RKD STUDIES

2.5 Rembrandt's Pupils in Rome

... Rembrandt’s pupil, Willem Drost (1633-1659) [3]?3 It is to this Drost, whose paintings in the Rembrandt style are familiar to us from the Louvre and the Bredius Collection, that the genre and historical paintings executed in the southern tenebrist fashion and now in the Dresden and Innsbruck galleries have recently been re-attributed [4-5].4The poem by Cornelis van Ryssen about the ‘Bent’ painters, which was published by Houbraken, mentions a certain Gladbeck.5 Again the question arises as to whether this might not be Rembrandt’s pupil, Jan van Glabbeeck (1634/5-1686/7). The scanty evidence nips in the bud any illusions about the influence Rembrandt’s style might have had in Rome....

... a chamber of art treasures comprising more than 70 etchings by Rembrandt together with etchings by other Northern Europeans such as Lucas van Leyden as well as after Rubens, van Dijck and Callot.10 The influence of Rembrandt on Italian etchers can only mentioned here in passing. Stefano della Bella (1610-1664) must have been an important mediator [7]. He first connected with Jacques Callot during when he was in Florence. During his stay in Paris in 1642, however, he acquired etchings by Rembrandt from François Langlois. Five years later Della Bella was in Amsterdam, where he studied Dutch art at its source [8-9]. In 1651-1654 he worked in Rome.11...

1. Tradition and Significance of Trips to Italy

... e increasingly evident as a result of the more thorough examination of his ‘classical style’ that has taken place in recent years.14The aspirations of the artists who went to Italy were not always focused on the same objectives as those pursued since the time of Jan van Scorel (1595-1562) and Maarten van Heemskerck (1498-1574).15 The study of antiquity remained a crucial part of the education of young travellers to Rome.16 They made drawings of the main ruins and statues of ancient Rome just as their predecessors had done in previous decades. They even ‘discovered’ the catacombs.17 However, the genuine interest in antiquity and archaeology that had been boosted by Heemskerck’s sketchbooks waned during the 17th century. While Heemskerck used a quill to carefully render the contours of the monuments [3], the younger generation preferred brush and ink to capture the atmosphere of the sun-drenched south.18 The Dutch landscape artists who went to Italy in the early part of the century gradually created a romantic image of ancient ruins and devised a kind of urban veduta,19 both of which were largely unknown in Italy.20 They were the outcome of collaboration between Dutchmen, Flemings and the German artist Adam Elsheimer. Dutch artists enjoyed an outstanding reputation as landscape painters. Even Karel van Mander I (1558-1606), who ranked Italian art higher than that of his native country, was obliged to admit that the Italians ‘ons altijts gissen Daer fraey in te zijn’ [always think we excel in that field].21 This is confirmed in the Italian sources, which had sung the praises of Netherlandish landscape painting throughout the 16th century.22 Writing in 1575, Giovanni Maria Cecchi stated that the painters from north of the Alps ‘vagliano più di ogni altra nazione per dipingere paesi ad animali…’ [are better than any other nation in painting landscapes and animals].23...

... inly developed a distinctive style of their own. They kept to themselves in their ‘Bent’ community,36 however, and effectively made no productive contribution to the advancement of Italian painting. The very marked differences between their fraternity and the host country surfaced in the dispute between the ‘Bent’ and the Academy as the representative of the Italian artistic creed – a matter to which we will return in a moment. If we consider the number of Dutch artists in Italy in the context of the dissemination of Dutch art, it is clear that only a few stood out from the rest. The overwhelming majority can be classed as young enthusiasts who had not yet developed a style of their own and were keen to experience the romantic atmosphere that Italy had to offer. The story of how the foreign artistic ideals they brought back with them helped to enrich and benefit their home country may have a certain attraction, but it is out of place in an account of the spreading of Dutch art to other countries. However, since my task here is to monitor the progress of all the artists migrating abroad without any prior certainty of their significance for the dissemination of Dutch art, we will let those who travelled to Italy file past in our mind’s eye in small groups at least, in which the less important will be disregarded.37 A summary of this kind would have been impossible had not the ground been laid for it by the long-term research of the Dutch Historical Institute in Rome headed by Dr. Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerff (1884-1963) [5].38...

4.2 Civil Genre Painting in Munich

... masters. Echoes of Rembrandt’s art are less common here; yet most evident in a representation such as the Doubting Thomas of 1770 (collection Röhrer) [3], which is on a par with a Zick (with a delicate Christ type à la Van Dyck). He placed the portrait of his colleague Desmarées in a stone niche, after the recipe of the fine painters of Leiden [4].1...

