Analyze This: Michael Sweerts

[bjs0704]

For this, Analzye This, I wanted to show some of the work by the 17th Century, Flemish painter, Michael Sweerts (1618-1664). He is something of a mystery. While we that he was a painter, a dealer, an intermediary, a teacher and very religious. He is often described as an outsider because he did seem to have associated himself with his fellow Netherlandish artists in Rome nor had much to do with the official art institutions of his day.

(Sweerts (self portrait); 1656;Oil on canvas; 37 1/4 x 28 7/8 in. (94.5 x 73.4 cm)

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-sweerts_selfportrait.jpg

[bjs0704]

He was born in Brussels in 1618 and almost nothing is known about his early life.

He had traveled extensively. Sweerts lived and worked in Italy (around 1646-1656) and was a member of the painter’s academy in Italy for a decade which was a common thing for Northern European artists at that time. There he became influenced by the style of Caravaggio and the Bambiocanti (followers of Caravaggio). He even did work for the court of Pope Innocent X. He also lived in Amsterdam for a while.By 1656, he returned to Brussels. In 1659, he became a member of the painters' guild.

In the Studio; 1652;28 7/8 x 23 1/8 (73.5 x 58.8 cm) with frame: 38 x 33 x 3 1/4 in. 96.5 x 83.8 x 6.4 cm; Oil on canvas
(1652, Artist Studio, Detroit Institute of Arts)

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-Sweertsstudio1.jpg

[bjs0704]

There are very few of his paintings that are known to exist. He worked both in oil painting and etching in portraiture, genre and historical paintings. He did both religious and secular work. His paintings exhibited his interest in the close observation of daily life. But there is also influences of his study of classical sculpture which he would have learned about while in Rome.


Micheal Sweerts is best known for his realistic portraits. "An Old Woman Spinning" is an example of his early work. In the “Old Woman Spinning” the black background, the old woman looks directly out at the viewer; her spinning tool slashes a diagonal across the canvas and its puff of wool as important balancing and dynamic elements in the composition.

"Old Woman Spinning"; oil on canvas; 43 cm x 34 cm; 1646 to 1648; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-old_woman_spinning.jpg

"Old man drinking"
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-sweerts_jug.jpg

[bjs0704]

Ten years later, Sweerts painted the Portrait of a Man Holding a Skull. It’s thought to be a self-portrait. The compositions is interesting it’s emotionally complex depiction of the the man with his head turned over his shoulder to look out at the viewer. He has something somewhat dissipated in his look and he explores the skull. The skull is often used as a symbol of man's mortality. Sweerts did live through times of famine. Was he daring “mortality”? In this painting, too. Notice the light background which contrasts with the black hat and coat the subject wears.

Experts point out that Sweerts often used cheap pigments. His backgrounds have grown darker than he would have intended over the years.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-man_and_skull.jpg

[bjs0704]

The Young Man and the Procuress*is a small oil painting on copper. It measures only 19 by 27 cm (or 7.5 by 10.6 inches ). The young man looks the procuress in the eye. She's old andcraggy. The contrast in their characters are so noticeable. This painting also shows some of the influences of Caravaggio's work on Sweets. Compare the "Procuress" to Caravaggio's "Fortune Teller". Sweerts uses the darker style of later Caravaggio's work and a similar subject matter to early Caravaggio paintings.

(The Young Man and the Procuress)
http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-young_man_and_procuress.jpg

Caravaggio's "Fortune Teller"

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-Caravaggio_fortune_teller.jpg

[bjs0704]

While many consider the painting a disapointment, "Plague in an Ancient City" was purchased (with fanfare) at auction in 1997 by the Los Angeles County Museum for $3.85 million.It’s a large painting for Sweerts. It’s placed in a classical setting*are some two dozen figures in varying states of dress and poses. There are mourners and posers and two female corpses are laying down in the front and other corpses are strewn about. The composition is dominated by a strong lower-left to upper-right diagonal.

("Plague in an Ancient City")1652-1654

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-plague_in_city.jpg


The problem is that, despite the strong composition and the masterfully painted figures, it doesn't all come together. The theatrical lighting and doesn't make much sense. The figures don’t seem connected or appear to interact on the canvas. Still, it does show an ability to create a scene with multiples figures from imagination.

[bjs0704]

His portraits really show Sweerts' skills as a painter -Head of an Old Woman and The Boy with a Hat are examples.These works are created about 5-10 years before Vermeer.

Boy with a Hat; Oil on canvas; 14 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.
c. 1655-56

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-boy_with_hat.jpg


Head of a Woman; about 1654

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-head_of_a_woman.jpg

[bjs0704]

Toward the end of his life he journeyed to the Middle East and India as part of a Catholic missionary group.
Four years after returning to Brussels, Sweerts left again, this time to Asia as a missionary. He worked in Syria both as a painter and a missionary. But he was dismissed from the mission after only two years, because of his undisciplined and unacceptable behavior. He died two years later in Goa, India.

Bibliography

http://www.culturevulture.net/ArtandArch2/Sweerts.htm

http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/bio/a404-1.html

http://essentialvermeer.20m.com/dutch-painters/masters/msweerts.htm

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_themes/7131?lang=en&context_space=aria_themes&context_id=0014

Barb Solomon:cat:

[bjs0704]

Sweerts has some interesting paintings based on art studio scenes.

The Drawing Class, 1656-58, Oil on canvas, 76,5 x 110 cm, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem
Sweerts, Michael*

Sweerts, Michael, Mars Destroying the Arts. c. 1650-52
Oil on canvas, 69 x 51 cm, Private collection


The Painter's Studio, 1650, Oil on canvas, 71 x 74 cm rijksmuseum

The last painting is also called "The Painter's Studio". I'm sorry that I didn't have anymore information about it.

[bjs0704]

Sweerts has some interesting paintings based on art studio scenes.

The Drawing Class, 1656-58, Oil on canvas, 76,5 x 110 cm, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem
Sweerts, Michael*

Sweerts, Michael, Mars Destroying the Arts. c. 1650-52
Oil on canvas, 69 x 51 cm, Private collection


The Painter's Studio, 1650, Oil on canvas, 71 x 74 cm rijksmuseum

Another paintings called "The Painter's Studio". I wish that I knew more about it.



The figurative work in this scene reminded me of his studio paintings.

A Wrestling Match, c. 1648-50, Oil on canvas, 86 x 128 cm
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

[bjs0704]

Here’s a couple of genre/portrait paintings:

Seated Man with a Youth & a Servant in an Interior, oil on canvas, private collection.

Penitent Reading in a Room

A Man and a Woman playing Draughts, oil on canvas, h: 22 x w: 19.2 in / h: 55.9 x w: 48.8 cm

[bjs0704]

Micheal Sweerts is known for his portraits. Here’s a few more of these portraits.

A Boy Wearing a Turban and Holding a Nosegay, c. 1655- 1656, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisz, Madrid

Young Man in a Grey Jacket, c. 1659, Oil on canvas, 47.5 x 39.2 cm
Private collection, France

A Young Maidservant, 1660, Oil on canvas, 61 x 53.5 cm
Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague

[bjs0704]

Double Portrait, about 1660 - 1662, Oil on panel, 8 9/16 x 7 in. Getty Museum


Portrait of a Young Man with a Red Cloak
1650, oil painting on copper, (H) 31.1cm, (W) 23.6cm, Wallace Collection


Portrait of a Young Man (Self-Portrait), 1656 St.Petersburg, Heremitage


Portrait of Joseph Deutz, 1648-1649,Oil on canvas, 99.5 x 74.5 cm, Rijksmuseum


Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

He is something of a mystery.


I do love a good mystery!!! This is going to be fun!!!


He is often described as an outsider

A very popular thing today among artist!!!


(Sweerts (self portrait); 1656;Oil on canvas; 37 1/4 x 28 7/8 in. (94.5 x 73.4 cm)

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-sweerts_selfportrait.jpg[/QUOTE]

It will take awhile to analyze this man. Right off, just browsing his art, his use of white strikes me as different than most. He seems to drop it right down in front. It will be interesting to understand more about this mysterious outsider. Barb this is a great exhibit!!! Thank you for your time in researching this artist!!! It is really nice of you to assemble all this information on Sweerts for us to analyze!

:) Nickel

[bjs0704]

You have a point, Nickel! Not only are the whites grouped very nicely in terms of the composition.



The white highlights are very noticeable. Look at the "Young Man in a Grey Jacket". Notice the highlights in his hair.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-grey_jacket.jpg


Sweert's does seem to be very strongly concerned with the light and dark organization of the whole painting. Maybe this is one the things that he saw Caravaggio doing so well.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

You have a point, Nickel! Not only are the whites grouped very nicely in terms of the composition.



The white highlights are very noticeable. Look at the "Young Man in a Grey Jacket". Notice the highlights in his hair.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-grey_jacket.jpg


Sweert's does seem to be very strongly concerned with the light and dark organization of the whole painting. Maybe this is one the things that he saw Caravaggio doing so well.

Barb Solomon:cat:

I know I was looking at the white highlights in this young man's hair, you can also see the white highlights around his eyes.




I was also looking at the self portrait and trying to see the palette colors he shows himself using. Notice the white is the biggest area, looks like some vermilion and yellow ochre, raw sienna, not sure, it is kind of orange hue. Can you bump the colors up in photoshop for just the palette? Most of the other colors are dark on his palette. Anyway I counted eleven colors. And he used a few brushes, so I'd say he was not a one brush painter. I picked up a brush and tried to hold it like he is holding his. It is not the way I hold a brush. It seems rather dainty to hold a brush that way. What would holding your pinkie finger this way mean? It seems like a proper way to hold a tea cup but not a brush. So maybe he tried to show he had proper manners?

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-sweerts_selfportrait.jpg

[bjs0704]

There’s places where he could be using a red ochre rather than vermillion.

I’ve seen people do the “pinky thing”. They use the pinky to stabilize their hand while they do detail painting. It’s definitely a detail oriented way of holding the brush. Great observation!

It’s also interesting to look at the fold in the white fabric. While he used mostly white and a grey made from a black and white. He has “snuck in” slight bits of ultramarine blue, and sorme browns.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Sweerts has some interesting paintings based on art studio scenes.

The Drawing Class, 1656-58, Oil on canvas, 76,5 x 110 cm, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem
Sweerts, Michael*

The Painter's Studio, 1650, Oil on canvas, 71 x 74 cm rijksmuseum

The last painting is also called "The Painter's Studio". I'm sorry that I didn't have anymore information about it.
Excellent overview Barb! I'm going to enjoy exploring this artist. Meanwhile maybe this will help: Sweets' masterpieces in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-1957?lang=en&context_space=&context_id=
(http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-1957?lang=en&context_space=&context_id=)

[Nehalenia]

I remember there was an exhibition in the Frans Hals museum some years ago. The focus was The Drawing Class, aka The Academy by Michael Sweerts.

The exhibition was about teaching methods in the 17th century. There were 17th century example books on display, owned by the Teyler museum, Haarlem. These books were used in drawing classes and were drawn by Rubens, Jan de Bisschop and (probably) Rembrandt. They reminded me of the Barque examples.

Students also copied plaster casts and drew from life. Another important study method was to copy master paintings. Frans Hals militia paintings seem to have been favorites, there were a few drawings from students. There was also a posable manikin.

Barb: I found a few more Michael Sweerts paintings in de depots of the Rijksmuseum, Mauritshuis and Groninger museum. Maybe you have too and I don't want to interfere with your overview. Shall I post them?

Margie

[rhysyllanfair]

Thank you so much for this thread, Barb. His portraits, in particular, are stunning. And the observations about the use of white are right on. The whites in "Man Holding a Skull" add so much drama, and the whites/lights in "Young Man in a Grey Jacket" form this gentle S-curve that establishes the whole tone of the painting, plus the light note behind his hair that balances the entire piece. In "Old Woman Spinning", the whites in her hat and sleeves form a composition all their own, almost independent of the face. Gorgeous.

Robert

[patdzon]

wow....I've never heard of this artist before. His self-portrait is one of a kind. Look at that likeness!!!

[bjs0704]

Thanks, Margie! Thanks for posting the link to Rijksmuseum website. It is such a good website. I had meant to post it but I had forgotten to post it.

Please, I didn’t post everything that I found. If you found more please post them.

The exhibit on 17th drawing methods must have been so interesting. I would have loved seeing it! There are an amazing number old “master” drawing books that are still around in one form or another. I have tried learning what I can.

I know that this is off topic, but, I keep looking for what I can about Jean Cousins two books on drawing. He had a figure drawing book that I would love to find, but I have only found his perspective book.

I have also read that learning to draw with pen and ink was emphasized at one point. Use of charcoal for teaching purposes was a 19th century introduction. Charcoal has been used for ages, but, for teaching purposes, there was more emphasis on pen and ink.

Was the manniken just like the ones that they alway sell in the art shops? How interesting!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[bjs0704]

Robert - Thanks! It’s been a pleasure to share finding out about Sweerts!

I’ll have to check for the S-curve! That would be an interesting thing to photoshop.

You make excellent observations about his paintings!

Many of Sweerts paintings would be excellent to use as value studies in white chalk and charcoal. They use lights and darks so well!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[bjs0704]

patdzon - Thanks so much! You can imagine how I felt when I first stumbled across Michael Sweerts! I was looking for someone else and came across “The Boy with a Hat”. When I looked him up, I was surprised at all the wonderful paintings that I saw! I knew that people would love seeing his work!

I have been enjoying the way that he got that “transparency” and soft edge around his hair. Look at the outer edges of his hair.

What colors do all of you think that he used for the greenery in the background?

