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El arte de describir: el arte holandés en el siglo XVII
Publicado por primera vez en inglés en 1983, El arte de describir. El arte holandés en el siglo XVII delineó nuevos paradigmas para el estudio de este campo y ofreció evidencia para pensar la contingencia de algunos conceptos empleados hasta entonces en el análisis de los fenómenos artísticos.
Enraizado en la historia social del arte de los años setenta, en este trabajo la autora traza un puente conceptual hacia los más recientes estudios visuales, pues abre el camino para cuestionar la centralidad del arte frente a otras manifestaciones de expresión visual.
El arte de describir demuestra que las prácticas artísticas del Renacimiento italiano y sus supuestos interpretativos -concebidos según el modelo de un mundo visual significativo, alegórica y simbólicamente- no pueden aplicarse de forma universal ni extrapolarse a los estudios de otras regiones. Los artistas holandeses, comprometidos con un "arte de describir", organizaron formas de representación basadas en diferentes fuentes de percepción visual, en contrate con el arte narrativo italiano, plasmado intelectualmente. Por lo tanto, la autora sostiene que las imágenes del arte holandés no ocultan un significado discursivo y simbólico bajo su superficie, sino que el sentido es esa propia superficie, lo que efectivamente el ojo ve.
Enraizado en la historia social del arte de los años setenta, en este trabajo la autora traza un puente conceptual hacia los más recientes estudios visuales, pues abre el camino para cuestionar la centralidad del arte frente a otras manifestaciones de expresión visual.
El arte de describir demuestra que las prácticas artísticas del Renacimiento italiano y sus supuestos interpretativos -concebidos según el modelo de un mundo visual significativo, alegórica y simbólicamente- no pueden aplicarse de forma universal ni extrapolarse a los estudios de otras regiones. Los artistas holandeses, comprometidos con un "arte de describir", organizaron formas de representación basadas en diferentes fuentes de percepción visual, en contrate con el arte narrativo italiano, plasmado intelectualmente. Por lo tanto, la autora sostiene que las imágenes del arte holandés no ocultan un significado discursivo y simbólico bajo su superficie, sino que el sentido es esa propia superficie, lo que efectivamente el ojo ve.
380 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1983
19 people are currently reading
964 people want to read
About the author
Svetlana Alpers
24 books24 followersScholar of Dutch baroque art; professor of History of Art, UC Berkeley,1962-1994; exponent of the "new art history."
Born Sventlana Leontief, she graduated from Radcliffe College with a B.A. in 1957. She married the following year, assuming her husband's surname of Alpers. She continued graduate work in art history at Harvard University publishin an article on Vasari's verbal descriptions of art (ekphraseis) in 1960 in the Journal of the Warburg and Coutauld Institutes, which announced her innovative approach to art history. Alpers accepted a teaching position as an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962 while working on her dissertation. She graduated from Harvard in 1965, writing her thesis under Seymour Slive on the Peter Paul Rubens cycle Torre de la Parada. Her work in Rubens' archives brought her to the attention of Roger d'Hulst, who suggested she turn her dissertation into a volume for the catalogue raissoné on Rubens. She rose to the rank of Professor at Berkeley. In 1971 she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the College Art Associate (remained until 1976). That same year here volume for the Rubens catalogue raissoné, The Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, number nine, was published.
In 1977 an important methodological article by Alpers appeared in Daedalus examining progressive scholarship in art history in contrast with earlier scholarship. During the academic year 1979-80 she was a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1983, Alpers co-founded the progressive interdisciplinary journal Representations, publishing the article, "Interpretation without Representation, or, The Viewing of Las Meninas," in the first issue. That year, too, she published the first of her ground-breaking works in art history, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. The book's central thesis focused on the the immediacy and simplicity of Dutch painting and the Dutch preoccupation with the description of interiors and domestic scenes, contrasting it with narrative Italian painting. Iconographical approaches to baroque art, she wrote, such as those practiced by Erwin Panofsky and others, were insufficient to understand Dutch imagery. Her book likewise criticized mainstream Dutch scholarship and its reliance on emblems and emblemata books explain Netherlandish still life paining. The Art of Describing was well received, reviewers hailing Alper's mastery of topics as diverse as optics and perspective theory. Critics, however, accused her of selective use of evidence, drawing only from paintings and texts which supported her theories.
