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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 9
Lesson 4: Dutch Republic- Model of the Dutch East India Company ship "Valkenisse"
- The Dutch art market in the 17th century
- Why make a self portrait?
- A Dutch doll house
- Van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck
- Frederiks Andries, Covered coconut cup
- Osias Beert, Still Life with Various Vessels on a Table
- Anthony van Dyck, Self-Portrait as Icarus with Daedalus
- Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem
- Hals, Singing Boy with Flute
- Hals, Malle Babbe
- Frans Hals, The Women Regents
- Willem Claesz. Heda, Still Life with Glasses and Tobacco
- Rembrandt, The Artist in His Studio
- Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
- Rembrandt, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp
- Rembrandt, The Night Watch
- Rembrandt, The Night Watch
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Saskia
- Rembrandt, Girl at a Window
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Rembrandt, Aristotle with a Bust of Homer
- Rembrandt, Christ Crucified between the Two Thieves: The Three Crosses.
- Rembrandt, Bathsheba at her Bath
- Rembrandt, Abraham Francen
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait
- Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Two Circles
- Rembrandt, The Jewish Bride
- Rembrandt, Christ Preaching (Hundred Guilder Print)
- Is it a genuine Rembrandt?
- Judith Leyster, The Proposition
- Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait
- Early Dutch Torah Finials
- Michaelina Wautier, The Five Senses
- Willem Kalf, Still Life with a Silver Ewer
- Gerrit Dou, A Woman Playing a Clavichord
- Vermeer, The Glass of Wine
- Vermeer, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher
- Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance
- Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance
- Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring
- Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting
- Jan Steen, Feast of St. Nicholas
- Ruisdael, View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds
- Jacob van Ruisdael, The Jewish Cemetery
- Andries Beeckman, The Castle of Batavia and Dutch colonialism
- Frans Post, Landscape with Ruins in Olinda
- Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects
- Rachel Ruysch, Fruit and Insects
- Rachel Ruysch, Flower Still-Life
- Van Huysum, Vase with Flowers
- Conserving van Walscapelle's Flowers in a Glass Vase
- The Great Atlas, Dutch edition
- The Town Hall of Amsterdam
- Huis ten Bosch (House in the Woods)
- 17th century Delftware
- Baroque art in Holland
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Michaelina Wautier, The Five Senses
Michaelina Wautier, The Five Senses, series of five canvases (Sight, Hearing, Smell, Taste, and Touch), 1650, oil on canvas, 68 x 58 cm or 70 x 61 cm (Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection at the MFA, Boston). Speakers: Dr. Christopher Atkins, Van Otterloo-Weatherie Director, Center for Netherlandish Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Smarthistory.
Video transcript
(jazzy music) - [Beth] We're in the lovely rotunda at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and we're looking at a
series of five paintings of "The Five Senses"
by Michaelina Wautier. And the one we wanna focus
on shows the sense of smell. - [Christopher] We have a
young boy holding his nose because in his other hand
he's holding a rotten egg, which we can imagine must be
an absolutely horrific odor. And that odor, that gas that's coming up, that's a pretty sophisticated and philosophical approach to the subject. - [Beth] So we know the
subject of the Five Senses was popular at this
time in the 17th Century and artists like Rubens and Brueghel painted the same subject. - [Christopher] This is
the period where people are beginning to look
at the world around them in a different way. So how do we understand, how
do we interact with the world? How do our senses help us explain and engage with all the
different things around us? - [Beth] This is the period
of the Scientific Revolution. Philosophers, scientists are thinking about how we gain knowledge
about the world around us. Is it through our senses? Is it through our minds? Is it through a combination of both? Which comes first? These were matters of
philosophical interest. - [Christopher] Of active
philosophical interest, if not active debates. - [Beth] Let's talk about Wautier. She's such an interesting artist. Her facility with paint is
so clear in this painting. The folds of the boy's jacket
are painted with such skill. We can see the brushstrokes. The tiny touches of lighter-colored
yellow and gold paint on his knuckles or on his cheeks. His eyes are so penetrating and we feel as though we're
sitting in front of this boy. - [Christopher] This feels like
a real person in front of us looking out directly at us. - [Beth] And it's so real
that we almost wanna put our hands up to our noses ourselves because we might smell that egg, too. Figure is very close to us. We feel very much like he's in our space. The background is dark
so that our attention goes to that figure who fills
out the space of the painting. So how is it that I've never
heard of Wautier before? - [Christopher] Katlijne
Van der Stighelen, a professor at the University of Leuven is really responsible for putting Wautier into the spotlight. And what we are looking at here is five of the 35 pictures that we
now know to be by the artist. - [Beth] I think back to
Linda Nochlin's article, "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?" And one answer has to
be willful blindness. - [Christopher] Each of "The Five Senses" is signed and dated, so these are clearly and
prominently ascribed to her. So it does in fact seem
like there must have been some sort of willful process
over the course of history to not put her into the
historical documents. - [Beth] Let's go look at a signature. So we're looking now at the painting having to do with the sense of hearing. And we can clearly see a
signature in the upper left. - [Christopher] It says
Michaelina Wautier fecit, then dated 1650. It's really hard to miss. Now that we know of this series, and with her attribution
and with the dating, we can now put it into sequence and look at other works of art and think about which ones came first and which ones followed. - [Beth] So I wonder how
many other women artists are lurking in private collections and in the basements of museums and how we can overcome that
kind of blindness as scholars. - [Christopher] It makes
us ask the question, what else is there? - [Beth] Makes me think
about how invested we are in the idea of the male
artist and the male genius that we can't even see
what's in front of our eyes. (jazzy music)