Exhibitions
Masters of Light: Dutch Painters from Utrecht in the Golden Age (National Gallery, till 2 August)
Tender touches
Martin Gayford
It is surprising how much remains to be discovered among the Old Masters more perhaps than in more recent periods of art. The exhibition of Spanish still-life painting a few years ago at the National Gallery introduced many people to a large group of wonderful artists of whose very names — Sanchez Cotan, for example they had previously never heard. In due Course, their paintings appeared on the covers of paperback books, a sure sign of acceptance. The current show at the NG, Masters of Light: Dutch Painters from Utrecht in the Golden Age, isn't quite in that class. Nonetheless, it is an admirable inves- tigation of little-known territory. The painters of early 17th-century Utrecht are not exactly unknown. On the Other hand, the leading figures – Hendrick Terbrugghen, Dirck van Baburen and Joachim Wtewael, for example — are not really household names, even in artistic households. Are there any stars among them? By my count, one major, half-forgot- ten artist, two groups of painters who are unjustly neglected minor masters, and a variety of delightful miscellaneous Dutch bits and pieces — quite enough, in other words, to justify an exhibition. The major painter in this show, it seems to me, is clearly Terbrugghen. But he is an odd and slightly puzzling case. He died fairly young, at 41 in 1629, of the plague. All his important work is packed into his Iasi decade, or less, and it is a strangely Mixed bag. Among the Terbrugghens on show, however, is a masterpiece, the mas- terpiece of the exhibition, in fact: 'St Sebas- tian Attended by St Irene', which could hold its own without difficulty next to a Georges de la Tour or an early Vermeer {both of which artists, it seems, were much influenced by Terbrugghen). The subject of St Sebastian — who rather surprisingly survived having all those arrows shot at him — being tended by St Irene was also painted, twice, by de la Tour (one version survives only in copies). The comparison is instructive. Terbrugghen doesn't have the simplicity and purity, the way of analysing light and shade into almost geometric shapes, of the painter from Lorraine. But he has something just as individual and affecting, a sense of the softness of flesh, an atmosphere at once stormy and gentle, distinctive colour har- monies of violet, ochre and grey. It may seem odd that a scene of horror and mar- tyrdom could be treated in a manner so tender, but it is something great artists can accomplish, and did particularly well in the 17th century.
The subject is, of course, a very unProtestant one — the painting may well have been an altarpiece, not a type of work one usually associates with Dutch art. This gives us a clue as to the distinctiveness of Utrecht art. In the newly independent, increasingly Calvinist Netherlands, Utrecht was the most Catholic town — somewhere between a half and third, with a higher per- centage of the richer, art-buying classes. It had always been the archbishopric in the area; and the local clergy managed to hold on to their flocks more effectively than other Dutch priests.
For that reason, perhaps, Utrecht artists were more inclined to make the journey to Rome, and come back, as art historians say, Italianate. Perhaps that is why they often show an affinity with the artists of Catholic, more southerly Lorraine, rather than Amsterdam or Harlem. Terbrugghen — who was himself a Protestant — went to Rome and came back inspired by the great art revolutionary of the day, Caravaggio. The latter's dramatic lighting and seamy, low-life cast of characters made a great impression on his contemporaries (Ter- brugghen may have met the man himself before Caravaggio fled from Rome after murdering his opponent in a tennis match).
Two other Utrecht painters — Dirck van Baburen and Gerald van Honthorst — also got the Caravaggio bug. All three were instrumental in spreading the message in the north — to Rembrandt among others. But influential does not necessarily mean good. Honthorst was highly successful in his day: he was recruited by Charles I of `St Sebastian Attended by St Irene' by Terbrugghen: a masterpiece England at one point. His paintings, even the best of them, such as 'The Denial of St Peter', have an unpleasantly finicky, wax- work-like finish. Honthorst's 'St Sebastian' has a strangely 19th-century look, putting one in mind of the work of Paul Delaroche, the first man to say that painting was dead (in his case it was).
Baburen is even less satisfactory. His paintings have a coarse, slapstick air, which is accentuated by his method of applying the paint in simplified patches, suggesting a 17th-century version of painting by num- bers. The most interesting thing about him is that Vermeer's mother-in-law owned `The Procuress', which can be seen in the background of the National Gallery's 'Girl Seated at the Virginals' (it would have been nice to see the two paintings together).
But there is a much more genuine con- nection between Terbrugghen and Ver- meer. The muted mood and gentle intimacy of the 'St Sebastian' are reminis- cent of the latter's early 'Christ in the House of Mary and Martha' in Edinburgh. Other Terbrugghens have an introverted, Vermeerish feel — the 'Fife Player', for example, and the National Gallery's 'Musi- cal' group. This isn't his only mode other paintings are boisterous enough but it's his best. In fact, his work is strange- ly uneven. One painting, 'The Crucifixion', is deliberately in the style of a century before (the patron was faking an aristocrat- ic ancestry), 'The Calling of St Matthew' looks overcleaned, 'The Annunciation' and `The Crowning with Thorns' don't quite come off. But at his best, on this showing, he was a wonderful painter.
For the rest, there is a nice group of landscapes by Utrecht artists, minor con- temporaries of another great artist from Lorraine, Claude, who were inspired by the Roman light and landscape. These painters — Jan Both, Cornelis van Poelenburch, Jan Baptist Weenix — were once very pop- ular with owners of country houses, but much less so now. (Constable so hated them, he recommended a collector to burn his Boths, as selling them would only 'carry on the mischief.) In fact, they were capa- ble of delightful painting, Both and Weenix, who signed himself 'Giovanni Bat- tista Weenix', in particular. Weenix's `Mother and Child in an Italian Landscape' has the raffish, slightly sinister air of 18th- century painters such as Piazzetta. The ear- lier, more northern painting of a nymph not just sleeping but snoring by Diderick van der Lisse is a more modern sort of fun.
From a little earlier there are splendidly frivolous Mannerist fantasies by Joachim Wtewael — Andromeda posing beside a pantomime dragon on a beach covered in skulls and lewdly shaped shells. The bird specialist Roelandt Savery contributes a bizarrely marvellous ornithological fanta- sia. Altogether, a show where one can find numerous delectable trifles. Terbrugghen, however, is the only real star.
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