Marcus

M.H. Marcus

m. h. marcus's arts briefing

The Albert Cuyp exhibition at the National Gallery London

FROM LONDON

diaade, 2002

Italianate Dutch art, exquisite landscape drawings and an insight into Dutch patrician pursuits in the 17-century: the Aelbert Cuyp exhibition at the National Gallery London.

Apart from the obvious, i.e. presenting the work of an artist, exhibitions also contain direct or indirect narratives of curators and scholars who create a show. All this leads to a kind of critical mass which concentrates one' s mind, and, more often than not unearths fresh relationships that might not have surfaced on studying individual paintings in different places.

The current show of Aelbert Cuyp's (1620-1691) in the National Gallery in London is a touring exhibition organized in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

In the 17-century, Dutch artists re-defined painting. The themes changed from almost exclusively religious to genre and still life, and the Dutch specialty, landscape. The Dutch painted all this in a way that related to the local life, and they invented their own iconography. The patronage of painters and ownership of paintings changed as well. Before, paintings belonged mostly to Catholic churches, to monarchs' or courtiers' palaces and to Church dignitaries; in the Protestant Republic they appeared in burghers' homes.

The fascinating subject in the history of painting are cultural cross-influences across Europe. Dutch art was influenced by the Italians: the Utrecht Caravaggisti played a significant role in disseminating the style of Caravaggio beyond Italy. Later, the Netherlandish art exerted a major influence on the British painting. Aelbert Cuyp's work is important for both of these transfers of style.

Socially, the Dutch Republic was reminiscent of the Italian city states of the Renaissance in that, on the one hand, her merchants and sailors explored the world and established trade outposts, and on the other, the local life was charmingly parochial. Towns and cities, although geographically close, kept their distinct identities, and this was particularly evident in art. The oldest Dutch town is Dordrecht and this is where Aelbert Cuyp came from. He remained in Dordrecht all his life. He was a member of a family of painters. He also had family ties with Utrecht, then the major arts center in Holland, and this played a major role in his artistic development.

The exhibition presents painter's early works (at least one created in collaboration with his father), the drawings from his travels, and then some the late paintings. The focus is on the evolution of Cuyp's style. The early Farm with Cottages and Animals painted around 1642 is decidedly van Goyenish, with the monochromatic golden-yellow-green- brown palette. Apparently, van Goyen had family ties with Dordrecht, and Cuyp must have been familiar with his work. In Cuyp's later work, as in that of many other Dutch painters, the light and the atmospheric effects become increasingly visible: whether it was painting of a farm or a stormy sea, the sky and the clouds played a prominent role; this must have had to do with the flatness of the Dutch countryside: the clouds added dynamism to the picture which in other parts of the world would be provided by the undulating ground. However, stylistically most important change in Cuyp's painting was his adoption of the bright, Italian-type palette around 1645, and of the Italian way of painting the light. He probably learned this from the Utrecht painters, particularly from Jan Both (1618-52) who had spent some time in Italy. The warm light became the framework for pictures of a timeless, peaceful, pastoral existence. There are pictures illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses and the Biblical story of the Conversion of Saul. For those used to the typical Netherlandish painting, the Orpheus charming the animals based on Metamorphoses with its two jaguars and and a dromedary is somewhat unexpected. Importantly though, in Cuyp's hand, the elements of Italian style mix with Dutch iconography. This is particularly evident in his paintings of cattle, herdsmen and farms that exude peace and calm affluence: the ethos of the Dutch Republic after successful conclusion of the war with Spain. Today's viewer needs some time to adjust to what looks like the agricultural imagery: it is easier once one realizes that, at the time, the cow reflected agricultural abundance and prosperity. Some of these pictures are really interesting: for instance, cows treading the shallow water of the river painted from a low vantage point (Cows in a River painted around 1650), where the animals, the boat and, in the background, the flock of birds create a sort of unity between land, air and the ever-present water.

Unavoidably for a Dutch painter, the ships dominate the scene in several views of Dordrecht and River Maas. Ruisdael, Van de Velde and others ingrained the ships in Dutch painting but here the 'standard' images acquire new character when painted using Cuyp's late, lighter palette. The Maas at Dordrecht with its lightness and luminosity is one of the best marine pictures in Dutch painting.

As mentioned at start, Cuyp's was a local artist. Although he did not travel much, the little he travelled had profound effect on his work. Around 1640 he went to Utrecht, Amsterdam, Leiden, Arnhem and The Hague, and also made a trip along the Valley of the Rhine. The drawings from these travels are truly remarkable. They were first made with chalk and a gray wash, then they were water-coloured in yellow and red, and finally the dark areas were brushed with gum Arabic. There is, for instance, a delightful drawing of the Mariakerk in Utrecht from the Northeast, and lots of others with riverboats, cottages windmills churches and rivers. Some are interesting from the point of view of social history, such as the Panorama with a Country Manor; the Dutch patricians started building country houses when the Republic stabilized and prospered.
One should mention two traditional-style portraits: A Portrait of a Man with a Rifle and A Woman Aged Twenty-one as a Hunter. The man's portrait on closer inspection it has uncanny three-dimensionality and its intrinsic brightness makes it a unique combination of Dutch and Italian painterly techniques. In the portrait of the lady, the blue robe impresses with its luminosity. The portraits link to the particular thematic niche in Cuyp's oeuvre: the aristocratic pursuits. For a long stretch in his career Cuyp painted well-to-do Dordrecht patricians and illustrated the prosperous Dordrecht life and the aristocratic ambitions of leading families. There are horsemen, rides in the countryside and children learning horsemanship. Much centers on horseback hunting, the well-guarded privilege of the noblemen. Interestingly, it is this type of painting which became the reason for Cuyp's later international recognition: at the end of 18C and in the 19C these pictures became avidly collected by the English aristocrats and then by the American collectors.

In the last room of the exhibition, which is in the Sainsbury wing of the National Gallery, there are Cuyp's late, larger-size paintings created around 1660. Here, the now familiar luminosity is particularly evident in textures, such as in the wood of the ships' hulls or the skin of a black cow in River Landscape with Horseman and Peasants. One should not miss the most Italianate picture of all: Landscape with Horse Trainers painted in the late 1650s, with the Romanesque church, the classical-style standing sculptures and the fragments of the antique column. Interestingly, these late paintings have much more of the exquisite foreground detail, reminiscent of the Dutch specialist still-life painters.

I thought it was a very clever idea of the curators to place the most impressive paintings in the last room of the exhibition. With this, the show ends it on a high note and almost makes the viewer to ask for more.

In addition to the works themselves, one must note the outstanding catalogue. The book published in the landscape format it is just wonderful editorially. As many other catalogues, it intersperses fragments of pictures with reproduction of the whole works to enhance the visual effect. There are several concise scholarly articles on subjects ranging from the overview of Cuyp's work to the analysis of pigments he used (a fascinating story mixing art and chemistry).
One-artist exhibition of this type could be risky, particularly when it is devoted to an individual lesser known to the wide public. This one is a success. Academically it is a high-calibre show. The curators' expertise shows in that they managed to create a high-quality exhibition narrative which is'told' by the art works themselves, with relatively little needed in the way of commentary.
What does one remember after a few days? Aelbert Cuyp as the artist who successfully adopted the Italian technique of landscape painting to the Dutch iconography. Cuyp as painter of Dutch Arcadia. And Cuyp as painter of Dordrecht patricians, creator of images that mixed burgher ethos and b aristocratic aspirations. All these add an important part to the mental image one has of the 17-century Dutch Republic, which by its independence and originality was an unique phenomenon in European politics. As was Dutch painting in European art.