ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: RECLAIMING THE ?ANCIENT LUSTER? OF PAINTING: PIETER DE GREBBER?S REGULEN AND HAARLEM CLASSICISM Margaret Rose Harrington, Master of Arts, 2012 Thesis directed by: Professor Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. Department of Art History and Archaeology A single specimen survives of Pieter de Grebber?s 1649 Regulen, or ?Rules to be observed and followed by a good Painter and Draughtsman.? Though infrequently discussed, I argue that De Grebber?s Regulen manifest a lofty, patriotic vision for the art of painting. First, I demonstrate that the iconography of the printed broadsheet announces history painting as a way to honor important patrons, glorify the Dutch Republic, and elevate painting to a liberal art. Next, I relate the Regulen to the recently reformed Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, which established a hierarchy of professions according to universal principles of beauty. Finally, I use the Regulen to show that the Haarlem classicists paired theory with drawing from life. Guidelines like De Grebber?s Regulen appealed to the Haarlem classicists as they strove to adapt the classical mode of painting to contemporary tastes and concerns. RECLAIMING THE ?ANCIENT LUSTER? OF PAINTING: PIETER DE GREBBER?S REGULEN AND HAARLEM CLASSICISM by Margaret Rose Harrington Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2012 Advisory Committee: Professor Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., Chair Professor Anthony Colantuono Professor Meredith J. Gill ?Copyright by Margaret R. Harrington 2012 Disclaimer The thesis document that follows has had referenced material removed in respect for the owner?s copyright. A complete version of this document, which includes said referenced material, resides in the University of Maryland, College Park?s library collection. iii In memory of Professor Pamela Hemenway Simpson iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Wheelock for guidance and helpful suggestions at every stage, as well as Professors Colantuono and Gill for serving on my committee and encouraging me to continue my research. I am very grateful for the opportunity to present some of my ideas at the Department of Art History?s Roger Rearick Forum, and at the Middle Atlantic Symposium co-sponsored by the Department and the National Gallery of Art?s Center for Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, both of which provided stimulating discussion and new questions to address. I would also like to thank Henriette de Bruyn Kops at the National Gallery of Art for help in translating Pieter de Grebber?s Dutch. v Table of Contents List of Images ?????????????????????????..vi I. Introduction??????????????????????1 II. Chapter One: Mercury, Minerva, Painting, and Poetry: Patriotic Iconography in the Regulen???????....????.6 III. Chapter Two: Unifying the Arts Under Universal Rules????..23 IV. Chapter Three: Drawing from Life and the ?Haarlem Academy? Revisited???????????37 V. Conclusion??????????????????????50 Appendix I: English translation of Pieter de Grebber?s Regulen?????...56 Appendix II: Images??????????????????????...57 Bibliography?????????????????????????...73 vi List of Images 1. Pieter Casteleyn and Pieter de Grebber, Regulen: Welcke by een goet Schilder en Teykenaer geobserveert en achtervolght moeten werden, 1649. Haarlem Municipal Archive, reproduced in Van Thiel 1965. 2. De Grebber, Acts of Mercy, 1628. Oil on canvas, 230 x 418 cm. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. 3. De Grebber, The Conferring of the Sword on the Coat of Arms of Haarlem, 1630. Oil on canvas, 168 x 198 cm. Council Chamber, Town Hall, Haarlem. 4. Rembrandt van Rijn, The Raising of Lazarus, 1630. Oil on panel, 96.36 x 81.28 cm. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. 5. De Grebber, Finding of Moses, 1630s. Oil on panel, 86 x 66 cm. Private collection, New York. 6. Detail of figure 1, initial D. 7. Hendrick Goltzius, Mercury, 1611. Oil on canvas, 214 x 120 cm. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. 8. Goltzius, Minerva, 1611. Oil on canvas, 214 x 120 cm. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. 9. Goltzius, Hercules, 1613. Oil on canvas, 207 x 142.5 cm. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. 10. Cornelis Danckerts, Title page of Iconologia, of, Uytbeeldespraeck Synde Afbeeldingendes Verstands van Cesare Ripa van Perugien, 1644 Amsterdam. 11. Anonymous, Hollandse Pictura, title page of Lof der Schilderkonst,1642. Reproduced in Chapman 1986. 12. De Grebber, Jacob, Rachel and Leah, 1628. Oil on canvas, 147 x 207.5 cm. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. 13. De Grebber, Triumphal Arch with Bearers of the Spoils of War, 1648. Oil on canvas, 376 x 203 cm. Oranjezaal, Huis ten Bosch, The Hague. 14. De Grebber, Triumph of the Arts and Sciences Under Frederik Hendrik, 1649. Oil on wood paneling. Oranjezaal, Huis ten Bosch, The Hague. vii 15. Pieter Saenredam and Frans de Hulst after designs by Salomon de Bray, Coats of Arms for Members of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke (Painters, Engravers, Glasspainters, Sculptors, Various Arts) 1635. Pen and aquarel, 33.7 x 21.2 cm. Rotterdam, Atlas van Stolk. Published in Schwartz and Bok 1990. 16. Cornelis Danckertsz., title page for Salomon De Bray?s Architectura Moderna, Amsterdam 1631. 17. Jacob van Campen and Pieter Post, Huygenshuis, The Hague, built 1634-7. Photograph before demolition in 1876, published in Ottenheym 2007. 18. De Grebber, preparatory drawings for illusionistic painted frieze, Great Hall of Honselaarsdijk, Naaldwijk, c. 1637. Graphite on paper, 20.9 x 580 cm. (series). Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. Published in Huisken, Ottenheym and Schwartz 1995. 19. Abraham van den Tempel, Minerva Crowns the Maid of Leiden, 1650. Oil on canvas, 176 x 221 cm. Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. 20. Van den Tempel, Mars Banishes ?Nering,? 1651. Oil on canvas, 207.2 x 265.5 cm. Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. 21. Van den Tempel, The Maid of Leiden Welcomes ?Nering,? 1651. Oil on canvas, 207 x 266.5 cm. Stedelijk Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden. 22. Hendrick Goltzius, Sine Cerere et Libero, Friget Venus, 1600-1603. Ink and oil; on canvas,105.1 x 80 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art. 23. Goltzius, The Fall of Man, 1616. Oil on canvas, 104.5 x 138.4 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington. 24. Jan de Bray after Salomon de Bray, Triumphal Procession of Frederik Hendrik, 1650. Red and black chalk on paper, 510 mm x 266 mm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 25. De Grebber, Cain Slaying Abel, date unknown. Chalk and white heightening on paper. Kunsthalle, Bremen. Published in Andrews 1984. 26. De Grebber, Baptism of Christ, 1625. Oil on canvas, 235 x 155 cm. St. Stephanus Church, Beckum, Germany. 27. Pieter van Laer, Washerwomen and Shepherd with Cattle in a Grotto, 1630-37. Oil on copper, 29 x 43 cm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. 28. Nicolaes Berchem, Standing Shepherd. Black and white chalk on blue paper, 219 x 107 mm. Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam. viii 29. Goltzius, Farnese Hercules, 1590-1. Black and white chalk on blue paper, 20mm x 379 mm. Teylers Museum, Haarlem. 30. De Grebber, Bathsheba, 1644. Oil on canvas, 124 x 170 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 31. Crispijn de Passe, Frontispiece for Van ?t Licht der teken en schilderkonst, Amsterdam 1643. 32. Salomon de Bray, Joseph Receives His Fathers and Brothers in Egypt, 1655. Oil on canvas, 112 x 88 cm. Private collection. 33. Willem de Poorter, The Idolatry of Solomon, 1636. Oil on panel, 63 x 49 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 34. De Grebber, Finding of Moses, 1634. Oil on canvas, 169.5 x 228.5 cm. Gemaldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstammlungen, Dresden. 1 Introduction A single specimen survives of Pieter de Grebber?s Regulen: Welcke by een goet Schilder en Teykenaer geobserveert en achtervolght moeten werden, printed by Pieter Casteleyn in 1649 (fig. 1). The eleven rules offer nothing radically new for seventeenth- century Dutch art theory. Indeed, to modern eyes they seem self-evident; one might wonder why De Grebber had them printed at all. Since Peter van Thiel first published them in Oud Holland in 1965, scholars have generally characterized the rules either as a paraphrase of Karel van Mander?s Den Grondt der Edel Vry Schilderconst or as evidence that the style of the painters and painter-architects known as the Haarlem classicists had no concrete theoretical basis.1 Instead, I argue that in light of his training, his career and his involvement in the reformed Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, De Grebber?s Regulen manifest a lofty, patriotic vision for the art of painting. The classicists inherited much of their art theory from their Italian and Northern predecessors, yet they offered their academic approach as a renewal of the genuine antique mode of painting in a specifically Dutch idiom. To follow De Grebber?s rules was to simultaneously uphold history painting as the ultimate form of persuasion and to celebrate the Dutch Republic as the home of the most eminent painters. 1 P. J. J. van Thiel, ?De Grebbers Regels van de kunst,? Oud Holland 80, no. 1-4 (1965): 126- 131; J.A. Emmens, Rembrandt en de Regels van de Kunst (Amsterdam: G.A. van Orrschot, 1979), 181-182; Friso Lammertse, ?Salomon de Bray: Painter, Architect and Theorist,? in Painting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of Seventeenth Century Holland, ed. Pieter Biesboer (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgavers, 2008), 16; E. Taverne, ?Salomon de Bray and the Reorganization of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1631,? Simiolus 6, no. 1 (1972-1973): 54. Emmens groups the Regulen with ?pre-classicist? theories to assert that only in the later seventeenth-century did Dutch classicists abide by strict rules. Lammertse describes De Grebber?s sheet as a ?brief summary? of Van Mander that ?does not touch on [De Grebber?s] underlying ideas.? Taverne correctly matches De Grebber?s rules to related passages in Van Mander, but treats them as a ?pocket version? of the earlier text rather than as an example of the reformed Guild?s vision for renewing painting. 2 Pieter Fransz. de Grebber (1600-1653) began his training with his father, Frans Pietersz. de Grebber, a well-known portraitist and history painter. His sister Maria and brother Albert also trained as painters, and a second brother Maurits became a goldsmith, though none achieved the fame of Pieter, the eldest.2 Before 1617, Pieter was also apprenticed to Hendrick Goltzius. By this time Goltzius painted in a classicizing style inspired by his trip to Italy and his contact with Peter Paul Rubens in 1612.3 Goltzius likely introduced De Grebber to the practice of discussion and group study from live models that he, Van Mander and Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem apparently initiated in the late sixteenth century.4 He would also have educated his pupils on the practical advice found in Van Mander?s 1604 didactic poem, Den Grondt der Edel Vry Schilderconst. De Grebber?s early exposure to academic practice and classical theory had a profound impact on his style and eventually on his rules. In 1618, Pieter accompanied his father to Antwerp, where Frans facilitated the exchange of Rubens?s paintings for Sir Dudley Carleton?s antique sculptures.5 Thus from his early artistic career Pieter was exposed to various Northern interpretations of classical art and art theory. His earliest dated painting comes from 1622, and he worked on several important large-scale commissions before the end of the decade. In 1628 alone he took over his father?s commission for the Acts of Mercy for the Regentesses? Room of the 2 Albert Blankert, ?Pieter de Grebber,? in Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth Century Painting, ed. Blankert et al. (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2001), 116. 3 Lawrence W. Nichols, ?Hendrick Goltzius,? in Blankert et al. 2001, 64-66. 4 See Karel Van Mander, The lives of the illustrious Netherlandish and German painters?, ed. Hessel Miedema, (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1994): 2:26. The anonymous biography of Van Mander in the 1618 edition of his Schilder-boeck indicates that after his arrival in Haarlem in 1583 and his introduction to Goltzius and van Haarlem, the three ?held and formed an academy for studying from life.? (fol. S2ra) 5 Irene van Thiel-Stroman, ?Frans Pietersz. de Grebber,? in Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, ed. Neeltje K?hler, Koos Levy-van Halm, Epco Runia, and Pieter van Thiel (Ludion: Ghent, 2006), 163-164. 3 Haarlem Old Men?s Almshouse as well as received the commission for the Conferring of the Sword on the Coat of Arms of Haarlem for the Town Hall Council Chamber (figs. 2, 3).6 Samuel Ampzing praised both De Grebbers in his 1628 Beschryvinge ende Lof der Stadt Haerlem en Holland for their skill in history painting.7 Between 1632 and 1635, Pieter?s religious history paintings closely resemble Rembrandt?s religious history paintings from the early 1630s, with small figures, strong chiaroscuro and an emphasis on texture and brightly colored garments (see figs. 4, 5). This influence is probably due to De Grebber?s contact with Willem de Poorter, who may have studied with Rembrandt before moving to Haarlem.8 Pieter joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1632, in the midst of a major reform to the Guild charter spearheaded by fellow classicist Salomon de Bray.9 In the late 1640s, under the supervision of Jacob van Campen, De Grebber contributed several allegorical wall and ceiling paintings to the Oranjezaal of the Huis ten Bosch in The Hague, commemorating the late Frederik Hendrik. De Grebber?s nearly seventy autograph paintings document his gradual refinement of a style distinguished by clarity, natural light, pale flesh tones and concentrated emotion.10 The Regulen therefore reflect a theory of art developed throughout his career, and each painting marks an elaboration and expansion of his ideas. 6 Pieter Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745, ed. Carol Togneri , Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories 1 (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Institute, 2001), 24-5. 7 Ellen Broersen, ??Judita Leystar?: A Painter of ?Good, Keen Sense?? in Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and her World, ed. James A. Welu and Pieter Biesboer, (New Haven: Yale Univ Press, 1993), 19. 8 Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. ?Willem de Poorter,? in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Blankert et al., (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1980), 158. 9 Taverne, 51. Taverne notes that while the reform began in 1631, the charter ?went into the bureaucratic mill? and was not finally ratified until 1634. 10 Van Thiel-Stroman, 170. 