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

I know that this is off topic, but, I keep looking for what I can about Jean Cousins two books on drawing. He had a figure drawing book that I would love to find, but I have only found his perspective book.
Barb Solomon:cat:

Found it! I hope you have a lot of money :D

http://www.forum-hes.nl/forum/main_stocklist.phtml/view/18914?view=yes

[bjs0704]

Thanks, Margie! I probably should have qualified that statement! LOL! I’m definitely too broke for that copy! I may find this book one page at a time though! I’ve seen many people use the drawings as “clip art” for other things. It’s absolutely tantalizing! Thanks for giving me page 28. I really appreciate it!

The French national library has his perspective book online in their electronic document section.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

I'll keep looking to see if I can find more of it (free of course). I'm pretty sure the Teyler Museum library has it, but I can't check the catalogue now, it's not online.

Meanwhile: what about a page of a drawing book by Michael Sweerts? There are (apparently) hundreds of etchings of him in Belgium, a lot of them catalogued and printed in a book, but not all of them.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/20-Jan-2006/67591-501_6ed425652e5ef399b147477df8ff27aa.jpg

More to come.....

Margie

[bjs0704]

Oh wow! You can just about see what I was talking about earlier!

Sweerts does use his drawing to group his light areas and dark areas in his drawings so that the composition is so lovely. What a nice discovery!

What was the name of Sweerts drawing book? I had read that he had a school but I didn't know that he had written anything.

Thanks so much!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

A genre piece in the depot of the Rijksmuseum, one of a series of 5 (or so) about "good Christian deeds".

It is titled "De dorstigen laven", which means: to give water to the thisty. It was painted somewhere between 1646 and 1652.

I give the link, because it has a copyright notice and I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the picture.

There's more, lots more, including HUGE resolution images of the two in the Mauritshuis, showing every little detail. Oh man... I love this...thanks Barb for starting this thread. :clap::clap::clap:

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5541%22

[Nehalenia]

From the same series, and I have to correct myself. These paintings are based on the 7 weeks of mercy, so there are 7 of them, but not all in the Rijksmuseum

"De zieken bezoeken" (to visit the sick)

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5546%22

"De naakten kleden" (to clothe the naked)

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5548%22

The cardplayers - pendant to "The Painter's Studio". These are the no-goods wasting their time with gambling instead of doing something productive and usefull like learning about art and practising drawing and painting. Now there's an encouragement!

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5545%22

Another group of checker players. Checkers(draughts) is and was a popular game in the Netherlands.

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5542%22

Margie

[Nehalenia]

Oh wow! You can just about see what I was talking about earlier!

Sweerts does use his drawing to group his light areas and dark areas in his drawings so that the composition is so lovely. What a nice discovery!

What was the name of Sweerts drawing book? I had read that he had a school but I didn't know that he had written anything.

Thanks so much!

Barb Solomon:cat:
Yes! The influence of Caravaggio is very noticable and as you already mentioned: an important part of the training of a Dutch/Flemish painter was a trip to Italy to study painting techniques of contemporary and past Italian artists.

The title of the drawing book is "Par Iuvenum et Aliorum" (For the Youth and Everybody/Everyman. (I think...off the top of my head...but I have to consult my Latin dictionairy to be 100% sure, lol! :D).

Margie

[Nehalenia]

The next two (+ booklet of 1958 exhibit) are going to take some interactivity. I'm going to link you to the site "Geheugen van Nederland" (memory of the Netherlands). This site has a vast number of documents and paintings, much like the Library of Congress, but all are deep-linked and not directly accessible.

http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/gvnNL/handler.cfm/event/onpage/pageid/772A8C74-61A5-11D6-8F22-0002A508D0B7/language/en

Type Michael Sweerts in the searchbox

Typically Dutch: you get a Dutch page, lol!!
Just click the links under "Resultaten in Collecties"

Click on "Extra groot" on the right side of the results page to get an extra large view of the painting.

Good luck with our quaint Dutch database!

Margie

[Nehalenia]

The latest gossip about "The Painting Class"/ "The Academy". For 6 million euro it is yours! Yes, it's for sale, but there's a catch. You can't hang it on your mantlepiece. For this sum of you can claim it as your property, but it has to stay available for the public in the Frans Hals Museum.

Just a joke, the painting is NOT offered for sale on the international art-market. All this is a political game. Let me explain:

The Frans Hals Museum is located in a beautifull early 17th century building. Much of it has been renovated, but not the attic. Attics in 17th century Haarlem houses are plain dreadfull. I know.. my mother lived in one of those houses. The worse thing is that the attic is also the depot of the Frans Hals museum, storing over 20.000 paintings and other artworks. The Frans Hals needs a new depot desperately. The collection is legally property of the city of Haarlem. They want 8 million for the new depot and usually, the State (Kingdom of the Netherlands) pays up. But the State is a little slow this time and as a protest, the painting by Michael Sweerts, together with a badly damaged painting of USA painter Benjamin West (anybody interested???? 1.5 million euro) is put up for sale.

The trick is of course to force the State to buy the painting, since even the State secretary of Culture thinks this painting should remain where it is.

It would break my heart if this painting were sold to any other buyer than the State. I live in Haarlem and I have seen it often. It's a favorite in school excursions to teach our youngsters about painting in the "Golden Age". Michael Sweerts made a huge contribution to this, even if he was a little odd.

Margie

[bjs0704]

Thanks, Margie! Thanks for the title of Sweerts book!

Those are very nice paintings! It’s really great to get such a close look at them too!

It would be ashame if “The Painting Class” didn’t stay available to the public. It really is great to have a glimpse at what it was like to be an art student back in those days!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[rosebard]

Thanks Barb for the great article on Michael Sweerts! It has being great reading a bit of what everyone has written so far,thanks. :)

[bjs0704]

Thanks, Rose!:angel:

Barb Solomon:cat:

[bjs0704]

I love to hear people's speculations. Nickel was trying to count the number of colors that Sweerts used for his self portrait.

Go back and look at his self portrait (the one showing him as an artist) and try to guess what colors did he use. Let's hear your best guess!:evil:

I'd also like to hear what you think was the approach and techniques that he used.

Good luck,

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

I picked up a brush and tried to hold it like he is holding his. It is not the way I hold a brush. It seems rather dainty to hold a brush that way. What would holding your pinkie finger this way mean? It seems like a proper way to hold a tea cup but not a brush. So maybe he tried to show he had proper manners?

Yes, he tried to show "proper manners", I think. But on the other hand, holding a brush like that is not unusual. I do it myself when painting details.

But in this case: I think it's PR, showing good manners.
The 17th century in the Netherlands was very much "Baroque", very formal and still a class society, with strict divisions. There was a distrinct difference between someone who wasn't a member of a guild and someone who was. Guild masters were a step higher on the social ladder.

Master painters painted for the rich and mighty in the Netherlands. The Netherlands were, mostly because of trade, one of the most prosperous areas of that day. It was nicknamed "the jewel in the Habsburg crown" (Geoffrey Parker - The Dutch Revolt (http://history.osu.edu/people/person.cfm?ID=713)).

Among the wealthty and intelligentia, there was a culture of reverence for "the classics", meaning the cultures of ancient Greece and the Roman empire and the stories of the bible.
It is very hard to explain without writing a 4 year MA degree study on it, so let me give an example that is very characteristic.

There is a book called "Het Schilder-boeck" (the painters' book) written by master painter and teacher Karel van Mander of Haarlem. It is an instruction for students of painting. If you think you'll find instructions on the elusive underpainting techniques and pigments used, you'll be dissappointed. Instead, the book is in rhyme (VERY proper and fashionable for that day) and is more about WHAT to paint (and what not) than HOW to paint. It has references to Greek and Roman myth and the bible in just about every stanza. (Took me 3 years to read it, lol! :eek::D)

This shows how formal and "well mannered" Dutch society was. Self-portraits were often done to display the painters' ability for potential customers, so besides displaying talent, making a good impression was also very important.

Margie

[Nehalenia]

Go back and look at his self portrait (the one showing him as an artist) and try to guess what colors did he use. Let's hear your best guess!:evil:
Barb Solomon:cat:
HA!:evil: I've got this mean little advantage of having a Sweerts practically in my backyard. And I swear I'll bribe the curator of the Frans Hals to tell me. :evil:

Seriously, I plan to go to the Frans Hals either tomorrow (erm... today already) or Tuesday and have a close look. I've never studied it for the pigments.

What strikes me in the self portrait is that a lot of the sky is washed out. This suggests he may have been using Smalt for the blue?

Also I dug up an old newgroup post about the exhibit in 2002/2003 of Sweerts' works in the Netherlands. Posters there say that they think much of the background is still in deadpaint.

Margie

[bjs0704]

Margie - It makes sense that he would be trying to look “well mannered”! I’m thinking of a well known quote from Leonardo about how a painter can dress in silks.

Let’s face it, most of us even today would want to look like prosperous artists, if we did a similar portrait.

I’ve noticed that many painting from the baroque period are filled with allusions to the classics. It is still a good thing for a classical artist to get a bit of background in the classics. (I’m told that it is good to start with Ovid and the Bible!)

I remember being told in my art history class in French and Italian Baroque (it broke my heart that I couldn’t take the class on Dutch Baroque) that these paintings were used as advertising for their painting skill. You can also see painters often use family members to create portraits that are intended to show off the artist’s skills and advertise for potential business.


Ooooooo, how I wish I could visit the museum too!

I hope that you tell us!

Smalt sounds like a likely guess. At least one of my articles suggested that he used pigments that have darkened over the years(now, this could be a hint!) and so backgrounds that seem black, now, were dark, but not as dark as they are now.


Are you saying that many of the backgrounds have their “dead layer” showing?


But in the meantime, does any brave soul want to take a guess! Who can come the closest?

Thanks so much for the wonderful information, Margie! It’s incredibly interesting. I hope that you can tell us more! And let us know about your trip

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

I’ve noticed that many painting from the baroque period are filled with allusions to the classics. It is still a good thing for a classical artist to get a bit of background in the classics. (I’m told that it is good to start with Ovid and the Bible!)
Karel van Mander describes a sort of "pecking order' among painters. The St. Lucas was also for house/decorative painters. Those were the lowest. Then came the painters of still life and genre pieces, then the portrait artists, and finally, the pinacle of mastery, painters who could do biblical and mythological scenes. Talk about class society, lol!

It's certainly worth reading the bible and Ovid's Metamorphoses to get a better understanding of classical painting. Ovid had a huge influence on artists.

http://www.tkline.freeserve.co.uk/Ovhome.htm


Are you saying that many of the backgrounds have their “dead layer” showing?
More or less. This is where I get confused. You see.. I'm not sure what is meant by the term dead LAYER. I know it refers to the underpainting, but from what I have learned the underpainting can be (and often is) more than one layer.

That is why over here the term "doodverf" (deadpaint) or simply underpainting is more common. Deadpaint then is everything on the canvas that isn't the final glazing layer(s).

And for this underpainting or deadpaint, no sane painter used expensive pigments. Which brings us back to the selfportrait. Interesting is this painting which is fully glazed of Joseph Deutz. Look at the brilliant blues on the sleeve. That is a lightfast expensive pigment like Lapis Lazuli or Azurite, don't you think?

http://rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-3855.z

But in the meantime, does any brave soul want to take a guess! Who can come the closest?

I think he's telling us himself (hint, hint...:D)

Margie

[Pars]

Margie and thanks to Barb, of course, I've been following this thread with great interest.

Do you think the palette colours are the same or similar to Vermeer's - many of which are no longer produced today but substituted by new formulations? Lapis now ultramarine! I can't translate all the older pigments to their newer sisters. Not sufficient experience!

"Doodverf" translates to dead layer and dead paint, doesn't it? I still speak some Dutch, not much anymore, away from Holland for nearly 30 years :) Whilst trying to catch up and learn, I translated this to be somewhere after the first few grisaille layers. Am I understanding this correctly? Perhaps the penultimate or ultimate layer before the colour glazes is the "doodverft" or dead layer. If that is correct, it isn't unlikely a painter with limited funds or a frugal temperament might use a lesser quality paint....just a thought!

And Margie, do you know the colours of the palette? :evil:

[Nehalenia]

Do you think the palette colours are the same or similar to Vermeer's
Yes! Vermeer's palette was very typical for those days and it's not a bad bet to take it as a standard for all baroque painting. However, there are some pigment missings on the list of the essential Vermeer website I am sure were used in Baroque painting.

- many of which are no longer produced today but substituted by new formulations? Lapis now ultramarine! I can't translate all the older pigments to their newer sisters. Not sufficient experience!

This is a very good overview, it has almost all pigments used in those days.

http://www.essentialvermeer.20m.com/palette/palette_azurite.htm

Azurite = cerulean blue (more or less), expensive and often mixed with smalt

Carmine = hardly ever used

Charcoal or soot = lampblack, always

Green Earth = green earth, common

indigo = rare

ivory black = rare, expensive pigment

lead white = always

lead tin yellow = common and very easily spotted. Very toxic, replaced with lemon yellow

madder lake = alizarine crimson. very common. was often used as a glaze over vermillion, especially by Rubens

red ocher = always. How else would you paint Dutch tile floors and brick? Not used for the brilliant red draperies though. It's dull and brownish red.

smalt = kobalt. Very frequently used in underpaintings, but often mixed. Has weak color and looses this color after time. It then turns a dirty yellowish grey.

lapis lazuli = ultramarine. Common

raw umber = always

weld = no modern equivalent. Look up weld on the Vermeer website. Its Dutch name will make you chuckle...(okay, okaaaayyyy.... English reader, it's called sh*t yellow in Dutch) Fairly common.

verde gris = equivalent chromium oxide. You can still get verde gris, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's a difficult pigment and does strange things when mixed with some other pigments. It was the most common green in 17th century painting.

vermillion = very common

yellow ocher = always

there is one pigment missing from the Vermeer list that was often used for greens

Malachite:
http://webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/malachite.html


Going to post this now before I write an encyclopedia. :evil:

Margie

[Pars]

Hartlijk bedankt, Margie! Tot ziens!

