This next video will be about Baroque Flanders or the Spanish Netherlands,
and the Dutch Republic, so focusing in on artists like Rubens, and
Rembrandt, and Vermeer -- and that will be the focus!
So let's start off by looking at Rubens. Let's look at an example of a self-portrait
with his family. And he did a number a self-portraits, as well as
family portraits, and what we see here is Rubens as an
older man with his very young second wife, and their son,
and we often see her are gardens that are equated with ideas of
love, but clearly Rubens is emphasizing his status here --
remember that Velázquez was emphasizing his status in Las Meninas
and demonstrating that he hangs out with royalty; that he [Velázquez] hangs out with the Spanish royal
family.
Well, Rubens hung out with a lot of royalty. He hung out with a lot of dukes and
a lot of kings. And Rubens was really the artist everyone wanted to be. He
was able to buy a large house,
and he was able to have a huge workshop. He was able to be
very, very prolific. He was very successful as an artist,
and she was a great favorite of a number of rulers,
and so what we see here is not only his successful life
in the domestic sphere but it also reflects
a wider success in his life that he able to commemorate himself and show himself
with such wealth. So, Rubens style tends to be very dramatic,
interested in ideas of beauty. It reflects on ideas that
are built on some Italian traditions,
but incorporating quite a bit of drama into them, so
we know that Rubens had experience with Italian art
examples from Titian, Tintoretto in Venice,
so where we see some of these plays of light,
the importance of color, the importance of
foreshortening, or the ideas of figures going into the picture plane.
This is all built on some of the traditions that come from high and late Renaissance
Italy. But Rubens is definitely adding his own spin to it.
For men, he tends to represent them as extremely muscular,
sometimes with tan or brownish skin.
Women tend to be very pale and very fleshy -
we often hear about people who are referring to a "Rubenesque" kind of woman, and usually that
means a very
curvy, fleshy type of woman. So what we see here is Christ
in what's called "The Elevation of the Cross" -- it's a triptych, a traditional triptych,
a large triptych. Today it's in the Antwerp Cathedral.
And so what we see here is a cross being raised up, and so
rather than just having the generic Crucifixion scene,
which so many people would have seen before, what Rubens is saying is [and I'm paraphrasing here]: "let's put it
in action -- let's
capture this moment where the men are struggling to lift this cross --
and let's see the Virgin Mary reflecting on this moment -- and let's see
Christ gazing up to the heavens
during this time. So, it's a very agitated scene,
you the number diagonals that cut through the the composition,
and that's very traditional in the Baroque period. Rather than having a
stable
pyramidal composition [which was common in the High Renaissance], in the Baroque period we often see diagonals that cut across the
composition.
So this is a great introduction to Rubens just in
showing the ideas of the drama and the typical representations of men and women. And also
the fact that he's building off of some Italian traditions, but of
course adding his own contributions. The pendant piece, or really the
piece [painting] that fits as a pendant to this -- and they're both in the Antwerp Cathedral
now
is the "Descent from the Cross," so what we see here is the moment
after the crucifixion. So you again, rather than picking that static moment where
Christ is up on the cross. It's the moment when his body is being taken down,
so this moment when his body now has lost all of it's color -- it's almost
greenish in color. This is probably building on a tradition of a
Mannerist painting from Italy, and what we see here are these punctuations of
red that go through the different panels.
And we see the body again cutting a dramatic diagonal through the canvas,
adding extra drama here. And then on the two sides, we see scenes from Christ's
early life.
The visitation on one side. The presentation at the temple.
So, this idea that you have these scenes on either side that
present to use the early life, and then the end of his life at
center. As I said, Rubens did a lot of work for royalty one of his grand
commissions was 21 paintings
for Marie de'Medici and her husband,
who was King of France, Henri IV. So what we see here is this moment where Marie de'
Medici, of course, arriving from Florence, arriving from Italy,
is coming into Marseilles, which is a city in southern France.
And what see here is Mare de' Medici, beautifully attired,
coming off of her ship. Of course, a ship really couldn't come directly up to
pier at this time.
This is really an invented scene. It has a lot of added
historical and mythological additions and significance. So,
we see the captain here; we see the Medici
coat of arms -- the balls -- represented here. We see Marie
coming off her ship with her ladies. We see a figure that represents the country of
France with its fleur-de-lis patterned cloak, kneeling down.
