Early Netherlandish P aintings

492 Pages·2008·16.33 MB·English

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Ever since the rediscovery around 1800of paintings of the great fif- a
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teenth-century Netherlandish school, they have stirred the enthusiasm en reception
of collectors and the curiosity of scholars. This book provides an
v
introduction to early Netherlandish painting through the different ad and research
approaches that have been taken in collecting, investigating and inter- n
i
preting its works. The first part discusses twenty pictures by the most b
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important masters as individual objects, which have come down to us u
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in various ways and confronted scholars with a variety of questions.
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This section is followed by two parts containing essays on themes that n
have emerged in the first. Part 2is devoted to the formation of collec- P edited by

tions and the development of art-historical research and cultural inter-
pretations, during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. ha bernhard ridderbos
ei
Part 3 presents fields of modern research: the painters' procedures on
nn anne van buren
the basis of technical laboratory examinations, patronage elucidated
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in archival resources, and iconology or the study of symbolic meaning. t henk van veen
v
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The authors are experts in Europe and the United nn
isbn90 5356 614 7

States,and the first section was written by v
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Bernhard Ridderbos,of the University of e
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Groningen (The Netherlands),who also edited this s
n Amsterdam
book,together with Anne van Buren,retired from
Tufts University in Medford,Massachusetts,and
9 789053 566145 University Press
Henk van Veen,of the University of Groningen.
www.aup.nl
Amsterdam University Press
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina i
Early
Netherlandish
Paintings
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina ii
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina iii
Early
Netherlandish
Paintings
rediscovery, reception
and research
edited by
bernhard ridderbos, anne van buren
and henk van veen
Amsterdam University Press
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina iv
The publication of this book is made possible by grants from The Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research (nwo), The Prins Bernhard Cultural Foundation,
and Nicolaas Mulerius Fonds.
Translated into English by Andrew McCormick and Anne van Buren
Original publication: ‘Om iets te weten van de oude meesters’. De Vlaamse Primitieven –
herontdekking, waardering en onderzoek, Bernhard Ridderbos en Henk van Veen (eds.),
Nijmegen/Heerlen 1995. Published by sun/ou.
© Dutch edition: Open Universiteit Nederland, 1995
Cover design and layout Kok Korpershoek [ko], Amsterdam
Front cover Jan van Eyck, The Annunciation(90.2 x 34.1 cm),
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Back cover Robert Campin (?), The Mérode Triptych
(central panel 64.1 x 63.2 cm; each wing 64.5 x 27.3 cm),
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Cloisters Collection
nur640/654
isbn905356614 7
© Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam, 2005
www.aup.nl
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book
may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without
the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.
iv
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina v
– In memory of Alfons Lieven Dierick –
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina vi
Contents
viii General Introduction
part one 4 chapter 1
Objects and Questions
bernhard ridderbos
part two 173 chapter 2
Collecting Early Netherlandish Paintings
in Europe and the United States
till-holger borchert
218 chapter 3
From Waagen to Friedländer
bernhard ridderbos
252 chapter 4
Realism, Renaissance and Nationalism
wessel krul
– vi –
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part three 292 chapter 5
Technical Examination
jeltje dijkstra
330 chapter 6
TheCorpus of Fifteenth-Century Painting
in the Southern Netherlands and
the Principality of Liège
henri pauwels
345 chapter 7
Patronage
maximiliaan p.j. martens
378 chapter 8
Iconography and Iconology
craig harbison
407 Notes
439 Bibliography
469 Illustration Credits
475 Index
– vii –
Early Netherl Paint pp i-406 22-11-2004 21:23 Pagina viii
General Introduction
In the early nineteenth century, Johanna Schopenhauer, the mother of the great
philosopher, visited the collection of early Netherlandish and early German pic-
tures of the Boisserée brothers in Heidelberg. The visit inspired her to learn more
about the masters who executed the works, and the result was a two-volume book
about ‘Jan van Eyck and his followers’, published in 1822, the first monograph on