... Historizing painting and managing the gallery often went hand in hand. Later Dorner had to deliver four paintings every year in the manner of Gerard Dou and Caspar Netscher to the Electoral gallery [10]. In this way he introduced the taste for the Dutch in Munich, which would not have succeeded if it hadn’t corresponded with the needs of the time.2...

... ndred years earlier in Germany, although the brushwork remains smoother and rubbed, as seen in the work of Balthasar Denner.6 If we compare his portraits, even the official royal portraits with the approach of the elegant Georges Desmarées, it becomes clear, that taste had changed profoundly in the meantime, to a preference for an objective, bourgeois naturalism....

... is painting to heighten the expression [18], while Anton Hickel (1745-1798) only took over the external effects ...

... to other reports he painted hermits in the manner of Dou [22-24].7 Even with a classicist like the Dorner pupil Joseph Hauber (1766-1834) paintings of old men in Rembrandt’...

6.7 Genre Painting in the 19th Century

... is of interest to our study, being the imitation of Dutch forms and Dutch costumes. Theodor Leopold Weller (1802-18...

... is youth painted some genre pieces in the manner of Godefridus Schalcken, Gerard van Honthorst [5-6] and Samuel van Hoogs...

... mann tended more to a Frans Hals-like technique and Ramberg was one of the many tasteless costume painters. Their Belgian and French colleagues have already introduced us to this unattractive genre.4...

... y than in the original and the female inhabitants of Munich parading in 17th-century costume are just a bit too pert to be able to blend in with the room, which is lined with gold leather [20]....

... in Munich, among others by Max Gaisser (1857-1922) [23-25] and Wal...

... ...

... n for the Dutch masters. He had copied pictures of Brouwer [30-31] and captured him appropriately in his witty sketches, as well as in his oil sketches [32-34] and his countless drawings, which accompanied his verses.9 Brouwer’s style of landscape fascinated him [35] and like Brouwer he understood how to take in the essential of a situation in a flash and render it in words and images. Nobody would consider the...

5.5 Still-Life in Austria and Bohemia

... ...

... jsum [6-8].5 Josef Pichler (1730-1808)6 [5] and Johann Baptist Drechsler (1756-1811) made very decorative flower paint...

... ...

... ipp von Purgau (1681-after 1720) for instance created ‘thistle paintings’ in the style of Marseus van Schrieck and...

... etown of Reichenau [Rychnov nad Kněžnou].9 As an example of his art we have to point out a trompe-l’œil painting of a wood...

... hann Wurzer (1760-1838) [33-34] have painted still-lifes in the Flemish manner. 12...

5.4 Landscape Painting

... tings to him, which are completely done in the landscape style of Claes Molenaer [3-4].3Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer (1700-1733), a pupil of Joseph Orient, did the same in a charming way and in good taste [5].4 Franz Christoph Janneck (1703-1761) is more Flemish oriented in his landscapes [6-7] and genre paintings and Maximilian Joseph Schinnagl (1697-1762) picked up a wide variety of schools, without a particular preference for the Dutch [8-10]....

... h Berchem tradition very soon gave way to other impressions. There are especially many points of similarity with Venetian artists like Francesco Zuccarelli....

... s genre into the Rococo [17-18], river landscapes following the line of Herman Saftleven, Jan Griffier and Christian Georg Schütz [19] and drawings harking back to Jan Both [20]. If two paintings in the Liechtenstein Gal...

... ng others after Pieter de Molijn [23], Jan van Goyen [24], Aert van der Neer [25 ] -- and Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich. His own inventions are accordingly Dutch [26-28]. Schmutzer also drew and painted some landscapes to the old Dutch recipe [29-...

... man used to do [34-35]. Battle scenes tie into Jan Martsen de Jonghe and Jan Huchtenburg [36]. Apart from some elegant portraits, Querfurth has been thoroughly Dutchified, even in his rare still-lifes [37]....

... Potter took his place. Wilhelm Kobell worked precisely in this time of transition. In Vienna this stage is represented by Alexander von Dallinger (1783-1844), who apart from this, doesn’t give us cause to consider him further. Only so much needs to be said, that he found the way to nature through Potter’s cows [40-41], although he was more successful ...

3.6 The Zick Dynasty

... s biblical representations, demonstrate that he took Rembrandt and his dramatic compositions as a model.3 He copied Rembrandt’s Blinding of Samson, then in the collection Schönborn [1-2], whose lighting effects he took as the basis for one of his own compositions of a Judith and Holofernes painting [3-4]!4...