4 I argue that the Regulen point up several important facets of Haarlem classicism that will help art historians to reevaluate the style and its proponents. First, I examine the Regulen broadsheet as a work of visual art in its own right, and connect the patriotic iconography found in the initial ?D? to the Haarlem classicists? aim of perfecting a specifically Dutch adaptation of classical painting. I demonstrate that the Regulen participate in the theoretical tradition of ut pictura, poesis, a concept addressed by Philips Angel a few years before the publication of De Grebber?s rules and which elevates painting to a liberal art. I connect the content and motive behind the Regulen to major commissions with allegorical programs such as the Oranjezaal, a project that De Grebber worked on as he composed the rules. Next, I situate the Regulen within the trend in Haarlem and throughout the Dutch Republic toward organizing and unifying the visual arts in reformed St. Luke?s Guilds. Salomon de Bray?s reformed charter for the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke ranked professions in an attempt to draw parallels between history painters and architects, as both professions needed a firm grasp of perspective, proportion and classical aesthetics. I compare the standard of beauty implicit in De Grebber?s rules and in the painted works of Haarlem classicists with the standard of beauty De Bray expresses in his introduction to Architectura Moderna, a treatise on the importance of reintroducing the classical architectural orders to seventeenth-century Dutch cities. This publication coincided with Jacob van Campen?s work in The Hague and Constantijn Huygens? influence there in establishing classicism as a style for the Dutch elite. Finally, I attempt to reconcile the practice of drawing ?naer het leven,? or ?from life,? typically associated with naturalism, and classicism as a style and theoretical 5 framework. I demonstrate that beginning with Karel van Mander and his milieu in the late sixteenth century, group study of plaster casts and the live model accompanied a theoretical approach to painting. As seen in the drawings and paintings of De Grebber and his contemporaries, rendering believable anatomy and human proportion bolstered the Haarlem classicists? agenda of adapting the classical idiom to the needs and tastes of seventeenth-century Dutch art audiences. Although De Grebber never traveled to Italy to see classical sculptures firsthand, he benefitted from casts, from others? sketchbooks and from group study and discussion in order to fuse classical prototypes with firsthand observation. I hope that my study enhances recent scholarship that reframes Haarlem classicism as an innovative, richly theoretical and important style in the history of Dutch painting. While the classicists composed lists of rules and seemed to follow rigid compositional guidelines, they considered these precepts to be essential in elevating seventeenth-century Dutch history painting to the level of classical and Renaissance achievement. Therefore, De Grebber?s Regulen and the classicizing paintings that both inspired and resulted from the rules should be regarded as an effort to honor the patrons for whom the Haarlem classicists worked and to move Dutch art forward rather than backward. 6 Chapter One: Mercury, Minerva, Painting, and Poetry: Patriotic Iconography in the Regulen Pieter de Grebber?s Regulen functioned primarily as a brief summary of his art theory and as a teaching tool. Although it has yet to be examined or analyzed as such, the printed broadsheet is also a work of visual art in its own right (figure 1). De Grebber selected Pieter Casteleyn as his printer, and Pieter J. J. Van Thiel has suggested that the Regulen broadsheet served as Casteleyn?s ?masterprint? for entry into the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke.1 In fact, Casteleyn had previously trained as a painter, probably under the De Grebbers and Willem de Poorter. 2 This experience exposed him to the practical training and theoretical ideas upheld by the Haarlem classicists. At age twenty-seven, Casteleyn was documented as an apprentice to his father, printer Vincent Casteleyn, and he ultimately chose printing as a career.3 Casteleyn?s time in the De Grebber and De Poorter studios seems to have sparked his interest in classical mythology and iconography. E.K. Grootes has proposed that Casteleyn authored the anonymous Heydensche Afgoden in 1646, a catalogue of the attributes of the classical gods and the art and architecture of ancient Rome.4 In the dedication, the author extolled his ?masters,? Pieter de Grebber and Willem de Poorter, and hoped to satisfy their wish for a comprehensive description of Roman monuments written in Dutch.5 He anticipated that painters and poets alike would benefit from Heydensche Afgoden and would treat it as the authoritative Dutch mythological 1 Pieter J. J. Van Thiel, ?De Grebber?s Regels van de Kunst,?Oud Holland 80, no. 1-4 (1965): 126-131. 2 E.K. Grootes, ?Heydensche Afgoden, een Haarlems godencompendium uit 1646,? Oud Holland 102, no. 4 (1988): 178-80. 3 Grootes, 178-80. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 7 handbook.6 I believe that Grootes?s analysis of the dedication text and the stylistic and thematic similarities between the printed Regulen and Heydensche Afgoden support the attribution of the handbook to Casteleyn. Therefore we can assume that Casteleyn and De Grebber shared an interest in classical antiquity and art theory that was integral to Casteleyn?s design of the Regulen broadsheet. The decorative initial ?D,? an image with a sophisticated iconography, introduces the short set of rules as a serious intellectual endeavor that gives excellence in painting a patriotic thrust (fig. 6). On either side of the letter ?D? stand the figures of Mercury and Minerva, the former with his caduceus in hand and the latter brandishing her shield and accompanied by an owl. Joined together in this way, the god of the arts and commerce and the goddess of wisdom assert the status of painting as a liberal art. According to astrological beliefs dating to the medieval period, artists considered themselves the ?sons of Mercury.?7 Uniting the patron of the arts with the patroness of wisdom indicates that painting, like all liberal arts, requires high intellect and the social standing necessary for pursuing formal education. Renaissance scholars and artists followed the advice of Cicero, who recommended representing the gods in tandem in places devoted to learning.8 Examples of this iconography abound in Dutch art and art theory and undoubtedly influenced Casteleyn?s theoretical imagery in the initial D. 6 Grootes, Heydensche Afgoden, Beelden, Tempels en Offerhanden; Met De vremde Ceremonien near elcks Landts vvijse (Deventer: Sub Rosa, 1987), v. 7 Indeed, Karel van Mander reiterates this association, claiming that Mercury, both the planet and the Roman god, was guardian to painters, architects and sculptors. Ben Broos, ?Mercure, Minerve et Hercule,? in De Rembrandt A Vermeer: Mauritshuis de la Haye (The Hague: Fondation Johan Maurits van Nassau, 1986), 216. 8 Sixteenth-century Italian humanists, such as Marsilio Ficino and Vincenzo Cartari, followed this advice and such Italian examples influenced Peter Paul Rubens?s decision to incorporate the ?Hermathena? into the decoration of his home and library. See Jeffrey M. Muller, ?Context,? in Rubens: The Artist as Collector (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 26-27. 8 De Grebber?s training with Goltzius in the 1610s introduced him to Karel van Mander?s 1604 Het Schilder-boeck and his didactic poem, Den Grondt der Edel Vry Schilderconst. Van Mander forged lofty associations between contemporary painting and classical antiquity that Goltzius explored in the paintings he made during De Grebber?s apprenticeship. Van Mander?s and Goltzius?s shared art theory would, in turn, profoundly influence De Grebber throughout his painting career. Aspects of this theory can be detected in Goltzius?s companion pieces Mercury, Minerva and Hercules (1611-13). The subject matter of this series of life-sized paintings has a direct connection to the pictorial and thematic components of the letter ?D? that introduces De Grebber?s Regulen. Goltzius?s Mercury holds a palette and a caduceus-turned-maulstick (fig. 7). Following the iconographic guidelines Van Mander laid out in the Schilder-boeck, Goltzius included a rooster to symbolize Mercury?s patronage of commerce and also to advertise the painter?s vigilance toward success.9 A less common attribute is Goltzius?s inclusion of a haggard woman holding a chattering magpie. The pair symbolizes jealousy and gossip, the enemies of an intellectual approach to the arts. In Van Mander?s biography of Goltzius, gossip and jealousy repeatedly plague the protean engraver.10 Even more than does Mercury, Minerva champions the theoretical, academic approach to art that intrigued multiple generations of Haarlem painters (fig. 8).11 She wears a gold helmet, carries a sharp spear and sits near an owl, all of which stem from Van Mander?s description of these attributes as indicative of divine intelligence and knowledge. Behind Minerva lurk a satyr and Midas, representing stupidity and vice, another set of antitheses 9 Broos, 216. 10 Broos, 216, 218. 11 H. Perry Chapman, ?A Hollandse Pictura: Observations on the Title Page of Philips Angel?s ?Lof der schilder-konst,?? Simiolus 16, no. 4 (1986): 238. 9 of painting.12 The ?enemies of art? serve as foils to Mercury and Minerva, and emphasize the disparity between petty pursuits and the lofty academic approach to painting.13 Two years after completing Mercury and Minerva, Goltzius painted Hercules with a similar composition to form a sort of mythological triptych. Hercules stands in the same position as in Goltzius?s famous Great Hercules print from 1589, and behind him a lifeless Cacus represents evil defeated (fig. 9).14 Just as Midas, Jealousy and Gossip act as foils to Mercury and Minerva, or the intellectual pursuit of artistic excellence, so too does Cacus act as a foil to Hercules. This pairing strengthens the association between Hercules and Virtue. By adding this canvas to the grouping, Goltzius added virtue and moral uprightness to the qualities of a great painter.15 These ideas circulated in Goltzius?s studio during De Grebber?s apprenticeship, the exact dates of which are unknown but which certainly occurred in the 1610s. De Grebber may have then taught his own students, including Pieter Casteleyn, that the Roman gods symbolized an intellectual approach to painting. This iconography remained significant to the artists and thus would have been fitting for adorning Casteleyn?s initial at the beginning of De Grebber?s rules of art in 1649. The importance of Mercury and Minerva in asserting the status of the liberal arts is also evident in the sculptures Peter Paul Rubens placed over the architectural structure 12 Goltzius also intended to refer to the tale of the ?Calumny of Apelles,? a story recounted by Van Mander in which the incomparable painter of antiquity was slandered by another artist and faced punishment from the king, but achieved his revenge by depicting his enemies negatively in a painting. Broos, 218. 13 Perry Chapman connects this directly to Van Mander?s equation of Minerva with Painting herself, nourishing the painter and leading him to fame. See Chapman, 238. 14 Broos, 220. 15 Indeed, Van Thiel identified Hercules as a portrait of Johannes Colterman the Younger, a five-time burgomaster of Haarlem. Colterman?s father may have commissioned the mythological portrait in order to celebrate the family?s status as art lovers, and underscore his son?s ability to carry on the legacy of protector of the arts See Broos, 220; Van Thiel and De Bruyn Kops, 1984. 10 leading into the garden behind his home in Antwerp. One can only imagine Pieter de Grebber staring at these commanding figures in 1618 when he accompanied his father, Frans de Grebber, on his trip to Antwerp to facilitate the exchange of Sir Dudley Carleton?s collection of antique sculptures for a number of Rubens?s paintings.16 Mercury and Minerva designate the home of the artist as a locus of intellectual discussion about art and art theory.17 To emphasize Mercury?s importance among the arts, Rubens transformed Mercury?s caduceus into a maulstick.18 Goltzius?s and Rubens?s uses of this iconography would have reinforced for the young De Grebber the idea that by invoking the Roman gods, one gave an added authority to painters and painter-theorists.19 Casteleyn and De Grebber added a layer of meaning to the iconography of the initial D and communicated strong nationalistic sentiments by placing the caption ?Batavia? between the two gods. As the likely author of Heydensche Afgoden, Casteleyn 16 Irene van Thiel-Stroman, ?Frans Pietersz. de Grebber,? in Painting in Haarlem 1500-1850: The Collection of the Frans Hals Museum, ed. Neeltje K?hler, Koos Levy-van Halm, Epco Runia, and Pieter van Thiel (Ludion: Ghent, 2006), 163-164. 17 See note 8. 18 Rubens also placed a statue of Hercules in a position of honor in his garden, which symbolized ?triumphant virtue, labor, and active strength at rest and contemplative.? See Muller, 26-27, 31-32. 19 A 1620 painting by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Hieronymous Francken II depicting The Archdukes Albert and Isabella in a Collector?s Cabinet, now in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, reveals another aspect to this iconography. As in Goltzius?s companion pieces, Brueghel and Francken emphasize the disparity between an intellectual appreciation for the arts, symbolized by the presence of the Archduke and Archduchess, and an ignorant disregard for the arts, symbolized by the painting of apes smashing through another collector?s cabinet. The large painting above the sideboard reinforces this idea: Minerva and Fame rescue Painting, wearing a mask, from Ignorance, a figure with donkey ears. Brueghel and Francken doubly ennoble painting by associating it with intellect and fame, and by suggesting that informed patrons who create a favorable political climate for the arts to thrive are rewarded with complex and persuasive works of art created by painters as liberal artists. In addition to the iconography of the paintings-within- paintings, sculptures of Mercury and Minerva frame the doorway as well as a reclining river god sculpture, meant to personify the river Scheldt, the source of Antwerp?s commercial wealth. Thus the arts and commerce flourish under the correct political climate, and both are necessary to bring a city to its full potential. See Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. A Collector?s Cabinet (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1998), 16. 11 had previously described Mercury as the favorite god of the ancient Batavians, the virtuous, heroic forefathers of the Dutch who successfully revolted against the Romans.20 The Batavian myth loomed large in prints and literature during the war with Spain, as it provided a powerful metaphor for ?the righteousness of the Dutch cause [and] its successful outcome.?21 The ship above Mercury in the initial symbolizes modern Dutch commercial success, another of Mercury?s gifts to the descendants of the Batavians. With the ship, De Grebber and Casteleyn positioned the flourishing merchant economy in the Netherlands parallel to its artistic development.22 Indeed, the artists seem to respond directly to Van Mander?s 1604 declaration that ?since Pictura is now favorable toward Batavia as formerly toward Sycion, Nature has come to the harbor of Haarlem and poured out the cornucopia of her gifts in the lap of two who live there,? referring primarily to Goltzius.23 The cherub with two trumpets above the ?D,? and the zodiacal globe below it, personify Fame as described in the 1644 Dutch edition of Cesare Ripa?s Iconologia.24 Van Mander had encouraged painters to follow the lead of wise Minerva, who nourishes the painter, up the ?Mountain of Virtue to the Temple of Eternal Fame.?25 Likewise, Goltzius?s painting series had suggested that Minerva, or intellect, would lead Painting 20 Grootes 1987, 33; Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall 1477- 1806. Oxford History of Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 57. 