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Tag Archives: Balthasar van der Ast

Hendrick Avercamp, Comments & the News

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, History

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Balthasar van der Ast, Francis Drake, Hendrick Avercamp, Martin Frobisher, Netherlands, Still-life Paintings, Walter Raleigh

Winter Landscape, Hendrick Avercamp (Photo credit: Wikimedia)
Winter Landscape, Hendrick Avercamp
(Photo credit: Wikimedia)
 

Looking at the Past Week

It was not an easy week for this author. If there is any way to avoid bunions, use it. The only possible cause I can think of, in my case, is being made to look feminine by wearing shoes that had high heels and a pointed front. However, the cause could be genetic. At any rate, try to avoid the surgery. Your doctor will supply you with morphine and codeine, but if you kill the pain entirely, you may not notice that there is infection.

The week was otherwise rather pleasant and informative.  We saw that:

  • Sir Walter Raleigh was instrumental in spreading the love of tobacco in Europe.
  • We were introduced to Queen Elizabeth I’s four “sea dogs:” Sir Francis Drake, Sir Martin Frobisher, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh. All four participated in repelling the Spanish Armada (1588).
  • We noted that there was “legitimate” piracy. These legitimate pirates were called privateers and made a fortune on their own, but they were also in the service of the Crown: Elizabeth the first’s England. Although they were privateers in England, they were pirates in the eyes of the enemy du jour, Spain.
  • Furthermore, we have associated the rise of capitalism with explorations.  I did not know about the Muscovy Trading Company.  But as a Canadian, I was familiar with the Hudson’s Bay Company.
  • We saw that still-life painting in the seventeenth-century Netherlands were Vanitas. They reminded human beings of their mortality.
  • We met Balthasar van der Ast, his brother-in-law Ambrosius Bosschaert, his three Bosschaert nephews and Roelandt Savery, an artist but also a scientist.
  • I nearly forgot the unfortunate dodo. Savery made paintings of the now extinct dodo.

Hendrick Avercamp: Winter and Playing Golf on Ice

And now that winter is here, we are being introduced to Hendrick Avercamp, a seventeenth-century Dutch artist who painted many lovely winter scenes. Thanks to the internet, we can see that in the Netherlands of the seventeenth century, people played golf on ice wearing skates and looked very much as though they were playing hockey. Moreover, in the Netherlands one could commute quickly by skating down frozen waterways. As well, notice the shape of the roofs.

(click on picture to enlarge) 
Winter Landscape with Skaters, by  Henrick Avercamp

Winter Landscape with Skaters, by Hendrick Avercamp

The News

English
The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/
The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
The Globe and Mail: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The Montreal Gazette: http://www.montrealgazette.com/index.html
Le Monde diplomatique: http://mondediplo.com/ EN
 
CBC News: http://www.cbc.ca/news/
CTV News: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
CNN News: http://www.cnn.com/
 
French:
Le Monde: http://www.lemonde.fr/
Le Monde diplomatique: http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/
Le Devoir: http://www.ledevoir.com/
La Presse: http://www.lapresse.ca/
 
German:
Die Welt: http://www.welt.de/
 
composer: Antonio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741),
piece:  The Seasons, Winter, 2nd movement, piano arrangement
performers: Apollo Chamber Ensemble 
 
 
 
Related articles
  • Sir Martin Frobisher as Privateer and Hero to his Queen (michelinewalker.com)
  • Comments on Simon Frobisher as Privateer (michelinewalker.com)
  • Still-life Paintings: Vanitas Vanitatum (michelinewalker.com)
  • Roelandt Savery: from Flowers to the Dodo (michelinewalker.com)
  • The Bosschaert “Dynasty,” Jan Davidsz de Heem & Bartholomeus Assteyn (michelinewalker.com)

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The Bosschaert “Dynasty,” Jan Davidsz de Heem & Bartholomeus Assteyn

02 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Abraham Bosschaert, Ambrosius the Younger, Balthasar van der Ast, Bartholomeus Assteyn, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Johannes Booschaert, Roelandt Savery

Glassvase, by Abraham
Glass Vase with Flowers, by Abraham Bosschaert 
Images for Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder
Images for Abraham Bosschaert
Images for Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger
Images for Johannes Bosschaert
 

THE BOSSCHAERT “DYNASTY”

In our blog about Balthasar van der Ast, we looked at still-life paintings in general using Balhasar as our main example, I noted that Balthasar’s sister had married Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573–1621) and that upon the death of his father, Balthasar van der Ast had moved in with the Bosschaert “dynasty,” his sister’s family.

