This article discusses the historical and art-historical literature read by Vincent van Gogh on the subject of the Dutch seventeenth century, which formed the basis of his view of individual artists. While it can be read independently, it is also intended to frame the other articles in this thematic issue, each of which delves into Van Gogh's relationship with a particular painter. His intensive study of seventeenth-century art was made possible by the popularization of literature on the subject, the easy availability of print reproductions, and the increasing accessibility of collections in museums. For the first time, the general public could lay claim to their history. Van Gogh did so too. He was very selective when it came to historical literature. What most interested him was the resilience and sobriety the texts ascribed to the seventeenth-century Dutch. The art-historical literature that most appealed to him included the popular books Les musees d'Hollande (1858-1860) by Theophile Thore-Burger and Les maitres d'autrefois (1876) by Eugene Fromentin. In their view, what made Dutch art so innovative was its unprecedentedly realistic depiction of the everyday life and surroundings in a new society of free citizens. The refined powers of observation and absolute mastery of technical means, such as drawing, use of colour, brushwork, distribution of light and dark, and composition, meant that the best painters were able to imbue that simple reality with universal value. In the eyes of influential contemporary art critics such as Thore and Fromentin, this made seventeenth-century Dutch painting an excellent example for modern art. Van Gogh adapted these ideas to the debate surrounding Realism as it unfolded in Dutch art criticism between around 1865 and 1880. In this way, he laid the foundations for his own conception of art, in which Realism was central, but Romantic ideas of individual expression also had a role to play. As he saw it, the deep-rooted observation of the simple life lay at the basis of art, which had to be capable of conveying that profound and personal experience to the viewer, lending it the power to console.
Summary Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) looked to Rembrandt van Rijn’s (1609–1669) artistic persona and drew from it according to his own needs as an artist and individual. His interest extended from a self-compassionate desire to create a meaningful connection with Rembrandt and evolved through experiences that were both serendipitous and consciously organized. As Van Gogh learned more about Rembrandt’s works, he made transtemporal connections. This article navigates Van Gogh’s experiences, expressed in his letters and one contemporary account, and examines how the associative nature of Van Gogh’s memory relates to his creative process. Van Gogh found in Rembrandt what he needed at different moments in his life. He cited Rembrandt as his artistic ancestor when he felt required to defend his decision to become an artist. He admired the way Rembrandt depicted natural light, in paintings and prints. He also felt a strong sense of connection, initially with Rembrandt’s religious subjects, and towards the end of his life with how Rembrandt presented the human form. Determined to sort out the kind of painted surfaces he wanted to create, he closely examined Rembrandt’s paintings. Van Gogh regarded Rembrandt as a precedent for his own ambitious endeavors. Van Gogh consciously created opportunities to study Rembrandt’s work, or what was considered to be so, in collections in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and England. He was delighted to receive reproductions of Rembrandt’s prints from his brother Theo, and to share them with other members of his family. Van Gogh read extensively about Rembrandt, in the work of leading contemporary writers including Blanc, Thoré-Bürger, and Fromentin, although he did not simply adopt their views. His letters reveal his capacity to internalize their ideas, and carry Rembrandt’s works in his own visual memory, where he would process and integrate his experiences, sometimes for years before another encounter stimulated Van Gogh to make new connections across time. Van Gogh’s interest in Rembrandt reveals the associative nature of his memory. It also demonstrates Van Gogh’s desire to foster a meaningful connection with the life and works of Rembrandt, from whom Van Gogh acquired a profound sense of comfort and support.