In 1988, during the era of shocking reattributions of many works of Rembrandt by the Rembrandt Research Project, Alpers published a monograph on the artist, Rembrandt's Enterprise: The Studio and the Market The book examined Rembrandt's market strategies and his modeling his art to appeal to a Dutch consumer base. Her use of economic theory and a concerted avoidance of visual criteria again upset traditionalists in the art world.
Alpers co-wrote a book with fellow Berkeley art historian Michael Baxandall in 1994, Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence. She was named Professor Emerita from Berkeley in 1994. The following year she returned to the art of the low countries with her Making of Rubens. The book looked at Rubens' politics, his later critical reception in France, and theorized specific meaning in the recurring Silenus figures of his later work.
Reaction to Alpers was summed up by Walter Liedtke. In an article on American historians of Dutch art, he characterized her work as containing "whole exclusions" of art that did not fit her thesis--such as the Utrecht school--a "typical exercise in American taste dressed up (with some French motifs) as a new analysis of Dutch Art." However, her work Rembrandt's Enterprise was included among the 169 major writings of art history in the 2010 Hauptwerke der Kunstgeschicht
Born Sventlana Leontief, she graduated from Radcliffe College with a B.A. in 1957. She married the following year, assuming her husband's surname of Alpers. She continued graduate work in art history at Harvard University publishin an article on Vasari's verbal descriptions of art (ekphraseis) in 1960 in the Journal of the Warburg and Coutauld Institutes, which announced her innovative approach to art history. Alpers accepted a teaching position as an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1962 while working on her dissertation. She graduated from Harvard in 1965, writing her thesis under Seymour Slive on the Peter Paul Rubens cycle Torre de la Parada. Her work in Rubens' archives brought her to the attention of Roger d'Hulst, who suggested she turn her dissertation into a volume for the catalogue raissoné on Rubens. She rose to the rank of Professor at Berkeley. In 1971 she was appointed to the Board of Directors of the College Art Associate (remained until 1976). That same year here volume for the Rubens catalogue raissoné, The Corpus Rubenianum Ludwig Burchard, number nine, was published.
In 1977 an important methodological article by Alpers appeared in Daedalus examining progressive scholarship in art history in contrast with earlier scholarship. During the academic year 1979-80 she was a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1983, Alpers co-founded the progressive interdisciplinary journal Representations, publishing the article, "Interpretation without Representation, or, The Viewing of Las Meninas," in the first issue. That year, too, she published the first of her ground-breaking works in art history, The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century. The book's central thesis focused on the the immediacy and simplicity of Dutch painting and the Dutch preoccupation with the description of interiors and domestic scenes, contrasting it with narrative Italian painting. Iconographical approaches to baroque art, she wrote, such as those practiced by Erwin Panofsky and others, were insufficient to understand Dutch imagery. Her book likewise criticized mainstream Dutch scholarship and its reliance on emblems and emblemata books explain Netherlandish still life paining. The Art of Describing was well received, reviewers hailing Alper's mastery of topics as diverse as optics and perspective theory. Critics, however, accused her of selective use of evidence, drawing only from paintings and texts which supported her theories.
In 1988, during the era of shocking reattributions of many works of Rembrandt by the Rembrandt Research Project, Alpers published a monograph on the artist, Rembrandt's Enterprise: The Studio and the Market The book examined Rembrandt's market strategies and his modeling his art to appeal to a Dutch consumer base. Her use of economic theory and a concerted avoidance of visual criteria again upset traditionalists in the art world.
Alpers co-wrote a book with fellow Berkeley art historian Michael Baxandall in 1994, Tiepolo and the Pictorial Intelligence. She was named Professor Emerita from Berkeley in 1994. The following year she returned to the art of the low countries with her Making of Rubens. The book looked at Rubens' politics, his later critical reception in France, and theorized specific meaning in the recurring Silenus figures of his later work.