Many thanks, Margie, hope to see you again! You have offered so much depth to this thread that I feel as if I am in the Rijks itself :)

[bjs0704]

It’s hard to say which of the two blues, but my guess is the azurite. The black will make the blue look bolder.

That is a nice version of Ovid.

You are right about the pigment list. Though the bulk of the painting may have used an even narrower range of earth tones. This is a throw back to the ancient Greeks.


Zoe - I do see similarities to Vermeer’s colors.

Both the “Essential Vermeer” site and Ovid site are great!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

Here is an interesting article

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4021/is_200304/ai_n9170291

Nickel

[bjs0704]

Thanks so much, Nickel, for finding that! It is a wonderful article!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Thanks for the excellent article Nickel! And you saved me some money too. I saw Kultzens' catalogue in an online bookshop, but it seems it's not worth getting it. I've ordered "The Curious World of Michael Sweerts" instead. Peter Sutton and Guido Jansen are a guarantee for high qualiry.

Well, didn't have a chance to go to the Frans Hals today. I'll try tomorrow.

Margie

[Titanium]

Great Thread/Article !
Thanks to all.
Later.
Titanium

[bjs0704]

Hey Titanium,

It's great to see you! I thought that Sweerts was a pleasant discovery!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

I was also looking at the self portrait and trying to see the palette colors he shows himself using. Notice the white is the biggest area, looks like some vermilion and yellow ochre, raw sienna, not sure, it is kind of orange hue. Can you bump the colors up in photoshop for just the palette? Most of the other colors are dark on his palette. Anyway I counted eleven colors. And he used a few brushes, so I'd say he was not a one brush painter. I picked up a brush and tried to hold it like he is holding his. It is not the way I hold a brush. It seems rather dainty to hold a brush that way. What would holding your pinkie finger this way mean? It seems like a proper way to hold a tea cup but not a brush. So maybe he tried to show he had proper manners?

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/19-Jan-2006/11410-sweerts_selfportrait.jpg

Technical Data

The painting is in good structural condition, but there are areas of extensive damage to the paint surface.14

The canvas was lined prior to acquisition by the Museum, probably in the early 20th century.

A partial removal of overpaint in the area of the palette was conducted in 1954; varnish and overpaint were removed and losses inpainted in 1957; and the painting was cleaned and the inpainting adjusted in 1983.

There are scattered losses throughout the painting, a thin line of loss in the sitter's proper right forehead, and large flake losses in the paint and ground layers at the top and bottom edges, which have been filled and repainted.

Additional lines of loss parallel to the edges of the canvas at the right and left edges were probably caused by the flexing of the canvas over the stretcher.

These losses, and the frayed and torn edges of the original canvas (tacking margins have been lost), suggest that the canvas was extremely slack and poorly mounted prior to relining.

A toned varnish (old restoration) in the sitter's proper right sleeve minimizes extensive abrasion in this area.


The ground is applied in two thin layers: the lower white, containing chalk; the upper grey, probably charcoal in a matrix of white lead.

The grey "halo" around the head of the sitter was examined by Mark Bockrath in 1983 with a microscope and under ultraviolet and infrared lights, and was determined to be the artist's original intent and neither pentiment nor restoration.

The light tones of the sky are painted into and over the hair and blended in an alla prima technique to produce an effect of backlighting in the outline of the hair.

The pigments on the palette held by the sitter were analysed in detail in 1954 by Richard Buck and R. J. Gettens, and can be identified as

(counterclockwise, from upper right): vermillion, red lake (madder?), white lead, yellow ochre, red ochre or Venetian red, terra verte, a warm brown lake, a cool brown pigment (unidentified), raw sienna, Van Dyck brown (or carbon black), and unidentified (pigment lost; possibly originally blue).

Much more can be read at this link:
http://www.oberlin.edu/allenart/collection/sweerts_michiel.html


I think the thing that makes me feel good is that these folks asked the same questions we are asking. Lucky for us they answered them and we can benefit by their sudy.

Margie, when you get your book, let us know what you think.

Nickel

[bjs0704]

Great work, Nickel! You even found his palette!:clap: :clap: :clap:

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

Great work, Nickel! You even found his palette!:clap: :clap: :clap:

Barb Solomon:cat:


Well at least we know what they found on his palette in this painting, but you know; I bet like most artist, what he shows maybe isn't exactly what he did in RF. :p Little birdies on the window sill never tell the whole story. :D

[Pars]

Thanks for searching that out, Nickel :) Excellent addition to the pantheon of data for little ole me :evil:

I have a friend who is a rather good restorer, and judging by what I know of his work, and his approach to restoration and analysis before restoring, it is likely we are making good guesses only. He, my friend that is, was a chemistry student turned art restorer--a huge leap but he is certainly richer by far (in several ways) :D as am I by watching him painstakingly restore a work.

Great thread! We all ought to rate it!

[Nehalenia]

Margie, when you get your book, let us know what you think.

Nickel
Excellent, Nickel, simply excellent! Allthough brief, the article makes perfect sense to me and even confirms some of my guesses. I will sure let you all know what Sutton and Jansen have to say.

BTW, I went to the Frans Hals last Thursday, but I can't say I got any wiser with regard to the self portrait. The Painters'' Class is in a different style, fully worked out and in very warm "Dutch" tones. Not typical of any particular school. It has elements of both Amsterdam and Delft schools. Amsterdam for the warm muted colors (and even a "master" with a Rembrandt robe, lol!) and Delft because some of the colors in the foreground are really bright, Vermeer style (tin lead yellow).

For the red, madder was widely used . We call it "kraplak". It's from a plant we call "meekrap". The component of this plant producing a red is chemically identical to permanent alizarin crimson.

I'll be back when the book arrives.
Thread rated :):clap:

Margie

[bjs0704]

Thanks Margie, it sound as if Permanent Alizarin Crimson would be a great choice modern people trying to copy “The Painter’s Class”.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Hello Michael Sweerts fans..:wave::wave::wave:

THE BOOK has arrived, hurray! It's awesome. The reproductions are stunning. I've only got the Painters' Class to compare and it's as true to the real colors as it can get in print. Even the brushwork is visible.

When I look at the paintings, I'm often reminded of Vermeer, the style is very similar, especially the portraits.
The selfportrait is lighter and not as green as the picture on the Oberlin website.In the reproduction it's very, very clearly visible that the "halo" is not a correction, but painted underneath the darker hair.

There is a long chapter about materials and techniques, the stuff we've all been looking for. His technique is generally very Netherlandish, which isn't the same thing as the "Flemish" techique. I haven't read all of it yet, so I don't know about palettes.

At the end of the book are all the etchings of his drawing book "for the young and others" and a few more.

While I was waiting for the book, I've been reading up on some history and the "Bentveughels", the group of painters in Rome (Jan Asselijn amongst others) and may have found some (speculative) answers to why Sweerts didn't associate much with them.

Be back later. :)

Margie

[rosebard]

You guys are doing serious reading around here. Thanks for all the info. :)

[bjs0704]

How wonderful, Margie! Thanks for the book report! Let us know more later on!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

Hey Barb, Rose, Titanium, Zoe, Margie, Robert, and Patrick!

Hey Margie! Glad your book arrived!

Ok, nobody hit me with a stick ok?

While I am interested in his technique, his life is mostly a mystery. We know so little of him and what made him tick. I can only compare and contrast him to many other artist of his time. There was Rubens and Rembrandt in Holland, Poussin in France, Velasquez in Spain, Caravaggio in Italy and then there is also Vermeer.

I am interested in what drove him crazy or why was he said to be crazy.

After watching a program on the Chin Dynasty, it was quiet interesting to me how CHIN SHI HUANG DI the Emperor ingested liquid mercury in a quest to become immortal only to go crazy and die at a young age.

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/china/history/thefirstemperor.htm

I speculate if Sweerts was in fact crazy, it may have been mercury poison.

Not that he ingested mercury but maybe the vermilion pigment? Just a thought anyway, what do you think about mercury posion and vermilion in 1660?

The bad news is when I was a child, I remember playing with liquid mercury. Of course I know not to do that now. Don't play with mercury.
http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1080.html


Anyway back to Sweerts, in 1659 Pope Innocent X knighted him. In 1661, at the age of 43, Sweerts joined a French missionary group traveling to Cochin as the pictorial record maker. This took a while to find out why he joined the group but it makes some sense as it sounds like it might have been a commission job.

He was dismissed from the missionary group by the head Bishop Francois Pallu who wrote, ''Our good Mr. Sweerts is not the master of his own mind.''

Sweerts then is known to have went to Goa, a major Jesuit center in India. He died there in 1664. So why did he go to India?

[Nehalenia]

Hi Nickel,

Yep, mercury is very poisonous, as are lead, cadmium, cobalt and turpentine. First of all, I don't think you have to worry. I played with mercury too, not on my hand but on a table. It was too cool to push that silvery drop around with a straw. But you're not going to go crazy from mercury poisoning. Only prolonged exposure to mercury vapour and ingesting it is a bad idea.

The toxic part causing madness and other severe health problems is mercury vapour. When it is part of a chemical compound like vermillion it looses much of its toxocity.

Unless he had the habit of eating vermillion, I don't think that was the cause of his mental instability. Moreover, Sutton makes a special note that Sweerts used remarkably little vermillion or none at all in his paintings.

I think the answer to many questions lies in his character. I'm not so sure he was insane, just very unusual. What has been said of him by others strikes me as the behaviour of man of very great intelligence and as is often the case, such people can be "difficult".

Ok, this is a summary of what the book says about it.

Sweerts is mentioned in the journal of the French missionary Nicolas Etienne, who had met Sweerts in Amsterdam. The year is 1661. Etienne describes Sweerts as a man with an austere and saintly lifestyle and mentions Sweerts had traveled widely and spoke 7 languages. By the end of the year, Sweerts was in Marseille and the missionaries set sail on Jan 2, 1662 to Palestine. From there on they traveled over land to Isfahan (Iran) and then to Tabriz (also Iran). This is were Pallu wrote his report.

"our good Mr Svers is not the master of his own mind. I do not think that the mission was the right place for him, nor he the right man for the mission.. Everything has been terminated in an amiable fashion on both sides".

Another eyewitness mentions Sweerts' contradictory and argumentative manner and tell us that Sweerts continued to paint while on the mission.

So there he is...stuck in Tabriz.

http://home.att.net/~tabriz/newpage21.htm (http://home.att.net/%7Etabriz/newpage21.htm)

Some time later he shows up in Goa, India. I'm not sure why he went to India, but it doesn't sound strange to me. It suggests he wanted to go back to the Netherlands. Goa was a very important trading port and many European vessels stopped there to trade spices from the Far East and to take in silks and supplies for the long trip to the Cape in South Africa.

From Tabriz, Sweerts could have gone three ways.
Over land through Turkey and the Balkan - very dangerous
Back to Palestine - also very dangerous
To India - that was dangerous too, especially the mountain region now known as Afghanistan/Pakistan, but it was an important trade route and he may have found a caravan to travel with. Or he may have gone to Basra on the Persian Gulf and there board a ship to India. There wouldn't have been any European ships in Basra.

Gosh...this man deserves a novel!!! It gets better and better all the time.

Margie

[bjs0704]

It’s always good to know that I wasn’t the only kid who played with those little drops of mercury!

Nickel - Your theory does make me wonder about the old “crazy artist” stereotype.

But, I assumed from reading about Sweerts whether they thought he “fit” or not, they were stuck with him and they took him to India. Or another group of missionaries took him there.

Margie - Your right! I think that it would make a great novel!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Barb, I think I've found a good title for that book. :D

Ok, I've read the Introduction and Biography with great interest. From what I've read, the picture of "the crazy artist who kept to himself" is a myth, brought into the world by one of his first biographers.
I would say it was quite the opposite. Amongst his patrons were the Deutz family, a family of scandalously rich merchants and bankers, Jan Six, Amsterdams' most famous merchant and magistrate and mostly omitted in prior biographies, Prince Camilllo Pamphilj, the nephew of Pope Innocentius X.

He seemed to have been on very friendly terms with three brothers of the Deutz family and for the Prince Camillo he was not only a painter, but also advised and mediated in the purchase of artworks. He appears to have been involved in textile trading. While he was in Rome he seems to have shared an appartement with several Northern painters. There is nothing to indicate that his Academy in Brussels was a failure, quite the contrary. In short, Cavallier Swart (The Black Knight, how's that for a book title?) was a highly succesful painter and businessman with a great number of connections in the highest classes. Hardly a tragic failure. I think the Oberlin portrait shows him as he really was.

Not all archives have been searched for more information, so who knows what else may turn up....
This is getting more interesting by the minute.

Today I've come down with the 'flue or else a bad cold (runny nose, burning eyes, sore throat, no fever) and I've been sent home for the rest of the week. I feel too tired to paint, but reading and writing is a pleasant distraction. So I will try to write a short biography that includes the recent findings by Sutton and Jansen and also what his palette and technique was.

Meanwhile, I've also created a blog where I ramble a bit more elaborately, especially on the historical background of the time he and other Dutch/Flemish painters lived in. I'm on a discovery journey in this blog. While I know quite a bit of the Republic of the Netherlands, I know next to nothing about the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium) or artists' lives in Rome.
If you're interested:

http://dutchpainting.blogspot.com/

[Nickel]

Cool Blog Margie, hope you feel better soon! I've had the flu bug for three weeks, so far I am not dead yet :p chicken soup :p good book :p nice friends to talk with about Sweerts :D

Barb, good to know you and Margie played with the mercury too! It just means you are as old as me :D 21:D

[bjs0704]

Margie - I’m sorry to hear about your getting the flu! I hope that you get better soon. Curlling up and reading your new Sweerts book does sound like a good thing to do!