21 Chapman, ?Propagandist Prints, Reaffirming Paintings: Art and Community during the Twelve Years? Truce,? The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, edited by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr. and Adele Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), 45. 22 Just as Brueghel and Francken had positioned Mercury and Minerva on either side of the River Scheldt to unite artistic and economic success for the city, De Grebber and Casteleyn frame ?Batavia? with the gods to assert that Dutch trade and artistic development were sanctioned by the gods. 23 Van Mander, The Foundation of the Noble Free Art of Painting, ed. and trans. Elizabeth Honig et al. (New Haven, 1984), 49. 24 Dirck Pietersz. Pers, Iconologia, of, Uytbeeldingen des Verstands, van Cesare Ripa de Perugien?(Amsterdam: D.P. Pers, 1644), 442. 25 Van Mander/Miedema, 1:86-87. 12 away from ignorance, and that Hercules, as protector of the arts, embodies virtue.26 Fame awaited painters who adopted an intellectual, theoretical approach and used their art to celebrate their homeland. By adopting iconography in keeping with this tradition, the initial D announces that perfecting the liberal art of painting would bring fame to the Dutch painter and exalt the Dutch Republic. Mercury and Minerva, accompanied by the personifications for Painting and Poetry, also grace the title page of the 1644 Dutch edition of Iconologia, accompanied by the personifications for Painting and Poetry (fig. 10). 27 During the Renaissance and Baroque periods, artists and art theorists considered painting and poetry to be ?sister arts,? and thus, to be equally respectable and related pursuits.28 This thought developed from a misinterpretation of Horace?s oft-quoted ut pictura, poesis. As Rensselaer W. Lee has shown, Horace actually compared the ?sister arts? to argue that both modes of expression require ?flexibility in critical judgment.?29 Painters and poets delight the eye and ear with attention to minute details, but they also spur the imagination with a ?broad, impressionistic style? best received at a distance.30 Renaissance humanists like Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo reinterpreted Horace?s phrase and equated painting and poetry. This equation elevated the painter?s social status and introduced the attractive caveat that 26 Brueghel and Francken also suggest as much: in the large painting hung on the back wall of their fictional collector?s cabinet, Minerva rescues the painter from donkey-eared Ignorance, and the Archdukes stand as a foil to the idiotic, iconoclastic monkeys depicted in another painting. 27 See Jeffrey M. Muller, ?Context,? in Rubens: The Artist as Collector (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 26-27; Pers 1644. 28 Rensselaer W. Lee, ?Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,? . Lee quotes Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo?s Trattato dell?arte della pittura, scoltura, et architettura, Milan, 1585, which notes that painting and poetry ?arrived at a single birth,? being identical in nature, content and purpose and different only in ?manner of expression.? 29 Lee, 199. 30 Ibid. 13 painting could equal or even surpass poetry?s expressive faculty.31 Therefore the placement of Mercury and Minerva alongside personifications of the ?sister arts? on Ripa?s title page suggests that painting is a liberal art with ancient origins, sanctified by the gods and just as impressive and meritorious as poetry, a liberal art requiring the utmost intelligence. Directly influential for De Grebber and Casteleyn in conceiving the initial was the 1642 publication of Philips Angel?s Lof der Schilderkonst. Angel went further than the Renaissance equation of painting and poetry, maintaining that painters communicate more purely and honestly than poets. He writes that poetry may be considered ?a speaking painting,? but this is worth nothing if a work is not read attentively, distinguishing between what must be read as moving, powerful, charming or manly, which grace depends on what the reader makes of it. This is not so with painting, for our sight distinguishes the impulses immediately our eye falls upon a painting in the form that the painter wishes it to be displayed, for it is not bound to the user?s will. So in this respect painting excels poetry.32 Along with this claim, Angel?s publication also elaborated on the iconography of Mercury, Minerva and the Art of Painting. The anonymous designer of Angel?s title page represented Minerva as Hollandse Pictura, a patriotic allegory of painting holding a perspective diagram (fig. 11).33 Minerva and the personifications of Painting and Perspective were not only linked closely at mid-century, but Angel and De Grebber and Casteleyn also appropriated them for nationalistic purposes. The Hollandse Pictura, and 31 Lee, 6, 25. 32 Philips Angel, ?Praise of Painting,? ed. Michael Hoyle and Hessel Miedema, in Simiolus 24, no. 2/3, Ten Essays for a Friend: E. de Jongh 65 (1996): 239; Caroline van Eck, Classical Rhetoric and the Visual Arts in Early Modern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 20. Van Eck cites Leonardo?s Trattato della Pittura as the origin of this belief. 33 Chapman, 233, 236. 14 in particular the perspectival diagram, derives from the image of Minerva as Painting on Isaeck van Aelst?s title page for Samuel Marolois?s influential 1637 edition of La Perspective.34 Angel mentions Marolois, along with Euclid, Vitruvius, Giacomo da Vignola, Sebastiano Serlio, ?and a hundred others? whose writings on mathematics and perspective were required reading for painters.35 It is clear, given the popularity of Marolois and the strikingly similar language on perspective in Angel?s and De Grebber?s guidelines, that Dutch painters at mid-century considered correct perspective to be one of the painter?s most crucial skills.36 Linear perspective helps the painter to communicate his message clearly and incorporates the viewer into the pictorial space so that the image makes as powerful an impact as possible. Paintings, and particularly mural paintings, that abide by the tenets of linear perspective are especially convincing. De Grebber?s first rule emphasizes the persuasive character of images with carefully constructed perspective designed for a specific location. It states: ?It is necessary, for various reasons, to know the place where the work is to hang, because of the light, the height of [the work?s] position, and in order to take distance and to determine the horizon, to which end all composers must be well 34 Ibid. 35 Angel, 242. 36 Hessel Miedema, ?Karel van Mander: Did He Write Art Literature?? Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 22, no. ? (1993-1994), 59. Miedema has claimed that Van Mander focused on elevating the painter?s social status rather than on supporting the Italian Renaissance assertion that correct perspective made painting into a science. Yet De Grebber associated Van Mander?s individual compositional rules with the larger and broader interest in linear perspective in painting, as he began his own set of rules with perspective and moved on to more specific guidelines derived from his predecessor. 15 versed in the rules of perspective.? This rule speaks directly to the requirements for large- scale images.37 It is no coincidence that De Grebber published these rules at the very moment he was executing his works for the Oranjezaal. Jacob van Campen?s guidelines for the group of Dutch and Flemish painters similarly demanded correct linear perspective and awareness of the size, shape, ultimate position and natural lighting of each canvas so that the room would appear ?as though it had been done by just one master.?38 De Grebber likely absorbed Van Campen?s rules into his own, and drew inspiration from the painter- architect?s theoretical framework. Van Campen believed that mathematics, perfect proportion, and the ?aesthetic and allegorical unity? of the complete program of architecture, painting and sculpture, would achieve ?universal beauty.?39 Only with a unified approach to geometry and perspective could this group of artists plausibly transform the central cruciform space in the Huis ten Bosch into a consistent frieze 37 One important precedent for De Grebber?s rule is Jan Vredeman de Vries? Perspective, published in 1604 in The Hague and in Leiden by Henricus Hondius. De Vries drew 73 perspectival drawings with various horizon lines and vanishing points, all of which are based on the viewer?s eye level. His drawings primarily require the viewer to look up into an interior space constructed in the classical architectural orders. See Jan Vredeman de Vries, Perspective, edited and with an introduction by Adolf K. Placzek (New York: Dover Publications, 1968). 38 While Van Campen?s original instructions and example drawings are no longer extant, Huygens notes in his diary that Jacob Jordaens was headstrong and found Van Campen?s specific subject matter and compositional guidelines too limiting. Huygens clearly disagreed and felt it necessary for the group of painters to work under a set of clearly delineated parameters. Jan van Dyk, the eighteenth-century restorer of the Oranjezaal, commented on the remarkable unity among the paintings despite the number of artists involved. Margriet van Eikema Hommes notes that today, one would hardly consider the paintings indistinguishable by creator, but it seems that early visitors to the room at least perceived an unusual level of cohesion among them. See R.-A. d?Hulst, Jacob Jordaens, translated by P.S. Falla. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982: 315; Margriet van Eikema Hommes, ??As though it had been done by just one master?: Unity and Diversity in the Oranjezaal, Huis ten Bosch,? in Boschloo et al., eds., Aemulatio: Imitation, Emulation and Invention in Netherlandish Art from 1500 to 1800, Essays in honor of Eric Jan Sluijter (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2011), 289; Paul Huys Janssen, Caesar van Everdingen: 1616/17-1678, translated by Diane L. Webb (Doornspijk: Davacao, 2000), 42. 39 Gary Schwartz, ?Summaries,? in Huisken, et al., Jacob van Campen: Het Klassieke Ideaal in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura Pers, 1995), 284-5. 16 evoking a triumphal procession that would celebrate Frederik Hendrik?s achievements. With consideration of each painting?s location and the requisite adjustments to perspective, the Oranjezaal painters surrounded visitors with Frederick Hendrik?s virtues and triumphs. The Oranjezaal was certainly not the first large-scale commission that required De Grebber to work within an established framework and to communicate a specific message. The artist had made a name for himself in 1628 by taking over his father?s commissions for the Old Men?s Almshouse in Haarlem, for which he painted the Acts of Mercy and Jacob, Rachel and Leah (figs. 2, 12). It seems that the elder De Grebber perceived his son to be capable of working independently, having worked in his workshop for a decade after training with Goltzius.40 Pieter monogrammed and dated both works for the Almshouse, thereby designating himself as the primary painter.41 The direct gaze of Pieter?s self-portrait in the upper left corner of the Acts of Mercy reinforces his status as a new force to be reckoned with in Haarlem history painting.42 The Almshouse commissions contributed to Pieter?s budding reputation as someone who could bring ?new life to the classicizing style? of his predecessors Van Mander, Goltzius and Van Haarlem.43 In the same year, 1628, Pieter received the prestigious commission for a mantelpiece and a tapestry design for the Council Chamber in the Haarlem Town Hall. He commemorated special privileges bestowed upon 40 Pieter had not yet joined the Guild of St. Luke, but this may have been due to Frans?s unpopularity as dean and recurring disputes with other guild leaders, or because Frans found it advantageous to his own workshop to keep Pieter employed there. 41 Welu et al., 220. 42 Pieter Biesboer, Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745, ed. Carol Togneri. Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Institute, 2001), 24-5. 43 Biesboer, 24-5. 17 medieval Haarlemmers for their bravery in the Crusades: a painting of The Conferring of the Sword on the Coat of Arms of Haarlem, and a design for a tapestry of The Conferring of the Cross on the Coat of Arms of Haarlem, both completed in 1630 (fig. 3). Pieter had established himself as an artist keenly aware of how to pay tribute to his home city through painting. The Town Hall commission demonstrates that from the beginning of his career, De Grebber prioritized the correct and legible communication of the narrative of each of his compositions. Twenty years later, the second rule of his Regulen urged painters to ?read the Histories carefully, certainly if they are biblical or true histories, in order to render their meaning as precisely as possible.? Van Mander and Philips Angel had likewise stressed the value of obeying one?s literary source.44 History painters were expected to use their intellect to apprehend the essential components of a History and convey them to their audience. Viewing a well-executed painting was equivalent to, or even more compelling than, reading the corresponding text.45 Nevertheless, Van Mander had also encouraged painters to use their imagination to demonstrate their capabilities as fine artists as well as poets, rather than remaining ?like Andromeda bound to the rock? of the extant text.46 By recommending that the painter both absorb the story and improve upon its original telling, these authors championed painting as the most truthful and expressive of the arts. Although not expressly stated in his rules, De Grebber?s advice on the primacy of the narrative in history painting was also imperative to fulfilling patrons? wishes concerning the intended message of an image, particularly if it had patriotic or political 44 Angel, 245; Van Mander/Honig, 30. 45 See Angel?s discussion on poetry and painting, quoted above. Angel, 239. 46 Van Mander/Honig, 30. 18 undertones. For example, De Grebber and the members of the Town Council would have considered the conferring of the cross and sword on the city?s coat of arms a ?true history.? Before designing the tapestry or painting for the Council Chamber, the artist would have consulted Johannes van Leiden?s 1504 Annales Rerum Belgicarum, the original record of the story. He would also have referred to a 1595 laudatory poem by Van Mander and the 1628 edition of Samuel Ampzing?s Beschryvinge ende Lof der Stad Haerlem in Holland.47 De Grebber?s rules focus almost exclusively on the arrangement of figures and the relationships between individual characters in conceiving the narrative of a history painting. His third rule requires the artist to place the principal elements in the story in the front. The fourth rule discourages one from cropping figures and instead counsels the painter to ?intersperse some figures that bend forwards, or children or women who are somewhat smaller.? The seventh rule advises artists to bring the figures to life through interaction with one another rather than by treating them as separate entities. His eighth rule obliges the painter to delineate clearly which body part belongs to whom. Individually, these rules seem self-evident, but considered in the context of major commissions for politically influential patrons, seamless arrangement of figures is absolutely essential for the painter to convey a propagandistic message. 