Mercenary love
Gregory Martin
Dicture – as did Terborch in Le Galant Militaire, currently lent by the Louvre to the Royal Academy Dutch genre exhibi- tion — a pretty woman and a burly soldier seated close to each other in a bedroom. She pours out the %Vine as he hands over the money. In 1913, the 'girl' was described as 'looking thoughtfully at the coins'; the Royal Academy catalogue entry states squarely that the scene is one of 'mercen- ary love'. But like Christopher Brown in his survey of Dutch genre painting (where he trembles for the lady), the catalogue dwells on her 'indecision'.
That this intimate scene should apparently still resist precise interpretation is probably more a tribute to Terborch's particular talent than evidence of the guilelessness of art historians. Indeed, Bob Haak in his Golden Age – a magnum opus which describes the whole gamut of Dutch 17th-century painting – believes that a Terborch interior can be interpreted in any way the viewer wants'. And such has been the case for countless depictions by other artists of private goings-on at that time.
To the despair of art historians, the bawdy, acquisitive citizens of the new, tolerant Republic, where Calvinism was dominant, rarely bothered properly to describe the paintings of everyday life that they loved to own. And 50 or so years into the next century for such still admired pic- tures, 'genre' was considered an adequate description, a word so happily vague as still to be employed.
Actually after deliberation Haak aban- dons it. But like an elder statesman, he refuses to plunge into the current heady trend to dispel the traditional laissez-plaire attitude. More enthusiastic, though still judicious, is Brown's clear and readable account. It is not as comprehensive, scho- larly or coherent as the catalogue to the exhibition (to which he also contributed), whose aim - to the visitor's despair - is to be the last word. Better if Brown's relaxed, unpedagogic approach had been the cata- logue's and that all the learning there expended had been indexed and printed between hard covers.
By linking genre painting with its Netherlandish antecedents - notably Bosch and Brueghel - culling proverbs, puns and aphorisms and recognising the relevance of the turgid, contemporary emblem books (then highly popular), art historians can now at least point to allusions and deeper meanings that artists may have wished to express. There is more than a whiff too of Braudel in the accumulation of not precise- ly relevant information and of sociological history - particularly of the family - in this recent rush of reassessment.
The enlightenment now spelled out is often banal, sometimes curious or naughty (vulgar pace Brown, but piquant for Haak) and occasionally tendentious. Luckily th medium has withstood, rather than been diminished by, the message. It is now accepted, for instance, that the maid's revealing of a seascape (she draws back the protective curtain) while a lady reads a letter in Metsu's little masterpiece in the Beit Foundation, alludes to 'the metaphor of love being as hazardous as a journey at sea' (Brown). But the lady seems un- moved, and what makes the picture memorable is the depiction of the maid's
familiar, inquisitive gesture.
Maybe Jan Steen was a moralist, but he revelled in depicting human frailty with wit. Now, sadly, interpretations of his artistry dwell on the self-searching hang- . over. The humourless Gerrit Dou, so much admired for his perfectionism, was the paragon of these provincial philosophers. The work on which he lavished the greatest subtlety of allusion rotted away long ago M the North Sea. But it is to be suspected that there too he achieved rhyme rather than poetry. In contrast, Vermeer, the Raphael of genre, rarely let allusion run riot, and in his greatest genre picture, The Art of Painting, paid tribute not to the doorstep culture of emblem and proverb but to the tradition of Netherlandish history painting. This picture is miserably reproduced in Brown's survey, where the colour plates are generally good while the black and white illustrations are sometimes poor. Far better produced and designed is the Gol- den Age, in which the reproductions are of a high quality. The last authoritative account of Dutch 17th-century painting was published in 1966; then some 250 illustrations were considered adequate. Haak reproduces over 1,100 works, surelY the largest number of reproductions ever assembled in a book devoted- to the sub- ject. That over 400 artists are discussed, urban centre by urban centre and approx- imately generation by generation (which, as artists moved about and were apt to die unexpectedly, leads to some repetition and confusion) conveys the book's great scope. But Haak, and his able translator from the Dutch, just about keep their heads - with some signs of fatigue and occasional lapses - as the sustained burst of artistic activity, which accompanied the arrival of the Dutch nation, is described.
Fundamental to it was a lively curiositY, excitement and daring that elevated even formal group portraits of the new bourgeois establishment, whose patronage replaced that of the old Church. Only once perhaps was there a real failure of will, when the burgomasters of Amsterdam - aping a too grandiose style - let the architect go and fluffed the decoration di the burgerzaal in the new Town Hall. Certainly there was no go-slow by the artists, although 1649 was a bad year for Rembrandt, and Vermeer would never have passed a time-and-motion test. Though their work rarely suggests it, the artist's life was a hard grind, and those that could gave up their brushes as a means of earning a living. In spite of this, the number of recorded artists is legion, and, not surprisingly, sev- eral minor talents quickly come to mind wh°, fail to gain a place in Haak's colourful an° variegated Dutch Parnassus. That emPh; asis is placed on the great masters and ol° friends is right and proper; but few could, guess from the amount of space allocate° to Uytewael (who?) that a work by this master has become one of the Louvres most prominent recent acquisitions.
Previous page