Thanks for the additional information! It is good to hear about his background!


Your blog looks great and has lots of good information!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Hello!! :wave: I'm afraid I was knocked out for a few days and could do nothing but sleep and snif:(, but I feel much. much better now. :D

It is likely that a lot of analysis will be done on Sweerts' paintings in the future, because he almost never dated them. Apart from archival research, analysing the paintings will help in tracing his whereabouts.

Canvasses:

Many 17th century painters did not prepare their own canvasses and bought them ready made. Sweerts was no exception.
From the canvas we know where it was bought and possibly also painted.
In the Netherlands only plain-weave canvasses were made and the loom width was 2 els (138 cm/app. 55 inches)
In Italy the canvasses were twill-weave with a loom width of about 106-110 cm (app. 43 inches)

Sweerts' canvasses vary a lot in quality, even in a series like the 7 acts of mercy. Some are fine weave, others are pretty coarse weave.
I don't think this has anything to do with lack of money, from his biography there is no indication he was destitute in any way. From that same biography and his method of painting, one often gets the feeling or impression he was somewhat impatient. So he might just have bought anything that was available at the shop, not wanting to wait for something better.

Ground and imprimatura:

Two types of ground were detected in Sweerts' paintings.

Italian clay ground

The painting "A Game of Draughts", painted in Rome has a single red colored ground.This is not unusual, but what was unusual was that the ground contained clay. The use of clay is desribed in the Volpato manuscript and termed "terra di bocali" (translated: clay for bowls/earthenware).

Dutch double ground (double Dutch ground, if you want to be funny)

Paintings Sweerts executed in the lowlands have the conventional Dutch/Flemish double ground.

The first layer or ground is easy to make. Take all you paint scrapings, dirty brushes, left-overs from your palette and mix on the canvas with chalk and one or more earth pigments of choice. The result is the murky brown grey, better known as "mud". The sole purpose of the ground was to seal the canvas to stop it absorbing more expensive pigments. But optically, it does have an effect on the entire painting, especially when painters had a thin painting technique.

The second layer (imprimatura) was a lead white mixed with a carbon black (soot or charcoal). If you paint this over a dark or mud colored ground, you'll see that the result is a harsh, cold, blueish grey. This coolness is entirely optical (an optical illusion) and caused by "Raleigh scattering". http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/blusky.html#c2

To make the imprimatura more optically neutral (NOT warm), a small amount of iron oxide red and other earths were added to the mixture.

Some notes:

I prepared several canvasses myself to see the result when the white is Titanium instead of lead (you can't buy lead white in tubes here). The result was indeed harsh, but not quite blue-grey. More like purple-grey. I tried several mixtures. Yellow ocre, iron oxide red, raw umber and all three mixed together.
IMO the one with yellow ocer is still cool, the one with raw umber and the mixture is murky and the one with red iron oxide is a soft neutral grey which I like best. But that is undoubtely a matter of opinion.

I'm wondering what canvasses and grounds he was using smack in the middle of Iran. Do you think he bought prepared canvasses for the trip? Dutch or Italian? I can't help seeing in my minds' eye this caravan of camels carrying canvasses, lol! :D

Details on the technique of underpainting to follow soon.

Margie

[Nehalenia]

Underpainting;

The vast majority of 17th century Dutch and Flemish painters didn't use underpainting techniques I sometimes see referred to as "Flemish" or "Venetian". I take this to mean a monochrome underpainting, either in greys (grisaille), umbers (brunaille or bistre) or greens (verdaccio). However, such (formal) techniques were taught in the Accademia di San Lucia in Rome, where the more experimental and alla prima techniques of Caravaggio and his followers were abhored. Sweerts was in close contact with both the Accademia and the "Schildersbent" or "Bentveughels", the group of Northern painters studying in Rome (and admirers of Caravaggio). The difference is ultimately one of style.

The Accademia was formal, intellectual and revered the classics of Greece and Rome. Later on, this formal style came to an absolute heigth in classical French painting, with Bougereau as the undisputed grandmaster of this style.

There was a reverence for the classics in the Netherlands too, but this was far more informal. Dutch and Flemish painters delighted in painting everyday scenes of ordinairy folk ( a tradition still very much alive in the lowlands) and painting from life.
In the Accademia, painters were taught painting by copying classical statues and plaster casts, with a stict working method of how to proceed.

In a very Dutch/Flemish fashion, Sweerts seems to have borrowed from both styles of painting, but remained predominantly Dutch/Flemish. As I said in the post above, he also seemed an impatient man and that does not go well with the perfect underpaintings and endless glazing layers of the formal classical technique. In short: Sweerts' paintings are "sloppy" from a classical point of view and perfectly standard Dutch compared to Rembrandt and Hals.

It takes some time to explain how these Dutch masters painted and the best way is to show examples in Sweerts' work . So please allow me some time. The bottom line is: forget about stictly monochrome underpaintings, especially if you are copying Rubens.

Note and disclaimer: All this is almost 100% from what I've learned from art historians. Artists are a different breed and as far as I am concerned, there is not "right" or "wrong", just what feels best/nicest to do. But if you want to try historical techniques, this seems to be the way how painters painted in Northern Europe (cross referenced by yours truely) and this information of art historians could help a great deal to create a genuine "Dutch" look.

Margie

[bjs0704]

Margie - I’m glad to hear that you are feeling better!

I’ve heard of other artists using premade canvases. (If I remember correctly, I read about Caravaggio using a premade for at least one of his earlier pieces.)

In at least one article that I read, he was criticized for using inexpensive pigments. Could he have just been a “cheapskate”? :D Your theory that he bought whatever was in the shop at the time sounds fairly good too!

Thanks for the explanation about the preparation of the ground.

When I was preparing the MOM on Rubens, it was said that he used “lead white mixed with a carbon black”.

Yup, I can see him packing a few pigments and the rabbit skin glue and then having someone make the canvases! The camels carrying canvases would be “interesting”!

I have been enjoying what I have been learning immensely! I really appreciate it!:clap: :clap: :clap:

There is sometimes problems with studying historical painting methods. Artists usually don’t write about historical methods and Art historians often don’t paint that much. It’s a treasure to find those writers who understand both fields.

I’m looking forward to hearing more!

Best wishes,

Barb Solomon:cat:

[rosebard]

Underpainting;
Note and disclaimer: All this is almost 100% from what I've learned from art historians. Artists are a different breed and as far as I am concerned, there is not "right" or "wrong", just what feels best/nicest to do. But if you want to try historical techniques, this seems to be the way how painters painted in Northern Europe (cross referenced by yours truely) and this information of art historians could help a great deal to create a genuine "Dutch" look.

Margie

Margie thanks so much for the latest info and again, hope you get better from the flu. Yeah you allowed more time, no problem. Thanks again and looking forward for more to read.

I appreciate all that have being added so far by everyone, it is really cool to learn like that. :)

[Nehalenia]

In at least one article that I read, he was criticized for using inexpensive pigments. Could he have just been a “cheapskate”? :D
Barb Solomon:cat:

Lol! From a Dutch/Flemish point of view this comment is quite amusing (not laughing at you, mind!). He was a Belgian! It's the Dutch who have the name of being cheapskates/stingy. :D

But seriously. It makes perfect sense to me (but then I'm Dutch,lol!) None of the Dutch painters used expensive pigments very much and it accounts for the typical muted tones in Dutch painting. The muted colors are quite appropriate for the lowlands, it really looks that way, especially in old buildings.

He wasn't always so frugal. In this painting he really went overboard. The entire shawl is ultramarine over lead white. According to Guido Jansen, a lot of it has worn away too, so the layer must have been really thick and the painting itself is quite large.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/05-Feb-2006/67591-512_766c57be9561f088614c284a84427d17.jpg

Margie

[bjs0704]

Well, I certainly know that you can find cheapskates all over!

I also know that sometimes the palettes that emphasize earth tone pigments (red ochre, yellow ochre, a black pigment, lead white with burnt sienna and burnt umber) were often used because these pigments were used by the Ancient Greeks and Romans. It was often a matter of their love and repect of Classical times.

I know that there was a theory that the brighter pigements should be used sparingly if they were used. The bright colors were set against the earth tones to make them seem brighter yet.

The young man with the shawl and turban is such a great example of making bright colors seem brighter by using more muted colors. It is good that you point out that the shawl is in ultramarine.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Some of my findings about the underpainting so far, based on analyses of Guido Jansen of Sweerts' paintings that he had access to and my own observations.
This is not conclusive (will it ever be?).

Sweerts employed a technique - in almost all his painting I have closely looked at so far - of deliberately using the underpainting (leaving it exposed) as a device to suggest shadow, contrast and depth. By glazing only the most important parts from a compositional perspective, those parts really stand out. To add to this quite dramatic effect he sometimes uses very strong colors and at other times colors so subtle that they ('scuse me, can't help it) nearly make me cry. Examples?

The one on the front page of the Michael Sweerts book.

https://rijksmuseum.nl/images/shop/product/10250

I'm afraid the picture doesn't match the reproduction, but a few things can be seen (with some difficulty) from this image. If you look closely at the jacket, you can see a texture. In my reproduction I can see the canvas-weave with the grey imprimatura shining through! So he deliberately painted only one "deadlayer" to express the texture of the cloth. The seams (with white highlights) are the only parts overpainted. If you have the impression that the right side of the figure, hat and hair are flat, you are right. It's "deadpaint". The only parts exquisitely glazed are the parts catching the light. Even on the face, shadow areas are not glazed. What I can't show you, but what moves me so much is the color of the tiny highlights in the hair. They appear orangy-pink on the website. In the reproduction they are a salmon pink I have been trying to reproduce since yesterday (no luck so far). Unfortunately the art historian writing the review of this painting (it's in Connecticut), didn't mention any pigments used. (Will someone get this guy doing some pigment analysis, pretty please?)

Sweerts underpaintings are not monochromatic, but of muted colors. Values are not worked out, the values/shadows ARE the underpainting.
A good example is the very painting 2 miles from where I'm sitting: The Painters' Class. The background figures are in deadpaint, directly painted over the imprimatura.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/06-Feb-2006/67591-deadpaintms.jpg



Compare that with the (again) exquisite glazing of the chair and the figures in the foreground.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/06-Feb-2006/67591-glazems.jpg

This device of creating contrast and make the focus of the painting really "pop", is seen throughout Sweerts' work.

More to come.

Margie

[Nehalenia]

P.S. An image that shows the delicate salmon pink somewhat better (but not quite), from a fellow traveller (and a fellow countryman of Sweerts) who also became fascinated by Sweerts. I've learned much from him.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/06-Feb-2006/67591-130_df92b05590278b0214c2dcd06ec051bb.jpg

Link for the Dutch-speaking folks: (and pictures for the non-Dutch)

http://timelesscollection.skynetblogs.be/?date=20050430&number=1&unit=months

Margie

[bjs0704]

That sounds somewhat similar to what I saw happening when I copied Vermeer's "Girl in a Red Hat". Vermeer contrasted bright colored items in the foreground and used the underpainting as a background as a way to create depth.

Thanks so much for pointing this technique out in Sweerts work! Your explanation is excellent!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

Thanks girls, this is all so interesting. :wave:

[Nehalenia]

That sounds somewhat similar to what I saw happening when I copied Vermeer's "Girl in a Red Hat". Vermeer contrasted bright colored items in the foreground and used the underpainting as a background as a way to create depth.
Barb Solomon:cat:
Exactly! Vermeer used similar methods to create this type of dramatic lighting. Kinda theatrical. It doesn't surprise me in the least Sweert has been mistaken for Vermeer in the past.

I suddenly got the inspiration to try this technique (digitally) to see how it works. I like it very much, it's surprisingly fast and economical.

This is what I've got so far, took me 2 hours:

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/08-Feb-2006/67591-boywithhatms.jpg

Here are some thumbnails, so you can see how I did the color build-up.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/08-Feb-2006/67591-progressms.jpg

Margie.:D

[bjs0704]

That worked very nicely as a digital painting! It's absolutely beautiful!

I'm glad that you kept the subtle colors! It's good to see your step by step!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

the 7 acts of mercy

Technical analysis.

Perhaps it were these paintings that gave Sweerts the name of a "cheapskate". Undeservedly, I think.

It is not clear if these were commissioned piece. They were later found in the mansion of Joseph Deutz, but there is doubt whether Deutz commissioned them. The series may have been done as a gift in gratitude of the patronage of the Deutz' family, perhaps in the same vein as Annibale Caracci, who also painted the 7 acts of mercy as a gift for his patrons.

Even though these paintings were excuted with the cheapest possible pigments (with one exception!) , grounds and canvasses, if it was a gift, it was extremely generous. A quick calculation I made tells me that if I were to do a similar series of the same size with the cheapest materials I could get, it would still cost me a well over 300 euro. (330 USD). And that's not counting the time spent painting this series.

Analysis showed a single layer of paint, with the exception of a few highlights here and there and were almost certainly done alla prima with wet-into-wet techniques.

The pigments, as said, are cheap. Earths only. Not even vermillion was used, the red in the fleshtones is red iron oxide. Furthermore a highly unusual pigment was found in the brighter orange-reds. It was red lead. I suspect this may be the same pigment as in the highlights of the Boy with a Hat, I can see some of the same delicate salmons in the areas were red lead was used in the 7 acts of mercy.

In stark contrast, again the lavish use of natural ultramarine, lapis lazuli, by far the most expensive pigment of the time.

Perhaps this is what makes Sweerts so fascinating and mysterious as a painter. Extreme economy on the one hand, and lavish luxury on the other. Stark contrasts of light and dark. And also stark contrasts in his life: the war torn country of his early youth, the patronage of extremely wealthy merchants and the Papal family in Rome and at the end of his life, the hardships of the mission in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, I can't show them all, some are in private collections, including a very interesting one (Harbouring a Stranger), with Sweerts himself as one of the figures.