The Bosshaerts are called a “dynasty” because Ambrosius the Elder had three sons who became still-life painters.  They first studied under their father and after his death, they became Balthasar van der Ast’s students.  Two of Bosschaert’s three sons seem to have died at a young age, but there is some disagreement concerning these dates. The three sons were:

  • Abraham (b. c. 1606–1683-84),
  • Ambrosius the Younger (1609–1643), 
  • Johannes (ca. 1610 –1628-29).
(please click on the picture to enlarge it)
Basket of Flowers, by Johannes Booschaert

Basket of Flowers, by Johannes Bosschaert

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Still-life of Fruit, 1634-1635
Still Life with Fruit, by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger, 1634-1635

Comments

You will note that all the sons use the same basket. You may also note that the various elements the artists are using sit on a table or shelf and that sometimes one sees the corner of a table. That is typical of the paintings of the Bosschaert family and it has been copied. In a more affluent home, the table would be covered by a beautiful rug, the type of rug we walk on. They used to be called “Turkish” rugs, whatever their provenance. In fact, they were often made in the Netherlands. As for the slight disarray in Ambrosius the Younger’s “Still Life with Fruit,” it is moralistic. It points to instability in matters human.

Baroque Artists

Moreover, we have left Mannerism behind. There are several masterpieces of Mannerism, but they are at times so busy “one does not see the forest for the trees.” If one is a naturalist and likes to study the details, Roelandt Savery provides the display of a lifetime. In fact, if one looks at one detail only, such as the blue and white bird detail of Savery’s “Paradise,” it alone could constitute a fine painting. However, the Booshaert brothers were Baroque artists. Abraham Booshaert’s painting featured at the very top of this post is in no way overbearing.

Among students of Balthasar van der Ast, the foremost are Jan Davidsz de Heem (17 April 1606, Utrecht – before 26 April 1684, Antwerp), and Bartholomeus Assteyn (Dordrecht 1607, probably Dordrecht 1669/1677).  We have images for both.

Images for Jan Davidsz de Heem
Images for Bartholomeus Assteyn
 
_________________________
 

There are countless still-life paintings dating back to the seventeenth century, the Golden Age of Dutch still lifes. It is not possible to view more than a sample. But the internet has many sites replete with still lifes and with other paintings by Dutch masters.  Here are a few sites.

Still-life paintings
Scholar’s Resource
Web Gallery of Art
Olga’s Gallery
Museum Syndicate
 

I am inserting a video featuring the still-life paintings of Jan Davidsz de Heem, a particularly successful student of Balthasar van der Ast.  It’s a lovely video.  The picture under the video is by Bartholomeus Assteyn.  It can be enlarged by clicking on the picture itself.

December has come and it has started to snow.
My best regards to all of you.
 
composer: Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928)
piece: “Notturno”
 
  
Still life by
 
Related articles
  • Still-life Paintings: Vanitas Vanitatum (michelinewalker.com)
  • Roelandt Savery: from Flowers to the Dodo (michelinewalker.com)

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Roelandt Savery: from Flowers to the Dodo

30 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Balthasar van der Ast, Bosschaert dynasty, Encyclopædia Britannica Online, Gillis d'Hondecoeter, Gillis van Conninxloo, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, Mannerism, Netherlands, the dodo, Utrecht

Stilllife (130x80cm, 1624) the largest painting he ever made, with 44 different species of animals and 63 species of flowers.[3]

Still life (130x80cm, 1624) the largest painting [Roelandt] ever made, with 44 different species of animals and 63 species of flowers.

Still-Life Paintings

Roelandt Savery (1576 – buried 25 February 1639), was a friend of Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. Roelandt Savery bought a house in Utrecht where he joined the Guild of St Luke. The house had a large garden visited by fellow artists. Not only could fellow artists observe flowers, many of which were new to the Netherlands, such as tulips, but they could also examine little animals  and incorporate them in their still-life paintings.

Before moving to Utrecht, Savery had owned a house in Amsterdam that he did not sell and which also had a large garden for artist friends to visit and from which to drew their inspiration.

