Watching the World
The Northern and Southern Dutch painters observed and recorded the world which surrounded them with talent and honesty. Leaving aside the cliches, these visions of skaters on frozen rivers, the low grey skies, fairs and austere church interiors comprise the contribution of this culture to the European imagination. The choice of these subjects is not the result of a cold nature but rather of the desire to excel in a field that was clearly defined by market demands. The collection offers an anthology of little gems, great quality works by lesser-known masters. The only mill in the collection is the work by Maerten de Cock but there are also market scenes by Beschey, topographical views by La Fargue and seascapes by Peeters and his school. The genre scene is represented by Francken and Horemans with a canonical visit to the doctor.
The painters of the Northern schools, particularly the Flemish, are often defined as brilliant colourists. There is no reason to challenge this assertion except that these painters were often content with a very limited range of colours. Van Goyen, a landscape painter, was famous for his ability to evoke the atmosphere of the seaside and riverside by means of a single tonality which ranged between grey and dark yellow. A characteristic common to both Flemish and Dutch painters was the expression of colour contrasts in terms of values, in other words the use of subtle nuances within a single range of colours. This style was best suited to rendering the effects of mist and light characteristic of these regions. In genre scenes, this monochrome aspect corresponded well to smoky tavern interiors. For still lifes, this austerity alleviated the ostentatious character of the riches represented.
|