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5548%22

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5546%22

http://token.rijksmuseum.nl/wwwopac.exe?DATABASE=imagedet1&%250=5541%22

Margie

[bjs0704]

I was quite struck by the variety of scenes by Sweerts! Many of them seemed to allude to other well known paintings. Your example of him painting the “Seven acts of Mercy” is a good example of this. They aren’t copies - he is saying “How would I do this theme?”. It was quite an impressive collection. He was an incredibly inventive painter and quite knowlegeable about other works of art.

Personally, I am finding the contrasts in his behavior all the more endearing. He may have had a hard enough time early in his life so that he could never take money for granted. Many of us have known people who lived through the ‘30’s and ‘40’s with the Depression and War. Forever after, they save tin cans and string, even when times became prosperous!

There must be a wonderful story behind his series, “Seven Acts of Mercy”. It is his major work.

Thanks so much for all of your research, Margie! I have learned so much! I really had limited access to information about Sweerts!

Best wishes,

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

Margie, you did a nice painting of the boy! Question, do you think Vermeer used this painting by Sweerts to paint his Girl with a Pearl?

I thought I'd better explain what I am asking, here on this link it seems to associate a possible link in style

http://girl-with-a-pearl-earring.20m.com/Girl_with_a_Pearl%20Earring_Possible_Precedents.htm

[Nehalenia]

Margie, you did a nice painting of the boy! Question, do you think Vermeer used this painting by Sweerts to paint his Girl with a Pearl?

I thought I'd better explain what I am asking, here on this link it seems to associate a possible link in style

http://girl-with-a-pearl-earring.20m.com/Girl_with_a_Pearl%20Earring_Possible_Precedents.htm

Hi Nickel,

Thanks for the compliment! :)

Good point about the relation between The Girl with Pearl Earring and Sweerts!

It's very possible, and there are other arguments from which the same conclusion could be deducted.

1. Vermeer didn't paint any "tronies" before the Girl with a Pearl Earring and paintings from around the same time. Also around this time Vermeer begins to use the same technique as Sweerts to leave the background in deadpaint (Woman with Red hat), something he hadn't done before either.

2. Imitation was regarded as the highest form of respect in the 17th century.

3. Vermeer would certainly have been interested in hearing about de Accademia di San Luca in Rome. Both Sweerts and Cousin are mentioned as being present at a meeting of said academy.

4. Remember the drawing book Sweerts made? It has a "tronie" with almost exactly the same pose and expression as the Girl, only it's a mirror image and it's boy. Maybe Vermeer got a copy of it from Cousin?

Margie

[Nickel]

Thanks Margie for the thoughts, however they did compose the setting, the image and pose is striking and haunting as to mean beautiful and unforgettable in both paintings. Enjoyed reading your blog too! :wave: Nickel

[bjs0704]

Margie - You've mentioned the artist, Cousin. Is this Jean Cousin the Elder? Or is my memory for numbers letting me down totally?:D

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Barb, Sorry, I should have been more specific. No, it's not Jean Cousin, but Louis Cousin (1606 -1668) also a Brussels painter. In Italy he was known as Luigi Gentile. I have only seen his paintings mentioned in descriptions of churches in Belgium. Never seen one.

Margie

[Nehalenia]

Biography based on recently found evidence.

Michael Sweerts was the son of David Sweerts, a merchant, and Martynken Balliel. He was baptized in the Saint Nicolas Church in Brussels on September 29th, 1618. Michael had two sisters, Maria and Catherine.

The name Sweerts seems to originate from an area around Aarschot, in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium. Apart from people with the name Sweerts, there is also a barony Sweerts de Landras. This does not mean there is a genetic relation, the Sweerts name may have come from a family who lived on the Sweerts de Landras estate. The meaning of the name is related to the Dutch word for "black".

The first 22 years of Sweerts' life are shrouded in mystery. Not a single source was found. So for his possible education, all I can tell you is what is generally known of that time.

Spanish sources comment on the high percentage of literacy in the Netherlands, both North and South. Especially before the Dutch Revolt, the number of schools available in the Southern Netherlands matched the present day. It seems quite certain he went to school someplace, only we don't know where. From his level of education I think (speculation, not confirmed) that he went to a Latin School. About his education as a painter, nothing sensible can be said. It's simply unknown.

The earliest historical source possibly related to Sweerts is from 1640. Sweerts is mentioned as a "Michele" living on the Via Margutta in Rome with his companion "Gherardo" (both Flemish painters). The same phrase is used again in 1648 at a time when it is confirmed Sweerts was in Rome.

The next certain source is from 1646 from a census of the Parish of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. His name shows up every year in the census until 1651. Also the Accademia di San Luca records him in 1646 as being charged with the task of collecting contributions from his fellow Northern painters for the annual feast of St. Luke.

It looks like Sweerts was in Rome as early as 1640. Interesting in this respect that two paintings of Sweerts were in the possession of Jan Six, an Amsterdam merchant who toured Italy during 1641-1643. On the other hand, there is a record of a "Michael Swerts" as godfather at the baptism of a certain Johannes Hackaert 7th Jun 1644 in Brussels. May have been another Sweerts altogether. (Welcome to the genealogy detective game!)

The notion that Sweerts was a loner, unwilling to associate with either his fellow Flemish painters or the Accademia is a myth that can be laid aside.
In case you ever run into another myth about him, he also wasn't a member of the elite group "Virtuosi al Patheon".

Next: Sweerts' patrons in Rome

Sources:

- Baptism registry of the St. Nicolas Church, Brussels
- "Michael Sweerts" Guido Jansen & Peter Sutton, ISBN 90 400 8676 1

Margie:D

[Nehalenia]

Breaking news!!!!

Maybe the world of art historians already knows, but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere. I've found his date of birth and a genealogist with extensive data on the Sweerts family. :D:D:D:D

19 September 1618

[Nickel]

Margie you are going to have to publish your research :D :D :D

Good Job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And thank you for sharing with us. :wave:

[Nehalenia]

The latest gossip about "The Painting Class"/ "The Academy". For 6 million euro it is yours! Yes, it's for sale, but there's a catch. You can't hang it on your mantlepiece. For this sum of you can claim it as your property, but it has to stay available for the public.
Margie

I'm happy to announce that the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam has made an offer for this painting. So it looks like it's not going anywhere further than 10 miles up the road and will remain available to the public and lenders. Suits me just fine! :D:D:clap:

Margie

[rosebard]

I'm happy to announce that the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam has made an offer for this painting. So it looks like it's not going anywhere further than 10 miles up the road and will remain available to the public and lenders. Suits me just fine! :D:D:clap:

Margie

What a research!! Cool!! :clap: :clap:

Isnt that a great news for Europeans! Great! Book me a museum ticket for an year or two, and wait for me at the door entrance!! :)

[saintlukesguild]

This is one of the most interesting threads to me ever to appear in WC. Mostly because 90% of my interest in art begins at 1500 and ends at 1699. And 80% of that 90% interest is devoted to the Dutch Golden Age (including Flanders of course.) Now along comes this Ms. Margie, a treasure house of knowledge, and within a short bicycle ride of a mind boggling treasure of paintings.

I read your blog, Margie, and was blown away. Here is why. I am engrossed in a novel called "The Darwin Conspiracy." It's about a modern young man researching Darwin's life on dry land after his voyages. Why was he such a hypocondriac? Why did it take him 20 years to publish his theory? etc. etc. I had just finished a half dozen chapters when I clicked on your blog, and it was deja vu all over again, as they say. I'm not kidding. You were sniffing out the scent of Michael Sweerts, and you were doing it a similar style of the hero of my novel - English written with scholarly precision, though idiomatic where you wanted, and laced with a self-effacing sense of humor. And I will stop there before I embarrass myself even.

To the nitty gritty. When is "dead paint" not a monochrome? Is dead paint and "false color" the same thing. These are not idle questions because I have been searching for Dutch words for several years that describes just what Dutch underpainting is. I don't think dead paint has the punch I'm looking for. At the same time, I have this eerie sensation that I know exactly what you are talking about. The comparison with Vermeer did it. And bringing Vermeer in doesn't side track this thread away from Sweerts. Every single artist of that period ate from the exact same stew pot of basic art education, and nothing will ever convnce me other wise. Each developed different styles, more or less, depending on their specialty of subject matter - landsacpe, still life, tronies or big histories. Some had their eureka days and went from there. And don't leave out the critics, the movers and shakers and taste makers of 17 cen. Holland. They were there, just as they haunt New York today. But that is all divergence from a basic foundation of learning they everyone were taught. Vermeer, Rubens, Sweerts, Rembrandt, Van Eyck, Van Dyke, Hobbema, all of them.

So back to dead paint. You said something to the effect (too far back for me to scroll without losing my place) that Dutch/Flemish did not do underpainting in monochrome. "Especially Rubens." If it wasn't monochrome, what would it be called? Rubens did many working sketches in oil, and left several unfinished paintings at a stage that I would call monochrome. True enough, the mono or the chrome would be no more than four tones - black, white, brown and beige for tronies or small paintings, throw in a lot of muddy grays for large history paintings. And there you have a limited monochrome of every thing the painting is supposed to contain, only awaiting color. And as you said, NOT applying color where ever the artist could get by with it, leaving the base to serve as transition tones between color and deep shadow. Rembrandt's unfinished "Concord of the State" shows the same thing. In fact, Rembrandt did dozens and dozens of paintings with murky gray figures and objects in the back, just as Sweerts shows the murky art students sitting on the far side of the platform where the model is standing. The difference is Rembrandt did his a hundred times better than Sweerts. (smiley face) Make that a thousand.

Something else to consider is aerial perspective and working from the back forward. They all were taught that and practiced it. Hoogstraten defined aerial perspective as "perceptibility." Human eyes percieve everything best the closer everything is. As things move back in space they become enveloped in air, and less perceptible to human vision - that is detail and definition begin to blend and blur. A mountain range in the far horizon will almost merge with the sky. Sweerts art students sitting on the far side of the model stand are not THAT far away. Their imperceptibility is exaggerated. And there is nothing wrong with that in that particular interior scene, given that Sweerts was an incurable Carrivagio imitator. In Ruben's "Venus and Adonis" there is a dog about the mid-plane standing at a slight angle. The dog's forelegs are well enough defined, but not nearly so much as anything in the immediate foreground (aerial perspective). But the dog's hind legs are reduced at least 50% in perceptible detail, and they are only30 inches at best away from the forelegs in real life. So there is nothing new about Sweerts murky students on the far side of the model stand.

Here's a hypothetical. What if this exact same scene were outside in day light and the boys were drinking beer? How would the boys appear? They would be better defined than the boys in the art class room, but they could very well be 50% or more less defined (aerial perspective) than the backs of the boys on OUR side of the table. And I think they would have to be defined in earth tones.

So "dead color" doesn't quite say it. Too many complications. Maybe muddy grays, maybe sudued earth tones, all depends.

Back to Vermeer, Margie. Your comparison of him with Sweerts, about dead color (which I always considered to be the tone ground for Vermeer) making up parts of shadows on faces etc. is exactly why I thought I understood what you were talking about. But what ever source indicates to you that Vermeer began doing this with "Girl Wearing a Peral Earring," and that he might have done that under the influence of Sweerts, is entirely wrong. Vermeer did this in his first three paintings which were history paintings... St. Praxides, Diana and her companions, and Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. Especially in Diana and House of, there are gobs of pure tone ground scattered about, untouched by any color overlay. To leave those areas of tonal ground untouched, to serve an intended purpose, required incredible drawing skills and foresight of color effects to be put down adjacent. It was a form of modeling (the best word I can come up with in English). And I'm still not ready to dismiss that "modeling" is not a form of monochrome modeling. Though I think we are saying the same thing. Honest I do. To really complicate matters, the modeling/monochrome Vermeer did in his history paintings was modeled after the way Titian went about it 100 years earlier. Better still, this suggests to me that the young Vermeer painted his first three paintings exactly as he had been taught somewhere, where all art students fed at the exact same trough of basic knowledge. Just as I said at the beginning.

Another complication is dead color being a variety of colors, which makes them far from dead. In Vermeer's woman with one hand on a window frame and her other hand on a silver water pitcher, she wears a blue dress. That dress was first painted a dark earth red. So was the silver platter. He then put black over the red, allowing a hint of red to show through here and there. Then he applied the blue and very little of it. He did the same with Girl in a Red Hat. That blue velvet robe was first painted red. Then black, then lapis lazuli and very very little of that. It gives that blue velvet robe a warm richness unlike any other blue velvet robe I've ever seen painted.

So is that red a dead color, false color, or what? That is why I wish Margie would find the historical documentation that would tell us. I don't think she will. I don't think it exists.

I suspect the salmon color in Sweerts boy wearing a hat was done the same way Vermeer did the blue robe. The entire hat was painted some color first, then subsequent glaze layers turned the hat into a rich shimmering gray felt. Or maybe a brown felt. What exact color did he paint first? I have no idea. Did he dry glaze or wet in wet glaze over that base color? I have no idea.

Luke

[rhysyllanfair]

Just to reiterate Luke's comment that this is one of the best threads I've ever read on WC, full of information, insights, mystery, drama. It has it all. And Luke, your questions and suppositions about Vermeer and Sweerts are an education all in themselves. Wish I knew a tenth of what you guys know. Thanks.

Robert

[bjs0704]

Luke brings up some good questions.

There does seem to be some similarity between the techiniques used by Sweerts and Vermeer. It would be good if one of us in the forum could should people how this basic method worked.

