Beginning of Dutch Painting Show
From Geertgen tot Sint Jans to Lucas van Leyden: An Overview
"Dutch Primitives: Paintings from the Late Middle Ages" at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen describes the accomplishments of mainly 15th-century Netherlandish artists.
The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, The Netherlands is the exclusive venue for The Beginning of Dutch Painting: From Geertgen tot Sint Jans to Lucas van Leyden (February 16-May 25, 2008), an international loan exhibition of 60 rare paintings from 15th- and early 16th-century Holland. Many of them come from Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, largely closed for extensive renovation. The works are supplemented by 60 colored medieval sculptures from the Schoufour-Martin Collection and objects of everyday life that can be seen in a number of the paintings.
Primitives?
The exhibition is also deceivingly titled Dutch Primitives: Paintings from the Late Middle Ages. While this refers to nomenclature used by an earlier generation of art historians to describe lingering Gothic traditions in later medieval painting, there is very little about the works displayed that is primitive. In fact, many of the Dutch compositions' themes and sophisticated iconography (symbolism) were popular well into the Northern Renaissance.
Dutch Painters of the 15th and Early 16th Centuries
At the end of the Middle Ages, Holland and Flanders were both possessions of the Valois dukes of Burgundy. Their painters, sculptors and manuscript illuminators produced magnificent works of art, mostly religious, for the sovereigns' sumptuous courts. Unfortunately, very little is known about the lives of 15th-century Dutch artists, unlike their Flemish contemporaries. Indeed, some whose profoundly expressive works survived destruction by iconoclastic religious reformers, most notably in 1566 and 1572, are distinguished in the scholarly literature only by their most important compositions. Delft's Master of the Virgin inter Virgines, represented by his Entombment (ca. 1485) and Crucifixion (ca. 1490) in this show, is one such painter.
Geertgen tot Sint Jans
One of 15th-century Holland's most interesting artists about whose life and professional training little is known was Geertgen tot Sint Jans (ca. 1455/65-1485/95). Only 12 paintings can firmly be ascribed to the seemingly precocious painter of Haarlem. Among those in the exhibition are his John the Baptist in the Wilderness (ca. 1485), Raising of Lazarus (ca. 1585) and the mystical Glorification of Mary (ca. 1495). His Nativity at Night (late 15th Century) is one of the earliest nighttime treatments of Christ's birth. In the oil on oak panel work, a divine light emanates from the infant Jesus, sensitively illuminating the prayerful and oval-faced Madonna, Saint Joseph in the background, a small group of onlooking angels and livestock. A possible literary source for this composition is the 14th-century writings of Saint Bridget of Sweden (ca. 1303-1373). The widowed mother of eight, visionary ascetic and founder of the religious Order of Saint Saviour wrote of the newborn Christ Child's radiance having overpowered that of the sun.
The Beginning of Dutch Painting: From Geertgen tot Sint Jans to Lucas van Leyden is an unusual opportunity to explore an obscure chapter of art history in light of modern research. Due to the precious panels' fragility, it is unlikely that an exhibition of this caliber on this subject will be repeated anytime soon and certainly not across the Atlantic Ocean.
Sources:
- Ainsworth, Maryan W. (ed.), et al. Early Netherlandish Painting at the Crossroads: A Critique of Current Methodologies. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002.
- Synder, James, Larry Silver and Henry Luttikhuizen. Northern Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, the Graphic Arts from 1350 to 1575 (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2002, 175-196.
- Zuffi, Stefano (ed.), et al. Saints in Art. Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002, 71.
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