And then we see figures of the sea, of the
retinue of Neptune (or Greek form = Poseidon), celebrating her arrival. So, you see
the fleshy women turning and twisting, and then you see the muscular man
pushing the boat into its harbor.
So giving the sense that the gods -- the mythological gods --
approved of her arrival. So this would have hung in Luxembourg Palace [Palais du Luxembourg] --
her palace in Paris -- and it was part of a series
that -- even though she and her husband weren't
the greatest of husband-and-wives --
it gives you the sense that, from the start, they were very blessed in that
their their marriage and their union was celebrated
by all -- by all! -- in many, many ways. It's a large painting
and all the paintings would have fit together into this
room, this display [in the Luxembourg palace]. Rubens also reflected on and
used his dramatic style to reflect on the constant wars of the 17th century.
What we see here is a scene called the "Consequences of War" that serves as a great
illustration of all of
the warfare going on at this time. What we see here
functions, again, more symbolically allegorically, we see here
Mars, the God of War, he's
charging out to war with a Fury figure
holding a torch. He's holding onto a sword that's covered in blood, dripping
with blood,
and we see Venus, his lover, trying to pull him back.
It's a really common type of scene, where we see Venus trying to pull her
lovers back to her.
But the pull of warfare is stronger, and we see him crashing out
to go
do that, that he's pushing her aside. And we see
Cupid, or a little Eros figure, at the
side of his mother, but all her attention is on
Mars. We see a figure that represents Europe,
who is panicked -- who is is panicking! Who is running around crazed.
And then some of the dramatic effects and violent effects of war are
illustrated here, so this whole chaotic scene
speaks to the pull of war and then also the disasters of war,
and the fact that it is really spreading around Europe.
Another example of a violent scene
is a representation of the "Rape (or the Abduction) of the Daughters of Leucippus."
And this relates back to a mythological story of two twin brothers who
abducted
these two women. And what we see here
is these two very decisive men, tanned, muscular,
and grabbing these two women, as if they need saving, as if they look
confused, and they're flailing here. So what what people often interpret these painting as
is a reflection of gender attitudes of the time -- that men were decisive, they took
what they wanted, if
they needed women, resources, land, what have you --
especially in the case of kings or rulers, they were allowed to do so.
Whereas women
were basically objects -- objects to be taken and objects to be controlled,
so it definitely speaks to some gender issues. It likely was commissioned at
this point when
you had the French and Spanish families intermarrying [Philip IV of Spain m. Elizabeth of France; and Anne of Austria/Spain m. Louis XIII of France], so there were these
brothers and sisters that we're getting married, so some people suggested
these to-be kings and queens of Spain and France
as at the possible commissioners or that it was commissioned on this
occasion.
However, these were young adolescents, teenagers,
and so [this painting] definitely doesn't reflect them as portraits,
but it definitely speaks a larger attitudes a rulers
and gender issues at that time.
A final work to see is a work of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his gallery,
and these are just interesting works because they function as
catalogs of individuals' collections. The Archduke Leopold had an extremely
impressive collection --
especially of Italian works. We see a lot of works especially from Venice,
and so what we see here is the Archduke been presented his
collection by curators, and these would be wonderful ways
show people, in a very condensed form, what kind of paintings you had,
and how many paintings you had. However, these are not really what his rooms
looked like. They're hung salon style -- one on top of the other.
He definitely not a room of this scale, so
it's important to realize that these are not realistic.
Ok, moving up to the Netherlands, or the Dutch Republic, we're going to see an example of
a church, a very simple church that demonstrates the difference,
Westerkerk (Western Church) in Amsterdam that shows us what a Protestant church would look like at the
time: whitewashed walls, simple stone architecture.
There are some similarities with early Florentine architecture by
Brunelleschi, the simplistic white or
simplistic grey stone. However, at this point, remember the Baroque in Italy
is dramatic; it uses a lot of different colored stones,
gilding, marble. Lots of visual interest. So there's a clear difference
being established here.
Here's just a final view [with plan].
Five types of painting in Baroque Europe in order of importance are history, portrait, genre,
landscape, and still life,
so it's important to get this order in your head -- especially as we move into the
period where the Academy is dominant,
and people will be grouped into the academy by the style of painting that
they're doing.
And so the best painters were those doing history painting
and portrait paintings. So, an individual that did number of group portraits was
Rembrandt.