But, I can see a danger of people presuming that all Flemish artists worked this way. A number of artist followed the techniques of Caravaggio and that method seems a bit different. (Am I right, I’m still new on these things.) I always thought of Rubens and Rembrandt as being more influenced by Caravaggio.

This has been a really fantastic thread! I've been absolutely delighted with it!:clap: :clap: :clap:

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

So is that red a dead color, false color, or what? That is why I wish Margie would find the historical documentation that would tell us. I don't think she will. I don't think it exists.
Luke
Hi Luke!

I'm going to take a while to respond to all your points. It's quite a lot and very interesting! First the one above to give you an idea what problems we (Dutch) are facing when trying to communicate our knowledge. It's mostly one of language. Yes, the documentation is there, a vast amount of it. It won't tell you anything unless you have a very specific question.

In the case of the Vermeer red, it would be termed "doodverwe" in his time. Deadpaint. The term itself shouldn't be understood as "lifeless/dull". It shows up first (I think) in Karel van Mander's "Schilderboeck"

http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/mand001schi01_01/mand001schi01_01_0001.htmhttp://www.dbnl.org/tekst/mand001schi01_01/mand001schi01_01_0001.htm

And here you see our problem. I don't know if this has been translated yet. I don't think so, because then there also would be a transcription in Modern Dutch and I have never seen one. The language is not only Dutch, it's 17th century elevated Dutch.

You also read the term in Dutch inventories of the time. The problem is, even WE don't know exactly what was meant by it.

Recently, a thesis was published dealing with this exact same question. What is this "doodverwe" and how does it relate to works of Rubens? Again it is in Dutch and may or may not be translated some day. It's too complicated to paraphrase.

http://www.kuleuven.ac.be/onderzoek/onderzoeksdatabank/project/3H05/3H051122.htm

The first few pages deal with the origin of the word "doodverwe". Of several possibilities, the one that it is derived from verdaccio seems most likely. The verdaccio made the figure look like a corpse - dead. How did this term enter into the Dutch language? Unknown, it may have been a tranlation of an Italian term meaning something similar. Or it might be a Dutch invention. The part of the lowlands (Flanders/Brabant) were it probably originated is highly original in inventing new Dutch words for a foreign term to this very day.

But what is unknown now, may be known in 10 years time. Please don't ever say again that such and such documentation does not exist. You do not know unless you've read all of it. And that takes more than one lifetime. We have vast archives, some of which have not even been read at all.

The next 40 pages or so are an attempt to define the term "doodverf" (modern version of doodverwe), which doesn't prove to be easy. Nowadays "underpainting" is more widely used, but if you ask what exactly "underpainting" is, you have the same problem.

To truely advance your knowledge of Dutch painting, the best course of action is to learn Dutch, modern first and 17th century later (which is difficult even for a native speaker). By the time you know the lingo, I'm sure many more scans of original documents are online and you'll have access to whole libraries in modern Dutch.

http://www.kb.nl/index-en.html

Eerst Nederlands leren, dus! :D:p

Margie

[Nehalenia]

A little update on the "Sweerts project". I promised to write something about a better documented phase of Michiels' life in Rome, when I hit a snag.
There was something extremely odd about his conduct, but it was not what general biographies tell you was odd about him.

Art historians are no "regular" historians, there's a marked difference both in approach to research and in fundamental knowledge. For the record: I'm a historian with art/culture as a specialty, which is not the same as an art historian. In other words: my general knowledge about art is less and my knowledge about general history is more. Only a historian would notice it. It's even difficult to explain in a few words, the realization that something was out of place came from a general knowledge of the time and the Dutch Revolt in particular. Innocentius X had a LOT to do with that.

Something didn't make sense, was completely illogical. Also Sweerts' supposed conversion to "steep catholic" in 1660 or thereabouts made no sense. Again, a fairly detailed knowledge of the social circumstances during that time explains why it makes no sense. It bugged me and not only because I felt sorry for the poor guy. Some of these rambles you can find on my blog.

Then a lot of things happened all at once. I found Annette Sweerts, a genealogist who knows just about everything there is to know about the Sweerts family name, dating back from the 12th century. On a personal level, the connection between her and me may sound quite amazing to a non-Dutch person. Let's say I knew her all along but was unaware of it.

She has been amazingly helpfull, more than I can ever express in words, in sorting out a few things. She saved me months, if not years of painstaking research. Much of this goes beyond the scope of this thread. It's still invaluable for future reference.

I sent Annette data about Sweerts' sisters she did not have (it's a huge family, she can't keep up with every detail). From this she tried to find a further connection. No luck so far. She thinks David Sweerts (Michiels' father) may be a relative of Francois Sweerts, a Brussels tappestry/carpet merchant. It's likely that Michiel is in some way related to the Brussels Sweerts family, one of the seven "keyholder" families of Brussels.
For those interested, here is the main lineage (Sweerts de Landas), complete with coat of arms.

http://www.winnem.com/siec/nsweers.htm

She also sent me an article about the Dutch Sweerts exhibit in 2002 by Dutch author and historian Wim Zaal. Much of the same story, untill he said something that set the alarm bells ringing. At first I didn't believe him and I checked and double checked. But he was absolutely right, only it wasn't obvious. He said the mission was a Jesuit mission. If you care to look back to Barb's excellent introduction, it says the mission was Lazarist. And since I knew zilch about Lazarists, I didn't take any notice other than: yeah, yeah, one of these orders.

But I do know a fair amount about the Jesuits and the part they played in the Dutch Revolt and much of European history of the 17th century. Don't be mistaken, they had incredible power (and money), even controlling Kings and certainly the Vatican. It's fairly easy to prove they had almost complete control of the spineless Pope Innocentius X. The entire order was banned in the 18th century for good reason. If it were up to them, we would still be in the Middle Ages. They interfered with the Enlightment and the overturn of the Ancient Regime, so they had to go.

So they played a very important part on the European political stage of that time. But what has that got to do with Michiel Sweerts? A lot, if you know what I know. They did not only interfere with European politics. Their aim was nothing less than converting the entire known world to the Holy Motherchurch. And to do so, they used very sneaky tactics that appeared to be totally innocent and even profoundly good on the surface.

For those of you who have read the Da Vinci Code: Opus Dei is a sister organisation to the Jesuits. Much of what you've read is actually true, except the homocidal monk. There is no evidence whatsoever connecting Opus Dei to murders. Ultra right wing catholic? Yes! Criminal? No!

Neither is there any proof of Jesuits being involved in a number of regicides (including WIlliam of Orange), but there are weird connections.
Balthazar Gerards, William of Orange's assassin, received absolution shortly before the murder from a Jesuit priest. The connections between the Jesuits and Philips II are well known to any historian interested in that period. And if you don't believe me: what to think of our Queen Beatrix, direct descendant of William of Orange, refusing to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II, while she had no pressing engagement that day?

Confusing, I know, but I'm trying to make clear that the waters run deep.

Back to Michiel: I have reason to believe he attended a Jesuit school for general education. It would explain his knowledge of 7 languages. These schools were fantastically GOOD, but only on a limited number of subjects. Sweerts knew perfect Latin. He composed a verse in it about Mary Magdalen. You do not learn Latin without formal education, it's not something he would have just "picked up".

But untill I can deliver proof, it's a mere hypothesis. If I can find such a proof, everything else falls into place.

I would love to give a link to a text which deals in detail with this and written by an ex-Jesuit scolar. Alas, again it's in Dutch. For Dutch readers:

http://users.skynet.be/sky50779/jes.htm

Phew.. quite a lot, I know. A lot more research is needed. Sweets' art education hasn't even been addressed, but without understanding this fundamental aspect, everything else may be futile.

Margie.

[bjs0704]

Margie - That was a wonderful breakthrough!

Thanks for pointing out the questions about Sweerts. It is an intriguing point.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[saintlukesguild]

But, I can see a danger of people presuming that all Flemish artists worked this way. A number of artist followed the techniques of Caravaggio and that method seems a bit different. (Am I right, I’m still new on these things.) I always thought of Rubens and Rembrandt as being more influenced by Caravaggio.

When I say they all fed at the same trough, Barb, I meant they all began the same way. Pretty much. The egg tempera painters that preceeded them had to follow a strict technique because the medium dried so fast. They repeatedly gessoed and sanded a panel until it was as slick as a polished white stone. Then they transferred a line drawing onto the panel. Then they began painting within the lines very carefully, from light to dark.

When Van Eyck figured out the "best way" to use oil paint, painters abandoned the tempera way of beginning a painting. Many did not of course, I have no doubt, but they would be a distinct minority. The majoriety (all I am proned to say) toned their gesso grounds a certain color, because the Van Eyck tradition of BEGINNING had taught them that tonal ground would constitute a large part of the finished painting. If the artist had the savvy or could be taught to exploit that tonal ground. That was a very economical way to use paint. It also had aesthetic benifits. Where the tonal ground was visible in/around/under subsequent over glazes, that became recognized as the unifying thread of color that wove the entire painting. It was the foundation on which all else was built. That was a highly prized accomplishment and a mandatory one. Someone asked Titian how he painted and he said "glazes, 30 or 40." That could mean one glaze in a tiny area, or 30 or 40 to build a large area, or the sum total of glazes on the entire painting could equal three or four thousand.

So this was the basic technique foundation that 17th cen. Dutch/Flemish/German/Italian/Spanish painters learned from Masters. They never left those foundations, but many rose above their foundation to develop their own "style."

"Style" is a dangerous word. In fact the style of any old artist is usually defined by some self-appointee two or three hundred years after that artist died. All too often that self-appointee never held a paint brush in his hand in his life. Until the late 20th cen. art scholarship rarely if ever went into how any artist went about the physical methodology of painting a picture. For the simple reason they didn't know. Caravaggio was a stylist and a hot tamale of fashion in Holland. But his style is simple to understand. All he did was take the concept of "chiaroscuro" and carry it to an extreme no one else ever had. His contrast between dark and light was starker than anyone else had done. That stark contrast was what so many of his paintings were all about. Beyond that, his scenarios, motifs, story lines, themes were familiar to all and fairly humdrum. So far as I know. I'm not a Caravaggio scholar. I'm not a scholar of anything. I'm basically a wind bag. I do know Rembrandt robbed from Caravaggio, but once he had the goodies in hand he took chiaroscuro to a lofty plane that Caravaggio would never have dreamed of. That is why "stylistic influence" is a dangerous phrase. It implies a fixed, static something indelibly stamped on the one influenced. This might be true for a short while, concerning the giants, but those giants (read Rembrandt) do their own thing and bow to no one. Whatever influence Caravaggio had on Rubens is so incidental that it amounted to nothing, from what I can read in most of Rubens paintings.

So Barb, it is dangerous to write anything in these posts, unless the statements are fully explained and supported. That is why I can't write anything here without turning it into a 10,000 word dissertation. That and I'm a natural windbag.

What the hell. I've spilled these many words, more can't matter.

Margie! Are you here? I now know why your statement of "not a monochrome" excited me so much. It was a painting by Titian that I can't remember the title, a nude in the foreground and a lady in waiting in the back ground. The background lady is what clicked. Close-up film photography in a library book brought this out. The background lady was painted in sparse daubs and lines on the background base. It was like looking at strands of knitting yarn of five or so different colors laid in place to form the lady, and that's all that was there. It made my hair stand on end. That same magical trick was repeated by Rembrandt countless times. To a degree by the young Vermeer. SPEAKING OF TECHNICAL METHOD AS OPPOSED TO STYLE. And most assuredly the knitting yarn lady could not be called "monochrome." The sparse lines of individual color was all she was.

She was in the background. The foreground figures and objects must have been more fully developed in some way, before the process of glazing began, and that way would have been something on the order of a monochrome. Still, just for the knitting yarn lady, what would that process be called? I have wondered that for some time and have never come across an expression in any language that defines it. That was why I was so bold, Margie, to say the exact wording probably doesn't exist. If it did, your "not a monochrome" could be stated in those words and we all would understand each other. Maybe. Ha! Fat chance! The English words "translucent" and "transparent" have been with us forever, and they don't mean the same thing. I tried to point this out in a tirade here and drove away half the membership. :evil:

Luke

[bjs0704]

Sorry, Luke, I really didn’t mean to sound as if I’m being picky!

I love hearing what both you and Margie are thinking about art!
It's really nice to know that both of you are around. :)

Are you thinking of Titian’s Venus of Urbino?

http://www.abcgallery.com/T/titian/titian82.html
(Sorry for the yellowed cast in this link.)

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

I am around too, Lucky, oh Luke :angel: :evil:

Don't forget to VOTE for this thread

I would sure like to see it moved to our

NEW

Hall of Fame

:wave: Nickel

[saintlukesguild]

Please do be picky Barb! These are frindly discussions. Knowledge is being exchanged and opinions arise from an exchange of knowledge. That is right down my alley!

Yes, that is the painting. I think. Maybe it is another, now that I think about it. Tomorrow I am going to the library and look for it. I should back up my pronouncements with on the spot evidence shouldn't I.

Luke

[saintlukesguild]

I'm not leaving you out Nickel! It's just that you... uh... have a specially reserved place in my affections... :o

Hall of Fame? Well, by Golly, now that my arthritus is easing and my fingers are nimble, I will write 10,000 words a day for posterity.

Sure I will vote. Where? How? Lead me to the polling booth dear Nickel.

[Nickel]

Well gee, Luke, you know I like to be thought of so sweetly!
:D
The vote thing is up in the thing that you click that says "rate this thread"
then you can say it is 5 stars or horrible even:eek:
It's a drop down box thing.
They are on each page up around the top of the page where the search stuff is located. I will try to figure out how to explain better, but I only am learning how to use a brush, computers leave me a little dry. :wave:


Ok went and found this link, hope it helps oh how to rate threads

http://www.wetcanvas.com/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=68

[Nehalenia]

I suspect the salmon color in Sweerts boy wearing a hat was done the same way Vermeer did the blue robe.
Luke


I bought myself a tube of red iron oxide today (a pigment Guido Jansen, conservator of the Rotterdam Boijmans, found in Sweerts' paintings) and found I got very close to the colour when mixed with some (titanium) white and a touch of raw sienna. Because of copyright issues, I can't scan the cover of the book and even if I could, with all my skills with digital imaging programs, it's still difficult to get to the original colour. Your monitor might also not be calibrated optimaly.

