Utrecht Caravaggism

Utrecht Caravaggism refers to those Baroque artists, all distinctly influenced by the art of Caravaggio, who were active mostly in the Dutch city of Utrecht during the first part of the seventeenth century.

Caravaggio had no known pupils or collaborators, but in the two or three decades after his death there flourished in Italy and northern Europe a type of painting that responded to his realism While his example represented the main alternative to ‘classicism’, the extent to which Italian patrons consciously took sides in a polemical debate is a controversial issue

Overivew
Painters such as Dirck van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Jan van Bijlert and Matthias Stom were all in Rome in the 1610s, a time when the tenebroso of Caravaggio’s later style was very influential. Adam Elsheimer, also in Rome at the same time, was probably also an influence on them. Back in Utrecht, they painted mythological and religious history subjects and genre scenes, such as the card-players and gypsies that Caravaggio himself had abandoned in his later career. Utrecht was the most Catholic city in the United Provinces, still about 40% Catholic in the mid-17th century, and even more among the elite groups, who included many rural nobility and gentry with town houses there. It had previously been the main centre, after Haarlem, of Northern Mannerist painting in the Netherlands. Abraham Bloemaert, who had been a leading figure in this movement, and taught the Honthursts and many other artists, also was receptive to the influence of his pupils, and changed his style many times before his death in 1651.

The brief flourishing of Utrecht Caravaggism ended around 1630. At that time, major artists had either died, as in the case of Baburen and ter Brugghen, or had changed style, like Honthorst’s shift to portraiture and history scenes informed by the Flemish tendencies popularized by Peter Paul Rubens and his followers. They left a legacy, however, through their influence on Rembrandt’s use of chiaroscuro and Gerrit Dou’s “niche paintings” (a genre popularized by Honthorst).

Along with other Caravaggisti active in Italy and Woerden, they set the stage for later artists who worked in a Caravaggesque-inspired manner such as Georges de La Tour in Lorraine and Jan Janssens in Ghent.

The most important among them are Hendrick ter Brugghen, Dirck van Baburen and Gerard van Honthorst. Other painters who worked in a caravagistic style include Jan van Bijlert and Jan Gerritsz. from Bronchorst. Aelbert van der Schoor is a late representative of this style. Ter Brugghen is nowadays regarded as the most important representative, but has only been generally recognized as an outstanding painter since the mid-twentieth century. He seems to have had no great reputation in life.

Matthias Stom occupies a special position. Stom was trained in Utrecht, but stayed in Rome in Italy after his apprenticeship. His work is in many foreign museums, but is relatively unknown in the Netherlands.

Moreover, it is plausible that they were not only directly influenced by Caravaggio (which, with a possible exception for Ter Brugghen, they may not have known in person), but also by painters who had been working for some time like Bartolommeo Manfredi and Orazio Gentileschi.

Typical for Utrecht caravaggists is the realistic style of painting and the special treatment of light (clair-obscur). Both characteristics were derived from Caravaggio. For all painters it applies that they painted history pieces (biblical and mythological subjects) on the one hand, and genre pieces of a special kind on the other: mostly musicians, players or drinkers that they half-lengthly portrayed close to the viewer. A striking theme was that of the matchmaker.

It is a strange phenomenon that this group was active in isolation in Utrecht. Their works look rather un-Dutch, and were therefore more or less overlooked for a long time. Nowadays there is more interest in these painters. They have come to realize that they formed an important link between Caravaggio ‘s Italian baroque art and Dutch painters such as Rembrandt (clair-obscur), Frans Hals (genre pieces) and Vermeer (use of color). Together with other caravaggists active in Italy and Woerden, the group also set the tone for later artists who worked in a manner inspired by caravaggism, such as Georges de La Tour in Lorraineand Jan Janssens in Ghent.

Peculiarity and Effect
It was a new, typically Dutch, position in the processing of Caravaggio’s work, which was predominantly conceived. In addition to the founders, they included the painters Jan van Bijlert, Matthias Stomer and the master of the Kassel musicians. Already Karel van Mander mentioned in his Schilder-boeck the Italian travel of Dutch artists at the beginning of the 17th century and their affinity for Italy.

The Utrecht Caravaggists had far-reaching effects on the paintings of Frans Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn and Johannes Vermeer.

Baroque naturalism
This school is part of the Baroque, an artistic period developed in Europe in the seventeenth century. It was a refined and ornate style, with the survival of a certain classicist rationalism coming from the Renaissance, but with more dynamic and effective forms, with a taste for the surprising and anecdotal, for the optical illusions and the blows of effect. 1 The Baroque painting had a marked accent geographic differentiator, since its development came from countries in various national schools each with a distinctive stamp. However, there is a common influence coming from Italy again, where two opposing tendencies arose: naturalism (also called Caravaggism), based on the imitation of natural reality, with a certain taste for chiaroscuro – the so-called tenebrism -; and classicism, which is just as realistic but with a more intellectual and idealized concept of reality.

