The fabulous Dutch Master’s exhibit currently showing at the Vancouver Art Gallery is an enriching experience and a unique opportunity to see the treasures that Holland’s Rijkmusseum has generously shared with the city.
The Golden Age of Dutch Art was unquestionably linked to the emergence of the Dutch Republic and its mastery of international trade in luxury items such as gold, pearls, silk, and spices.
Alongside this blossoming of art grew scientific knowledge, specifically in cartography and geography, astronomy and the development the telescope and the microscope, and the camera obscura. The emergence of the burgher, or merchant middle class, dictated a brand new aesthetic sensibility, as ‘new money' replaced the Church and the nobility's former exclusive role as art patrons.
On entering the show, one of the first works encountered is the only piece in the collection belonging to the VAG itself, a small scene of the Port of Amsterdam, depicting naval vessels and what appears to be an impromptu tea party on the beach where children, dogs, and couples stroll. It is a relatively peaceful, if busy, scene, and attests to the presence of that ever-changing 'Dutch light.’
In the realm of portraiture, the work of Wallerant Vaillant (1632-1677), a lovely and technically flawless portrait of one of only 25 women artists from the 17th century, shows Maria Von Oosterwijk, a flower painter who was widely collected and admired by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Louis XIV, and the King of England, to name but three of her distinguished clientele.
At 41 and single (she never married) Von Oosterwijk exudes self-possession and beauty, and displays her wealth in costly ribbons, lace and sumptuous silks. She holds a book, symbolizing her knowledge, in one hand and a painter's palette and brushes in the other.
Von Oosterwicjk was the exception at that time in Holland. For the most part, women artists came from the family of a painter, or married into one, and most of them studied under male teachers, or 'masters' such as Rembrandt. Floral artists had to familiarize themselves not only with botanical knowledge but also with the ‘language of flowers.’ These bouquets held not just a flower arrangement but a story, a myth, a play on words, a joke.
The work of Rachel Ruysch, executed on canvas in oil, is a superb example. Her painting, which hangs beside a very 'show-offy' piece by her male counterpart, Jan Davidz de Heem (1606-16830), is every bit as good if not better than De Heem’s. De Heem's piece shows many of the same flowers, but the arrangement itself lacks sophistication. And although it is executed on copper plate, assuming a smoother finish, it fails to compete with Ruysch's Still Life with Flowers on a Marble Table Top, circa 1726.
Upon moving to Amsterdam, Rembrandt (1606-1669) made a series of small un-commissioned portraits, called tronies or 'mug shots,’ to sell on the open market and establish a clientele for more formalized portraiture. One brilliant example is An Oriental, circa 1635, a portrait of an old man wearing a turban.
Rembrandt’s fame grew, as did his coterie of students, but it is undeniable who student and master are when we compare it to Aert de Gelder's King David (1680). The turban, for example, has superb texture in the Rembrandt, and the eyes come alive.
Vermeer closes the show in an apropos grouping that includes lovers, mistresses and courtesans. The Love Letter, a small but significant painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) is nothing short of amazing.
Vermeer only left about thirty-five paintings, yet every one is a gem. The compositions make use of various vanishing points, and feature great depth of field, a masterful use of light, and typically poised, self-contained women in domestic scenes. In The Love Letter, the viewer is placed, voyeuristically, in a scullery, the curtain to which is half-drawn so that the gaze is directed outward into a prosperous and beautiful drawing room.
Objects seen from the scullery—a laundry basket, a broom, discarded slippers—all point to the identities of the two women in the piece. There is a complicity in the glance they exchange, as the mistress holds an as yet unopened love letter, her cast-off slippers and the painting of a ship at sea all alluding to her identity as a lover. She is a wealthy woman, holding a lute (another symbol of love), as her servant-girl smiles up at her, the housework left undone.
“Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art” runs until September 13 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, 750 Hornby Street (www.vanartgallery.bc.ca).