So, all I can tell you is that on the cover of the book it appears to be a highlight applied to a wet layer. The colour starts as a pale pinkish-orange, and gradually becomes a darker, more salmon colour as the brushstroke progresses. The underlying wet layer seems to be sienna.

The proof of the pudding will be when I actually try this and see if I come up with the same result. :)

Margie

[bjs0704]

You are probably right about this, but, remember that the color bias of Titanium White is more grey than the Flake(lead) White that Sweerts would probably have used. Flake White is creamier in color.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

Luke brings up some good questions.

But, I can see a danger of people presuming that all Flemish artists worked this way. A number of artist followed the techniques of Caravaggio and that method seems a bit different. (Am I right, I’m still new on these things.) I always thought of Rubens and Rembrandt as being more influenced by Caravaggio.
Barb Solomon:cat:
You are right, Barb. There is quite a variety in the way Dutch/FLemish painters worked. It may be a good idea to at least get a little understanding of the nature of "the lowlanders", northern and southern.

This is not mere fancy, many historical sources comment on the self-willed character of the Dutch. This in turn has to do with the country itself. The lowlands were a swamp (untill "we" conquered its forces) and to rely on outside help would have been suicide. Only a strong-willed people could survive its often inhospitable climate. It is then no surprise that you won't find many people in Dutch history following anything blindly.

Margie

[bjs0704]

Margie - It's been such a treat to get to learn about the Dutch painters. I've always loved their work and now I'm getting a chance to learn more about the lives of the painters!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

You are probably right about this, but, remember that the color bias of Titanium White is more grey than the Flake(lead) White that Sweerts would probably have used. Flake White is creamier in color.

Barb Solomon:cat:

Very true! In this respect there's a sad story in my family. My uncle was a restoration painter of old (17th/18th century) buildings. The woodwork was painted with leadwhite and repainted with the same untill about 30 years ago. I remember he often said that there was no other white that had such a nice creamy tone. He died of lead poisoning (renal failure) :crying:.

[Nehalenia]

I would like to ask your opinion about the meaning of this painting.

Some additional information which may be important.

The Latin text on the piece of paper pinned to the table cloth means: each man must give an account of himself. The painting is signed Michael Sweerts F. (ecit)

It's dated 1656, the same year Michiels' father dies.

In those days, the eldest son was expected to take care of his fathers' business after his death, women did not have the right to make any legal decisions. As far as we know, Michiel was the only son, he had no brothers.

There's some doubt if this is a self portrait or not. Sweerts was in his late thirties when he painted this, the sitter appears to be a little younger.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/24-Feb-2006/67591-self_portrait.jpg

What do you think? Looking forward to your opinions!:)

Margie

[bjs0704]

You are quite right to make the warning about the use of lead white. Titanium can give an odd greyish cast to colors. If someone is aware of it, it isn't so bad.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[bjs0704]

It is close enough to be Sweerts. I would bet that it is some family member if it isn’t.

The possible age difference doesn’t seem odd to me. Artists have long been known to skip putting in small lines on portraits.

Most of the differences in the two faces are due to a change of lighting. This portait has a more evenly distributed light and our intial painting has a strong chiaroscuro which makes the eye sockets and other parts of the face more noticeable.

Still, I usually look closely around the bridge of the nose and the eye sockets when I am trying to see if two paintings are of the same person. The bones in a person’s face should stay very similar as they age. Our earlier Michael Sweerts portrait seemed to have a bit of roundness on the outer corners of the eyebrows and to the eyes. This man seems to have narrower eyes and straighter eyebrows. Now, this could just be his expression and position. He does look weary.

In spite of the things that I have pointed out, I’m still thinking that it is Sweerts.

At least that is my guess.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

You are quite right to make the warning about the use of lead white. Titanium can give an odd greyish cast to colors. If someone is aware of it, it isn't so bad.

Barb Solomon:cat:

How would you go about countering the greyish cast? (might be raleigh scattering?) Adding a little ocre or raw sienna?

Margie

[bjs0704]

I don't think that there is a way to truly get around it. There just is a difference of color between the two whites. It's also different in opaqueness. Titanium is more opaque. In some color combinations, it can be noticeable.

Lead whites are warmer in color and a little more transparent so they more easily imitate the color in skin tones.

But as you pointed out, there are very good reasons to not use lead. Just be aware that the colors may not always come as close as you would like.

Adding a little ochre or raw siena is certainly worth trying.

Good luck,

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

It is close enough to be Sweerts.

In spite of the things that I have pointed out, I’m still thinking that it is Sweerts.

At least that is my guess.

Barb Solomon:cat:

I'm glad you say this. My opinion is that it is Michiel. My favorite is looking at the cheekbones, which are very distinct and in my mind determine the unchanging shape of the skull. Also the cute dimple in the chin.

The painting may or may not explain some of the decisions Michiel made 5 years later. On the surface, it could be interpreted as a vanity painting, especially because of the Latin motto. But I think there's more to it.

Margie

[saintlukesguild]

I'm curious what reputation Sweerts had with the locals in his time. Art critics today consider him small potatoes, but that is because they cannot view him outside the matrix of so many giants that crowded his century. He doesn't fair well with 15 or so Dutch/Flemish painters I could name off hand.

I don't know what this paintng means. It is a vanity, no doubt loaded with symbols - transience of life, money of questionable value, universal doom of everyone, something like that. The man has an odd abstracted expression. Like he was just awakened from sleep, or is about to fall asleep. The painting showing on my monitor is either garbled by electronic transmission, or it is badly damaged. Maybe by overzealous cleaning which abraded or removed much of the paint. The shadow work is all out of whack. The cuffed wrist holding the face appears disembodied, floating in air, because the arm below disappears. (As I see it, I repeat.) I can barely make any sense of the robe, or coat, he is wearing.

Did you know there was a published book that listed artistic symbols and emblems for 17th cen. colletors? Gombrich or somebody (I can't remember) found it in some archives. It was something of a parlor game to buy a vanity/still life and decipher the symbolism the artist had so cleverly sprinkled about.

I doubt this is a self-portrait. The definition then (and should be today) of self-portrait was a mirror image. Keeping in mind that a mirror image is the reverse of whatever the object making the reflection is doing, the pose here would have been hellishly complicated to study, memorize, break and turn to the canvas to paint what you remembered. He could have got around that by using any model to pose for all except the face. (He probably would have been laughed out of town had he done so and others knew about it. Although commissiond portrait painters did it all the time. Kings, princes, big players and heavy hitters did not have the time or patience to sit while fabric and jewelery was being painted.) But doing so and then painting his own face in a mirror, at that angle, would have been a very demanding task.

I'm glad you told me the paper is pinned to the table cloth, Margie. I can't make out the pin. When I saw that piece of paper, possibly pushed off the table by the ink well base, hanging in midair for all eternity, I thought it was rediculous. Even if it is penned to the cloth, it is still a banal compositional contrivance that yells "look here!" Like a sign in a huge building that says "your are here." If Rembrandt, Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch, Jan Steen, Gerard ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu, Frans van Mieris, Dirck Hals, Gerrit Dou had seen this note pinned to the cloth they all would have laughed. They all knew of subtle ways to hide their messages. All those names plus two humdred more, who were so, so much better painters than Sweerts, is what makes him overlooked. However, it is easy to understand any museum paying three million for one of his paintings. However he stacks up with his contemporaries, he is not garbage.

[Nehalenia]

I'm curious what reputation Sweerts had with the locals in his time. Art critics today consider him small potatoes, but that is because they cannot view him outside the matrix of so many giants that crowded his century. He doesn't fair well with 15 or so Dutch/Flemish painters I could name off hand.
Sweerts is only recently "discovered" by the world wide art market, but has been a treasured collectors' item for many years. The father of my former employer had some Sweerts prints and paintings and was known as a great connaisseur of 17th century art.

These art critics need to do some serious reading. He had commissions from the papal family and received a knighthood from the Pope! I wonder what a painter has to do to become "big potato" in the eyes of these art critics. Get commissions from Jezus Christ? :D

I think the patronage of the Deutz family by itself says enough. Joseph Deutz had plenty of painters to choose from, he chose Sweerts. He could afford any painter he wanted, including Rubens. The 7 acts of mercy were proudly displayed in his grand salon. The other painting of a fashionably dressed young man is probably Jean Deutz (silk merchant and just as rich). Even if it is not Jean Deutz, it's someone high up on the 17th century social ladder. Jean Deutz owned several self portraits of Sweerts (possibly the Oberlin too). I guess he wouldn't if he didn't think the world of Sweerts.

Other patrons: Anthony de Bordes, merchant of Amsterdam. Jan Six, magistrate of Amsterdam. Theodorus de Vos, merchant and magistrate of Amsterdam. These guys lived in Amsterdam and travelled Italy extensively. They knew the value of art and undoubtely didn't get rich with buying second rate goods.

Another document, a letter, mentions Sweerts never painted a portrait for less than 100 gold florins. The value of that is equal to the value of gold of the same weight. Easily thousands of USD.

Bishop Pallu said that his portrait was "admirably well done" (apart from thinking that Sweerts was nuts).

He seems to have had connections with the Camays, a Haarlem family. This might have more to do with the missions etrangeres than with painting (the Camays were catholic), but still, I can't imagine he didn't drop by at Frans Hals' studio to have a chat. Which may explain a few things I see in his later paintings.

The farewell painting (Oberlin?) was displayed in the hall of the Saint Lucas Guild in Brussels for many years "tot sijn gedenkennis" (in remembrance of him). Only the best painters received this honour.

From the little we know, he must have been from a well-to-do merchant family. His dad was merchant (unknown in what), his brother-in-law a linen merchant. One married in the same social class, usually. His other Brussels connections and art academy strongly suggest he was in some way involved in the (famous) Brussels trapestry industry.


Did you know there was a published book that listed artistic symbols and emblems for 17th cen. colletors? Gombrich or somebody (I can't remember) found it in some archives. It was something of a parlor game to buy a vanity/still life and decipher the symbolism the artist had so cleverly sprinkled about.
There's a whole load of them online, including the very famous "Sinne en Minnebeelden" by Jacob Cats, which could be found in any decent family home.

http://emblems.let.uu.nl/emblems/html/index.html



I'm glad you told me the paper is pinned to the table cloth, Margie. I can't make out the pin. When I saw that piece of paper, possibly pushed off the table by the ink well base, hanging in midair for all eternity, I thought it was rediculous. Even if it is penned to the cloth, it is still a banal compositional contrivance that yells "look here!"
Yes, that is a typical Sweerts device. He often does this, hitting you over the head with it (THIS IS A VANITY!!!!!!!)), but why? It's not because he didn't know how to subtly "hide" a morality, sometimes so subtle it seems to elude modern art critics (The grapes, Nickel, the grapes! Lol!:D)

However, it is easy to understand any museum paying three million for one of his paintings. However he stacks up with his contemporaries, he is not garbage.

6 million euro (8 million USD) for The Painters' School. :eek:

Margie

[Nickel]

Yes, that is a typical Sweerts device. He often does this, hitting you over the head with it (THIS IS A VANITY!!!!!!!)), but why? It's not because he didn't know how to subtly "hide" a morality, sometimes so subtle it seems to elude modern art critics (The grapes, Nickel, the grapes! Lol!:D)



6 million euro (8 million USD) for The Painters' School. :eek:

Margie

:thumbsup: :lol:

[saintlukesguild]

Thanks Margie. I asked the question and you certainly answered it.

The new "discovery" of Sweerts brings to mind the discovery of Jan Vermeer. Thore-Burger wasn't the first, but he is credited with bringing Vermeer to world light in the 1860's, roughly two hundred years after Vermeer died. And the rest is history, as they say. It will be interesting to see how the discovery of Sweerts plays out, and how the hoop-la will compare with the discovery of Vermeer. In the tidal wave swell of critical acclaim, that is. If such a tidal wave arises at all. My personal opinion, influenced by "critics," admittedly, is that Sweerts, judged by his paintings only with no personal history at all, doesn't even get close to Vermeer's universe. My personal opinion on anything, pluse $1.50, will buy you a cup of coffee at today's inflation.

Sweerts cannot be seperated from his religion, as you have found out and are making clear in this thread. Religion might play a large part of his sales, but not all. Papal commissions and Knighthood by the Pope does not mean those sponsers had the most discerning of eyes for his artistic skill. (For that matter, Bill Gates, King of Microsof, was knighted by QE in Buckingham palace.) Protestants North of the Alps flocked to Italy, the art "Mecca," to learn and bring South of the Alps art back home. There is scant evidence of reverse traffic. I recall one example of a South of the Alps "civilian," Duke somebody, buying a Rembrandt. The Catholic hierachy buying, much less commissioning, Protestant painting in that time period would be hard to find. Amsterdam Protestants could very well have bought Sweerts' work simply because they liked it.

Also, 8 million euros doesn't mean too much. Money is no object when it comes to buying any painting done before 1699. No matter who painted it. That market is extremely scarce.

[bjs0704]

Margie - His cute dimpled chin is one of the things that covinced me that it was Sweerts. Actually, I think that your interpretation sounds pretty likely.

I was gone yesterday. I went to the Chicago Art Institute and took down lots of wonderful names for later Analyze This articles. Lots of 17th C Dutch painters. Painter's from other places too. It's been great to read the discussion.

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

I am still amazed at the use of white in his paintings.