Naturalism-a term introduced by Giovanni Pietro Bellori in 1672-aimed at the empirical representation of reality as it is observed, without aesthetic distinctions between beauty and ugliness, conceptual or intellectual considerations, or any other subjective component that distorts the simple observation of the object. This does not exclude certain idealization in the pictorial composition, as it would happen with realism, a term sometimes applied as a synonym but which implies another conception of the artistic work.

One of the main hallmarks of naturalism was the profuse use of chiaroscuro, the sharp contrast between light and shadow, which was called tenebrism. The tenebrist artists used a type of violent illumination, usually artificial, that gave a greater prominence to the illuminated areas, on which they placed a powerful focus of directed light. These effects have a strong dramatism, which emphasizes the scenes depicted, usually of a religious nature, although they also abound in mythological scenes, still lifes or vanitas. Its introducer and one of its main representatives was Caravaggio, so this style is also known as caravaggismoand his followers caravaggistas. Among them stand out: Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, Bartolomeo Manfredi, Carlo Saraceni, Giovanni Battista Caracciolo, Pieter van Laer (il Bamboccio), Adam Elsheimer, Georges de La Tour, Valentin de Boulogne, the brothers Le Nain and José de Ribera (the Spagnoletto). Caravaggismo influenced the work of other Baroque artists, such as Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens andDiego Velázquez.

The Dutch caravaggismo
The caravaggista novelties had a special echo in the Netherlands, where a series of painters emerged who assumed Caravaggio’s description of reality and its chiaroscuro effects as pictorial principles, on which they developed a new style based on tonal chromatism and the search for new schemes of composition, giving as fruit a painting that stands out for its optical values. Its members include Hendrik Terbrugghen, Dirck van Baburen and Gerard van Honthorst, the three trained in Rome. Other artists linked to this school would be Jan van Bijlert, Matthias Stom, Willem van Honthorst, Aelbert van der Schoor, Jan Gerritsz. van Bronckhorst, David de Haen and Wybrand de Geest.

Utrecht had a strong artistic tradition from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, especially thanks to the patronage of the bishopric and the Charterhouse of Nieuwlicht, where illuminated manuscripts of high quality were made. In the sixteenth century the influence of the Renaissance Venetian school was received, as can be seen in the work of Jan van Scorel and his disciple Antonio Moro. Later in the century the dominant style was Mannerism, represented by Joachim Wtewael and Abraham Bloemaert.

The initiator of this current in Utrecht was Terbrugghen, who after his stay in Rome (1604-1614), where he frequented artists such as Gentileschi, Manfredi and Saraceni, laid the foundations of Dutch caravaggism, characterized by a serene and pleasant naturalism, sometimes even cheerful and carefree, without the intellectual charge of Caravaggio. The theme focused on religious painting, portraiture and gender scenes, picking up the tradition of medieval and Renaissance Flemish naturalism. A hallmark of this school would be the psychological analysis of the character, which they study with attention and portray truthfully and objectively. In 1620 Gerard van Honthorst and Dirck van Baburen also returned from Rome, which could already be said of a caravaggist school in Utrecht, whose influence spread to other Dutch cities such as Haarlem, Leiden and Delft.

Caravaggismo utrequés owes more to the Italian disciples of Caravaggio than to the maestro himself, is a more provocative and vulgar naturalism in themes and types, with characters of low social extraction, such as prostitutes, drunks and players, with theatrical poses and dressed in fantastic costumes. The tone is often satirical, irreverent, picaresque, carefree. The technique used stands out for the intense polychromy and the predilection for light colors.

This style was immediately fashionable and had great success among the public, to the point that artists of the previous generation as Abraham Bloemaert and Paulus Moreelse had to adapt to it to survive. Other artists adapted it in a personal way, like Paulus Bor, more poetic and intimate; or Jan van Bijlert, more classicist and with a colder palette.

Main representatives
Hendrik Terbrugghen (1588-1629) assumed the thematic repertoire of Caravaggio but with a more sweetened tone, with a clear drawing, a grayish-silver chromatism and an atmosphere of soft light clarity. His repertoire focused on religious themes, portraits, musical scenes, street scenes and tavern: The incredulity of St. Thomas (1623, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), San Sebastian aided by St. Irene (1625, Oberlin College, Ohio), Jacob and Laban (1627, The National Gallery, London), Duetto (1628, Louvre Museum, Paris). elevenHis subtle tonality of dark figures against clear backgrounds predated the style of the Delft School (Jan Vermeer, Carel Fabritius).

