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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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Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem
Pieter Jansz. Saenredam, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem, 1631, oil on panel, 82.9 x 110.5 cm (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Speakers: Dr. Christopher D. M. Atkins, Agnes and Jack Mulroney Associate Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Dr. Steven Zucker. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- This is a fine painting, to my eyes, but what features classify it as Baroque? It seems to have little in common with artworks featured in previous videos and essays.(3 votes)
Video transcript
(pleasant piano music) - [Steven] We're in the
Philadelphia Museum of Art in a gallery devoted to
17th century Dutch painting, looking at a painting titled, Interior of Saint Bavo, Haarlem, painted by Pieter Saenredam, who is known for his church interiors, his very meticulous perspective. This was a moment in Dutch art where artists often chose specialties. Somebody might be a flower painter. Somebody might paint seascapes, or somebody might paint church interiors. This helped in the
marketing of their work. You go to this artist because he paints this type of painting. - [Christopher] The Dutch
Republic at this time was about the size of the state of Maine, and one economic historian has estimated that five million paintings
were produced in this area. So, even while there's a lot of interest in buying these types of works, artists, and there were
a large number of them, had to create their own identity. They did this by aligning
with a particular type of art. - [Steven] And the city
where this was painted was both an economic and a cultural center at this moment in 1631. - [Christopher] Haarlem was, in many ways, the cultural heart of the country. Amsterdam, which we
think of more popularly, wasn't a major engine yet. Haarlem doubled in population during the first couple of
decades of the 17th century. The printing industry was located here. A number of the most important
artists were located here. There's a rich cultural tradition and a lot of people
really interested in art. - [Steven] I feel as if
I'm standing in the church in a way that is unusual, in part because, not only am
I seeing deep into the church, but I have a sense of my
peripheral vision as well. - [Christopher] Saenredam
constructed the scene to make you feel as if
you are in the space. There's no impediment in the foreground to block your entrance. You see down the space. The horizon line is quite low. So you get the sense
of being in the place. Today, we're used to being
in very large spaces, but this space must have seemed monumental to someone in the 1630s. - [Steven] You mentioned
the word horizon line and, in this particular painting, that would be defined by our eye level or the eye level of the people
depicted in this painting. - [Christopher] Saenredam
carefully constructed his interior space using
scientific linear perspective, which was based on the
idea of the horizon line, but also recession to a
single point back in space. - [Steven] In most perspectival studies, the space that is depicted is narrower. What the artist has done here, though, is to push the depicted space close to the edges of
our peripheral vision. - [Christopher] Saenredam
has widened out the view and, as realistic as it appears, you could never actually achieve this viewpoint standing inside the church. To get this widening of our viewpoint, you would have to stand
outside of the church. Saenredam is very aware and attuned to what one can do with
linear perspective. So much so, that he
manipulates it to widen it out to give you this almost panoramic view, which enhances your idea of what it would feel
like to be in the church, but you can't actually see this viewpoint. - [Steven] Perspective really
is the star of this painting. It's as if the artist is showing
off his technical ability, but also pushing linear
perspective to its limits. - [Christopher] So, large-scale work, and it would've been very
difficult to execute. Even just to conceive of
the perspective scheme would require knowledge of mathematics, architecture, science. - [Steven] And it speaks not
only to the artist's skill, but it also speaks to the
sophistication of his audience, of residents of Haarlem at this moment. - [Christopher] It is
meticulously painted. You can't find a single brushstroke, and that would have been
appreciated by his audience. This probably was not a
commissioned work of art. So he had to really show off to try and attract a
sophisticated viewer and client. - [Steven] But it's not
just the perspective that's such a knockout. Look at the use of light. Look at the use of shadow. Look at the use of tone. This is a white interior, but there's not a trace of
pure white in this painting. - [Christopher] Using a restricted palette to show off what one can accomplish in a limited amount of tones and hues, a variety of grays and some yellows all to create the sense of atmosphere. - [Steven] And a sense of the luminousness of all of the light that the great gothic windows
allow into this interior. - [Christopher] And you get a real sense of a bright sunny day, which
is also a fascinating thing because, most of the time in this area, it's rainy and cold and gray. So he's exaggerating this effect, too. - [Steven] When I look down toward the end of the church, past where the altar would be, I'm seeing very faint representations of stained glass windows, but they've been
de-emphasized by the artist. - [Christopher] This was a
largely Protestant country which had recently gone through all kinds of religious upheaval,
which included iconoclasms of going into churches,
going into locations, and removing the religious imagery. And Saenredam, here, presents us with a really stripped down church. There are some vestiges of representation, as in the stained glass,
but there's no pulpit, there's no pews, there's very
little interior decoration other than the architecture itself. - [Steven] The one exception
can be seen just to the right. There's a small painting of
the exterior of this church. - [Christopher] And
that's an actual painting that, in 1631, was hanging in the church, and at the time was believed to be by the Haarlem artist of
an earlier generation, Geertgen tot Sint Jans. - [Steven] So, he's putting himself in the great lineage of Haarlem artists. - [Christopher] He's
asserting his own ambition, his own talent, his own abilities in what is a grand, magnificent painting, and even includes his own name, appearing as if it is a
gravestone near that painting to let us know who exactly it
was who painted this picture. - [Steven] This is Saenredam's
first painted version of this view, but it's not the first image
that he produced of it. - [Christopher] About three years earlier, a very similar image
appears in a printed book which was a history and
description of the city of Haarlem. We might think of it as a guidebook, something that trumpeted
what one could see, what one could do, as well as valorizing this civic monument. And so, Saenredam was
commissioned to present an image of the interior for this very purpose, which speaks to the civic pride in the building and the architecture. But it was also Saenredam
trying to work through how to do what was a new way of picturing. - [Steven] And he followed
that with a drawing, and finally, this painting. But what I find most interesting about these three variations
is that there are changes. - [Christopher] The earlier
image includes people and pews, and makes it clear that a
religious service is going on. In the painting, we have people, but there's a different type of activity, so he seems to be wanting
to say different things in these two versions. - [Steven] We have in the foreground, three figures who are lavishly dressed. - [Christopher] These
figures, traditionally, have been understood to
help the viewers understand how monumental this space is, but recently we have identified these and these are representations, if not portraits, of actual people. So, the figure in brown in the middle, he's Frederick V who was known as the Winter King of Bohemia, which is the modern-day Czech Republic. To his right is his
wife, Elizabeth Stuart. They have different
garments than the others, traditional Dutch garments in
a black with white collars, which is what you see in
all the other figures, but he in the brown
and she, in particular, in her rich blue garments stands out. And they're accompanied by Johan Schatter who was a member of the city council, a leading figure in the city of Haarlem. And so, he's giving these
visiting dignitaries, who were living in exile
nearby in The Hague, a tour of this civic monument. - [Steven] And look at the way he seems to lead them forward, pointing
out features of the church. And in a sense, it gives us, the viewer, a role as we walk through this church, that we might listen in
to some of his comments. - [Christopher] Schatter strides forward, he's animated, he's pointing,
he's turning towards them. The part that I love is
that Frederick and Elizabeth are turning in as if listening
to what he has to say. - [Steven] These are, in
a sense, mini-portraits, but the panel as a whole
is a portrait as well. It's not so much an interior, in my mind, as it is a portrait of a building. (pleasant piano music)