It is almost a signature. At least for me.

[Nehalenia]

I went to the Chicago Art Institute and took down lots of Wonderful names for later Analyze This articles. Lots of 17th C Dutch painters.
Barb Solomon:cat:

This is one of the best articles I've read about the Dutch Republic and IMO mandatory reading to understand Dutch Painting. I couldn't have said it better, mostly because all of us Dutch suffer from "the embarrassment of riches" . In a very Calvinist way it has been knocked into our heads not to show off too much. But the truth was: Holland was incredibly (and embarrassingly) rich.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/mastering-holland/2005/06/16/1118869037625.html

From an upstart commoner (roflmdao! :lol::lol:)

Margie

[Nehalenia]

P.S. The article contains several clues regarding Sweerts' "overkill" vanitas. He painted mainly for the Dutch market, which is why he was mistaken for a Dutchman for so long.
All you need to know more is that the (Calvinist) northern Dutch and (Catholic) Southern Dutch/Flemish habitually poke friendly fun at each other, like good neighbours do. (O, those Belgians! :lol:)

Margie

[bjs0704]

Great article, Margie! Thanks for letting me know about another great show (or book, depending on how you look at it)!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nehalenia]

I recently learned that Sweerts almost certainly had a commission (or more than one) from the Deutz family while he was in AMsterdam. An inventory of Agneta Deutz lists a portrait of Balthazar Deutz by Sweerts. Balthazar was too young to have met Sweerts in Italy during a grand tour, so Sweerts must have painted the portrait after 1655 and most likely while he was in Amsterdam.
The reason why there are so many paintings of Sweerts in the Netherlands and non at all in Belgium, is mainly because of the Deutz family and partly Jan Six, friend of Rembrandt and poet Joost van den Vondel and an avid art collector.

Brussels wasn't a good place for an artist, or for any craftsman. The Habsburg rulers wouldn't allow even a little religious tolerance and most importantly, no free trade. This is the only reason why there are so few Flemish painters compared to the explosion of painters (even women) in the Republic.

The painter with the best connections in Brussels, David Teniers the Younger, could only survive because he was the court painter of the Spanish/ Habsburg regents. There is a suggestive link between Sweerts' sudden interest in etching and this David Teniers. It has something to do with the collection of one of the regents.

David Teniers begged and grovelled to receive a knighthood. A title was the ticket to a better future in a country ruled by royalty and nobility. No wonder Sweerts signed with Eq.

A list of food prices and wages for skilled craftsmen in Flanders and Brabant I found recently paints a dramatic picture. While the prices for food went up with 40% or more, wages stayed the same for nearly two decades. The result was of course a crashing economy. Parents simply couldn't afford to send their offspring to a Master painter or other Master craftsman and so Sweerts probably didn't get enough students and apprentices. The St. Lucas Guild records show only one apprentice to Sweerts, a certain Jean-Baptiste Borremans.

So why not go to economic paradise?

From the 16th century onward, many people from catholic countries such as the Spanish Netherlands, France, Spain and Poland fled to the newborn Dutch republic to avoid persecution. Not only protestants or "heretic" catholics, but also Jews. These people were skilled and often rich. They made a major contribution to the "Golden Age".

In the Republic they found religious tolerance as long as they were not openly professing their faith, free trade with lots of opportunities for traders and merchants, high wages for skilled craftsmen.

What they also found was a confusingly disorganized bunch of self-governing cities and provinces. There was no central government at all. Each city, each province made its own laws and privileges which they fiercely defended. The only governing body anything near a central government were the States General. (We still have them: de Staten Generaal).

It was much the same in the Southern Netherlands before the Revolt. Little States within a State. What was lawful in Ghent, was illegal in Antwerp.

Policies for admitting "foreigners" (even Flemish, basically the same people with the same language) differed from city to city. While Amsterdam welcomed both the Serafin Jews from Portugal and Spain and the Ashkenazim Jews from Poland, Utrecht and Middelburg did not, unless they had a lot of money. Tradesmen, merchants and skilled craftsmen from Flanders were welcomed in Haarlem, but not in Amsterdam.

By the time Sweerts moved up north and most likely passed through Haarlem, the Haarlemmers were not exactly waiting for a painter. Karel van Manders' Haarlem Academy and the fame of Frans Hals had blessed the city with dozens of highly skilled painters.
A patronage of Deutz in Amsterdam would count for something, but may not have been enough. A request for citizenship still had to pass through the cities' criteria for admitting foreigners. This was a different world, connections counted but not as much as in the Spanish Netherlands. An titles meant nothing at all.

The interesting question is now if Sweerts filed a request for citizenship. Amsterdam has kept every scrap of paper since 1600 or so. If he did, it must be there...somewhere.

The quest continues...

(Thanks again Barb for starting the thread, I'm having a great time :thumbsup:)

BTW: If anyone is looking for a challenge in researching Michael Sweerts: I'm looking for a Flemish painter named Gerard (last name unknown), who was in Rome in 1640 in the district of Santa Maria del Popolo, possibly living on the Via Margutta.

Margie

[bjs0704]

After seeing the lovely portrait of Deutz, it is good to hear more about him.

You sound right.

This has been a great lesson to me! It is always worth my time to ask a few questions and do a little research when a painting catches my eye. So far, I discovered a Times magazine cover, a painting by the director of the French Academy, a Guido Reni painting that a King used a "welcome" gift.

Thanks so much Margie for sharing your research! We really appreciate it!

Barb Solomon:cat:

[Nickel]

"BTW: If anyone is looking for a challenge in researching Michael Sweerts: I'm looking for a Flemish painter named Gerard (last name unknown), who was in Rome in 1640 in the district of Santa Maria del Popolo, possibly living on the Via Margutta." Margie


LOL, Margie, I am not going to tell! Just kidding :)

How common is the name Gerard?

Gerard ter Borch 1617-1681
Born in Zwolle, son of an artist who was his first teacher. Travelled to England, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Master of detail, textures of delicate porcelain, embroidery, fur, and satin. Began painting soldiers, but soon turned to small portraits of the burgher class. He settled in Deventer in 1654 but he may have been in Rome in 1640. His concentration was scenes of contemporary life. He died in Deventer.

(((check spelling of his name on this site as compared to ((Gerard to Gerrit )))

Well just checked he was indeed listed as in Rome 1640 according to here
http://essentialvermeer.20m.com/dutch-painters/masters/terborchbase.htm

You may find this link interesting if this is indeed the Gerard you require.
The painting they have here is interesting too!

http://edu.dia.org/terborch/educators.asp

GERARD TER BORCH IN THE UNITED STATES
http://www.nga.gov/press/2004/195/index.shtm


See you around :D Nickel

[Nickel]

Just as earlier Margie you helped us to learn about the difference in the Flemish and Dutch painter, researching leads to an understanding that even museum, archives, registries, the like, all catalog and document items differently. Names are changed, either completely, or shortened or disappear all together thereafter forever changing history, if even for a short period of time. I did run across a reference that lists Vermeer with Gerard. Don’t know if that helps. It was at the nga site. It is no wonder that Vermeer for example living in Delft, the new capital, painted so many paintings showing tapestry. It is very easy now to understand Sweerts’ self-portrait.

Nickel

[Nehalenia]

Thanks Nickel for your research, but it is unlikely the painter was Gerard ter Borch. I will keep it in mind though, you never know, surprising things have turned up more than once in art history.

To make matters worse, the name is written in Italian, so I'm just having a guess at it. Gerard could also be Gerrit.

The reason why I doubt it's Gerard ter Borch, is because the same sentence refering to this Gerard, also appears in an Italian census of 1648, and at that time Gerard ter Borch was in Westphalia, painting a picture that nobody wanted to buy because they thought it was too expensive, lol! (stingy Dutchmen!:lol:)
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_assets/SK-A-405?lang=en&context_space=&context_id=

The exact sentence in the census is:

Ghirardo, fiamengho, pittore. Michele suo companio.

Gerard(Gerrit), Flemish, painter. Michael(Michiel) his companion.

You're right about names being written differently. There was no standardized spelling before Napoleon, no civil registry, no pasports and no ID cards. So people just wrote down what they heard. Michael Sweerts is how HE wrote his name and as it is written in the baptism registry. But everybody else wrote it differently.

The Dutch have a habit of calling someone by the "everyday" version of the name. If you pronounce Gerard quickly in Dutch, it begins to sound like Gerrit. Michael becomes Michiel or Michel.

So, when he said his name, it sounded different from the version in standardized modern Dutch you can hear on the Essential Vermeer website.

Margie

[Nehalenia]

After seeing the lovely portrait of Deutz, it is good to hear more about him.

And fortunately, he's not only Sweerts' most important patron, but since the family was of such importance to Amsterdam, all of their records have been kept in perfect condition. Life is not always so easy for researchers.


This has been a great lesson to me!


It has been (and continues to be) for me too. Reading history is not always fun, especially not the intricate details of politics and economics. When it's just the politics and economics, it can be very boring. I remember a three volume historic work I had to read about Amsterdam in the 17th century and there seemed to be no end to it.

But when that same history is the background of an interesting painter, then research and reading is easy and enjoyable. I've learned a lot this last month to complement my general knowledge of Dutch history.

And we haven't even gotten into the more technical aspects. I'm slowly (baby steps) learning an entirely new way of painting that delights me, because no turpentine is needed (I'm highly allergic to turpentine). It produces better, more "authentic" results.
The bad news is that for this technique you have to prepare the paints from pigments, like Sweerts did. When you take raw umber as a powered pigment and not from a tube, it's fairly easy to produce the transparent underpaintings he made and it dries remarkable quickly too because only a little drop of stand oil is needed.

O, and the answer to making look titanium white more like flake white? Add a little finely ground vine charcoal! Lovely colour!

Margie

[Nickel]

Margie, I tried :)

Will keep an eye out, but say, this guy is defined as a painter from the Netherlands, right? Any clue if he is from the North or South? It would help to have a painting by him wouldn't it. :) I am learning how to estimate the area they lived by the subject. How cool, something new for me. :wave: Nickel

[Nickel]

Ok here is a name I just found

Gerrit van Honthorst 1592-1656, Netherlandish origin.

Ok some more

Gerhard Seghers, student of Abraham Janssens, more along the lines of Caravaggio's style.

Then

Gerard Dofflet,
and
Gerard de Lairesse
both formed a school but more along the line of Poussin

ok one more

Gerard Dou, a minor master, that's a first for me.

sorry found a Sculptor, Francois Girardon, but he worked in France. Last name is so close. ???


ok, here is one listed as G. Metsu 1629-1679 influenced byGerard Dou who was influenced by Rembrandt at Leyden

[Nehalenia]

Margie, I tried :)

Will keep an eye out, but say, this guy is defined as a painter from the Netherlands, right? Any clue if he is from the North or South? It would help to have a painting by him wouldn't it. :) I am learning how to estimate the area they lived by the subject. How cool, something new for me. :wave: Nickel
Yep, he's "Dutch", but as an added difficulty, I do not take "fiamengho" too seriously. These were Italians who had no clue about the precise birthplace of a lowlander either.

Gerard ter Borch was born in Deventer, a "Hanze" city in the East of the Netherlands in the province of Overijssel.
For people from that area 'West-Saxon" (as in: related to the founders of the English language!!) would be more appropriate.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/images/08-Mar-2006/67591-image003.gif

The green stippled areas are the Netherlands under Spanish rule. Brussels is in the province "Brabant", a little above the 50 km mark.

Someday I'll have to make an article about this confusing lot! Don't feel bad if you don't get it. Most present day Dutch students take years to get it right!

Margie

[Nehalenia]

Sorry, born in Zwolle (to the north-west of Deventer). See, even I get confused. :o

[Nehalenia]

Gerrit van Honthorst 1592-1656, Netherlandish origin.

Was in Italy, but much earlier than Sweerts. Was back in Utrecht in 1620 and so busy with TWO studio's he never went back to Italy.

Gerard Dofflet

Never heard of the guy. Do you have a link?

Gerard de Lairesse

Flemish alright (Luik/Liege), but born in 1640.

Gerard Dou

Very famous Leiden "fine-painter". Student of Rembrandt. Never left Holland. This guy is worth a study!

G. Metsu = Gabriel Metsu

Margie

[Nickel]

Gerard Dofflet[/B]

Never heard of the guy. Do you have a link?


Margie

Sorry, I figured it was my spelling, no link.

It is Douffet

Theodoor van Loon, his work is at the altars of Montaigu, escaped the Rubensian influence and resembles Domenichino; a small group of painters in Liége—Gerard Douffet, Bartholomé Flémalle, J. W. Carlier, Gerard de Lairesse—formed a ‘school’ their Poussin-like style is in distinct opposition to the Flemish Rubensian style.

[Nehalenia]

It is Douffet


OK, I know him. Also too old. He also had a student named Gerard, wasn't him either.

http://www.rkd.nl/rkddb/default.asp?action=deepLink&database=ChoiceArtists&%250=24004

Today I received a book written by Guennou about Sweerts and the Missions Etrangeres with fascimiles of the original letters, some of which I haven't read before. I'm so excited!

It will take a while, this book is in French and my 17th century French is a little rusty. A quick read of one of Pallu's last letters seems to indicate quite a heartbreaking and yet funny story, which has me in tears and laughter at the same time. Michiel was quite a character!

At the same time it strikes fear in my heart. I hope he kept his big mouth shut in Goa. His conduct could be interpreted as herecy.

"One day, after having said the Holy Mass with this intention, (i.e. to celebrate the very formal Tridentine Latin Mass), he prayed it (in front or ahead) of us."

This cracks me up, but it's a grave transgression in their eyes. My father was excommunicated for a lesser "sin".

The book also has a few paintings I've never seen before that blow me away. One of an old woman and one of a gypsy girl.

Margie