By the third quarter of the nineteenth century, Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) was known only within a small circle of artists and art lovers who admired the convincing depiction of nature by seventeenth-century Dutch painters. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was one of them. This article analyses the background to Van Gogh's admiration of Van Goyen's painting Landscape with two oaks (1641) based on his letters, the drawings and paintings he mentioned, and other nineteenth-century views of seventeenth-century painting. Van Gogh saw the work in early October 1885 at the recently opened Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The motif of the battered old tree in threatening weather conditions seems to have appealed to him so strongly because of the 'sentiment' he detected in it-a term understood as the emotions experienced by people who find themselves in dramatic situations. A second reason for his appreciation lay in Van Goyen's quick, loose painting technique, which Van Gogh viewed as an appropriate means of expressing an individual experience of reality, while simultaneously evoking a more universal sense of recognition. The distinctive tonal use of colour as well as the colour contrasts in Landscape with two oaks gave him the opportunity to apply the knowledge of colour theory he had acquired from the books of Charles Blanc. In this way, Van Goyen's painting offered confirmation of the topics that preoccupied Van Gogh around 1885. The transition from Neo-Classicism to Romanticism around 1800 also changed the notion of what it meant to be an artist. The view of art shifted towards aesthetic autonomy, in which it was the artist alone who set the conditions for the artwork. Art was increasingly seen as an alternative system of knowledge to the prevailing rationalism. By extension, with their ability to bestow meaning on reality through their sensitive perception and creativity, artists assumed crucial importance within a selfcreated world. Having been firmly shaped by these ideas about art and artistic practice, Van Gogh's vision of art, including his ideas on Van Goyen, grew entirely detached from that of the seventeenth century, even though neither he nor his contemporaries perceived it that way.
Like many of his contemporaries, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) held Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) in high regard. Unlike most of them, however, he never sought to imitate Vermeer directly. This article examines how Van Gogh's admiration nevertheless informed his thinking about art: what traces of his study of Vermeer's paintings can be identified in his theoretical reflections? Van Gogh is known with certainty to have been familiar with three works by Vermeer: View ofDelft (1660/1661), Woman in blue reading a letter (1662/1663), and The lacemaker (1669-1670). He was also well acquainted with the writings of the critic Theophile Thore-Burger (1807-1869). In Thore's account, Vermeer emerged as a painter with a varied oeuvre, who was also a technically gifted artist, a great colourist, and a great realist. It was precisely this latter combination of qualities that strongly appealed to Van Gogh. From 1883 onwards, Van Gogh immersed himself in colour theory and began experimenting with complementary colour contrasts. During this period, he came to see in Vermeer an example of a painter who used the optical effects of colour and paint texture to create a convincing impression of objects. The discovery of this painterly approach led to a second realisation, namely that colour could also function as an autonomous means of expression. Of the colour combinations frequently found in Vermeer's work, it was above all the pairing of warm yellow and cool blue that struck Van Gogh most forcefully, as evidenced by the repeated references in his letters. Only in the late 1880s did Van Gogh succeed in reconciling his views of colour as a mimetic instrument and as an expressive medium, once again with the help of Vermeer. In Arles, Van Gogh began to regard him as an artist who, through his personal artistic sensibility, was able to recognise the universal in the everyday reality, and managed to depict it, deploying the power of a limited but strong colour palette with great effectiveness. It was Vermeer's combination of realism, colourism, and artistic individuality that, for Van Gogh, gave rise to a sense of timeless value.
Throughout his life, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) was a great admirer of the seventeenth-century landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682). Based on nineteenth-century literature, Van Gogh's letters, and analysis of a selection of his own landscapes, this article explores the special relationship that the artist had with the work of Jacob van Ruisdael, and the way Van Gogh imagined his nature in both senses of the word. Van Gogh mentioned Ruisdael no fewer than 42 times in his letters. In doing so, he repeatedly made comparisons between the world he experienced and the work of Ruisdael. The lasting impression made by the predecessor can also be seen in Vincent's landscapes, from his early years in the Netherlands, his work in Paris (1886-1887), and up to his last years in Arles, the Provence, and Auvers-sur-Oise (1888-1890). However, Van Gogh never intended to copy Ruisdael. On the one hand, his work shows that he was fascinated by Ruisdael's compositions, the naturalistic character of the works, and his use of light. On the other hand, he recognized a certain feeling in Ruisdael's work, especially of melancholy and longing. This notion was further shaped by publications Van Gogh read closely, the works he carefully studied in museums such as the Louvre and the Rijksmuseum, and the prints after Ruisdael he owned. A nineteenth-century image of a melancholic and lonely artist was thus constructed-a man with an intense love of nature, a masterful painter of stormy skies. From his own pantheistic worldview of nature as an expression of God, Van Gogh linked Ruisdael's work to religious faith during his Dutch period. In addition, Van Gogh associated these paintings with the Netherlands of the past and with the Brabant of his youth. This was even evident in France, in the last phase of his life. Though in a different country, Van Gogh repeatedly associated the French landscape with the oud Holland' he knew from Ruisdael's work. According to his letters, he strove to express this nostalgic idea in his many landscapes, even the very last of them.