Gerard van Honthorst (1590-1656) was a skilled director of night scenes, which earned him the nickname of Gherardo delle Notti (“Gerardo of the nights”). In works like Christ before the High Priest (1617), Nativity (1622), The Prodigal Son (1623) or The Procuress (1625), showed a great mastery in the use of artificial light, usually of candles, with one or two sources of light that illuminated the scene unequally, highlighting the most significant parts of the picture and leaving the rest in shadow. Of his Christ in the column, Joachim von Sandrart said: “the brightness of the candles and the lights illuminates everything with a naturalness that resembles life so much that no art ever reached such heights.” He made religious works, nocturnes, concerts, banquets and other genre scenes, with a chiaroscuro naturalism more tempered than during his stay in Rome, and with a more trivial and sometimes humorous tone. After the death of Terbrugghen he became more classicist, with a more decorative and conventional style, put at the service of the princes of Orange-Nassau.

Dirck van Baburen (1595-1624) sought more the effects of full light than the contrasts chiaroscuro, with intense volumes and contours. He excelled in genre scenes, such as his famous Alcahueta (1622, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), which Vermeer owned. One of his most celebrated works is Prometheus chained by Vulcan (1623, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). His palette was clearer and colder, and his figures stand out for an almost grotesque characterization of the faces and for the gestualization of the characters. One of his favorite themes was music: Young musician (1621, Utrecht Museum), Musician of the lute (1622, Utrecht Museum), Concert (1622, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston).

The three principal representatives of this school are Hendrick Ter Brugghen (1588-1629), with the most marked personality; Gerrit Van Honthorst (1592-1656), who excelled in night scenes lit by the light of a candle and executed in a smooth manner; and Dirck Van Baburen (ca.1595-1624), whose work is more distinguished by the plastic side.

Ter Brugghen stayed in Rome from 1607 to about 1614, Van Honthorst from 1610 to 1620; as for Van Baburen, in Italy since 1612, he lived in this city from 1617 to 1620.

After the return of Van Honthorst from Italy, the work of Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651) was also briefly marked by this current, which was also to inspire Jan Van Bijlert (ca.1597-1671 – in Rome from 1620 to 1624) and Jan van Bronckhorst (ca.1603-1661).

We can also mention the “Master of Kassel Musicians”, whose exact identity remains unknown, and who was active in Utrecht between 1620 and 1630, as well as Matthias Stom (1600-1650), born in the region of Utrecht and pupil of Van Honthorst in Italy (after 1615), but who spent most of his life in this country (it is where he died).

There is every reason to believe that in Italy these painters were not only directly influenced by Caravaggio – which they did not know personally, with the possible exception of Ter Brugghen – but also by artists who for some time already worked in his style, like Bartolomeo Manfredi and Orazio Gentileschi.

Also the paintings of the German Adam Elsheimer, who was in Rome at the same time, could be a source of inspiration for them.

Caravaggism in Utrecht enjoyed a relatively short period of prosperity, since it ended around 1630, when the main representatives either died, as was the case with Ter Brugghen and Van Baburen, or had evolved into a different style. like Van Honthorst, who began to paint portraits and historical paintings influenced by the Flemish tendencies popularized by Rubens and his followers.

Works
Their works are characterized by realism and a particular treatment of light (the chiaroscuro ), two traits borrowed from Caravaggio.

As for the subjects, they performed, on the one hand, biblical scenes – most often drawn from the New Testament -, hagiographic – notably the legend of Saint Sebastian – and mythological scenes.

On the other hand, they produced genre scenes of a specific type, most often showing musicians, players or drinkers depicted half-length, inspired in particular by certain works by Bartolomeo Manfredi, a follower of Caravaggio. Italy, like his Young Lute Player (1610), which many Dutch Caravaggesque paintings recall, like Singer accompanying the lute of Ter Brugghen (1624).

We can see in these works variations, direct or indirect, on paintings of the first period of Caravaggio, made before 1600, such as The Lute Player (v.1600), The Musicians (v.1595, without, it is true, the same focus “fantasmo-erotic” on young boys), and especially Les Cheaters and The Fortune Teller. Of these last two works, they also include, as a rule, the tight framing and representation on a background almost unified, without superfluous decoration element. Van Baburen, though a Caravaggesque painter from Utrecht, seems to have been the most fascinated by their model, and deviated from it the least – his premature death no doubt also prevented him from doing so.

A particular theme which, strikingly, comes up quite regularly in their paintings is that of the matchmaker. The character, still depicted as an old turbaned woman, is the subject of a painting by Van Bronckhorst, Van Baburen and another by Van Baburen. Van Honthorst, and also appears in The Prodigal Son and The Concert by the same painter… The subject was later exploited by Vermeer, who also used the version of Van Baburen as a decorative element in two more of his works.

Reception
The fact that the activity of this group of artists was rather circumscribed to the city of Utrecht is an astonishing phenomenon. Their works, perceived as quite far removed from Dutch culture, were, for a long time, neglected. Today, these painters are the object of a renewed interest, and the idea appeared that they could constitute an important link between the Italian Baroque art of Caravaggio, and that of other Dutch painters who never went to Italy, such as Rembrandt (chiaroscuro), Frans Hals (genre scenes), Vermeer (use of color), or Gerrit Dou, which borrowed a genre popularized by Van Honthorst, that of representations of characters in “niches”.

Source from Wikipedia