The above painting is Savery’s most famous still life. Given, however, that it represents 44 species of animals and 63 species of flowers (see the caption), it is difficult to call it a still-life. It is brimming with life.

bouquet1

Bouquet of Flowers (detail), 
by Roelandt Savery, 1612

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Gillis d’Hondecoeter and Gillis van Conninxloo

As a student, Savery had traveled to Prague around 1604, where he became court painter of the Emperors Rudolf II (1552-1612) and Mathias (1557-1619), who had made their court a center of Mannerist art. Between 1606-1608 he traveled to Tyrol to study plants.

Moreover, Savery met Gillis d’Hondecoeter (Antwerp, ca. 1575-1580 – Amsterdam, buried 17 October 1638) and became his student. Gillis d’Hondecoeter painted landscapes, trees, fowl and birds. Savery also studied under Gillis van Conninxloo (1544 – 1607) a landscape artist.

Therefore, although Roelandt Savery painted a number of still-life paintings resembling the still-lives of Balthasar van der Ast, he was interested in both flora and fauna and, particularly, in the dodo.

The Dodo

(please click on the picture to enlarge it)

Landscape with Birds showing a Dodo in the lower right, by Roelant Savery, 1628

Gillis d’Hondecoeter had painted the now extinct dodo, a former inhabitant of the island of Mauritius, and so would Savery and his student and nephew Jan Savery (1589, Haarlem – bur. 7 August 1654, Utrecht).

© Micheline Walker
November 30th, 2012
WordPress
 
Photo credit: Wikipedia
and Web Gallery of Art
 
One of the most famous paintings of a dodo, from 1626. The image came into the possession of the ornithologist George Edwards, who later gave it to the British Museum.

One of the most famous paintings of a dodo, from 1626. The image [by Roelandt Savery] came into the possession of the ornithologist George Edwards, who later gave it to the British Museum.

Mannerism

Savery’s style is associated with Mannerism.  As mentioned above the court Emperors Rudolf II and Mathias were centers of Mannerist art.  Mannerists paint figures with elongated and at times distorted limbs. Their paintings are very busy and meticulous. The movement was a reaction against the harmonious realism of High Renaissance artists: Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519, Michelangelo (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) and Raphael (April 6 or March 28, 1483 – April 6, 1520). Yet, Michelangelo was an early Mannerist.

Conclusion

(click on the picture to enlarge it)
Paradise, by Roelant Savery

The Paradise (detail), by Roelandt Savery, 1618

Roelandt Savery went bankrupt in 1638, because of heavy drinking, and died a few months later. He was a still-life painter, but he also painted landscapes, trees, fowl, animals and, among animals, the dodo. So his legacy is immense and varied.

We will therefore look at paintings by members of the Bosschaert “dynasty,” by Jan Davidszoon de Heem, by artists who also studied under Balthasar van der Ast, and still-life paintings by other more traditional Dutch Masters.

Yet, Savery’s still-life painting, featured at the beginning of this post, is an epiphany and the model for many, albeit less abundant, still-lives of his age.

 

RELATED ARTICLE

  • Still-life Paintings: Vanitas Vanitatum (michelinewalker.com)

_________________________

[1] “Mannerism”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2012 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/362538/Mannerism>.

[2] “Dodo”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 30 Nov. 2012
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/167601/dodo>.

Jan Savery, 1561

Jan Savery, 1561

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Still-life Paintings: Vanitas Vanitatum

29 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Balthasar van der Ast, Bartholomeus Assteyn, Dutch Art, Jacopo de' Barbari, Still life, The Netherlands, The Renaissance, Vanitas

Basket of Fruits Balthasar van der Ast, c. 1625, Staatliche Museen, Berlin
Pen and watercolor, British Museum, London

Still-life painting [1] is yet another story and among still-life painters is Balthasar van der Ast (1593/94–1657) who lived and worked during the Golden Age of Dutch painting: the seventeenth century. There is therefore artistic maturity to his paintings. However, given that he was a still-life painter, Balthasar was a pioneer. I should think there were still-life paintings long before Balthasar van der Ast, but still-life paintings were not an independent genre. As a result, many view the seventeenth-century in the Netherlands as both the birthplace of still-life painting and the time and place it reached its pinnacle.

Still-Life with Partridge and Gauntlets by Jacopo de’ Barbari

Such is not altogether the case. The cast of this little drama is made up of Dutch artists, but it would appear that we owe the first still-life painting to Jacopo de’ Barbari (c. 1440 – before 1516). Jacopo’s still-life painting represents a dead partridge and gauntlets, pinned against a wall by an arrow.[2]

Jacopo was Italian, but he had met Albrecht Dürer (21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528), which induced him to move north in 1500. Jacopo died in the Netherlands, probably at Brussels, at the court of Archduchess Margaret, Philip the Handsome.