This article discusses Vincent van Gogh's (1853-1890) short-lived but intensive interest in Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) during his stay in Antwerp (November 1885 to February 1886). In contrast to Van Gogh's enduring fascination with masters of the Northern Netherlands, his appreciation for Baroque artists from the Southern Netherlands was short-lived and of a different nature. After years of relative seclusion in the Brabant village of Nuenen, Van Gogh sought to immerse himself in a vibrant artistic environment in Antwerp where he would focus mainly on portraiture and figure painting. The famous Flemish trio, Rubens, Van Dyck, and Jordaens, served as guidelines, with Rubens as the main object of study. Van Gogh focused not so much on Rubens' monumental compositions, but on details in works kept in the local museum, particularly women's heads, but also how Rubens painted flesh, where modelling with colour was central. He praised the master's working method: "I like Rubens precisely because of his straightforward manner of painting, his working with the simplest means." At the same time, he remained critical of his emotional depth. According to him, Rubens was not sufficiently dramatic in expressing human suffering, and his religious scenes were sometimes "superficial, hollow, bombastic, yes, altogether conventional." Still, he recognized Rubens' exceptional ability to evoke atmosphere through colour. For his own Antwerp portrait studies, in which Van Gogh experimented with lighter flesh tones and brighter accents, Rubens ultimately proved to be a practical guide. Unlike his earlier Brabant head studies, Van Gogh tried to achieve liveliness by expressively using colour contrasts, but also by speaking to his models while painting. However, his approach remained different from that of Rubens: he painted wet-on-wet and as much as possible in one session, while Rubens worked more slowly, in layers, while adding accents. Although his fascination with the Flemish master was short-lived, Rubens remained in the background as Van Gogh developed further as a colourist. While Rubens became a primary model (along with Paolo Veronese) for the French Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), Van Gogh ultimately found an example in the latter, with whom he would continue to be infatuated.
Vincent van Gogh self-consciously developed his personal style of painting in close dialogue with the art of Frans Hals (1582/1583-1666) and then current interpretations of Hals' recently rediscovered art. This article examines the ways Van Gogh studied Hals and to what ends he implemented Halsian approaches to painting in his own work. Most immediately, this article explores how central Hals was to Van Gogh's interest in and approach to portraiture. Van Gogh's focus on Hals' dynamic brushwork and bold colouring is also considered. From his well-documented life and his own correspondence to friends and relatives, it is possible to identify what paintings by Hals he saw. Van Gogh was also aware of his works from William Unger's reproductive print series that was published in 1873. In total, Van Gogh had familiarity with Hals' early, middle, and late works from all genres in which he worked. What Van Gogh thought about Hals' works and Hals himself was shaped, in part, by recent writings on the seventeenth-century painter. Most notably, Van Gogh read the publications of Thore-Burger and other French authors, such as Eugene Fromentin, who frequently cast Hals as a colourist and republican-two loaded terms in late nineteenth-century French discourse. This article explores how Van Gogh turned to the example of Hals especially in his time living abroad, in Belgium and France, and considers how emulating his countryman offered a means to craft a distinct image of himself, especially in France, and to align himself with artistic and political ideals attached to Hals in French discourse. Finally, it examines how Van Gogh engaged not only with individual paintings by Hals, but also with the artist's oeuvre as a whole. More specifically, it analyses how a renewed interest in Hals-that occurred in the form of monographic studies-offered Van Gogh the inspiration to consider a body of work, Hals' and his own, rather than just emulating individual works.
