17th Century Dutch Painting - Part 3: National Gallery, London

5th July 2012

This is my third post on 17th Century Dutch Paintings- The Golden Age. The first described the pictures, artists (variable spelling of names) historical background and their suitability for some visually impaired people.  As there are many fine collections, it also introduced the newly refurbished galleries at the Wallace Collection and the National Gallery collection in person and online trails.  ( http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/17th-century-dutch-paintings-golden-age.html )

My second piece centred on the Torrie Collection in the Talbot Rice Gallery of the University of Edinburgh. ( http://profwhitestick.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/dutch-paintings-part-2-torrie.html )

I had missed the National Gallery ‘Art through Words’ in June and wanted to pay a visit before the Olympics made some trips difficult.  On arrival, I enquired at the information desk in the Sainsbury Wing and Nicola asked if I could use Braille or large print (I can’t) and then took me to the galleries where the 17th Century Dutch Paintings are. 

The National Gallery has a large collection of Dutch paintings, and as there is no “double hanging” the collection extends through several rooms.  Also, as there are small pictures and quite large ones, an individual artist’s work – such as Cuyp, Jan Steen or even Vermeer – is not exhibited all together in one room. 

Nicola suggested that she wrote down the NG number of a painting that I liked and that that reference would allow me to track the details.  Nicola also kept a separate note of the numbers saying that the information desk could print out the panel notes in large format or that, in my case, they could be sent in a text file by email.  (These notes were sent within 2 working days.)

Using a search engine and typing National Gallery NG Number the first result takes you normally into the picture with its dates and information.

Gerard ter Borch

Portrait of a young man
NG1399

For example I typed National Gallery NG1399 and the full length portrait of a sombre clothed man in almost black diamond shape appears. This proves that with some help in noting the NG number and then getting someone to type it up, it is possible to use this information to undertake a search yourself.  Searching without this number will depend on your searching history and getting the artist’s name right.

The following are some of the paintings that I was particularly struck by during my visit:

Room 21 text panel

Figures in an Italian Garden with Fountains and Statuary

Frederik de Moucheron
NG842

The notes suggest that Adriaen van de Velde painted the figures in this imagined Italian landscape.  I had been discussing the van de Veldes with Nicola and mentioned that two of this talented family who worked in London were buried in the churchyard of St James Piccadilly (I had just eaten a sandwich and had a coffee there.)

River landscape with Horseman and Peasants

Albert Cuyp
NG6522

The large painting of the peasants with cows has a lot of stories within it and Nicola was able to help me find one: a hunter crouching in the bottom left hand corner; I could make out a line of a gun as he was taking aim, but I could not make out his dog.  This is a beautiful painting, though has a cordon around it. 

 

Avenue of Middelharnis

Meindert Hobbema
NG830

This avenue of trees is a popular theme in Dutch paintings and this one is no exception.  Sometimes the Italianate influence can make some perspective lines appear odd and though I like this, I still think that the Cuyp avenue in Dordrecht has more appeal. 

A Dutch Yacht and Other Vessels Becalmed near the Shore

Hendrick Dubbels
NG2587

This picture caught my eye with the ships or boats in full sail but becalmed.  The masts and the pattern of the sails appealed to my peripheral vision so I asked Nicola to make a note of the number.  The search took me into a NG inventory page with a lot of information and I had to go back to another level to check all the details.  A warning: doing too many searches on some paintings makes a prediction search seek some other items.

Haarlem Lock

Meindert Hobbema
NG6138

This shows a typical canal lock with a herring packer’s tower, though according to the National Gallery site the buildings are no longer extant.  Apparently this is the only scene of Amsterdam by the artist who lived in the area.  Key facts on the site give more links to details of the painting. 

A River Scene with a Large Ferry and Numerous Dutch Vessels at Anchor

Jan van de Cappelle
NG967

A seascape with a ferry boat and other boats with Dutch flags, this was another picture that caught my eye.

Dutch Vessels Inshore and Men Bathing

Willem van de Velde
NG871

Landscape in Brazil

Frans Post
L39

This was a surprise as one forgets the enormous trading post network the Dutch, with their fleet, had established around the world. 

View of the Westerkerk, Amsterdam

Jan van der Heyden
NG6526

I had noted Jan van der Heyden in the Wallace Collection and I “recognised” the Westerkerk in Amsterdam.  Nicola commented on the detailed drawing of the cobblestones and this was similar to the brickwork detail that Jackie had described to me when looking at other pictures by van der Heyden.

Albert Cuyp

The Small Dort, NG962
The Maas at Dordrecht in a Storm, NG6405
The Large Dort, NG961

At this point I was beginning to show symptoms of a Cuyp overdose and it was delightful.  There are a lot of views of Dordrecht.   