... part from an Italian-Southern German component in the works of Zick, one can clearly point out borrowings from Van Dyck. He uses his Christ-type in the above mentioned Flagellation of Christ, furthermore, even the Seneca looks like a Van Dyck’s Christ. In spite of all this we do not want to infer that Zick has nothing personal; on the contrary, the several elements have been woven into a unity with great flair....

... ooky chiaroscuro, which cuts across a concentrated beam of light. To strengthen the uncannily impression, he dressed his figures with preference in fanciful, Oriental costumes. David before Saul (Trier) [9]7 and the Arrest of Christ (Church of Our Lady, Coblenz) [10] are telling examples of this.8 His style formed itself on the early Rembrandt and on the works of the pupils or imitators of the young Rembrandt, like Leonaert Bramer and Adriaen Verdoel, whose green grey colors he also preferred....

... the soldiers are again in Bramer’s style. His stipple technique also is reminiscent of Bramer and Egbert van Heemskerck. Especially the Old Testament them...

... pied.11 A Raising of Lazarus (Collection Werne) [18]12 is a ‘free translation’ of Rembrandt’s etching of 1642 ...

... my family of 1776 (collection Ernst von Claer)14 [25] can best be compared with the work of Johann (John) Zoffany. Free from reveling in Dutch light, they stand as realistically captured and greatly conceived figures at the beginning of the new Classicsm....

... ck. Anonymous paintings like the Liberation of Saint Peter and the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist in Frankfurt [26-27] show a similar style, in this case clearly following the Rembrandt pupil Aert Jansz. Marienhof.17The Mannheim collection offered the artists of this circle a rich choice of pictures by Rembrandt, Rubens and other Netherlandish and Venetian painters. Especially the etchers, such as Andreas Ludwig Bissel (1773-1847), Johannes Pieter de Frey (1770-1834),18 Heinrich Sintzenich (1752–1812) and others, got their inspiration here....

... Meyer (1733/35-1779) [30-31].19 Hien also painted still-lifes in the Dutch and Flemish taste [32-35]. Catharina Treu (1743-1811), the still-life painter from Bamberg, ...

... of the Italianate Dutch masters [38-39].22 Lorenz Schönberger (1768-1846), who belonged to a later generation, harked back rather to Ruisdael compositions, when he occasionally wanted to paint something Dutch for a change.23...

3.1 Frankfurt : the Rembrandt Followers

... andt Creavit me / PHBrinckmann resuscitavit Te/1755’. Rembrandt’s impact is quite evident in Brinckmann’s work, especially in his etchings. Head studies, Orientals [2] and depictions of biblical history are replicated after Rembrandt. His etching of The Raising of Lazarus [3] is inconceivable without Rembrandt’s example. He used his chiaroscuro and tried to heighten the movement even more with theatrical gestures.1...

... his speciality, were already known to him. There are still-lifes in the style of Jan Weenix [9], whose paintings from Düsseldorf he surely would have seen in Mannheim. The fact that he also worked after Gerard Dou, shows his relationship to the late fine painters, who were still active in the Rhineland in the beginning of the century....

... ho had adopted Rembrandt as his model, and had attained great perfection in enclosed lights and reflections, as well as in effective conflagrations, so that he was once ordered to paint a companion piece to a Rembrandt (From my Life: Poetry and Truth, 1811).5 Or elsewhere: ‘Trautmann Rembrandtized some resurrection miracles from the New Testament, and alongside them set fire to villages and mills’.6 There are several painted and etched representations by Trautmann of the scene The Raising of Lazarus [10-12]....

... Troy Burning (fig. 91) [19], that was painted so often in Frankfurt in the 17th and 18th century, perhaps harked back to a painting of Marten van Valckenborch I, as such a painting did exist in Frankfurt.10...

... e strong contrasts in the lighting. At the time, one didn´t aspire to render the expression of the faces or the composition. Apart from the painters of light - in as much as Trautmann understood them - he also used other Dutch masters examples, when it suited him. In the composition of his Joseph in Egypt, that belongs to the paintings for the Count de Thoranc [23], he fell back on an engraving after Bartholomeus Breenbergh [24].12...

... e windowsill as in Rembrandt’s Faust etching [29], a magical sign of the charm.15 A drawing in Vienna [30] of street musicians is completely in the style of Adriaen van Ostade. Trautmann’s activity was not limited to Frankfurt. He visited Darmstadt, Mannheim, Kassel and became ̶ like Brinckmann, with whom he occasionally worked ̶ court painter in the Palatine in 1769....