47 Johannes a Leydis provided the authoritative version of the story, although historians no longer believe it to be accurate. He wrote that during the third crusade, at the siege of Damiate in Egypt, William I of Holland supplied a fleet manned by Haarlemmers who succeeded in breaking through the iron chain stretched across the Nile. For their bravery, King Frederick I Barbarossa of Germany awarded the Haarlemmers with the silver sword for the city?s coat of arms, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem gave them the right to adopt the Holy Cross. See Peter C. Sutton, ?Pieter de Grebber,? in Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth-Century Painting (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2000), 120. 19 De Grebber borrowed heavily from Van Mander?s theoretical framework as well as from his specific recommendations for ?ordinanty,? or composition. Indeed, Van Mander had also decreed that ?the important figures should stand out,? that ?one must not intertwine arms and legs,? and that ?the figures ought to be differing in their placement, stance, activity.?48 As would be expected from De Grebber, writing in 1649, the Regulen are free of the mannerist preference for ?adding details spiritedly? and reveling in ?abundance or copiousness,? which lead to crowded compositions.49 Orderly and clear arrangement of figures defined the classicizing style that De Grebber and his contemporaries touted.50 Goltzius had begun to turn away from mannerism in the 1610s with his classicizing focus on a few large-scale figures. Van Mander described this alternative approach as ?creat[ing] delight in sobriety, with few details,? noting that only ?good masters? should attempt it.51 De Grebber?s rules therefore reiterate his predecessor?s interest in detailed guidelines, as well as reflect the mid-century sentiment that classicizing clarity, focus, scale and proportion would effectively communicate the essence of ?the Histories.?52 48 Van Mander/ Honig, verses 36, 39, 8. 49 Van Mander/Honig, verses 8, 27. 50 Janssen mentions a few instances of ?cropping? and ?jumbled limbs? in Caesar van Everdingen?s work from the late 1640s and early 1650s, and posits that De Grebber may have wanted to discourage young painters from following his colleague?s example in that regard. See Janssen, 43. 51 Van Mander/Honig, verse 27. 52 Leon Battista Alberti?s historic 1435 treatise, De pictura, mentions linear perspective and interactions between figures as the central components of a ?historia.? Accurate proportions and realistic figural groupings cause the viewer to feel empathy for the story depicted, and thus to feel more moved by a painting than they would by a poem or written account of the same story. Given the ubiquity of Alberti?s work and its influence within and outside of Italy in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Van Mander probably understood the utility of rules governing measurement, perspective and body positions in making the case for the superiority of painting over poetry. Therefore De Grebber would also have inherited this belief, and his rules can be read as a continuation of the argument for the superiority of painting, even if they do not make explicit the 20 De Grebber?s paintings in the Oranjezaal offer an illustrative example of his conformity to compositional guidelines and the resulting potency of the images. While many of the paintings there loosely refer to and embellish ?true histories? from Frederik Hendrik?s life, De Grebber?s three large paintings, Allegory of the Arts and Sciences Under Frederik Hendrik, Triumphal Arch with Bearers of the Spoils of War, and Triumphal Arch with Statue of Jupiter, do not feature the late Stadholder at all. Adherence to the established program was crucial. Constantijn Huygens and Jacob van Campen fabricated a ?rigorous symbolic system? of themes for the wall and ceiling paintings.53 Together, Frederik Hendrik?s former secretary and the painter-architect wove a story that begins with the gods paving the way for Frederik Hendrik to usher in the golden age, and ends with his triumphal procession.54 The procession, which includes two of De Grebber?s works, spans nine canvases, and derives from classical rhetoric for funerals and eulogies. Typically comprised of mourning, consolation and praise, the painted adaptation to the funeral rhetoric in the Oranjezaal heavily emphasizes consolation and praise.55 Accordingly, while De Grebber?s Triumphal Arch with Bearers of the Spoils of War and Triumphal Arch with Statue of Jupiter do not refer to a specific episode from classical mythology, they do include all essential elements from the triumphal processions of classical antiquity (fig. 13).56 De Grebber included musicians, spoils of war, trophies, sacrificial animals, virgins, comparison between the ?sister arts.? See Norman E. Land, The Viewer as Poet: The Renaissance Response to Art (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 11-12. 53 Marten Loonstra, Het Huijs int Bosch: het Koninklijk Paleis Huis ten bosch historisch gezien, translated by Rollin Cochrane (Amsterdam: Uniepers BV, 1985), 29. 54 Loonstra, 29. 55 Ibid., 31. 56 Ibid. 21 bare-chested men, and ?exotic articles.?57 Marten Loonstra describes the latter as a seventeenth-century addition, chosen to link Frederik Hendrik to the introduction of foreign goods via the contemporary Dutch merchant economy.58 Apart from closely following Huygens and Van Campen?s iconographic guidelines to satisfy Amalia van Solms?s wishes, De Grebber followed perspective rules in creating Triumphal Arch with Bearers of the Spoils of War. He included the viewer in the pictorial space of the triumphal arch by adapting the perspective of the receding trompe-l?oeil architectural elements to the position of the canvas just above ground level. He also treated the figural group as a unit made up of people in natural poses engaged in realistic activities, each one believably glancing and gesturing toward another. De Grebber?s large semicircular ceiling painting in the Oranjezaal, Triumph of the Arts and Sciences Under Frederik Hendrik, accords with the iconography of Mercury and the arts in the 1644 Dutch edition of Ripa?s Iconologia (fig. 14). Mercury presides over nude women personifying Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture, each with an example of their respective type of artwork, as well as Abundance, with a floral crown and an overflowing cornucopia of fruits and vegetables. De Grebber foreshortened the figures in the clouds so that a viewer from ground level could see the panel as a window onto the actual heavens. Hanna Peter-Raupp deemed it unusual that Sculpture, Architecture and Painting should reach their arms toward one another in friendship, yet their poses fit with De Grebber?s recommendation to bring figures to life through interaction.59 The allegory 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid. 59 Hanna Peter-Raupp, Die Ikonographie des Oranjezaal, Studien zur Kunstgeschichte 11, (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1980), 92. 22 suggests that Frederik Hendrik and his golden age of prosperity and intellectual growth supported Dutch artists in attaining classical perfection in all of the arts. De Grebber?s precepts for history painting codified the rich theoretical tradition that had guided his entire career. He likely taught his pupils that working within an established framework would help the history painter properly do justice to his subject matter and honor his patron. In devising the rules, De Grebber looked to recent native publications celebrating the Dutch history painter as well as to the ancient tradition of invoking the gods to ennoble the painter. De Grebber?s Regulen therefore functioned as both practical advice and as a patriotic tribute to his profession and nation. 23 Chapter Two: Unifying the Arts Under Universal Rules Salomon de Bray, Pieter de Grebber and other ?Haarlem classicists? did not always exhibit a cohesive or even classical style.1 They nonetheless shared an interest in art theory and in discovering the foundational guidelines of truly great painting. E. Taverne has proposed that, owing to the Haarlem classicists? interest in structured rules and the superiority of painting over other crafts, their approach should be known instead as ?Haarlem academicism.?2 Although little is known about De Grebber?s studio practices, the Regulen suggest that De Grebber and his cohort of Haarlem history painters adopted traditional academic modes of thinking without establishing an official academy. The artists believed rules and guidelines would guide them in recreating classical art. The Haarlem mid-century painters also considered all of the visual and plastic arts to be inextricably linked to architecture and music. De Grebber?s list of essential tenets comes out of a tradition that sought to uncover the perfect beauty unique to history painting and to unite all of the arts. Printed in 1649, the Regulen reflect the parallel developments of classicizing painters and architects in Haarlem and The Hague in previous decades as well as a blossoming of classicism after the Treaty of M?nster in 1648. The Haarlem Guild of St. Luke underwent a major overhaul in the early 1630s, shortly before De Grebber became a member in 1632. Prior to this change in structure, 1 Friso Lammertse, ?Salomon de Bray: Painter, architect and theorist,? in Painting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of Seventeenth Century Holland, edited by Pieter Biesboer. (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2008), 15, 134n22. 2 E. Taverne, ?Salomon de Bray and the Reorganization of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1631,? Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art 6, no. 1 (1972-1973): 66. 24 the membership of the guild, as Gary Schwartz has noted, had been ?unusually comprehensive.?3 The 1590 guild charter lists its constituents: painters, illuminators, upholsterers, ceramicists working with or decorating in paint, engravers, sculptors, printers, gold- and silversmiths, glaziers, embroiderers, coppersmiths, braziers, pewterers and all others who work in or sell lead and copper, as well as all those who solder with iron or torch, such as organ-builders, slaters, lantern-makers, and also those in the second-hand trade.4 The guild had also regulated public auctions and sales, fees for apprentices and supplies, and members? funerals.5 The Haarlem guild reform belongs to a broader trend of guild reforms after the end of the Twelve Years? Truce in 1621. Throughout the Dutch Republic, these reforms established hierarchies of professions and enforced market regulations in an attempt to protect native Dutch painters from competition with inexpensive imported Flemish paintings.6 Beyond such concerns, Salomon de Bray?s language in the new guild charter of 1631 specifically reflects the grand ambitions he and his colleagues had for painting in Haarlem. Salomon de Bray (1597-1664) probably began his training in Amsterdam and finished in Haarlem with Hendrick Goltzius, likely at the same time as Pieter de Grebber. He primarily painted relatively small history pieces and portraits and also took part in the 3 Gary Schwartz and Marten Jan Bok, Pieter Saenredam: The Painter and His Time (The Hague: SDU Publishers, 1990), 101. 4 Haarlem Guild charter of 1590, translated by Hessel Miedema 1980, quoted in Schwartz and Bok, 101. 5 Pieter?s father, Frans de Grebber, served in some official capacity as early as 1600, and did so continuously through 1630. It seems that the reform process, initiated in 1630, was intended not only to uphold the academic approach to history painting but also to curb the elder De Grebber?s abuse of the rules governing public sales and apprentice fees. Schwartz comments, ?To have Frans de Grebber in charge of the painters? guild was like having the largest rancher in a Western town as sheriff.? Schwartz and Bok, 101-102. 6 Eric Jan Sluijter, ?On Brabant Rubbish, Economic Competition, Artistic Rivalry, and the Growth of the Market for Paintings in the First Decades of the Seventeenth Century.? Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 1, no. 2 (2010), 3-4. 25 decoration of the Oranjezaal between 1648 and 1650.7 De Bray was a Catholic, like De Grebber, and demonstrated an interest in poetry, literature and art theory.8 Important for De Bray?s work on the guild reorganization and for the defining qualities of Haarlem classicism is the fact that he considered himself equally a painter and architect. Ratified shortly after De Grebber?s admission to the Haarlem Guild, De Bray?s new charter proclaims, ?our first and greatest concern is the renewal of the ancient luster of the art of painting, which was always held in the highest esteem by the olden kings and princes.?9 This statement positions painters as the leaders and spokesmen of the entire guild. De Bray also suggests that it is both possible and beneficial to seventeenth century Dutch painters to discover the fundamental practices and modes of thinking consistent with the artists of classical antiquity. Further, De Bray intimates that ?olden kings and princes? regarded painting with more respect than did political leaders of the modern age. For De Bray, restoring the ?ancient luster? of painting meant elevating the modern painter?s position in society. Guild reform was intimately connected to the goal of improving the painter?s working conditions, level of training, and social status. De Bray?s detailed ranking system for professions within the guild certainly corroborates his claim about the superiority of painting among the arts. A set of coats of arms of each of the guild professions from 1635, designed by De Bray and realized by Pieter Saenredam and Frans de Hulst, illustrates the new hierarchy, in which painters topped the ?upper division,? representing the arts, and were followed by engravers, glass- painters, sculptors, practitioners of ?various arts,? including architects and 7 Lammertse, ?Salomon de Braij,? in Dutch Classicism in Seventeenth Century Painting, ed. Albert Blankert et al., (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2000), 84. 8 Lammertse, in Biesboer 2008, 10-11. 9 Salomon de Bray, ?Register van Wapens der onderafdelingen van het gilde,? Haarlem Municipal Archives, guild archive nr. 149. Quoted in Taverne, 52. 26 mathematicians, and ?those dependent on or associated with the arts,? including art dealers and financiers (fig. 15). 