Books and Art

Portrait of a Young Man (1656). Michiel Sweerts (Flemish,1618-1664). Oil on canvas. The Hermitage, St. Petersburg.

Likely a self-portrait, the artist (or banker) sits at a table strewn with writing utensils and money. One hand props his head, the other holds a piece of paper. The green tablecloth has another sheet pinned to it, with the inscription “Ratio quique reddenda.” And so the melancholy young man has been tallying more than coins, for the Latin translates “Every man must give an accounting.”

Portrait of a Lady (1805). Joseph Denis Odevaere (Flemish, 1775–1830). Oil on canvas.

This painting, said to be showing Madame Vigier and her son, hung in the Grand Salon in the Château de Grand-Vaux situated just outside Paris. The château belonged to Pierre Vigier (1760-1817) who, after the Revolution, became the director of the Société des Bains Publics in Paris.

Catharina van Hemessen (1548). Catharina van Hemessen (Flemish, 1528-1587). Hermitage Museum.

As with many Renaissance female painters, van Hemessen was the daughter of a painter, Jan Sanders van Hemessen (c. 1500-after 1563), who was likely her teacher. She went on to create portraits of wealthy men and women often posed against a dark background. She is best known for this self-portrait painted in Basel. She inscribed the painting with the year, 1548, and her age, 20 years. Her success is marked by her good standing in the Guild of St. Luke and her eventual position as teacher to three male students.

The Reading Girl (1974). Leo Van Paemel (Flemish-Belgian, 1914-1995).

Van Paemel studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp and the National Institute of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

Van Paemel painted the North Sea and everything related to it: the beach life, the atmosphere on the promenade, and the bustle of the fishermen and marinas His specialty was painting portrait figures.

Young Woman at a Virginals (1548). Caterina van Hemessen (Flemish, Renaissance,1528-after 1587). Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

It is not known whether this is a self-portrait or a depiction of her sister Christina.

Van Hemessen is the earliest female Flemish painter for whom there is verifiable extant work. While not an especially gifted artist, she is often given the distinction of creating the first self-portrait of an artist (of either gender) depicted seated at an easel.

The Magdalen Reading (fragment of an altarpiece), c.1435-1438. Rogier van der Weyden (Flemish, 1400-1464). London National Gallery.

The fragment has been described by Campbell as “one of the great masterpieces of fifteenth-century art and among Rogier’s most important early works.” It has been linked to two small heads in the collection of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon), of Saint Catherine and of St Joseph. It is now widely believed that these three fragments came from the same large altarpiece depicting the “Virgin and Child with Saints.” Before 1811, this altarpiece was carved up into these three fragments.

The Annunciation (1609-1610). Peter Paul Rubens (Belgium, Baroque, 1577-1640). Oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Rubens was a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasised movement, colour, and sensuality. He is well known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.

In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp that produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, King of Spain, and Charles I, King of England.

Young Woman in Orison Reading a Book of Hours (1520s). Ambrosius Benson (Flemish Northern Renaissance, c.1495-1550). Oil on panel. Musée du Louvre, Paris.

The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Each manuscript book of hours is unique, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and psalms, often with appropriate decorations, for Christian devotion. Illustration is minimal in many examples, often restricted to decorated capital letters at the start of psalms and other prayers, but books made for wealthy patrons may be extremely lavish, with full-page miniatures.

phassa:

The Annunciation (1434-6). Jan Van Eyck (Flemish, 1395-1441). Oil on wood panel, transferred to canvas. Renaissance (Northern). New Testament. National Gallery of Art. Washington, DC.

In this painting Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear the son of God. The inscription shows his words: “AVE GRÃ. PLENA” or “Hail, full of grace…”. She modestly draws back and responds, “ECCE ANCILLA DÑI.” or “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord”. Her words are printed upside down for the Lord above to see. The Holy Spirit descends to her on seven rays of light. This is the moment God’s plan for salvation is set in motion. Through Christ’s human incarnation the old era of the Law is transformed into a new era of Grace.

Almost every element in the painting contributes to this theme. The architecture moves from older, round Romanesque forms to pointed Gothic arches. In the floor tiles, scenes from the Old Testament prefigure New Testament events. The single top window, where Jehovah stands, contrasts the triple windows below, which suggest the Christian trinity. The lilies beside Mary refer to her purity.

windypoplarsroom:

Don Alonso de Idiáquez, Duque de Ciudad Real (16th century). Otto van Veen (Flemish, 1556-1629). Oil on panel. Renaissance / Mannerism. Museo del Prado. Madrid. 

Painter, draughtsman, and humanist active primarily in Antwerp and Brussels in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century. He is known for running a large studio in Antwerp, producing several emblem books, and for being, from 1594 or 1595 until 1598, Peter Paul Rubens’s teacher. His role as a classically educated humanist artist (a pictor doctus) was influential on the young Rubens, who would take on that role himself.

(via rhaegartargaryen)

Elizabeth Tudor as a Princess (1546).  Attr. to William Scrots (active 1537-1553) but art historians disagree.

William Gaunt contrasts the simplicity of the 1546 portrait of Elizabeth Tudor as a Princess with later images of her as queen. He wrote, “The painter…is unknown, but in a competently Flemish style he depicts the daughter of Anne Boleyn as quiet and studious-looking, ornament in her attire as secondary to the plainness of line that emphasizes her youth. Great is the contrast with the awesome fantasy of the later portraits: the pallid, mask-like features, the extravagance of headdress and ruff, the padded ornateness that seemed to exclude all humanity.”

Windsor Castle. © The Royal Collection.

Penitent Reading in a Room (detail, c. 1650). Michiel Sweerts (1618-1664) was a Flemish painter of the Baroque period, active in Rome (1645-1656) in the style of the Bamboccianti. The Bamboccianti were known for depicting genre scenes of daily life. Sweerts is an enigmatic and difficult artist to categorize, since he seems to have absorbed a variety of influences to create an eclectic hybrid that can be described as a Netherlandish genre adaptation of an early tenebrist styles: a blend of Vermeer’s genre of painting and Caravaggio-influenced full bodied figures.