An enigmatic interior scene painted by Leiden artist Frans van Mieris I (1635-1681) in 1676 has been identified since the nineteenth century as a woman reading a letter', a subject in keeping with other highly popular depictions of women with love letters in Dutch genre painting. As this article demonstrates, however, the sheet of paper she holds in her hands is not a written letter but a printed newspaper, more specifically an edition of the Oprechte Haarlemse Courant-one of the most widely read and international news sources published in the Low Countries. Dutch seventeenth-century artists seldomly represented the subject of news reading with a focus on female readership. Yet the gathering of news had become increasingly popular among both women and men of this time, as well as across diverse social classes. News sharing, an act in which women were involved, was a way to stay informed about the world, while also contributing to a culture of leisure and sociability. Its depiction in the case of Van Mieris' work poses a challenge to traditional interpretations of women's prescriptive roles in Dutch genre painting. Women were regular consumers of the news and participated in a wider culture of learning and thought that has long gone unrecognized in art historical scholarship. This article also draws attention to a long-overlooked subject: the depiction of newspaper readers among a group of genre painters and draftsmen, including Adriaen van Ostade, Jan Steen, and Cornelis Dusart. Noteworthy is the fact that these artists typically depicted the lower classes, in what was an inversion of actual newspaper reading practices, which appeared to be largely an elite affair. This discrepancy may reflect a particular interest among well-to-do collectors in artworks that portray a lower class: in this case, workers and peasants smoking and drinking while reading fleeting news. Within this context, the originality of Van Mieris' focus on a female newsreader from the upper class gains even more significance as it demonstrates his attempt to vary the tried-and-true motif of women reading letters. After all, the work reflects its times: the art of being au courant'.
Between 1634 and 1637, the grand Dutch classicist urban palace of the poet, composer, scholar, and diplomat Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) rose on the Plein in The Hague. After Huygens' death, the house remained in the family for another century. Although it was demolished in 1876, the history of the building and its residents lives on through the fragments that were salvaged before its destruction. These decorative interior paintings, tapestries, wood panelling, chimney, sculptures, and tiles form the starting point for a reconstruction of the interior, as explored in this article. Drawing on a previously unpublished nineteenth-century floor plan and new archival research, the study considers how these elements relate to one another and where they were originally located in the house. Both inside and out, the Huygenshuis (Huygens House) was a model of classicist ideals, and Huygens devoted considerable care to its interior furnishing. Portraits by Adriaen Hanneman, Gerard van Honthorst, Dani & euml;l Seghers and Jan Cossiers, along with a history painting by Paulus Bor and Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom and an anonymous allegory, had fixed positions in the interior, often above a fireplace or doorway. This article reconstructs their original context. For the first time, a painting of bathing women attributed to Jan van Balen and Jan van Kessel I is linked to the Huygens House. Successive generations adapted the interior to suit their own taste and the fashions of their time, though always with a sense of respect for the iconic family home. The research demonstrates that, after 1725, a major renovation campaign was launched by Constantijn Huygens IV and Philippina Doublet. They engaged painters active in The Hague-Pieter Hardim & eacute;, Mattheus Terwesten, and Hendrik Carr & eacute; II-and ordered a series of tapestries from Urbanus Leyniers in Brussels. This couple is also thought to have been responsible for the remodelling of a large room on the principal floor, which was fitted with new panelling and a plastered ceiling. Finally, the article sheds new light on nineteenth-century attitudes to heritage. In stages, parts of the interior were removed from the Huygens House, finding their way to the Mauritshuis and, via the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst (Netherlands Museum for History and Art), to the Rijksmuseum and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands. Some objects were mistakenly linked to the Huygens House; others were relocated or lost. It is hoped that they might yet resurface-and that this study can aid in their rediscovery.