The Renaissance: Perspective, Vanishing Point…

As we have seen in other posts, Greek scholars fled the Byzantine Empire in 1453, when it fell to the Ottoman Turks, which marked the beginning of the Renaissance, but the Renaissance did not move north until the sixteenth century, which is when Jacopo was active.  However, the Netherlands had been the “cultural hub” of Europe, in music especially, polyphonic music, and it had also been home to exceptional miniaturists. Painters of the Netherlands must have benefited from notions associated with Greek scholarship, such as reflection on perspective, the vanishing point, and the Golden Section or Golden Ratio, but they were already accomplished artists.

The Starting Point: Vanitas Vanitatum

Although still-life painting started to flourish during the sixteenth century, i. e. the Renaissance in Northern Europe, its Golden Age was the seventeenth century and early still-life paintings were vanitas. Objects depicted in a vanitas are “allegories of mortality:” skulls, candles, and hourglasses. “Combined with flowers and fruits, they symbolized nature’s cycle. They were allegories of death and rebirth.”[3] 

Vanitas by Pieter Claesz, 1625

According to Britannica, “its [vanitas] development until its decline (1650) was centred in Leiden in the United Provinces of the Netherlands, an important seat of Calvinism, which emphasized humanity’s total depravity and advanced a rigid moral code.” The Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas is a central theme in 17th-century French Literature.

Decorative Purposes

However, in the case of Balthasar van der Ast and his students, their still-life paintings were often painted and bought for decorative purposes. These did not feature skulls, candles and hourglasses. There was wealth in the Netherlands, a growing middle-class, and money was spent on purchasing art. Flowers, fruit and grapes were deemed pleasant subjects to look at.

— Still Life with Plums, Cherries and Shells
by Balthasar van der Ast, c. 1628, British Museum 
 

The Life of Balthasar Van der Ast: Three Periods

The “Bosschaert dynasty”

When his father died, in 1609, Balthasar went to live with his sister Maria who was married to prominent Dutch painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (1573–1621), Ast was therefore trained by Ambrosius the Elder and when Ambrosius died, Balthasar transmitted the knowledge he had acquired from Ambrosius to train his three sons: Abraham (1606-1683-84), Ambrosius the Younger (1609–1645), Johannes (ca. 1610-1650).

Utrecht

In 1615, the family moved to Utrecht. At the time there were guilds. Baltasar joined the Utrecht Guild of St Luke, thus named because St Luke is the patron of artists. He was influenced by Roelandt Savery (1576–1639), a member of the Guild, but he also influenced others:  Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1683/84 and Bartholomeus Assteyn (Dordrecht 1607, probably Dordrecht 1669/1677).

Delft

— Balthasar van der Ast

Temporary Conclusion: Vanitas & Carpe Diem

Van der Ast’s paintings and those of most of his students are not vanitas and often served decorative rather than moralistic purposes: reminders of our mortality. However, flowers, the rose in particularly, have been used to invite humans to enjoy life. Such is the carpe diem.  Horace wrote Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero, or “Seize the Day, putting as little trust as possible in the future.” But such an Epicurean invitation is like the proverbial coin. It has a reverse side that points to the brevity of life and to all things perishable. In the seventeenth century, life was extremely precarious. Children often died as infants or during childhood. Yet, the Kind is dead, long live the King.

I will provide examples of still-lives. It has become a major genre associated with “genre” painting, or the painting of familiar every day scenes.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Thoughts on the United States (18 October 2012)
  • A Note, a Portrait by Peter Paul Rubens & Books of Hours (5 October 2012)
  • Pierre de Ronsard & the Carpe Diem (1 January 2012)

Sources

  • Balthasar van der Ast (Wikipedia)

____________________

[1] “still-life painting”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2012
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/566313/still-life-painting>.
 
[2] “Jacopo de’ Barbari”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2012

<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/52720/Jacopo-de-Barbari>.  
 
[3] “vanitas”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2012
<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623056/vanitas>.  
 

Stilleven_met_boeken_Rijksmuseum_SK-A-2565_jpeg
Jan Davidsz de Heem
© Micheline Walker
28 November 2012
WordPress
 
 

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