10 The ?lower division,? representing crafts, included goldsmiths, embroiderers, coppersmiths, tinsmiths and plumbers, glassblowers, bookbinders, and dealers in second-hand goods.11 In the mid-1630s, the goldsmiths revolted against the new hierarchy that placed craftsmen in a lower register than their painter colleagues. Tension mounted between painters and craftsmen so that some specialties sought permission to withdraw from the guild altogether.12 The guild leadership, however, generally refused these requests. It may be that painters in leadership positions strove to keep the guild intact because the hierarchy and distinction between arts and crafts maintained the status of painters as liberal artists and also brought the Haarlem guild closer to a true academy of arts. Taverne describes the Haarlem guild as ?unique? in the Northern Netherlands because architects and mathematicians had a place in the upper register, under ?various arts.?13 Architecture was both an art and a science: Dutch architects in the 1630s frequently designed interiors and made sketches for paintings, and architecture required knowledge of mathematics and engineering.14 Placing architecture in the same register, and even a few places below painting in the guild hierarchy, pointed up the similarities and connections between the two professions. Chief among these for classicizing painters like De Bray was a firm grasp of the rules of perspective and proportion, such as 10 See catalogue nos. 209a-d in Schwartz and Bok, 297; Hessel Miedema, De Archiefbescheiden van het St. Lukasgilde te Haarlem (Alphen: Canaletto, 1980), 94. 11 Along with De Bray, the group of reformers included painters like Pieter Soutman, Pieter Molijn and Willem Claesz. Heda, as well as a few goldsmiths including Pieter Jansz. Begijn, son- in-law of Cornelisz. van Haarlem. Schwartz and Bok, 102, 297. 12 Ibid, 171. 13 Taverne 1972-3, 53. 14 Konrad Ottenheym, ?The Painters cum Architects of Dutch Classicism,? in Blankert et al., 39-40. 27 discussed in De Grebber?s first rule. Connecting painting to architecture by the shared requirement of mathematical ability also solidified painting?s status as a liberal art.15 Although the guild charter does not distinguish between specialties within painting, given De Bray?s oeuvre and his language in the introduction to the charter, we can assume he equated painting with history painting. De Bray?s reference to the achievements of classical antiquity is most applicable to painters like himself and De Grebber who depicted historical, mythological, and Biblical subject matter. Likewise, De Bray?s insinuation about the potential to improve the relationship between painters and important patrons would have primarily benefitted history painters working on large- scale commissions with iconographical programs. Additionally, Taverne suggests that engravers ranked just below painters in the guild hierarchy because of their ability to invent mythological and biblical themes.16 This bias toward historical subjects had nationalistic undertones as well: Eric Jan Sluijter has shown that in the years surrounding the Haarlem guild reform, indigenous Dutch painters dominated the market for history pieces and portraits while immigrants from the south worked primarily in specialties like landscape and still-life.17 It is also significant that De Bray considered art dealers and patrons more important than craftsmen: as painters of mythological and Biblical subjects, De Bray and his colleagues depended on wealthy and powerful liefhebbers to fund history painting in Haarlem. This bias toward history painters does not mean, however, that ?master painters? in other genres did not gain admission to the guild or hold positions of power within it. In fact, landscape painter Pieter Molijn, genre painter Hendrick Pot, and still-life painter 15 See discussion of intellect in painting and use of linear perspective in chapter one. 16 Taverne 1972-3, 52-3 17 Sluijter, 3. 28 Willem Claesz. Heda signed the original charter presented to the city fathers in 1631.18 Likewise, Pieter Saenredam, painter of church interiors, served as secretary of the guild immediately after the reform took effect in 1633 and portraitist Frans Hals was elected dean in 1644.19 Yet De Bray?s role as drafter of the reformed Guild charter sheds light on the theoretical ideals of the Haarlem classicists and reveals that this mode of thinking was much more prevalent and influential in Haarlem in the 1630s than is generally assumed. De Bray considered himself to be a painter-architect, and in the same year as he began the new charter, 1631, he also composed an introduction to the architectural treatise, Architectura Moderna, ofte Bowinge van Onsen Tyt (fig. 16). Taverne frames the text as De Bray?s theory of architecture, comparing it in this regard to Andrea Palladio?s and Sebastiano Serlio?s classically inspired treatises that were popular throughout Europe. De Bray wanted above all to promote the adoption of the ?new,? classically- inspired architecture influenced by Vitruvius, which he perceived as easily adaptable to Dutch climate, lifestyle and tradition.20 De Bray expands on his Italian predecessors? ideas and makes a ?plea for architecture as ?Konstige Bowinge,? i.e. construction based in mathematical regularity.?21 Mathematical regularity would also be important for Philips Angel and Pieter de Grebber, both of whom recommended that painters study closely the rules of perspective. Associating painting and architecture with mathematics and science positioned the two arts in dialogue with one another and elevated both above crafts that did not require such calculation. 18 Miedema 1980, 135. 19 Schwartz and Bok 104, 172. 20 Taverne, ?Introduction,? in Salomon de Bray, Architectura Moderna ofte Bowinge van Onsen Tyt, (Soest: Davaco, 1971), i-ii. 21 Taverne 1971, 1. 29 De Bray illustrated his ideas with the work of the Amsterdam architect and sculptor Hendrick de Keyser, who had died ten years prior to the publication of Architectura Moderna.22 De Keyser embodied a turning point in Dutch architecture: he initiated the return to proper classical proportions and scale that De Bray subsequently urged his contemporaries to exhibit in their own work.23 De Bray?s introduction is an early manifesto of classicism in Holland. He establishes the classical ?true principles? as antithetical to the ?barbaric? buildings of the ?Goths and Vandals.?24 De Bray felt a good architect would not deviate from or modify the correct proportions and classical orders.25 Though he disapproved of modern innovation in architecture, De Bray saw classicism as both a renewal of antiquity and a forward-thinking style suited to the needs and tastes of contemporary Dutch people. De Bray valued sobriety and refined symmetry in architecture, believing that in closely following established prescriptions, ?we may hope to elevate Architecture?to her former heights.?26 This language relates closely to his wish in the guild charter for the ?renewal of the ancient luster of the art of painting, which was always held in the highest esteem by the olden kings and princes.?27 De Bray?s simultaneous work on the guild 22 Ottenheym, ?Architectura Moderna: The Systemization of Architectural Ornament Around 1600,? in Unity and Discontinuity: Architectural Relationships Between the Southern and Northern Low Countries 1530-1700, edited by Krista de Jonge and Konrad Ottenheym (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 112. 23 Ottenheym 2007, 112. 24 De Bray, quoted in Ottenheym 2007, 112. 25 However, the author of the captions accompanying the illustrations of De Keyser?s buildings, probably Cornelis Danckertsz., demonstrated his preference for the style of the previous generation by praising De Keyser?s originality in ornament. This discrepancy is indicative of the distinction between ?classical? and ?modern Dutch? in architecture as well as in painting, which, as Konrad Ottenheym points out, took root with Van Mander at the turn of the seventeenth century and would become important in the following decades. See Ottenheym 2007, 112, 137. 26 De Bray, quoted in Taverne 1971, 8. 27 Salomon de Bray, ?Register van Wapens der onderafdelingen van het gilde,? Haarlem Municipal Archives, guild archive nr. 149. Quoted in Taverne, 52. 30 charter and on his introductory remarks for the architectural treatise reveals that mid- century classicists applied the same principles to painting and architecture. De Bray and De Grebber viewed obedience to guidelines, carefully measured proportion and perspective, hierarchies, compositional formulae and unadulterated classical orders as essential to recreating the aesthetic of classical antiquity. The artists used antiquity as a medium through which to further develop Holland?s artistic legacy, and considered classicism a step forward rather than a leap backwards. In the Hague, Constantijn Huygens, secretary to Frederik Hendrik, was instrumental in establishing classicism as the determining style of architecture and painting in the residences of Holland?s nobility. Huygens?s study of Vitruvius and firsthand knowledge of the work of Italian classicizing architects Vincenzo Scamozzi and Andrea Palladio resulted in his endorsement of a ?severe? brand of classicism.28 He believed that the mathematical foundation of classical architecture should underpin all arts and sciences. That is to say, the ratio, or reason, governing the harmony found in all of God?s creation could be discovered and applied with equal success in painting, sculpture, and music as well.29 Following sixteenth century Italian humanists, namely Scamozzi, Huygens composed music with a mind to universal laws of beauty that obtained regardless of the composer?s or listener?s personal preferences.30 Like his Italian predecessors, Huygens maintained that the Greeks and Romans had made as much progress as would ever be made in determining the rules of arts and sciences.31 28 Ottenheym 2007, 142-3; J.A. Worp, De Briefwisseling van Constantijn Huygens, vol. 2 (?s- Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1913), 1046. 29 Ottenheym 2007, 144; Worp Briefwisseling 2, 1088. 30 Ottenheym 2007, 144. 31 Ibid., 145. 31 Huygens married this philosophy with patriotism and patronized Dutch painter- architect Jacob van Campen for his perceived ability to ?purify his century? of the excessively ornamental and irrational architecture of the Northern Netherlands of the past.32 After designing a group of private homes for wealthy families in the mid-1620s with Ionic pilasters and proportions that earned him mention in Architectura Moderna, Van Campen popularized his classicizing style in The Hague.33 He and Pieter Post took part in the construction of Huygens?s home there, designed in perfect symmetry and as an embodiment of the ?three main Vitruvian virtues,? strength, convenience, and beauty (fig. 17).34 Huygens distributed prints of the plan of his house in hopes that others would follow his example and embrace classical orders and regular proportions as the tenets of the new Dutch style in architecture.35 Huygens?s correspondence with Peter Paul Rubens between 1635 and 1639 concerning the design of his home illustrates the differences between the Dutch and Flemish interpretations to Vitruvius and classical perfection in architecture. Although the two men agreed on the importance of symmetry and the depravity of Gothic architecture, they disagreed on the extent to which an architect or theorist should follow stringent rules literally in the decoration of the facade.36 In both the Northern and Southern Netherlands, 32 Ibid., Worp, De Gedichten van Constantijn Huygens, vol. 3 (Groningen: J.P. Wolters, 1892- 99), 287-288. 33 Ottenheym 2007, 140. 34 Huygens writes: ??t Huijs moet Gemackelijck, Sterck en Aensienlyck wesen.? Ottenheym 2007, 145. Worp, Gedichten, vol. 8, 143. 35 Ottenheym 2007, 146. 36 Huygens pointed out aspects of the plan that he felt Rubens would appreciate: ?C'est ce qui me porta ? cette ?galit? reguliere de part et d'autre, que vous trouverez en ces departemens, que vous s?avez avoir tant pleu aux anciens, et que les bons Italiens d'aujourd'huy recerchent encor aveq tant de soin, distribuant les quartiers des deux chefs de ma famille en deux sales, deux chambres, deux garderobes, deux cabinets et autant de galeries?? He also asserted the importance of the plans for his legacy: ?Mon dessein estoit d'adjouster ? ces imprimez--dont je garde les planches ? moy seul--une sorte de dissertation latine ? mes enfants, par ou, apres moy, 32 Vitruvius set the standard of architecture in the mid-seventeenth century, but the exchange between Huygens and Rubens reveals that the Dutch preferred severe, decorous architecture over the expressive, plastic facades of Flanders.37 Flemish architects intended to evoke emotion and awe with magnificent church facades, and Rubens modeled his own home on the palazzi of Genoa, with a ?triple-arched screen? and an Italian enclosed courtyard, believing this style ?could transform a barbaric country into one approaching Italian elegance.?38 On the other hand, Huygens, Van Campen, Post, and their contacts in The Hague strove instead for modesty in order to project stateliness and regularity in government buildings and estates.39 Therefore, even the application of widely popular ancient ideas in architecture provided an opportunity to develop a particular interpretation and taste for the Dutch elite. Perspective, geometry, and proportion, and their collective role in uniting painting and architecture, became all-important to classicizing architects in the Dutch Republic between the late 1630s and 1650s.40 Although the Oranjezaal in the Huis ten Bosch is the only such complete program extant today, several others were constructed by mid- century. In 1638, De Grebber completed ?two large oblique pieces? for the stairwell of ils demeurassent informe des raisons et justifications de mon faict?? Rubens formulated a letter of response with four criticisms of the plan, which he found too simple. Although the Flemish artist?s death prevented Huygens from sending a rebuttal, he had begun to respond to the criticism in the form of a classical apology, with Rubens?s comments on one side of the letter and Huygens?s answers to them opposite. Undoubtedly this format was meant to appeal to Rubens?s predilection for the antique. See Worp, Briefwisseling 2, 2149, Ottenheym 2007, 150-151. 37 Rubens in particular favored ?prominent? fa?ades with high relief that would cast shadows and create movement, as can be seen in the Antwerp Jesuit Church built 1616-1620. Ottenheym 2007, 148, 154-55. 38 Jeffrey M. Muller, ?Context,? in Rubens: The Artist as Collector (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 25. 39 Ibid., 159. 40 Ibid., 137. 33 Honselaarsdijk, Frederik Hendrik?s hunting lodge near Naaldwijk.41 Quentin Buvelot and Thomas D?ring have also attributed a set of preparatory drawings for an illusionistic painted frieze for the Great Hall of Honselsaarsdijk to De Grebber (fig. 18).42 These drawings indicate attention to perspective and viewing angle as advocated in the Regulen, as well as seamless integration of classicizing painting and architecture. The trompe- l?oeil nature of the painted frieze would also have implicitly compared painting to architecture, demonstrating not only that mathematics and proportion were crucial to both, but perhaps also that painting was the more versatile and expressive of the two pursuits. The participation of Haarlem artists like De Grebber in these important painting and architectural programs in The Hague bolstered the already extant classicizing ideas of the painters, architects, theorists, and even religious leaders in Haarlem. The Haarlem priest Jan Albertsz. Ban, a close friend to De Grebber and De Bray, spent two decades formulating a system, based on proportional measurements derived from classical architecture, with which he set poems to music. Ban wrote that he left no element to chance in his compositions, because they were ?assembled on the basis of mathematical reason.?43 An entertaining anecdote about Ban?s rules illustrates the popular success of his system: the priest challenged accomplished composer Antoine Bo?sset to a contest in which each composed music for a given poem. Bo?sset was unanimously declared the 41 Slouthower 1945, 270. Quoted in Pieter Biesboer, ?Pieter de Grebber,? in Collections of Paintings in Haarlem 1572-1745, ed. Carol Togneri. Documents for the History of Collecting: Netherlandish Inventories (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Institute, 2001), 169. 