiles)
• sense of material abundance
• women should be working!

Jan Vermeer

Woman Taking a Letter from a Servant

c. 1670

• shoes are off (sketchy)
• MUSIC MAKIN' AIN'T NO LACE MAKIN'
• seascape could be husband away...at sea

Gabriel Metsu

Woman Reading a Letter

1662-5

• ambiguity as to who sent the letter

Pieter de Hooch

The Pantry

1658

• theme of surveillance
• male householder never shown, except in portraits = way of asserting his authority without his presence
• God is also watching; "cleanliness is next to godliness"

Pieter van Hooch

Boy Bringing a Basket of Bread

1658

• theme of thresholds (window covered, door opened)
• goes all the way to neighbor's house, where she makes sure boy is not entering the house 

Jacob Ochtervelt

The Street Musicians

1655

• color and light demark street degenerates from lighted, colored home
• citizenship was civic; had to own house (buy a poorterschap) to be a citizen, creates social lines

Nicolas Maes

The Eavesdropper

1656

• anxiety about the help = a lower-class person in an upper-class home - in-between status
• woman w/hand on hips: masculine action-taking
• slipper on the floor = open body morally shadiness 

Pieter de Hooch

Yard of a House in Delft

1658

• yard: middleground of street and home

Ter Borch

Paternal Admonition/ Proposition

1655

• Goethe's famous mis-interpretation

Jan Vermeer

Woman Seated at a Virginal

1671

• theme of interruption
• quotes van baburen 'the procuress'

Jan Steen

Woman at her Toilet

1665

• voyeurism

Pieter Saenredam

Old Town Hall of Amsterdam

1657

• defining public space

Gerrit Berckhyde

New Town Hall of Amsterdam

1673

• republicanism: many entrances

Jacob van Campen

Amsterdam Town Hall

begun in 1648

• center of the world

Artus Quellinus

Pediment relief sculptures

1648

• republicanism in many entryways

Pieter de Hooch

A Couple Walking in the Citizens' Hall of the Amsterdam Town Hall

1660's

• private and public sphere at the same time

Pieter de Hooch

Council Chamber of the Amsterdam Burgomasters

1665

• viewing of paintings

Rembrandt

The Oath of Claudius Civilis

1661-2

• civilus too monarchical looking (c.f. William of Orange)
• sketch: Roman arch, hierarchy of scale
• single figure coheres composition a la Italian history painting

Frans Hals

Banquet of the Officers of the St. Hadrian's Civic Guard Company

1627

• internal and external coherence (Riegl)

Rembrandt

The Night Watch

1642

• captain and his attendant fulcrum of painting
• expensive painting, some people get stiff end of deal
• girl w/chicken: play on Dutch word for musket = visual pun
• interesting allegory in group portraiture

Rembrandt

The Anatomy Lecture of Dr. Tulp

1632

• threshold of the modern, looking backward and forward
• real dissection would have stomach organs cut out first
• rembrandt owned Vesalius dissected limbs
• huge book is still present in methods = old medicine
• Dutch executions torture body part used for crime = arm
• tulp is internal coherence: but everyone looking at something different = personal interpretation
• atypical guild painting: tulp featured
• 
  

Anatomy Theatre of Leiden University

1610

• university is pride of Leiden, wont through military hardiness
• dissections entertainment before research
• Calvinist ideaology: criminal has a damned soul so no problem desecrating the body
• Galenic medecine to Vesalius medecine: more hands on approach
• skeleton cheerleaders carry signs of man's mortality

date of Twelve Years' Truce with Spain

1609-1621

States Party leader executed by Orangists

date of Treaty of Westphalia

1648

Dutch provinces free of Hapsberg control