Reaction to Alpers was summed up by Walter Liedtke. In an article on American historians of Dutch art, he characterized her work as containing "whole exclusions" of art that did not fit her thesis--such as the Utrecht school--a "typical exercise in American taste dressed up (with some French motifs) as a new analysis of Dutch Art." However, her work Rembrandt's Enterprise was included among the 169 major writings of art history in the 2010 Hauptwerke der Kunstgeschicht
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 20, 2015
This book is in essence a treatise on how seventeenth century Dutch painting was a descriptive art. This was especially so when it was compared to the highly admired narrative art of the time - found in Italy - with its illustrations of human figures in history, myth, and Biblical stories.
(My notes below are mostly direct quotes from the book.)
The author says that most of the history of art has been geared up to the art of Italy..... with its artists and their works being seen as the pinnacle of creative achievement. This makes it difficult to articulate the very different talents that one finds in the work of Dutch artists. She then goes on to do a grand job of doing just that.
Some of the basic defining factors found in Northern art
It was the art of describing.
It was realistic.
It had a stilled or arrested quality.
There was attention to the surface of the
world – which is achieved at the
expense of the representation of
narrative action. (Italian art
is much more vigorous than Dutch
art).
There was a propensity for concentrating
on landscapes. Even if the painting had
another main subject, any landscape present
would be carefully rendered.
There was a great desire for external
exactness, and the attempt to do too many
things too well. (Everything in the
picture had to be reproduced perfectly.)
The stress was on seeing and representing.
There was a frequent absence of a positioned
viewer.
You would often find a play with great
contrasts of scale(e.g., a
huge cow in the foreground
would be amusingly played off
against a tiny, distant church tower).
There is often the absence of a prior frame.
(The world depicted in Dutch paintings often
seems cut off by the edges of the work,
or conversely, seems to extend
beyond its bounds as if the frame were
an afterthought and not a prior
defining device).
Dutch artists often paint a wide-angle
view of their subjects. These works
do not represent a fictive, framed window
view of their subject.
There is the formidable sense of the picture as a
surface (like a mirror or map, but not a
window), on which words along with
objects can be replicated or inscribed.
It is hard to trace stylistic development
in the work of Dutch artists. Even the
most naïve viewer can see much
continuity in northern art, from
van Eyck to Vermeer. There is consistency
rather than innovation.
Dutch culture was obsessed with
observation. Magnifying glasses,
telescopes, and the camera obscura.
All these means of intensifying seeing
were of much fascination in the North.
In Holland images proliferated
everywhere – in books, tapestries,
table linens, painted onto tiles and
framed on walls. The visual culture
was central to the life of society.
The Dutch had an obsession with
maps and atlases – as vehicles of
knowledge and for conveying details.
There was much overlap between
highly pictorial maps, and pictures
which were very map-like in the
way they were composed.
Many landscapes and townscape
pictures were seen - like maps – as ways
of observing and describing. They
were often topographical in
character, as well as being beautiful.
This Dutch concentration on observation has its drawbacks….the emotion often found in looser painting styles is missing.
And rather than the drama found in Italian art, Dutch art is concerned with the everyday.
In fact there is a tradition in Holland of ‘historiating’ portraits…..whereby figures were made to represent historical figures. But they are not very successful. These sitters look dressed up rather than ‘transformed’ into the subjects they are supposed to be representing. They fool no-one. The identity in the look of their faces, and their telling domestic bearing, take precedence over the artists’efforts to make them look other than themselves. Rembrandt is the one exception, and he often succeeds where other Dutch artists have failed.
The observational skills of Dutch artists are where their talents lie….
I didn’t read all of this book. I ordered it specifically to find out more about the tradition of mapping in Holland, and how this was transformed or related to a love of pictures showing land and townscapes. Not only did the book describe this well with words – but also with pictures, and I found it a fascinating read.