42 See Jacob van Campen: Het klassieke ideal in de Gouden Eeuw, edited by Jacobine Huisken, Koen Ottenheym and Gary Schwartz (Amsterdam: Architectura and Natura Pers, 1995), 124; Thomas D?ring, ?Letter,? Master Drawings 37, no. 1 (Spring, 1999): 71. 43 Jan Albertsz. Ban, Kort Sangh-bericht 1643, Haarlem. Quoted in Lammertse 2008, 15. 34 victor, as Ban?s system produced music that sounded forced and mechanical.44 Friso Lammertse notes that while Ban?s strict rules may have stifled creativity, the underlying belief system by which all arts are governed by discernible laws that derive from mathematics and proportions was a defining characteristic of the work of the Haarlem classicists in all professions: De Grebber, De Bray, Van Campen, Post, and Ban.45 By 1648, the year of the signing of the Treaty of M?nster, the style practiced by the Haarlem classicists had gained a measure of popularity throughout Holland for public commissions. That year was an occasion for several building projects with accompanying history painting cycles in various cities outside of The Hague. An illustrative example is the Leiden Drapers Guild, which reorganized in 1638 and built a new classicizing Lakenhal in 1639.46 Abraham van den Tempel painted a three-part series of mythological scenes for the hall between 1650 and 1651: Minerva Crowns the Maid of Leiden, Mars Banishes ?Nering,? and The Maid of Leiden Welcomes ?Nering? (figs. 19-21). Interestingly, Christiaan Vogelaar describes Van den Tempel as a ?newcomer? to Leiden at the time of the commission, but speculates that the guild sought an artist accomplished in large classicizing history paintings that could motivate comparison between the Lakenhal and the sophisticated architectural and painting programs at the Huis ten Bosch.47 It may be that the decorative program was designed and commissioned over a decade after the construction of the new Lakenhal because the 1648 Treaty of M?nster 44 Lammertse 2008, 15. 45 Ibid. 46 Jan Lievens was also summoned from Antwerp to complete The Magnanimity of Scipio for the Leiden Town Hall in 1639. He received posthumous praise for his classicizing history painting in the style of Rubens. Arthur K. Wheelock, ?Jan Lievens: Bringing New Light to an Old Master,? in Wheelock et al., Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2008), 5. 47 Christiaan Vogelaar, catalogue entry in Blankert et al., 254, 258. 35 inspired the guild to commemorate the anticipated flourishing of the arts in the newly independent Dutch Republic. The iconography of the works in the Lakenhal reinforces the importance of cloth and the draper?s guild for Leiden?s economy. Vogelaar posits that, following the example of the Oranjezaal, architect Arent van ?s-Gravesande formulated the iconographic program and drew from the Oranjezaal the themes of war, peace and financial prosperity.48 We can add to this list of themes the idea that the fine arts, and especially painting, are critical to the welfare of a city. Van ?s-Gravesande and Van den Tempel communicated this concept by evoking Mercury and Minerva, patrons of the liberal arts, as protectors of ?Nering,? the personification of the textile industry. Van ?s-Gravesande likely instructed Van den Tempel to include gods of antiquity and to avoid contemporary scenery ?to heighten not only the classicist aspect of the picture, but also its universality.?49 Additionally, Van den Tempel?s emphasis on the texture and rich color of each figure?s dress shows the unique capability of the painter to bring his subjects to life and to create a three-dimensional reality for his viewers, and perhaps argues for the superiority of painting among the arts. Adherence to time-tested rules of balance and proportion became a touchstone of classicism in history painting, architecture, and even music composition in mid-century Holland. Salomon de Bray?s charter for the reformed Haarlem Guild of St. Luke and the collaboration between painters and architects on large-scale buildings and painting cycles indicate that classicists considered history painting to be intellectual and versatile enough to equal architecture, which was indisputably both an art and a science. The application 48 Vogelaar, 262. 49 Ibid., 261. 36 of Vitruvian proportion and guidelines for painting in the antique idiom were meant to unify painting and architecture with a common expression of universal beauty. Guild systems like Haarlem?s attempted to keep artists together, albeit in a strict hierarchy with painting at the top, as their cooperation would confirm the existence of universal rules for art as well as benefit the city?s economy. In a similar way, ?modern? classicizing buildings with classicizing painting cycles celebrated both the unity of the arts and the prosperity that fueled artistic development in the Dutch Republic after 1648. 37 Chapter Three: Drawing from Life and the ?Haarlem Academy? Revisited The anonymous author of the biography of Karel van Mander that introduces the 1618 edition of Het Schilder-boeck includes a short phrase about Van Mander?s alleged academic practices that has been much discussed by art historians. The biographer writes that in 1583, ?Karel became acquainted with Goltzius and Master Kornelis, and these three held and formed an academy for studying from life.?1 The current understanding of this academy is that the three artists came together to draw from live models, to compare sketches of sculptures and Renaissance masterpieces from their travels, and then used their drawings to instruct their pupils in drawing technique.2 Scholars have emphasized that these activities were consistent with Van Mander?s attitude toward elevating painting to a liberal art, which resonates throughout Het Schilder-boeck.3 Understanding the nature of Van Mander?s academy is important for evaluating the interrelationship of art and theory among the Haarlem classicists in the mid-seventeenth century, since Pieter de Grebber, Salomon de Bray and their colleagues similarly considered drawing ?naer het leven? to be a fundamental component in academic training. The concept and practice of drawing from life in an academy was commonly accepted at the turn of the seventeenth century. In 1618, the publication date of the revised Schilder-boeck, De Grebber was 18 years old and working in his father?s studio, having trained with Goltzius before the master?s death in 1617. The reprint of Van 1 Karel van Mander and Hessel Miedema, The Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters?(Doornspijk: Davaco, 1994), fol. S2 2 See Jeroen Giltaij and Friso Lammertse, ?Maintaining a Studio Archive: Drawn Copies by the De Braij Family,? Master Drawings 39, no. 4 (Winter, 2001): 367-394; 3 See E. Taverne, ?Salomon de Bray and the Reorganization of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke in 1631,? Simiolus 6, no. 1 (1972/3), 50-51; H. Perry Chapman, ?A Hollandse Pictura: Observtions on the Title Page of Philips Angel?s ?Lof der schilder-konst,?? Simiolus 16, no. 4 (1986), 238; Hessel Miedema, ?Karel van Mander: Did He Write Art Literature?? Simiolus 22, no. 1/2 (1993/4). 38 Mander?s text thus occurred at a time in De Grebber?s career when he was beginning to formulate an individual style synthesized from that of his father and Goltzius. As previously noted, Goltzius began to paint large mythological and Biblical subjects at the beginning of the seventeenth century. This shift in medium corresponded with the increasingly idealized and classicizing style toward which he had begun to turn.4 As evidenced by his many remarkable charcoal drawings supplemented with ink and color, it is clear that Goltzius considered painting to be a logical next step after mastering the art of drawing and engraving. Walter Melion has pointed out that Van Mander used Goltzius as his touchstone in defending teyckenkonst, or the art of drawing, as the ?father of picturing? consisting in marking, inscribing, and circumscribing everything which sight may apprehend in the world, and especially that most splendid creation, the human figure.?5 Although Van Mander did not live long enough to see the majority of Goltzius?s development as a painter, by 1604 he had already praised Goltzius for his creative ideas about ?glowing flesh parts.?6 In both his drawing and painting, as in Sine Cerere et Libero, Friget Venus, c. 1600 (fig. 22), and The Fall of Man, 1616 (fig. 23), the artist was able to achieve ?glowing flesh? with white highlights and strong contours.7 Goltzius 4 Eric Jan Sluijter also suggests that Goltzius did not paint immediately upon returning from Italy because he did not yet know how to paint, and that because of his fame as an engraver, he needed to train privately. See Sluijter, ?Goltzius, Painting, and Flesh; or, Why Goltzius Began to Paint in 1600? in Marieke van den Doel, ed., The Learned Eye: Regarding Art, Theory and the Artist?s Reputation, Essays for Ernst van de Wetering (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005). 5 Walter Melion, Shaping the Netherlandish Canon: Karel Van Mander?s Schilder-boeck (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 38-39. 6 Van Mander/Miedema, Commentary on Lives of the Illustrious Netherlandish and German Painters, 198. 7 Lawrence W. Nichols argues that Goltzius?s ?pen works? were not intermediary or exploratory steps between drawing and painting but rather inventive combinations of media, pointing out that some oil paintings predate these ?pen works? and that he seems to have been preoccupied with them between 1604 and 1606. See Nichols, ?The ?Pen Works? of Hendrick Goltzius,? Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin 88, no. 373/374 (Winter, 1992): 31. 39 relied on both his gift for teyckenkonst and the unique capabilities of oil paint in order to portray the human figure. Historians of art theory have noted that what we now perceive as a clear distinction between disegno, or design, and colorito, or color, was nebulous in the seventeenth century. Hessel Miedema writes that the terms gained real purchase in the late seventeenth century debates between Rubenistes and Poussinistes in the French Academy, and that neither sixteenth-century Italian theorists nor Van Mander considered the superiority of either design or color crucial.8 Although Van Mander praised Goltzius as prodigy of teyckenkonst, he devoted a chapter of advice in Den Grondt to color, an indication that he considered both line and color essential to the art of painting.9 This point becomes especially useful in considering the differences, and more often similarities, in approach between the Haarlem classicists and other Dutch painters associated with the Northern tradition of naturalism. Renaissance and Baroque art theorists also distinguished between theory and practice, but to different degrees. In his study of the Carracci and the changing interpretations of contemporary written sources, Carl Goldstein notes the existence of two factions of artists and theorists: those who believed theory should be preeminent, and those who believed that practice was more important than theory.10 Those who advocated practice did not reject theory or classical ideals of beauty, but rather they encouraged 8 Miedema 1993/4, 62. 9 Van Mander/Miedema, 198; Van Mander/Honig 1985. 10 Goldstein points out that this dichotomy came from the difference between the Early Renaissance in Italy, when theory was an end in itself, and the High Renaissance, when painters and painter-theorists such as Leonardo da Vinci viewed rules as basic guidelines to consider while exercising one?s own judgment and innate talent. Carl Goldstein, Visual Fact Over Verbal Fiction: A Study of the Carracci and the Criticism, Theory and Practice of Art in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 43, 45. 40 drawing from ancient statues as well as from live models. This approach forms the basis of Renaissance and Baroque artistic academies. Goldstein argues that we should not discount sixteenth-century biographies of the Carracci simply because their definition of academy does not match the modern idea of a primarily theoretical, state-supported academy that was shaped by nineteenth century critics and historians.11 He argues that the eulogy for Agostino Carracci that lists his theoretical interests as well as the family?s group studies from live models is not contradictory, but speaks to a concept of ?academy? in the seventeenth century that married drawing from life with theory.12 In the Netherlands, few written sources mention academic practices, but a consideration of De Bray?s reformed guild charter, Philips Angel?s speech Lof der Schilderkonst and De Grebber?s Regulen reveals that theory, rules and drawing ?naer het leven? all had a place in the training and studio curriculum of history painters in Haarlem and throughout the Dutch Republic.13 The most pertinent evidence of academic activity in Haarlem is Salomon de Bray?s charter for the reformed Guild of St. Luke, written in 1631 and ratified in 1632. Along with establishing a hierarchy of professions, De Bray expressed lofty intentions for the reformed Guild of St. Luke and its role in the formal education of artists. He also sought to forge a link between artists and the broader community. Shortly after 11 Goldstein, 51. 12 Ibid., 53. 13 Rensselaer W. Lee also notes that in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Italian painter-theorists believed that the intellectual aspects of painting could be codified along with the mechanical aspects, creating a rigid system of rules. Painters following these rules aimed to produce paintings comparable to the recent triumphs of the Renaissance. The existence of this precedent in Italy makes De Grebber?s rules reflective of a larger academic trend that simultaneously established strict rules and argued for high intellectual and social standards for painters. Rensselaer W. Lee, ?Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,? The Art Bulletin 22, no. 4 (Dec., 1940): 200. 41 announcing the guild?s aspiration to restore ?the ancient luster of the art of painting,? De Bray lists several new practices that would transform the guild into a formal academy such as existed in sixteenth-century Italy.14 De Bray and his collaborators proposed ?joint sessions in drawing, anatomy, and other skills and exercises??15 The guild reformers thus revived, codified and enhanced the 1583 Haarlem academy mentioned by Van Mander?s biographer. In fact, Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem signed the 1632 charter, forging a ?living tie? to the former academy.16 The reformed charter recommended ?public lectures, lessons and demonstrations by the best masters?This is to the honor and esteem of our city and guild.?17 De Bray believed that educating the general public on the theoretical basis of history painting would foster intellectual appreciation for the arts in Haarlem. The preferential status of history painters in the guild charter is indicative of a growing trend toward academicism and toward codifying painting practices at mid-century. These trends would later come across clearly in De Grebber?s Regulen. Addressed to ?inquiring disciples,? the rules likely recapitulated a master lecture or discussion as described in the guild charter. De Grebber assumes an understanding of art theory on the part of his audience and equates painting with history painting. He provides no advice for those who stray from the ?ancient luster? and ?esteem? of history painting toward other specialties, which Van Mander had called the ?side road of the arts.?18 14 De Bray, quoted in Taverne 1972-3, 52. 