... sters. He showed him how to reconcile Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro with the requirements of a decorative, slick style of painting. Brinckmann also pointed him towards the study of Rubens, whose engravings after the Medici-cycle and other creations Seekatz had diligently copied. Furthermore, the young artist copied the paintings of Adriaen Brouwer and representations of David Teniers II, Adriaen van Ostade, Philips Wouwerman and Jacques Courtois (Printroom, Darmstadt). In the first biblical paintings [32-33]19 from his time in Frankfurt the reminiscences of Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro and repoussoirs and of Rubens’s beautifully formed figures are alive, and sometimes also references to the slick and elegant compositions of Frans van Mieris I and his school....

... 731) and his contemporaries. The court portraits look like those of Adriaen van der Werff and Balthasar Denner [37] and the suppraportes and some large figure history paintings could be compared with French decorative art. We would however wrong the painter, if we overlooked his own inventions and the personal technique in his works....

... .21 The first state denotes Rembrandt as the painter. Paintings by him are little known, except for an old man in the style of Rembrandt and of Rubens, now Bavarian state property [43]. He is the last one in the series of Rembrandt imitators in Frankfurt, that had started with Brinckmann and Trautmann. Nothnagel also had a small personal collection of Dutch graphic art, that ...

2.2 Kassel and the Tischbein Family

... (1682-1760) and Friedrich II (1720-1785). Before he became a court painter in 1744, he was sent for his education to Holland, France and Italy. He copied mainly Netherlandish paintings by Dou, Rembrandt, Anthony van Dyck etc. in the Kassel gallery, but only a copy after Van Dyck survived [1-2].1...

... onies in the manner of Rembrandt (by way of Tiepolo?) [3], as very often the types on his genre scenes and history paintings seem to derive from Rembrandt’s etchings anyway [4-5].4 A Girl in a Window in imitation of Gerard Dou [6] exists next to a series of peasant paintings in the taste of David Teniers II (Kassel) [7-10], although these historicizing pieces do not belong to his best work.5...

... in 1775. It had its own building next to the Gallery. His nephew Johann Heinrich Tischbein II (1742-1808), who by the way also taught at the Academy of Drawing, was ...

... h art.8In the collection of paintings of Counselor of State Daniel Stenglin (1735-1801) in Hamburg he copied Wouwerman [12-13] and Berchem in 1766.9 The Rembrandt etchings, that he also copied, he had seen in the collection of Senator Duntzer. ‘I also etched some after my own invention in the manner of Rembrandt, so that some connoisseurs would get confused, after which indeed some sheets were later passed as originals by Rembrandt’ [in translation].10...

... himself stated, he saw the Italian landscape through the eyes of Adam Elsheimer, Nicolaes Berchem, Jan Both and Cornelis Poelenburch.15 Here in Italy the famous portrait of Goethe in the Campagna originated, a classicistic work of art one would think free from Dutch influence [16]. But an in-depth study has shown us, that the pose of the reclining figure is derived from a shepherd boy by Berchem [17]!16 Tischbein settled later in Hamburg and ultimately in Eutin, and many works by his hand still are to be found in Hamburg and Oldenburg....

... Scheits and others.19 Maybe the Dutch tradition would have found an even more vivid expression in his work, had it not been disturbed by an Italian sojourn. But that is an idle thought and moreover an unhistorical one, as the Italian journeys of this generation were not of an accidental nature but an expression of the new classical or classicistic attitude....

... cousin and pupil of Johann Heinrich Tischbein I, Ludwig Philipp Strack (1761-1836) also started as an imitator of the old masters.20 He copied especially Berchem [26-28].21 His paintings from 1793 however are already free, romantic creations, which can best be compared with Claude Lorrain [29-31]....

... ally Rembrandt’s works, formed painterly examples for young artists in the same way as the Italian and the French masters [32-...

1.6 Landscape Painting in Dresden

... Gabriel Donath (1684?-1760) painted church paintings after Flemish-Dutch recipe [1-2], a variety that was much loved in Frankf...

... d first spent several years as court-painter in Arnstadt; but he also offered other princes the products of his brush, e.g. landscapes ‘in various tastes‘ to the Duke of Mecklenburg. Basically, Thiele preferred the Italianate Dutch landscapists to Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema. This trend, that is the style of Nicolaes Berchem and Jan Both, had gained therefore a certain importance for Saxon landscape painting....

... ic [7].3 He even used compositions by Jacob van Ruisdael, that he restyled with the help of Herman S...

... se pupil he was [11-12]. There also exist animal studies à la Berchem by him...

... es in the spirit of Cornelis van Poelenburch or Dirk van der Lisse [16-17], river valleys like Jan Griffier and landscapes w...

... nature widened, and his work -- starting from Claude Lorrain's forms -- took on a classicistic character [20].7...

... ince 1818, copied [24-25] Jacob van Ruisdael’s great and massively construct...