Since studying C17th Dutch Art as an undergraduate at Melbourne Uni, I have been passionate about genre scenes. Jan Vermeer was and is my favourite, followed by Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch, Gabriël Metsu and others. Earlier this year an exhibition called Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age opened in the National Gallery London, but under coronavirus conditions. The exhibition ends at the end of Sept 2020!
Nicolaes Maes (1634-93) was the son of a wealthy merchant. At 15 he moved from Dordrecht to Amsterdam to do an apprenticeship with Rembrandt, and become one of the master’s most gifted pupils. In 1653, Maes went back to Dordrecht to live. He married Adriana Brouwers, widow of a cleric, in 1654 and had 3 children. Until c1660, Maes painted genre scenes in the same style as Rembrandt, with chiaroscuro and warm colours.
Maes produced most of his small-scale paintings of domestic interiors in the 1654-60 era, favouring images of women spinning, reading or preparing a meal. These small scaled works retained the use of Rembrandtian colour.
His genre pieces had a hushed character. Maes depicted mothers with children, or older women praying or sleeping. For example Maes painted a young thinking woman resting an elbow on a window-ledge. Girl at a Window (1653-5) showed her looking through a wooden window shutter that was flung open. And yet, as the girl viewed the outside, her background was black. Humble realism of the Dutch Golden Age, to be sure.
The dark room in A Woman Scraping Parsnips 1655 might have seemed bare but the painting enclosed the two figures in warmth. The concentration of woman and child, their gaze directed intently downwards, focused on the woman’s teaching hands. No ‘beating the devil out of a child’ here; just a gentle attitude towards the child’s education. Domestic calm was always the desired end.
Nicolaes Maes (1634-93) was the son of a wealthy merchant. At 15 he moved from Dordrecht to Amsterdam to do an apprenticeship with Rembrandt, and become one of the master’s most gifted pupils. In 1653, Maes went back to Dordrecht to live. He married Adriana Brouwers, widow of a cleric, in 1654 and had 3 children. Until c1660, Maes painted genre scenes in the same style as Rembrandt, with chiaroscuro and warm colours.
Maes produced most of his small-scale paintings of domestic interiors in the 1654-60 era, favouring images of women spinning, reading or preparing a meal. These small scaled works retained the use of Rembrandtian colour.
Maes, Girl at a Window 1653-5 (top image)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
His genre pieces had a hushed character. Maes depicted mothers with children, or older women praying or sleeping. For example Maes painted a young thinking woman resting an elbow on a window-ledge. Girl at a Window (1653-5) showed her looking through a wooden window shutter that was flung open. And yet, as the girl viewed the outside, her background was black. Humble realism of the Dutch Golden Age, to be sure.
The dark room in A Woman Scraping Parsnips 1655 might have seemed bare but the painting enclosed the two figures in warmth. The concentration of woman and child, their gaze directed intently downwards, focused on the woman’s teaching hands. No ‘beating the devil out of a child’ here; just a gentle attitude towards the child’s education. Domestic calm was always the desired end.
Maes, A Woman Scraping Parsnips, with a child standing by her.
1655, National Gallery
Maes was literally mapping new territory since in many of his genre scenes, there was a detailed wall map that displayed the Netherlands’ proud geography. Note its precarious coastline that was won from the North Sea. The National Gallery said Maes “discovered interior worlds”, analogous to how cartographers charted the outer world.
His genre scenes were filled with detailed household implements and at least a second person. Maes painted The Eavesdropper 1657, a woman standing at the bottom of a staircase with a hushed finger to her lips. There was a map, half-visible in the dull light. Below her, lovers were caught in the cellar, revealed by a servant’s lantern.
Maes, The Eavesdropper
1657, 92 x 121 cm.
Dordrechts Museum.
Maes, The Account Keeper, 1657
66 x 54 cm
St Louis Art Museum
Some art historians have presented Maes as a coarse materialist who gave the Dutch elite what they wanted. But this exhibition revealed his depths. His paintings of everyday life were “little novels” that allowed the viewer to go behind the scenes of a noisy and busy city, to explore private homes. Far from complacent celebrations of Dutch capitalism, these interiors were in well-functioning families.
The exhibition explored the depths of the Dutch Golden Age artist whose paintings were as “rich in hidden drama as any theatre”. But the 2020 exhibition did not cover the later period when Maes moved home, switched to portraiture and was influenced for the ?first time by Flemish art. Maes’ portraits were adapted to the fashion of the day: smoother, detailed, lighter and with more colour. This proved successful and Maes was soon much in demand.
In 1673 Maes returned to Amsterdam and began a creative era in portrait painting. Compared to the small number of history and genre paintings that existed, it demonstrated how Maes understood art AND business. The third exhibition room was dedicated to portraits, showing how his style developed to reflect late C17th’s prevailing fashion. He created extravagant backgrounds to complement the sitters’ heroic poses. In Portrait of a Boy as a Hunter a young boy stood in classical costume with a perched bird and a leaping dog. In Portrait of a Girl with a Deer, a girl in a bright blue dress was standing with a deer in a forest. His portraits reflected the trend towards a decorative and brighter style.