15 Ibid., 53. 16 Taverne 1972-3, 53. 17 Ibid., 53. 18 Ibid.;Van Mander/Miedema, folio 281R. Quoted in Ben Broos, ??Perfection in Figures and Histories,?? in Intimacies and Intrigues: History Painting in the Mauritshuis (The Hague: Mauritshuis, 1993), 21. 42 De Grebber?s Regulen can be interpreted as a document of the relationship between theory and practice in the studios of Haarlem classicists. He framed the rules as useful for ?good painters and draughtsmen,? indicating that both practices benefitted from the same theoretical framework and practical approach. As previously discussed, the iconography of Mercury and Minerva in the initial D announces the importance of rules for intellectual, persuasive history paintings that elevate the painter to a liberal artist. At the same time, the rules are very practical and easy to understand; it seems De Grebber intended them to serve as reminders while students were at work drawing or painting in the studio. The practical nature of the rules comes as no surprise when one considers that few Dutch handbooks on drawing were published during De Grebber?s lifetime. Willem Goeree?s Inleydinge tot de Al-ghemeene Teycken-Konst, published in Middelburg in 1668, is the first such handbook dedicated entirely to the technique of drawing. Though Goeree?s recommendations were written several decades after the height of De Grebber?s career, we can assume that the general course of instruction did not change drastically. Goeree recommends first learning proportions and perspective by drawing shapes rather than figures, then moving on to copying other drawings, copying paintings, drawing from plaster casts and finally drawing live models.19 Although De Grebber?s Regulen include no specific directives on the practice of drawing and the appropriate models to use, we can assume the artist had formal training similar in nature to that which Goeree advises from the master of teyckenkonst, Goltzius. Yet few drawings can be safely attributed to Pieter de Grebber. In 1984, Keith Andrews 19 Peter Schatborn, Dutch Figure Drawings from the Seventeenth Century (The Hague: Government Publishing Office, 1981), 12. 43 attributed a group of drawings to the artist, perhaps from a now-dismembered sketchbook, and pointed out a consistent style: the soft handling of the chalk which nevertheless allows for pertinent characterization of the individual features, the prominent diagonal design of the composition, often with converging sides, that makes the movement toward the center of the composition a dramatic emphasis of De Grebber?s drawings.20 Andrews focused on identifying artistic influences on De Grebber?s drawing style, mentioning Peter Paul Rubens, Pieter Lastman, Frans de Grebber and Cornelis van Poelenburgh.21 Along with these diverse sources of inspiration, the drawings attributed to De Grebber, when considered alongside his paintings and his rules, also clearly illustrate his study of proportion, completed paintings, plaster casts and live models. I have already discussed the significance of De Grebber?s first rule on perspective for the project of elevating painting to a liberal art, but his claim that ?all composers must be well versed in the rules of perspective? also resonates with Goeree?s recommended program of drawing instruction. Likewise, Philips Angel had claimed in his 1641 speech to the St. Luke?s Guild of Leiden, published in 1642 as Lof der Schilderkonst, that both ?a reliable drawing hand? and ?a well-versed understanding of perspective? were ?most necessary? for the painter.22 These rules suggest that a painter should acquire this knowledge before beginning to work independently or on a large scale. After a thorough background in these exercises, an aspiring history painter could hope to earn commissions like De Grebber?s illusionistic painted frieze for the now-destroyed Great Hall of Honselaarsdijk. The preparatory drawings for the frieze demonstrate the 20 Keith Andrews, ?On Some Drawings by Pieter de Grebber,? Master Drawings 22, vol. 3 (Autumn, 1984): 295. 21 Andrews, 295. 22 Philips Angel, Lof der Schilderkonst, translated by Michael Hoyle and Hessel Miedema, in Simiolus 24, no. 2/3, Ten Essays for a Friend: E. de Jongh 65 (1996): 243, 245. 44 importance of perspective and proportion in the classicist?s work, a reminder that practice and theory were not mutually exclusive, or even truly separable, in De Grebber?s studio (fig. 18). The De Bray studio apparently adopted a similar approach, and kept a comprehensive archive of drawings after finished compositions, such as Goeree recommended for the intermediate level of drawing education. In 1650, Jan de Bray did a ricordo drawing of his father?s Triumphal Arch, also from 1650, in the Oranjezaal of the Huis ten Bosch (fig. 24). De Bray apparently used the figures and composition in the workshop as teaching tools, and Peter Schatborn mentions the existence of additional drawn copies in a similar style by the Haarlem artist Leendert van der Cooghen.23 He posits that Salomon de Bray was instrumental in developing the Haarlem drawing style, which is ?distinguished by a regular and often precise character of line in which shading, formed by groups of parallel hatchings, plays an important and dominating role.?24 Salomon and his sons Jan, Dirck and Joseph, all made ricordo drawings after paintings by Salomon and by Jan, which are distinguishable from preparatory drawings in their level of finish and detail, as Jeroen Giltaij and Friso Lammertse have pointed out.25 In the De Bray studio, drawing from finished compositions taught pupils and more experienced apprentices about effective compositions, proportions and interactions of figures. 23 Schatborn, 99. 24 Ibid. 25 Several of these drawings are of such high quality and have been so well preserved that they may have been intended for sale to collectors. In many cases, the De Brays retained ricordo drawings that were repeatedly reworked by one or more of the family members. See Giltaij and Lammertse, 368, 379. 45 Plaster casts were the penultimate source from which a good young artist should sketch, and often served as the closest equivalent to anatomical study. Philips Angel had, in 1641, singled out De Grebber and praised him for his close study of plaster casts: I refer you to the anatomies of Master Hendrick and Master Cornelis van Haarlem, who have left you flayed plaster casts, for want of anything else, from which you will gain some knowledge of the nude, which is most serviceable to us. Likewise P.F. de Grebber, who is greatly experienced and excels many others, by way of the numerous examinations and marvelously close observations he has made in this matter, noting all the particulars, which he observes very keenly in all figures, how they alter through movement, which he achieved through much labor and after spending several of his best years on it, which knowledge he might easily have gained by anatomizing, employing that time instead on other matters in the service of art. Be that as it may, let this spirit serve as an example to us that we may follow him in this virtue, because those matters are most serviceable to us for the rare fruits we obtain from them to the benefit of our art.26 Angel would have preferred artists to dissect human bodies as did High Renaissance masters like Michelangelo, but he considered a thorough knowledge of anatomy so important that the study of plaster casts was an acceptable alternative.27 His rumination on De Grebber?s examination of casts is closely related to his plea that painters ?observe real, natural objects closely? in order to capture movement and avoid incongruities that come from relying solely on one?s imagination.28 These rules speak to Angel?s interest in Leiden fijnschilders and naturalism. Nevertheless, intertwined in his speech are arguments for the superiority of painting over sculpture and poetry, the study of mathematics, perspective and proportion and the application of ?sound judgment.?29 Considered in this light, Angel?s recommendation that artists study anatomy by meticulously observing plaster casts and live models complemented his academic 26 Angel, 247-48. 27 Ibid., 247. 28 Ibid., 244. 29 Ibid., 242-246. 46 approach to painting. Angel, like the Haarlem classicists, married drawing practice with knowledge of theory and the liberal arts. Examining De Grebber?s drawing of Cain Slaying Abel gives purchase to Angel?s description of the artist?s skill. He communicated the violence of the Biblical narrative through the uncomfortable body positions and straining muscles of the two men, both of whom show off De Grebber?s observation of ?how [figures] alter with movement? (fig. 25).30 In a similar way, De Grebber used his knowledge of human anatomy to convey emotion in his 1625 painting of the Baptism of Christ for St. Stephanus Church in Beckum (fig. 26). Viewers are convinced and moved by De Grebber?s unflinchingly realistic portrayal of the Baptism of Christ, in which details like the veins on Christ?s legs, the musculature in his torso, and the suntanned, rough hands of John the Baptist bring the two figures to life. The medium of drawing allowed the artist more freedom to experiment than did a commissioned painting, thus in the painting De Grebber communicated only the essential facts of the story and emphasized the central figures. This focus on the narrative and on the main figures would define his religious history paintings, and he would later recommend such focus with his second and third rules. Shortly after Goeree?s publication, the classicist painter Jan de Bisschop published his Icones and Paradigmata in 1668 and 1671, respectively, and included drawings of classical statues for the student?s instruction. De Bisschop criticized Dutch painters that dared to depict a nude woman ?with a big and swollen belly, hanging breasts, pinches from the garter in her legs and many more such deformities.?31 De Bisschop hoped his books, with their prints of Renaissance paintings and classical 30 Angel, 248. 31 De Bisschop quoted in Schatborn, 17. 47 statues, would elevate Dutch art to a higher standard of beauty just as Jacob van Campen?s buildings had reintroduced the classical aesthetic in architecture.32 Although De Bisschop appears to have launched a classicist attack on drawing ?naer het leven,? late seventeenth-century classicists objected more to the unadulterated copying of a model?s flaws than to the practice of using live models in general. Indeed, as illustrated by the level of detail in De Grebber?s Baptism of Christ, it seems that Dutch classicists of De Bray and De Grebber?s generation regarded drawing after classical statues and live models as equally important for the practice of drawing. Schatborn points out that Goltzius, in particular, used an identical style when drawing from classical Roman statues and from live models.33 Accordingly, Schatborn has also noted that Dutch artists often adapted the poses of classical statues when painting figures in commonplace or even low-life situations.34 Pieter van Laer, for example, appropriated the cross-legged pose of the Roman Spinario statue for a shepherd in his painting Washerwoman and Shepherd with Cattle in a Grotto (fig. 27).35 Likewise, Nicolaes Berchem, De Grebber?s best-known pupil, posed his model in his Standing Shepherd in a manner that is derived from Goltzius?s drawing of the famous Farnese Hercules (figs. 28, 29).36 It is certainly possible that Berchem had seen Goltzius?s drawing in De Grebber?s workshop. De Grebber never traveled to Italy to see antique sculptures firsthand, but he most likely familiarized himself with Goltzius?s sketchbooks of classical statuary and probably drew from small bronzes or plaster casts made by artists who had traveled south. While 32 Ibid. 33 Schatborn, 19. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 35, 67. 48 Van Laer had probably seen the Spinario, De Grebber considered his secondhand knowledge through drawings, paintings and casts sufficient to use the Spinario pose for the figure of Bathsheba in his 1644 painting (fig. 30). In this instance, De Grebber depicted a classical figure in a Biblical scene, an approach that, as Wolfgang Stechow noted, Rubens used to add layers of significance to his religious and mythological paintings.37 The casual, almost awkward cross-legged position of Bathsheba heightens the emotional impact of the image, as she tries to figure out how to respond to King David?s letter and her servant?s insistent gesture toward David?s castle. The use of a classical prototype for a female figure in a new context speaks to De Grebber?s adherence to a classicizing standard as well as his ?observation of real, natural things,? like human postures and musculature, as recommended by Angel.38 One can assume that in De Grebber?s studio, drawing from the live model was the final and most important step in a pupil?s training. Thus he dedicated several of his rules to observations relevant to this practice that would help young artists produce moving history paintings. Experimenting with different compositions in preparatory drawings ensures that in the final painting, the figures ?[do] not look as though they were all drawn in a line at the same height,? as well as ?that the arm, or leg, or hands, or some part of one figure does not seem to belong to another,? and that one can avoid ?figures projecting half outside the frame,? as required in the fourth, eighth, and ninth rule, respectively. Furthermore, De Grebber?s advice to unite the figures ?so that they are brought to life through?and in conjunction with?each other,? and his request that ?each image does the work it is supposed to do, so that?each of them conveys his own function as 37 Wolfgang Stechow, Rubens and the Classical Tradition, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968). 38 Angel, 244. 49 well as his essence,? both suggest the need to draw from live models to capture human interaction and emotion. In his tenth rule, he specifically notes that ?a soldier [should] not depict the work of the monk by standing demurely, and by contrast the monk appears to be a soldier,? which appeals to both the young artist?s observation of the model and their judgment and prior observations of the world. The frontispiece of Crispijn de Passe?s 1643 treatise Van ?t Licht der teken en schilderkonst can serve as a final illustration of De Grebber?s probable approach to drawing in his studio. In De Passe?s engraving, Minerva, goddess of wisdom and patroness of the liberal arts, sits before a circle of established artists from Utrecht, including Abraham Bloemaert, Paulus Moreelse, and Gerard van Honthorst (fig. 31).39 Two young students sketch Minerva as if she were a live model, and along the back wall a high shelf holds plaster casts of body parts and small replicas of classical sculptures. The image of Minerva symbolizes a learned, theoretical approach to painting, as well as the classical aesthetic, which accompanied the practice of drawing ?naer het leven,? meaning drawing from casts as well as from models. Clearly, this approach was accepted in other artistic centers beyond Haarlem by the time De Grebber compiled his rules. While De Grebber?s Regulen address issues of technique that seem at first to be purely practical, the images of Mercury, Minerva, and Fame in the initial D announce the rules as studio advice for future history painters educated in theory. The rules encapsulate the balance between theory and practice, inseparable components of painting that De Grebber and his contemporaries felt would perfect their Dutch adaptation of the classical idiom. 