30 May 2004 17:37
Art exhibition reviews: Dutch Paintings Of The Golden Age: Going Dutch with royalty`s golden age of date rape and
dog dirt
ByLine: Iain Gale
DUTCH PAINTINGS OF THE GOLDEN AGE The Queen's Gallery, Edinburgh WHEN the new Queen's Gallery opened at
Holyrood in 2002 amid much hype, I was among the few who questioned exactly what it was we were being given. Old Master
drawings and Russian enamel eggs are, after all, only a small part of one of the world's great art collections. And
small seemed to be the apposite word.
The Royal collection is justly renowned for its wealth of paintings: Canaletto, Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck. But
would we, I asked, ever see any of them in the Edinburgh gallery? And if we did, how would they work in this cosily
parochial, barn-like interior? Any worries I might have had are dispelled by this stunning exhibition.
The (royal) blue walls provide the perfect foil for the elaborate gilded frames, vanishing beneath our gaze and
thrusting the canvasses towards the viewer. The effect is to concentrate the eye upon the pictures and away from the
rustic timbers.
The limited space has also been well used. The Royal collection boasts some 200 works by 17th century Dutch masters
of which it has been possible to hang only 50. But these have been cleverly selected in a show which clearly knows its
limitations. It does not pretend to be another Golden Age blockbuster. Rather, the curators have used their resources
with ingenuity to make us look at Dutch painting in a very different way. This is not merely a significant glimpse of
the breadth and quality of one area of a remarkable collection. It is an excursion into the history of taste.
The works on show were acquired principally during the reigns of arguably the Royal collection's two greatest
art lovers: Charles I and George IV. The exhibition opens with a few of the works acquired by the Stuarts, including
Hendrich Pot's highly theatrical Startling Introduction and Gerrit Houckgeest's group portrait of Charles
I.
The names are probably not familiar, but at the time they were bought their creators were at the cutting edge of
contemporary art. Charles I's Rembrandt Portrait of an Old Woman, for example, was almost certainly acquired from
the artist when he was only 23.
And this leads us to the exhibition's underlying theme. At face value we have a show with perhaps 10 works of
truly international importance, including three Rembrandts, Vermeer's great, iconic Lady at the Virginals, a
typically emotive Cuyp sunset, de Hooch's Delft courtyard and a wonderfully fluid and expressive Hals.
Of the Rembrandts, in particular the Christ and St Mary Magdalen is of a quality you will rarely see. But, as your
eye wanders to its neighbour, a work by the perhaps not so familiar Jan van der Heyden, you may begin to wonder why
Rembrandt and the other household names should look so very comfortable in the company of what the history books and
saleroom catalogues tell us are lesser artists.
Close to the Cuyp hang two paintings by Jan Wynants which suggest that his draughtsmanship and command of paint and
light are remarkably close in quality to that of his more famous countryman. Alongside is a work by the similarly
underrated Godfried Schalcken. In The Game of Lady Come into the Garden, the artist places himself at the centre of an
overtly sexual game of manners. There are exquisite touches, executed with extraordinary skill: the allegorically
suggestive tear in the curtain; the artist's helpless dishabille; the uniquely knowing expression on the face of
the central woman.
What we need to realise is that in the 17th century this work, or such a painting as Berchem's seductively
luminous Italian landscape, would generally have been more highly prized than any of the Rembrandts. In fact while
Charles I went out of his way to buy Hendrick Terbrugghen's Laughing Bravo, which we might today dismiss as
somewhat kitsch, he did not himself purchase the Rembrandt, which was a gift from Sir Robert Kerr.
George IV's taste also reflects that of his times. He was a huge fan of Dutch art, stuffed with incident and
anecdote. There is also a degree of coarseness and sexuality running through his purchases, from Philips
Wouwermans' defecating dogs to a Ludolf de Jongh of Three Ladies Surprised by a Gentleman and Gerard Ter
Borch's image of what is evidently a man engaged in 17th century date rape. Yet, while he was willing to pay the
huge sum of 5,000 guineas for an early Rembrandt, to George IV, it was the likes of Ostade, Schalken and Wouwermans who
were the real sine qua non of Dutch art.
The refreshing effect of this knowledge is to make us question our reasons for accepting the hierarchy of art
history. For no art is above criticism and ultimately, all art must be judged in the context of the time of its
creation.
Such thoughts do not often come to mind as we walk the hallowed halls of national or municipal temples of art. But
here, in the intimate environment of such a rich collection, we are able, ironically, to perceive the bigger
picture.
If this is what the Queen's gallery can achieve, then it sets the benchmark for what can only be a stimulating
future.
Until November 7
[Scotland on Sunday] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