this subject. That Johanna Schopenhauer’s desire to know more about these artists
led to a publication can be attributed to her passion for writing – she produced one
book after another – but also to the state of affairs in her day. So little was known
about the artists that she had to gather information for herself, and it is under-
standable that she wanted others to benefit from her efforts.
Thanks to the ensuing flood of publications, present-day lovers of early
Netherlandish painting find themselves in a totally different position. They have
at their disposal catalogues, handbooks, monographs, myriad articles, and many
public collections. And yet, the further one delves into this art and what has been
written about it, the more one realizes the impossibility of gaining a full and co-
herent image of its history, not only because of the paucity of historical data, con-
cerning for instance the mysterious figure of Hubert van Eyck, but also because
art historians operate from different premises regarding the interpretation of the
pictures. Thus, our understanding of early Netherlandish painting cannot be sepa-
rated from an awareness of the fragmentary character of our knowledge and from
the theories and methods according to which it has been studied. This book ex-
plores consequently how paintings and facts have been assembled, analyzed and
interpreted from the time of the rediscovery of this art around 1800 to the present
day. The works are not discussed in a continuous, chronological survey of develop-
ments, as in a traditional handbook, but as individual objects, which have come
down to us in various ways and have confronted scholars with countless questions.
All the pictures were created in the fifteenth century by masters in the Nether-
lands, then ruled by the dukes of Burgundy. The chronological demarcation is
– viii –
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general introduction
debatable, like virtually every periodization, but necessary, in order to limit the
material. It is also defensible: painting on isolated panels began to flower in Tour-
nai, Bruges, Brussels, and Ghent in the early years of the fifteenth century, but
around 1500 underwent some major changes in the production, which became cen-
tered on the new commercial city of Antwerp.
In Part 1, the spotlight is trained on one work at a time, with attention to its
style, provenance, the ways in which it became an object of research after cen-
turies of oblivion, the insights gained, and the questions that still remain. The
selection represents the most important artists. Hieronymus Bosch, however, was
omitted because his oeuvre is a world unto itself and the problems of interpreting
his inventions make it difficult to discuss their creator along with the other masters.
The ensuing parts elaborate on themes that have emerged in the preceding
section. Part 2 is devoted to the history of collecting, of art-historical research and
cultural-historical interpretation during the nineteenth and first half of the twen-
tieth centuries. It starts with the story of the removal of the paintings, as a result
of the French Revolution, from their original context and their being cast adrift
until they found new homes in private and public collections in Europe and later
also in the United States. This is followed by a historiographical sketch from the
rediscovery of early Netherlandish art to the publication of Max Friedländer’s
pivotal volumes. While various cultural-historical ideas are also discussed in that
chapter, such views, by authors from Jacob Burckhardt to Johan Huizinga, are the
particular subject of the following one.
Part 3 addresses three fields of modern research: technical examination,
archival research into patronage, and iconology. Archival research already devel-
oped in the nineteenth century; technical examination and iconology in the twen-
tieth century. Technical examination of early Netherlandish paintings uses tech-
niques of the natural sciences to analyze material aspects of the works and the
procedures of the artists. A survey of various aspects of this research is followed
by a discussion of a major publication, which gives much attention to technical in-
vestigations: the Corpus of Fifteenth-Century Painting in the Southern Netherlands
and the Principality of Liège. The study of patronage, which considers the inten-
tions of the patrons and the social function of the works they commissioned, is
presented through a number of particular cases. Iconology examines how symbolic
meaning can be assigned to pictures. The chapter focused on this subdiscipline
gives a critical survey of its development and its present condition.
The most fertile research combines several fields, of course. This is espe-
cially demonstrated in Part 1, but Part 3 also shows connections between technical
examination, the study of patronage and the study of symbolic meaning. The pur-
pose of bringing these methods together in one volume and showing how much
they have in common is to encourage exchanges among their practitioners.
– ix –