Rembrandt is most famous for his use of light, which we can clearly see on
display here.
It has a spotlight effects, similar to Caravaggio, but the light's a bit
warmer
and people see it as more realistic. What we see here is a
dissection,
and so human dissection was becoming more common -- but still was
infrequent at this time -- usually it was done more stadium-seating style,
but here you see at the guild of surgeons gathered around having
a portrait done - an imagined portrait where they are all
doing their trade -- this idea of surgery. And so we see Dr. Tulp -- Dr. Tulp
is the leader here -- and all the men
attentively looking at what he's doing. They're referring to notes.
They're referring to a book,
so clearly these are very learned men; they are all wearing similar garb --
except Dr. Tulp is slightly different, differentiating him from the group.
The body is clearly on display, and we're seeing the hand -- the hand is an important tool
for the surgeon,
also for the artist. And also, it's a way of showing the complexity of the human body in
general.
Also, it allows the rest of the body to be on display.
Those who were dissected at this time were generally criminals.
This man had been convicted of theft, so that's how he ended
up dissected(!) Another group portrait -- a
more famous one -- is often referred to as the "Night Watch," but the more correct
title would be the "Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq,"
where we see him at center with his lieutenant. This is a militia
group that
favors rifles
and guns, and so what we see here are men preparing the gun:
the first stage, the second stage, and the third stage -- we see a man who's gun is
actually going off towards the head
of the lieutenant, so one often wonders if there's some kind of joke here.
The varnish [of the painting] has darkened so much over the years that many people thought it
was a night watch -- kind of like a neighborhood watch scene.
But in reality it's one in these very candid, loose group projects that
would have hung on the wall
of the guildhall or community hall.
It's a large painting. And they have done some cleaning out it,
removing some of the varnish layers, but it still looks very dark
as Rembrandt's paintings tend to do. So we see that revealed
in this painting. This curious figure here is often referred to almost like the mascot
the group -- but she has some of the features of Saskia, Rembrandt's
wife.
Rembrant also did a number of self-portrait that tend to reflect his
his life, what he was going through at the time,
and, by the end of his life, he faced a great deal of personal and financial
trouble.
So he tends to look a bit more serious. His painting becomes a bit looser.
we still see a beautiful use of light, and the big question here is: why are these
circles here? And most people think it's is the idea that a good artist can do a
perfect circle
freehand. So that's a possibility, but we also see an emphasis on
his trade. We see him holding onto the tools of being a
painter right here. Earlier in his life he tended to make himself a
bit more fancy. We do have a female painter her to
focus on. Her name was Judith Leyester, and what we see here is what's called "The Proposition."
The Proposition [shows] a young woman, who's very dutifully
doing her sewing. She's doing her needlework,
and I was a sign of a virtuous woman. If a woman is doing her needlework, if she's weaving, if she's sewing,
that was a good woman. We see Judith Leyster using some similar light effects as
we've seen
in a Rembrandt or in other Baroque artists of this time,
who worked in the Baroque Realist style. What we see here is a man -- probably a man who
supposed to be a foreigner, an out-of- towner,
and we have a light here illuminating her needlework, but he's holding out a coin to her.
So, this is the idea that he's proposing to her -- presumably that he's
trying to turn her into a prostitute, basically -- proposing a
night together. But clearly from her her expression, from
her way of holding herself, she is rejecting him. So Judith's Leyseter's
version
shutting down [the proposition]. Vermeer, however, -- Jan Vermeer, who's one of the most famous Dutch painters --
created a much more friendly, what we might call a "Merry Company" scene.
This is called "The Procuress." What we see here is a figure -- maybe Vermeer as self-portrait --
in a jolly scene, where a woman is clearly accepting the money.
We see the man grabbing onto her breast. We see him looking very disheveled, as if
he's been drinking.
And the woman, presumably the madam, is collecting. This is a relatively
crowded scene. A much more effective scene would be Jan Vermeer's "Allegory of the Art of
Painting"
done later in his career, where we see probably him working away
an unusual clothing, painting the figure of Clio. who's the
muse of history. She has her wreath on her head. She has her book of Thucydides. She
has her
trumpet. Vermeer was Catholic,
and so we see some references to the Habsburgs -- we see the eagles [emblems of the Habsburgs].
We see also the divide in the Dutch Republic. [ran out of time. Please see SmartHistory video of this painting!]