Vermeer

The National Gallery is planning a ‘Vermeer and Musical Instrument’ exhibition for next year and it will include the Lady with Guitar.  I was mentioning this news which I had picked up on Twitter, when Nicola said “We have the lady here on show now.”  Kenwood is being refurbished and though a Rembrandt from Kenwood has gone on tour, the Iveagh Bequest restricts the Lady with the Guitar from ‘travelling’.  The picture is one of my favourites and though I missed the exhibition at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, I was able to view the other Vermeers such as Lady seated at a Virginal (NG2568) and Lady standing by a Virginal (NG1383).

Cattle and Sheep in a Stormy Landscape

Paulus Potter
NG2583

One of my friends prefers Paulus Potter to Albert Cuyp.  My thoughts on this cattle and sheep in a storm was that the bovine beast resembled more another species, as I thought one had the appearance of a Highland Stag. 

A Farm with a Dead Tree

Adriaen van de Velde
NG867

I was attracted by the dead tree against the skyline.  Adriaen was famous for drawing figures and anatomical bits of pictures and his work is noted in many pictures with a leading name doing the landscape.

We went through some beautiful Albert Cuyp pictures.  I had been given a book on the NG collection and had bought the Albert Cuyp Catalogue following an exhibition in London and USA.  Whenever I mention Albert Cuyp to friends who are interested in Dutch pictures, they almost always say “Ah Cuyp, the cow man!”  While it is true that Cuyp painted cows he did cover other subjects.    

On our way back to the Sainsbury Wing Nicola mentioned that the Titian exhibition was starting on July 11 and it might be an idea to get there sooner than later.  This is free and downstairs.

Many thanks to Nicola for taking me round the collection.  With her help I was also able to remember many more pictures by using the NG number.  Talks and tours on Dutch pictures are also tweeted on the NG twitter feeds and texts can be downloaded using this method. 

I have found the National Gallery website to be straightforward in its own right by just searching through a search engine.  Knowing a few names, it is possible to locate a given painting.  I was also able to catch up on paintings which I would normally have picked up in an Art through Words session. I also have the picture labels (panel notes) which Nicola sent me by email. 

An example of the picture label for the Albert Cuyp reads very well in a screenreader and the National Gallery separated the labels with an underline.  This makes it easier for me to merge it like this:

Albert Cuyp (1620–1691)

River Landscape with Horseman
and Peasants, about 1658–60

This is Aelbert Cuyp’s largest surviving

landscape. The scene is inspired by
the landscape along the Rhine near
Nijmegen, in the eastern Netherlands.
Cuyp travelled to the area many times.

The golden sunlight is observed from
the work of contemporaries, such as
Jan Both, who had travelled in Italy.

Oil on canvas

NG6522. Bought with the assistance of the
National Heritage Memorial Fund and
The Art Fund, 1989

These provide a neat description of the work and it is now possible for me to form my own gallery notes and tag it to the right painting.  (This is a challenge but makes one work to fix an image in the mind) It would be possible to read a bar code and listen to a synthetic voice read it out, but where is the interaction in that? 

This shows that a few paintings one enjoys can be enjoyed later on with a record of the visit, thoughts at the time and some cross checking from the gallery.  Another really good and imaginative way in sharing the pictures to the visually impaired community. 

Books recently acquired on 17th century Dutch pictures:

Rembrandt 1892 by John Ingamells (The Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London)

Jan Steen (1626-1679) by Wouter Kloek (Waanders Publishers, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
Dutch Painting: The National Gallery (National Gallery, London)

PS

Metamorphosis: Titian 2012
A unique collaboration with The Royal Ballet
11 July - 23 September 2012
Admission Free
 
Find out more:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/metamorphosis-titian-2012

Dutch Paintings Part 2: Torrie Collection, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh

Dutch Paintings from the 17^th Century have proved to be interesting.  The pictures are not large but are still attractive to collectors.  Many museums, national art galleries and institutions have collections of Dutch Paintings.  One such collection is the Torrie Collection which is held by the University of Edinburgh. 

I was at the Talbot Rice Gallery several times last summer and went round the Torrie Collection, once on my own and once with a friend, who read out the captions from a catalogue.  My first visit to the Torrie collection was around the time of my visit to Surgeons’ Hall in Edinburgh and it was Jan Steen’s “Doctor Visit” which made me recall it.  Harbour scenes with ships and boats seemed familiar as did the painter William van de Veld. 

Landscapes with trees and perspective lines seemed to be 200 years in advance of the Corot paintings I had liked in 1975 and had viewed again recently at the National Gallery in London.  Some Dutch painters had gone to Italy and had developed in ways similar to Claude Lorraine. A few had returned to the Netherlands and influenced local painters while others continued in their own styles.

