#17th century painters

[mote-historie]

Guido Cagnacci (Italian, 1601–1663), The Repentant Magdalene, detail, circa 1660.

Norton Simon Museum.

The event depicted in the elegant space of this canvas is an episode from the life of Mary Magdalene, the courtesan who renounced her sinful ways and converted to Christianity, following her encounter with Christ in the temple. Mary is shown on the floor, having discarded her luxurious clothes and jewels; her face is reddened from remorse and her body barely covered by a white sheet. Her sister Martha sits on a cushion, calming her, while behind them two servants are leaving the room after having witnessed their mistress’s emotional scene. Cagnacci has also included two allegorical figures to the left. A standing angel banishes a levitating devil, complete with horns and a tail. He lurches toward the window as he flees the room. The combatant figures represent Virtue and Vice as they battle for Mary’s soul at the moment she chooses to embrace her virtuous new Christian life. (x)

[escapismsworld]

"Bellona (detail)"

1633

Rembrandt

[random-brushstrokes]

Michaelina Wautier - Saint Joseph (1650-1656)

[interventionlullabies]

Jan Asselijn, The Threatened Swan, c. 1650

[the-cricket-chirps]

Ferdinand van Kessel (attributed)

The Dance of the Rats

ca. 1690

[allegorypaintings]

Incostanza, An Allegory of Fickleness

Artist: Abraham Janssens I (Flemish, 1575–1632)

Genre: Allegory

Date: c. 1617

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

Description

The present painting shows “fickleness” in keeping with the era’s code books of symbols in art, where the semi-clad woman, the ever-changing moon, and crustaceans - capable of walking sideways - serve as markers for those of a mercurial temperament.

The artist, moved by a visual desire that we would now term voyeurism or fetishism, focuses intently on her breasts, which shine with a brightness even greater than that of the crescent-moon face she holds in her hand.

The breasts are associated with other feminine characteristics: with bodily matters, impulsivity, and the subconscious as well as with fertility and pregnancy.

The woman may be attractive, but she is also potentially dangerous. In contrast to the moon, the sun was typically a symbol of maleness and masculinity, i.e. of intelligence, will, exaltedness, and divinity.

[artandthebible]

Christ Receiving the Children

Artist: Sébastien Bourdon (French, 1616–1671)

Date: 1650–1660

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, United States

Description

In this illustration of an episode from the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament, Jesus (reclining at center) admonishes his disciples not to prevent little children from approaching him. Sébastien Bourdon's figures wear draperies in the antique fashion, and the setting evokes both ancient Rome and the Christian Holy Land.

One of the most versatile and successful 17th-century French painters, Bourdon emulated the rigorous classical style of Nicolas Poussin. Bourdon knew Poussin's work (such as the painting on view in this gallery) from his early years in Rome. Following Poussin's compositional principles, Bourdon organized this scene as a series of parallel, stage-like registers, resulting in a calm, geometric order.

[lilymelancholie]

Gerard van Honthorst (1592-1656)

A Laughing Violinist, circa 1624

[solcattus]

Toilette of Belinda, 17th century

By Antonio Bellucci

[collectionstilllife]

Evert Collier (Dutch, 1642 - 1708) • Vanitas - Still Life with Books, Manuscripts and a Skull • 1663

[de-mykel]

Jan van Kessel the Elder. Vanitas Still Life, c. 1665-70.

oil on copper

[dixt]

fresco in chatsworth house, england ⋅ by antonio verrio, c. 1691

[escapismsworld]

The Archangel Michael

1624-1626

Giuseppe Cesari

[artemlegere]

Clio. Muse of History

Artist: Johannes Moreelse (Dutch, c. 1603-1634)

Date: 1634

Medium: Oil on canvas mounted on panel

Location: National Museum in Warsaw, Poland

"History, if thoroughly comprehended, furnishes something of the experience which a man would acquire who should be a contemporary of all ages and a fellow-citizen of all peoples." ~Joseph Roux

[galleryofart]

Girl with a Pearl Earring

Artist: Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632-1675)

Date: 1665

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands

Description

A young woman looks over her shoulder at us. She holds her head slightly to one side, there is a gleam in her greyish-blue eyes, and her lips are slightly parted and moist. On her head is a turban that she has wound from two pieces of material, one blue and one yellow, and she is adorned with a pearl earring. It is from this oversized jewel in the middle of the composition that the painting derives its title.