This article explores the development of the print collection of the Teylers Museum in Haarlem over the long nineteenth century. The central question is to what extent the collection was the result of a preconceived plan, or rather shaped by personal preferences, external influences, or incidental acquisitions. It takes a chronological approach, starting with the origins of the collection as part of the estate of Pieter Teyler (1702-1778) and ending with the organizational role of curator Hendrik Jacobus Scholten (1824-1907). Within this period, the print collection’s place in the wider institutional context of the Teylers Museum is examined – a museum at the intersection of art, science, and education. In 1886, a room was arranged for the first time for the presentation of works on paper, fulfilling a long-held wish of Scholten and the museum board. While this enabled a small part of the collection to be shown, archival documents reveal that the museum was already in possession of an extensive and valuable collection of prints at the time. Nevertheless, the print collection remained underexposed within the museum, especially in comparison with the better-positioned drawing collection. The opinions of individual curators and directors, such as Carl Gottfried Voorhelm Schneevoogt (1802-1877), and those in their networks, largely determined the collection policy. In addition, broader cultural movements – such as nineteenth-century nationalism – played a role in establishing the preference for Dutch masters. Prints were acquired through auction sales and foreign contacts, often without quality assessments, resulting in an erratic and fragmentary collection. The print collection fulfilled a hybrid role within the Teylers Museum. It was not researched systematically and rarely put on display in the museum, but it was made use of in drawing lessons and as study material for Haarlem societies. Although the collection did not achieve a leading status in the Netherlands, it offers valuable and nuanced insight into the nineteenth-century approach to graphic art. Prints were mainly appreciated as objects of study in the museum, rarely as a focal point. The collection can thus be seen as a ‘patchwork’ of aesthetic, educational, and accidental elements, reflecting changing ideas about art and museum practice.
The conservation treatment of The three Marys at the tomb (Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen), previously attributed to the 'Van Eyck group', was concluded in 2012. The restored panel was presented at the exhibition The road to Van Eyck, at which the attribution was refined to "Jan van Eyck (?)" in the catalogue of the same name. The painting was loaned to the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent in 2020, where it was included in the exhibition Van Eyck: An optical revolution and attributed to Jan van Eyck (d. 1441). However, the accompanying catalogue attributed the painting to "Workshop of Jan van Eyck". The author Larry Silver described the panel as an Eyckian work that has been associated with Jan van Eyck's early period and excluded from his oeuvre with equal frequency. This confusing situation prompted the present, largely historiographical study, in which the earlier arguments for and against attributing the panel to Jan van Eyck have been brought together. The point of departure is the most recent substantive publication on the painting, in which Van Asperen de Boer and Giltaij attributed it to the "Van Eyck group" (Oud Holland 1987). Their conclusions are compared with those of earlier and later researchers, with the unpublished conservation report from 2012, and with research into the Ghent Altarpiece, in which Jan van Eyck's hand has been securely demonstrated. The article argues that the 'status quaestionis' regarding Jan van Eyck's work, and specifically The three Marys at the tomb, does not justify the museum's alteration of the attribution. The panel's painting technique and underdrawing do indeed display 'Eyckian' characteristics, suggesting an author in the circle of the Van Eyck brothers, but its iconography indicates that it was created after 1455. Dendrochronological analysis would permit this later dating. Depending on how it is defined, attribution to the Van Eyck group, as suggested by Van Asperen de Boer and Giltaij, can be sustained, but an 'anonymous follower' - possibly a painter who had previously worked in Van Eyck's workshop-cannot be ruled out. This would explain both the work's stylistic affinities and its inferior quality.