Following the topic of Dutch Pictures has led me to many other collections and The Zoffany’s picture of Lawrence Dundas around his pictures allowed a little detective work on the internet in matching some of the painter names (difficult) with recurring themes in landscape and genre painting.   I ordered some books on the internet and during my stay in hospital a friend read out extracts from two: a catalogue of Albert Cuyp pictures and drawings; and an introduction to Dutch Landscapes in the Royal Collection by Desmond Shawe-Taylor (with contributions by Jennifer Scott). 

The following quote from the latter is particularly noteworthy.  Shawe-Taylor talks about the process of cleaning and restoring a painting and in doing so draws parallels with the intellectual process of appreciating these paintings.  Thus:

“The understanding of painting can require a similar process.  Over the years the habitual way of thinking about the art of a particular period can start to obscure and discolour the works themselves; sometimes sincerely held ideas can overlay the truth with plausible anachronisms.  The process of intellectual restoration is as fraught with difficulties as that of real restoration; the ‘original experience of a work’ can seem as elusive a concept as the ‘original appearance of a work’.”

It has also been fun searching discussions of Dutch Paintings on You Tube and I have learned at least how the You Tube system works.  I could not resist tweeting out a link to a video of a restoration completed in the Mauritshuis in the Hague in Netherlands of a Jan Steen painting titled The Doctor’s Visit. (see below)

Having been in contact with Talbot Rice Gallery since last year I asked them about the Torrie Collection and while I was in hospital they very kindly sent me images of the paintings which I liked. I would have visited the gallery during the Easter period though my impending hip operation put all travel from London on hold. 

716 Jan van der Heyden - Wooded Park Landscape With Deer

By kind permission of "The University of Edinburgh
Fine Art Collection".

Jan van der Heyden was born in 1637 and died in 1712.  He was particularly noted for town scenes, but also painted landscapes such as this one. 

738 Jan Steen - The Doctor's Visit

By kind permission of "The University of Edinburgh
Fine Art Collection".

Jan Steen was born in Leiden around 1626 and died in 1679.  Steen painted many comic subjects, though there is frequently a moral content to the scene.  The Doctor’s Visit was painted several times and the restoration of the painting in the Mauritshuis in The Hague can be found on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3utdGnQ9RnY

Although the video is in Dutch, it is sub-titled (but I can’t read them, of course) and there are quite a lot of scientific terms which are recognisable, such as infrared and ultraviolet.  The video, however, does show the process of restoring a painting and illustrates the important part which chemistry and spectroscopy plays in picture restoration.  I can’t detect any difference between the restored and unrestored images from the Torrie collection and on You Tube, the trained eye may well discover the benefits of the removal of previous restorations and newer ways of interpreting the artist’s original work - although, bearing Desmond Shawe-Taylor's statement quoted above, some care has to be taken in the interpretation of the thoughts of the artist when the work or works were commissioned.

739 David Teniers the Younger - Peasants Playing Bowls

By kind permission of "The University of Edinburgh
Fine Art Collection".

David Teniers the Younger was born 1610 and died 1690.  Sports and pastimes often feature in Dutch paintings and I was attracted to this painting of people bowling in the street as it reminded me of a craze in the 1960s for 10-pin bowling!  For some reason Edinburgh did not indulge in 10-pin bowling, though both Kirkcaldy (birthplace of Adam Smith) and Glenrothes (then a new town) had 10-pin bowling. 

744 William van de Velde - Fishing Boats in a Calm

By kind permission of "The University of Edinburgh
Fine Art Collection".

William van de Velde the younger was born 1633 and died in 1707.  He followed in his father’s footsteps in having an interest in painting marine scenes.  There are many paintings with ships in full sail, in various weather conditions.  Both father and son worked in London in Greenwich and are buried in St James’s, Piccadilly.  My father’s family had a couple of paintings of sailing ships which were probably done in the 19^th century based on the harbour at Charlestown, near Dunfermline.  An ancestor of mine had been the harbour master there.

Also of interest is another You Tube video in which Desmond Shawe-Taylor discusses Aelbert Cuyp’s The Passage Boat: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyRuylhzzVs

In preparing this post, I’d like to thank Shawn Coulman, Marketing and Education Assistant and Jill Forrest, Museums Support Officer both at the Talbot Rice Gallery. 

Details for the Gallery are:

Talbot Rice Gallery
The University of Edinburgh
Old College, South Bridge
Edinburgh
EH8 9YL

+44 (0)131 651 4784www.trg.ed.ac.uk
facebook.com/talbotricegallery

The Talbot Rice Gallery is situated in the Old College of the University of Edinburgh and as well as housing the Torrie Collection there are frequent exhibitions and events.  The gallery is very welcoming and it was a member of the staff and a volunteer who alerted me to the Artlink project which I discussed last year.  I look forward to meeting up with both Talbot Rice and Art Link during the ‘summer’.  If you are visiting the Edinburgh Festival, it’s well-worth visiting the Talbot Rice Gallery.