The painting provides a rich sample of every aspect of Vermeer’s virtuoso painting technique. The face is modelled very softly, not in great detail but with gradual transitions and invisible brushstrokes. The clothing is depicted more schematically and enlivened with small dots of paint suggesting reflected light – one of Vermeer’s trademark features. Even so, the artist has clearly indicated differences between materials – for instance between the white collar, painted in impasto, and the drier paint of the turban, for which he used the precious pigment ultramarine. But the most remarkable detail is the pearl. This consists of little more than two brushstrokes: a bright highlight at upper left and the soft reflection of the white collar on the underside.

Seventeenth-century Dutch girls did not wear turbans. With this accessory Vermeer has given the girl an Oriental air. Images like this were known in the seventeenth century as tronies. Tronies are not portraits: they were not made in order to produce the best possible likeness of an individual. Although there would probably be a sitter, the point of a tronie was mainly to make a study of a head representing a particular character or type. Rembrandt had popularised tronies in Dutch art around 1630. He made dozens of them, often using himself as the model, sometimes wearing a remarkable cap or a helmet.

The pearl is too large to be real. Perhaps the girl is wearing a pearl drop made of glass, which has been varnished to give it a matte sheen. Another possibility, of course, is that the pearl was a product of Vermeer’s imagination. Pearls – both real and imitation – were fashionable in the period from about 1650 to 1680. We often find them in paintings by Frans van Mieris, Gabriel Metsu and Gerard ter Borch.

Girl with a Pearl Earring has been known to the general public only since 1881, when it was put up for auction at the Venduhuis der Notarissen in The Hague. On the viewing day it attracted the attention of the influential cultural official Victor de Stuers, who was there together with his friend and neighbour, the art collector A.A. des Tombe.

[mythologypaintings]

Minerva in Her Study

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch 1606-1669)

Date: 1635

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: The Leiden Collection, New York City, NY, United State

Description

In this imposing masterpiece, Minerva looks up from her large folio and gazes out toward the viewer as though some distraction has interrupted her quiet concentration on the text. Golden light illuminates her powerful face with wide-open eyes and alert expression, as well as the long, flowing blonde hair cascading onto her shoulder. Her regal appearance is enhanced by the laurel wreath crowning her head, her pearl necklace, and the heavily embroidered cloak draped over her shoulders. Beneath the cloak is an ample blue garment tied with a knotted blue sash over a light gray skirt and a white shirt. In the background are more volumes, a globe, a golden helmet on a draped piece of fabric, a spear, and a large shield with the Gorgon’s head hanging from a column.

As one of the main Olympian deities, Minerva had various functions and attributes. She was the virgin goddess of war, but unlike her counterparts Mars or Bellona, she was neither belligerent nor cruel. Her inventive strategy led to victory and she was therefore, paradoxically, also the goddess of peace. She was also the goddess of wisdom, art, poetry, medicine and crafts, especially those of spinning and weaving. Rembrandt van Rijn was fascinated with biblical and mythological subjects such as Minerva, and he firmly believed that depictions of them and their stories comprised the most significant of all genres of painting. This principle, shared by collectors, theorists and painters alike, lay at the very core of Dutch humanistic traditions. Throughout his career, Rembrandt’s history paintings stand apart from those of other Dutch artists because of his ability to convey human feelings and emotions to gods and goddesses, and mere mortals from the Bible and mythology. In the mid-1630s, shortly after Rembrandt moved to Amsterdam, he radically transformed the style and focus of his history paintings, executing works such as Minerva in Her Study at a scale and with a visual power unprecedented in the Netherlands. It is not certain what motivated him to paint in such an imposing manner after he left Leiden, but probably he sought to emulate and even compete with the achievements of Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1641), then universally recognized as the greatest history painter of the day.