On Monday, 8 May, in Berlin, Schwartz heard a top connoisseur account for differences in finish between two paintings by Hugo van der Goes as acceptable variations within a single artistic personality, and on 12 May, in Den Bosch, heard another top connoisseur denying the very possibility of such a thing concerning two paintings by Jheronimus Bosch. What a week!
Comparative study
416 The Vermeer exhibitions of 1935
The current Vermeer exhibition in the Rijksmuseum is the second one ever to be held there. The first took place in 1935. For the 114 days that the present exhibition is running, the Rijksmuseum is admitting 450,000 visitors, about 4,000 a day. Some people, like me, find it too crowded. The 1935 exhibition was on view for only 13 days, and drew 123,000 visitors, about nine and a half thousand a day. Another reason to be glad that I hadn’t been born yet.
414 Rembrandt – Vermeer: a centennial scorecard
Research on one topic (Vermeer exhibitions) put Schwartz on the track of another (historical Rembrandt numbers). This year is the 100th anniversary of the publication, in 1923, of the most extreme highs and lows known to man for the count of paintings by Rembrandt. (Click on images to enlarge them.)
Continue reading “414 Rembrandt – Vermeer: a centennial scorecard”
413 Gazing through King David’s eyes at irresistible beauty
Pondering an old, bitter debate, Schwartz puts together some previously unconnected pieces. In one year, 1654, Rembrandt painted two bathing women who make you think of sex, both of whom have been linked to models in classical antiquity. Leading to a daring conclusion.
Continue reading “413 Gazing through King David’s eyes at irresistible beauty”
399 With apologies to Alart – his missing double spread
Missing pages from Schwartz’s book on Jheronimus Bosch of 2016. The artist in Den Bosch closest to the master himself was the protean Alart du Hameel. A column to make up for leaving him out. Continue reading “399 With apologies to Alart – his missing double spread”
386 Dutchness* in English art
In giving Schwartzlist 385 the title “The Dutchness of English art,” I succumbed to the irresistible temptation to take on Nikolaus Pevsner’s classic “The Englishness of English art” and Christopher Brown’s “The Dutchness of Dutch art.” A number of readers felt that I thereby cut corners. The present column is a remake, with an unassailably clearcut definition of its scope and a properly modest title. Continue reading “386 Dutchness* in English art”
City fathers as civic warriors
The 350th anniversary of the Treaty of Münster and the Peace of Westphalia was celebrated with symposia in Münster, Osnabrück and the Louvre. My contribution in Paris was a lecture on the image of Dutch burghers in painting with respect to the Eighty Years War.
“City fathers as civic warriors,” in: Jacques Thuillier and Klaus Bussmann, coordinators [aside: the editors, who should have been mentioned on the title page, were Hermann Arnhold and Matthias Waschek], 1648: Paix de Westphalie. L’art entre la guerre et la paix | Westfälischer Friede. Die Kunst zwischen Krieg und Frieden. Actes du colloque organisé par le Westfälisches Landesmuseum le 19 november 1998 à Münster et à Osnabrück et le Service culturel du musée du Louvre les 20 et 21 novembre 1998 à Paris, Paris (Louvre and Klincksieck) and Münster (Westfälisches Landesmuseum) 1999, pp. 201-225
The proceedings were published in a thick, tightly bound volume that is difficult to scan. Apologies as well for the lack of complete titles in the notes – the bibliographies of the individual essays are combined at the end in a 28-page section. For full references, send me a mail.
369 Art twins
Like the conjunctions of stars and planets, artists can become aligned so closely that you can’t see the difference between one and another. When that happens, the result can be greater than the sum of the parts. Schwartz looks at two Italian and two Dutch pairs of artists who entered into bondings of that kind.
363 Saenredam and Huygens; Rubens and Rembrandt
“Saenredam, Huygens and the Utrecht bull” was Gary Schwartz’s first publication as an art historian. He looks back on how it came into being and what it meant in his life. Schwartz would like to think of the Dutch- and Flemish-speaking low countries as one culture, but circumstances keep intruding on this ideal image. Circumstances such as the lives and posterities of Peter Paul Rubens and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Continue reading “363 Saenredam and Huygens; Rubens and Rembrandt”
Rubens in Holland, Rembrandt in Flanders
The 2018 volume of The Low Countries, an outstanding yearbook to which I have been contributing for twenty years, is the last to appear in print. From now on it will be brought out online only. The yearbook starts out with 100 pages of contributions from CODART members, in recognition of CODART’s twentieth anniversary. Mine juxtaposes the very limited cross-border experiences of the two giants of seventeenth-century art in the Low Countries and tells about the one time, two hundred years later, when they were briefly conjoined as equals in each other’s countries.
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