Lucas van Leyden's triptych of Christ healing the blind man of Jericho (1531, State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg) was praised by Karel van Mander as one of the master's most important works, and was also his last. Over the past three centuries, its appearance and format have been drastically altered. This study sought to determine how the painting might have looked prior to these interventions and restorations. Art-historical research has led to a deeper consideration of the history of the triptych: specifically, its original location and provenance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and its unusual subject matter that reflects emerging humanist and Lutheran ideas that took root in Leiden in the 1520s. Heraldic shields on (what would have been) the outer wings connect the triptych with the Van Montfoort-Boelens family. Recent research suggests that the original location of the triptych was a family chapel in the Sint Magdalenakerk (Saint Magdalene's Church) or the Dominican monastery church of the White Nuns in Leiden, where it remained until the late sixteenth century. The provenance and physical changes to Christ healing the blind man of Jericho are traced through the next three centuries. The most significant physical intervention, which turned the folding triptych with wings into a continuous scene on a single rectangular panel, took place sometime before 1755. A digital reconstruction of the original appearance of the interior and exterior of the triptych incorporates new measurements, as well as material-technical and historical information. The turbulent history of Christ healing the blind man of Jericho connects it to a triptych of the Last Judgment (1555, Valenciennes, Mus & eacute;e des Beaux-Arts) by Aertgen van Leyden. The Valenciennes triptych likely had the same format and framing, and probably was intended to serve as a pendant, or even replace the Saint Petersburg triptych. The significance of Christ healing the blind man of Jericho within the oeuvre of Lucas van Leyden is attested to by a partial copy (after 1531, Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum), which has a stronger connection to his workshop than previously assumed. The Saint Petersburg triptych should be (re)considered as one of his most significant altarpieces.
This article explores Jan van de Velde II's Sorceress of 1626 as a moralizing print and identifies the tobacco pipe as its most intriguing and innovative component. Inspired by the visual tradition of witchcraft, particularly the prints of Pieter Bruegel I and Jacques de Gheyn II, Van de Velde incorporated in the Sorceress standard tropes of witchcraft including a cauldron, a magic circle, and a billy goat, and applied the concepts of inversion and deception. Curiously, Van de Velde portrayed the devils enjoyably smoking tobacco, drinking beer, and playing cards in allusion to revelers in Dutch genre paintings, particularly merry company and tavern scenes. Such a festive atmosphere attenuates the ominous effect of witchcraft, consistent with the prevailing skepticism toward witchcraft in the Dutch Republic and the associated cessation of witch trials at that time. Moreover, the devils' pursuits and the witch's attractive guise echo the cautionary inscription beneath the image about the vanity of leisure and the transience of life. The five pipes depicted in the Sorceress-three puffed on by devils and two inserted by the airborne devil into his anus-highlight tobacco smoking as the novel and prevalent pastime in early seventeenth-century Dutch society. The context of witchcraft and devilry invites reflection on these pipes from moral, pharmacopoeial, and demonological perspectives. Enhancing the print's moral message, the pipe smoking serves as a symbol of 'vanitas' and embodies the vices of Gluttony and Sloth. These pipes also stimulate debates regarding tobacco consumption as discussed in emblem books, satirical poems, and medical treatises, while also engaging with demonic iconography and witchcraft beliefs. The Sorceress showcases Van de Velde's skills as a printmaker, particularly in depicting landscapes and capturing the effects of smoke, light, and shadow. This article attributes the invention of the Sorceress to Van de Velde himself, challenging previous claims that credited Adam Elsheimer. Therefore, the print not only demonstrates Van de Velde's technical proficiency as a printmaker but also underscores his originality as an artist.
During the seventeenth century, Norway experienced great economic progress, and the population more than doubled. As a consequence, the market for immigrant painters grew and more than three hundred new church buildings were built. They included new interiors and altarpieces according to the latest Protestant requirements - often decorated with religious paintings after Dutch and Flemish engravings that reached Norway through well-developed trade relationships with places such as Amsterdam. This article explores the dominant practice of copying for the production of seventeenth- century Norwegian religious paintings. Two painters, Gottfried Hendtzschel (c.1600-c.1648) and Elias Fiigenschoug (d. c. 1660) decorated dozens of parish churches, especially altarpieces, using prints after Rubens' compositions. Fiigenschoug, who exclusively copied prints after Rubens, practiced a collage- like method of composing scenes from different print sources. Hendtzschel reused the same prints as a template in a way that resembles a serial production-approach to painting. Neither their style nor designs can be seen as original or inventive. On the contrary, their artistic production reflects a standard working method of composing and repeating motifs by copying prints. Thanks to the medium of prints, local Norwegian painting production was able to develop and flourish. This article therefore contributes to our knowledge about the importance of prints for art historically marginalized regions, as well as to recent research on how a global visual culture was shaped by print culture in the seventeenth century.