MAPS THAT LOOK LIKE DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS
DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS THAT LOOK LIKE MAPS
Illustrations:
1: Africa, In Willem Jansz Blaeu World Atlas: 1630
2: Brazil by George Markgraf: 1647
3: Anonymous. The Siege of Haarlem.
4: Anonymous. Dutch. The Polder. Het Grootslag, near Enkhuizen.
5: Nijmegen. Braun & Hogenberg. Civitates Orbis Terrarum. 1587-1617.
6: Vermeer's View of Delft: 1660/1661
(My notes below are mostly direct quotes from the book.)
“Dutch painting was not and could not be anything but the portrait of Holland, its external image, faithful, exact, complete, life-like, without any adornment.”
Fromentin, 1876 .
The author says that most of the history of art has been geared up to the art of Italy..... with its artists and their works being seen as the pinnacle of creative achievement. This makes it difficult to articulate the very different talents that one finds in the work of Dutch artists. She then goes on to do a grand job of doing just that.
Some of the basic defining factors found in Northern art
It was the art of describing.
It was realistic.
It had a stilled or arrested quality.
There was attention to the surface of the
world – which is achieved at the
expense of the representation of
narrative action. (Italian art
is much more vigorous than Dutch
art).
There was a propensity for concentrating
on landscapes. Even if the painting had
another main subject, any landscape present
would be carefully rendered.
There was a great desire for external
exactness, and the attempt to do too many
things too well. (Everything in the
picture had to be reproduced perfectly.)
The stress was on seeing and representing.
There was a frequent absence of a positioned
viewer.
You would often find a play with great
contrasts of scale(e.g., a
huge cow in the foreground
would be amusingly played off
against a tiny, distant church tower).
There is often the absence of a prior frame.
(The world depicted in Dutch paintings often
seems cut off by the edges of the work,
or conversely, seems to extend
beyond its bounds as if the frame were
an afterthought and not a prior
defining device).
Dutch artists often paint a wide-angle
view of their subjects. These works
do not represent a fictive, framed window
view of their subject.
There is the formidable sense of the picture as a
surface (like a mirror or map, but not a
window), on which words along with
objects can be replicated or inscribed.
It is hard to trace stylistic development
in the work of Dutch artists. Even the
most naïve viewer can see much
continuity in northern art, from
van Eyck to Vermeer. There is consistency
rather than innovation.
Dutch culture was obsessed with
observation. Magnifying glasses,
telescopes, and the camera obscura.
All these means of intensifying seeing
were of much fascination in the North.
In Holland images proliferated
everywhere – in books, tapestries,
table linens, painted onto tiles and
framed on walls. The visual culture
was central to the life of society.
The Dutch had an obsession with
maps and atlases – as vehicles of
knowledge and for conveying details.
There was much overlap between
highly pictorial maps, and pictures
which were very map-like in the
way they were composed.
Many landscapes and townscape
pictures were seen - like maps – as ways
of observing and describing. They
were often topographical in
character, as well as being beautiful.
This Dutch concentration on observation has its drawbacks….the emotion often found in looser painting styles is missing.
“Jan van Eyck’s eye operates as a microscope and telescope at the same time…so that the beholder is compelled to oscillate between a position reasonably far from the painting and many positions very close to it…However, such perfection had to be bought at a price. Neither a microscope nor a telescope is a good instrument with which to view human emotion…The emphasis is on quiet existence rather than action… Measured by ordinary standards (ie the standards of Italian or narrative painting), the world of Jan van Eyck is static.
Erwin Panofsky “Early Netherlandish Painting” 1953
And rather than the drama found in Italian art, Dutch art is concerned with the everyday.
“Dutch art represents pleasure taken in a world full of pleasures: the pleasures of familial bonds, pleasures in possessions, pleasures in the towns, the churches, the land. In these images the seventeenth century appears to be one long Sunday after the troubled times of the previous century.”