Maria Magdalena van Alphen, leaning against a fountain - left;
Dirk van Alphen, leaning on a pillar - right
71 x 57 cms each, Sotheby’s 2008
Some of the portraits on display were shown in their original C17th frames. The room reunited 4 portraits from one family: Portrait of Simon van Alphen (Rijksmuseum), Portrait of Beatrix van Alphen (Private), Portrait of Dirk van Alphen and Portrait of Maria Magdalena van Alphen (both Galerie Neuse Bremen), all in their original frames. Painted in c1677, they showed what the wealthier classes in C17th Holland aspired to and why they commissioned Maes.
Bart Cornelis, curator of Dutch & Flemish Paintings 1600-1800, said “In the early C19th the appetite for Maes’ works among British collectors was such that many of his most celebrated genre pictures ended up in the UK, still found in both public and private collections. This was the first time they were assembled under one roof so that visitors could once again discover how Maes was one of Rembrandt’s most important pupils. And how he paved the way for the next generation, Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer.”
Try to get Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age, by Ariane van Suchtelen et al, published by National Gallery Co London, 2019.
12 comments:
Coarse materialist?! If it wasn't for the glory that is/was The Dutch Golden Age, I, for one, would have no idea how the Dutch of these times lived, dressed or dreamed to live and dress. I love these paintings for so many reasons but the wealth of detail is what I'm always drawn to. It's time travelling and voyeurism rolled into one beautiful canvas at a time ... Obv., there's no chance of popping over to London this month, haha, but I had a poke around the website and was rather amused to see in the gift shoppe the very au courant offering of a face mask printed with a floral still life! So much more stylish than a tee-shirt if you feel it necessary to wear your art.
I wonder if modern British viewers expect royal and noble portraits in noble clothes, or huge religious history scenes. Small scale domestic images might disappoint.
Hello Hels, Maes' technique of surrounding an illuminated figure with darkness is still used to great advantage with the iris effect used in the movies. People who complain about "materialism" in old paintings are ignorant of both the history of art and the concomitant study of iconography--there are so many lost objects and buildings that we only know about through their representation in paintings.
--Jim
p.s. If you think about it, that woman is both scraping and buttering her parsnips at the same time.
Pipistrello
The Dutch Golden Age was a tough time. It is usually considered that the Age started with the Dutch War of Independence (fom 1568 on) and continued on, eventually in peace, until the end of the 17th century. Maes' era, 17th century, was dominated by the Protestant Reformation, as best expressed by the Protestant artists who became world famous. Thus we would expect the Protestant artists to totally avoid painting gigantic crucifixions, battle scenes or Catholic saints in action.
Instead Dutch artists painted genre scenes, ships, sea-scapes and still lifes. And you are correct. The paintings might have been small, but the wealth of detail was amazing.
Train Man
small scale domestic images might well disappoint at first. But that is the joy of art history. As long as visitors to the National Gallery London exhibition know that Rembrandt,
Nicolaes Maes, Pieter de Hooch, Gerard ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu etc were responding to their own era and the own nation, they will not expect to see Michelangelo's The Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel, c1540 or El Greco's Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple, c1570.
I actually prefer small, domestic and familial.
Parnassus
Maes' technique of surrounding an illuminated figure with darkness was very clever, but I am glad that I knew that Rembrandt was his teacher throughout Maes' long (7 years usually) apprentice. Maes did eventually prefer to paint the small domestic genre, but he was very comfortable sustaining the use of Rembrandtian colour.
Hi Hels - thanks for highlighting the exhibition ... and I must come back and explore the NG's website ... so thanks for your notes etc. Sadly getting to London I could do - but via Gatwick and not the best place for viruses at the moment, nor probably London - as I'd need to tube or bus ... so sadly London is out of bounds on the mental front. Take care - Hilary
Hilary
I hear you, sister. Melbourne is still debating how long the Stage 4 Lockdown will go on here.
I often try to suggest extra reading in my posts, never more urgently than this pandemic year.
So I recommend "Nicolaes Maes: Dutch Master of the Golden Age", by Ariane van Suchtelen et al, published by National Gallery Co London, 2019. This catalogue was the first English-language survey of Nicolaes Maes' oeuvre that I have seen.
Hi Hels - I've got so many books to read - but I'll note your suggestion. Oddly enough immediately I'd commented - I realised I had the Companion Guide to the National Gallery - and Maes' 'Christ Blessing the Children' is featured! I bought it before I went to Canada - so I had it amongst my books when I returned. Art is on the list, as is Opera - so we'll see what happens.
I've lots to do and plans to read ... which comes after the 'to do list' ... life goes on as you say - and I'm looking to Easter - mentally preparing myself for the months ahead. I did give a talk on Rembrandt so I get to do things occasionally - giving it a go is what I can do.
All the best - Hilary
Bom dia Hels que pinturas lindas e maravilhosas. Obrigado por nos mostrar obras importantes e impressionantes. Bom sábado.
Hilary
I am so pleased you mentioned Maes' painting, Christ Blessing the Children (1652) because it seems like a big religious history painting, and not a small genre scene. But teaching children is a theme we often see in C17th Dutch Art.
The National Gallery describes the words "suffer little children" thus: The words would have been familiar in C17th Protestant Holland, where the godly upbringing of children was important. Although Christ is dressed in a biblical robe, the other figures wear the clothes of working people of the time.
Luiz
my pleasure :) I love late 17th century Dutch paintings anyhow, but the timing for the Maes Exhibition in London could not have been better. The only thing I was worried about was whether the pandemic would ruin the exhibition that had been planned before coronavirus had ever been heard of.
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