39 Paul Huys Janssen, Caesar van Everdingen 1616/7-1678, translated by Diane L. Webb (Doornspijk: Davaco, 2002), 31. 50 Conclusion Pieter de Grebber does not enjoy the same high level of popular appeal and critical acclaim today that he enjoyed during his lifetime.1 The majority of the scholarship on De Grebber takes more of a descriptive than an analytical approach.2 In order to place his life, his work and his theoretical ideas into a broader context, my thesis also examines the work of other Haarlem classicists, Salomon de Bray in particular. It also considers artists, theorists and political figures influential to the Haarlem classicists, such as Karel van Mander, Hendrick Goltzius, Philips Angel, Jacob van Campen, Constantijn Huygens, and Peter Paul Rubens. Only one impression of the Regulen exists today, making it difficult to ascertain how many artists would have read these rules. However, if De Grebber presented the rules as a lecture or used them in studio instruction, as described in De Bray?s guild charter, many young Haarlem artists could have absorbed and adapted the rules to their own work. Friso Lammertse has pointed out that Salomon de Bray himself seems to have followed De Grebber?s rules. De Bray?s 1655 painting Joseph Receives His Fathers and Brothers in Egypt follows the recommendations of a number of De Grebber?s rules, including an elevation, differences in color intensity between central and accessory figures, and a range of body positions (fig. 32).3 The Haarlem classicists did not always exhibit a cohesive or even classicizing style, but they shared an interest in discovering universal rules for art, and their works do 1 Keith Andrews describes his current reputation well: ?Though never in the forefront of seventeenth-century Netherlandish artists, De Grebber has always been assigned his proper niche, and was considered in his own lifetime to be of some significance.? Andrews, ?On Some Drawings by Pieter de Grebber,? Master Drawings 22, no. 3 (Autumn 1984): 294. 2 Though featured in many exhibition catalogues, there is no catalogue raisonn? on the artist, and few scholarly articles. 3 Friso Lammertse, catalogue entries for Salomon de Bray, in Painting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of Seventeenth Century Holland, edited by Pieter Biesboer. (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2008), 52. 51 exhibit similarities in subject matter, composition, scale and color palette. 4 Nevertheless, diverse artistic influences are apparent in De Grebber?s works, among them Rembrandt. Rembrandt?s impact was particularly strong in the early 1630s. De Grebber?s knowledge of Rembrandt probably came from Willem de Poorter, who may have studied with Rembrandt before working in Haarlem, although an apprenticeship is undocumented.5 That De Grebber and De Poorter were in contact has been verified by Pieter Casteleyn?s dedicatory remarks at the opening of Heydensche Afgoden, in which he refers to De Grebber and De Poorter together as his ?masters.?6 De Poorter specialized in history paintings with small figures, strong chiaroscuro, diagonal compositions and brightly lit figures, such as the 1636 Idolatry of Solomon (fig. 33). The influence of De Poorter and Rembrandt on De Grebber is clearly visible in his two versions of Finding of Moses from the early 1630s and 1634 (figs. 5, 34). Both compositions feature full-length, small-scale figures wearing brilliant red, gold, blue and white garments, and a light source that illuminates the figures? softly modeled faces but casts the outer edges of the composition in darkness. J.A. Emmens has demonstrated that it was only with the flourishing of late- seventeenth century classicism, primarily after Rembrandt?s lifetime, that Rembrandt came to be considered a ?vulgar painter? as opposed to a ?learned painter.? 7 Yet Rembrandt remains an exceptional painter that certainly engaged with a wide range of 4 Lammertse, ?Salomon de Bray: Painter, architect and theorist,? in Biesboer 2008, 15, 134n22. 5 Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr., ?Willem de Poorter,? in Gods, Saints and Heroes: Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Blankert et al., (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1980), 158. 6 See E. K. Grootes, ed., Heydensche Afgoden: Beelden, Tempels en Offerhanden; met De vremde Ceremonien near elcks Landts vvijse, 1646. (Deventer: Sub Rosa, 1987). 7 See J.A. Emmens, Rembrandt en de Regels van de Kunst (Amsterdam: G.A. van Oorschot, 1979). 52 artistic traditions, including classicism.8 De Grebber looked to Rembrandt as a talented young history painter working in a powerful style that expressed the emotions of Biblical subject matter. De Grebber drew, in particular, upon Rembrandt?s small scale, dramatic paintings of Biblical subjects from the late 1620s and early 1630s. While he continued to employ soft lighting and diagonal compositions throughout his career, his involvement in the Guild of St. Luke, beginning in 1632, introduced him to classicizing ideals that proved more important and influential than Rembrandt?s mode. De Grebber gradually painted larger, idealized figures with less contrast and chiaroscuro, and this embracement of classicism earned him major commissions in The Hague that also reinforced his classicizing style.9 Both De Grebber and De Bray were Catholic; both artists executed several large religious pieces for schuilkerken, or hidden churches, in various cities throughout the Northern Netherlands.10 Both artists also maintained a close friendship with the Catholic priest Jan Albsertsz. Ban, who shared an interest in universal rules of beauty and applied these rules to musical compositions.11 A complicated question that remains unresolved is 8 See Eric Jan Sluijter, Rembrandt and the Female Nude (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 21. 9 Peter Sutton in 1983 pointed up the similarities between De Grebber?s work in the 1630s and Rembrandt?s, but Eric Jan Sluijter, in his recent book, Rembrandt and the Female Nude, mentions De Grebber on a few occasions as a foil to Rembrandt. I believe that De Grebber imitated Rembrandt for a short period, but perhaps less directly and purposefully than Sutton suggests, as De Grebber?s knowledge of Rembrandt must have come from Willem de Poorter and not Rembrandt himself. I also think that De Grebber drifted toward classicism and away from Rembrandt by the late 1630s, but that this was not as much of a conscious effort to distinguish himself as a painter of idealized figures against Rembrandt as a more adventurous painter of naturalistic human figures as Sluijter intimates. See Sutton, ?Rembrandt and Pieter de Grebber,? in Essays in Northern European Art Presented to Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann on His Sixtieth Birthday (Doornspijk: Davaco, 1983), 241-244; Sluijter 2006. 10 See, for example, De Grebber?s Deposition, 1633, originally in the Church of Saints Gommarus and Pancratius in Enkhuizen and now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 11 De Grebber never married and moved into a house next to the beguinage in Haarlem in his 30s. See Albert Blankert, ?Pieter de Grebber,? in Blankert et al. 2001, 192. 53 whether a relationship existed between the classicizing styles and the devoutly Catholic subject matter of the majority of De Grebber?s and De Bray?s works.12 Catholicism and classicism shared a goal of uncovering universal truths and hence, one would think that a classicizing style was particularly appropriate for Catholic subject matter. Haarlem was, during the early seventeenth century, a very tolerant city, perhaps because of the large number of Flemish emigrants that settled there during the Dutch revolt. By 1620, in the midst of the Twelve Years? Truce, only 20% of the population of Haarlem identified themselves as members of the Reformed Church, compared to 12.5% who identified themselves as Catholics, with over 50% of the population not registered at any particular church.13 De Grebber?s religion certainly did not hurt his artistic success. Indeed, certain aspects of classicism seem particularly well suited to the goals of Catholic patrons. Catholics considered portrayal of the human figure in religious scenes or altarpieces to be less problematic than did Calvinists.14 Classicists also favored pared- down compositions with a few large-scale figures and a clear narrative, all of which were mandated by the twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent in 1563 to combat iconoclasm and foster greater understanding of religious imagery among the laity.15 Therefore Catholic history painters like De Grebber and De Bray were the ideal candidates to execute Catholic commissions, as they could simultaneously create and 12 I plan to research this topic further. 13 Joke Spaans, Haarlem na de Reformatie: Stedelijke cultuur en kerkelijk leven, 1577-1620 (Hollandse Historische Reeks: Leiden, 1989), 299. 14 See David Freedberg, Iconoclasm and Painting in the Revolt of the Netherlands, 1566-1609 (London: Garland Publishing, 1988); Mia Mochizuki, The Netherlandish Image After Iconoclasm, 1566-1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008); Xander van Eck, Clandestine Splendor: Paintings for the Catholic Church in the Dutch Republic (Zwolle: Waanders, 2008). 15 The canons and decrees of the sacred and oecumenical Council of Trent, ed. and trans. J. Waterworth (London: Dolman, 1848), 234-5. 54 interpret the spiritual images that decorated the complex, theatrical Dutch schuilkerken. I hope in the future to fully explore the relationship between the theoretical tradition of the Haarlem classicists and the devoutly Catholic paintings by the same artists. Despite its brevity and relative obscurity in Dutch art history, Pieter de Grebber?s list of rules for history painting has served as an illuminating document of the ideas and goals of the Haarlem classicists, and has helped me to point out aspects of their approach that have not received much scholarly attention. I have discussed here the single surviving printed broadsheet of the Regulen as a work of visual art for the first time and demonstrated that the iconography of the initial D announces painting as a liberal art in service of the Dutch Republic. The classicists viewed their work as a service to their nation, and viewed classicism as the style best suited to the tastes and needs of elite patrons as well as to elevating their practice to an intellectual pursuit. Next, I have connected De Grebber?s rules to the 1631 reformation of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, during which Salomon de Bray established a hierarchy of professions with history painting at the top. I also related the compilation of rules and guidelines to a concurrent interest in returning to the classical orders of architecture, particularly on the part of De Bray and Constantijn Huygens in The Hague. Rules for proportion and perspective were important to both history painters and architects, as adherence to these rules produced unified programs of architecture, sculpture and painting such as those commissioned in the mid-seventeenth century throughout the Dutch Republic. Finally, I have considered the utility of De Grebber?s rules for drawing instruction, and demonstrated that the Haarlem classicists carried on the academic 55 approach to drawing from life begun in 1583 by Karel van Mander, Hendrick Goltzius, and Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem. De Bray?s recommendations for public lectures and drawing sessions and the practical nature of De Grebber?s rules for painters and draughtsmen indicate that the Haarlem classicists married a theoretical framework with drawing ?naer het leven,? and based their studio instruction on a classical academy. Examining De Grebber?s Regulen in various contexts proves that the Haarlem classicists compiled rules and guidelines not to stifle the imagination, but rather to develop a fresh and specifically Dutch interpretation of classical beauty. By following rules like De Grebber?s, the classicists believed they could advance and elevate Dutch history painting to the level of perfection achieved in antiquity and the Renaissance. 56 Appendix I: Pieter de Grebber?s Regulen173 1. It is necessary to know where the work will be hung, for various reasons: for the light, the height of the location, to enable us to define our horizon and distance. To this end all designers must also have a thorough understanding of the principles of perspective. 2. It is essential that one read the histories carefully, certainly if they are biblical or true histories, in order to render their meaning as precisely as possible. 3. The main element of the story must be foregrounded in the most attractive part of the work. 4. All leveling must be avoided, that is, that the tops of the heads should not look as if they are drawn along a line, equally tall. To avoid this, the artist shall try to intersperse some figures that bend forwards, or children or women who are somewhat smaller. 5. One must take into account (if it be somewhat required by the story) that an elevation should be introduced. And if there are two, one must always be the main elevation. 6. Care should be taken to ensure that the light is well integrated, and not that a light is found here and a dark area there, so that from a distance they seem to be nothing but patches, but the painting must be able to make its impact from a distance as well as from close by. This rule is thus one of the most important. 7. One should also avoid having the figures stand in isolation, meaning separated from one another, but [the figures] should be brought together, so that they are brought to life through -and in conjunction with- each other. And if the History only requires a single figure, you should try to provide context through the secondary components. 8. Confusion of the figures must be avoided, so that the arm, leg, hands or any other part of one figure may not seem to belong to another. 9. All figurative images projecting half outside the frame is unattractive, and so this has to be avoided, as do figurative images of which only half stick out of the ground, unless one is portraying an Ecce Homo or something like it, where it is necessary because of the height of the images, then they are allowed to stick out from the ground. 10. The impact of the images also has to be considered, so that each image does the work it is supposed to do, so that [the image of] a soldier does not depict the work of the monk by standing demurely, and by contrast the monk appears to be a soldier, but each of them conveys his [own] function as well as his essence, so the functions have to be clear [to the viewer]. 11. 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