JQ van Regteren Altena. 1961
In fact there is a tradition in Holland of ‘historiating’ portraits…..whereby figures were made to represent historical figures. But they are not very successful. These sitters look dressed up rather than ‘transformed’ into the subjects they are supposed to be representing. They fool no-one. The identity in the look of their faces, and their telling domestic bearing, take precedence over the artists’efforts to make them look other than themselves. Rembrandt is the one exception, and he often succeeds where other Dutch artists have failed.
The observational skills of Dutch artists are where their talents lie….
“Vermeer seems almost not to care, or not even to know, what it is that he is painting. What do men call this wedge of light? A nose? A finger? What do we know of its shape? To Vermeer none of that matters, the conceptual world of names and knowledge is forgotten, nothing concerns him but what is visible, the tone, the wedge of light.”
Lawrence Gowing. 1952.
I didn’t read all of this book. I ordered it specifically to find out more about the tradition of mapping in Holland, and how this was transformed or related to a love of pictures showing land and townscapes. Not only did the book describe this well with words – but also with pictures, and I found it a fascinating read.
MAPS THAT LOOK LIKE DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS
DRAWINGS AND PAINTINGS THAT LOOK LIKE MAPS
Illustrations:
1: Africa, In Willem Jansz Blaeu World Atlas: 1630
2: Brazil by George Markgraf: 1647
3: Anonymous. The Siege of Haarlem.
4: Anonymous. Dutch. The Polder. Het Grootslag, near Enkhuizen.
5: Nijmegen. Braun & Hogenberg. Civitates Orbis Terrarum. 1587-1617.
6: Vermeer's View of Delft: 1660/1661
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 11, 2015
Rereading this...
February 8, 2021
A bold account of Dutch visual culture in the seventeenth century, which offers something for the art-history enthusiast as well as the art-history ignoramus (like me). Being almost four decades old, some of what Alpers defines as innovative approaches seem quite self-evident by now, and yet I found her work to still offer some insightful ways of approaching visual culture. I like, for example, how she defines her object study as "picturing", as opposed to just "pictures", in the Dutch Golden Age, because 1) it calls attention to the making of pictures in addition to the finished products, 2) it 'emphasises the inseparability of maker, picture, and what is pictured', and 3) it allows for us to look beyond pictures towards maps, mirros, lenses, and other visual media/tools (26). She does not lose herself in the breadth of this scope, and makes excellent use of a myriad of paintings, drawings, etchings, etc. to complement her often abstract arguments about how Dutch artists saw and pictured. I also found her knowledge and use of contemporary (natural) philosophical ideas and writings impressive. Overall this work seems to have aged quite nicely as an innovative piece of academic research!
September 22, 2020
This is an incredible book on Dutch art except that it is also about history, science, map-making, etc. I found the book interesting and challenging. Alpers is a thorough scholar but you don't feel like your being dragged through someone's dissertation and annotated bibliography along the way. I really appreciate the intersection of the arts and sciences here. This is part of my research for a novel I am writing on art and identity. This book has changed the way I look at Dutch art.
February 12, 2023
As an amateur art history reader, I found it difficult to scale this mountain of a book; I must have started and abandoned the book at least four times before finishing it.
The book’s main point seemed simple enough: Dutch Golden Age painting should not be understood as a form of narrating (typically the approach taken to understanding Italian Renaissance painting) but rather as a form of describing.
However, the book’s supporting arguments seem primarily calibrated to excite the cerebral cortex of professionals in art history. There are long discursive chapters on the 17th century poet, composer, and administrator Constantijn Huygens, the astronomer Johannes Kepler, and a gaggle of other 17th scientists that changed the way we came to see the world. The promised land of Dutch Golden Age painting is only reached after wandering through these pretty dry lands. But, in the end, the book succeeds in making even amateur readers like me to see clearly the “paradigm shift” introduced by Dutch painting.
Two art history sources proved helpful in overcoming reading difficulties. First, Baxandall’s book “Painting and Experience in 15th Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style” (1978) ably informs readers how people during the Italian Renaissance understood paintings. And second, Mariet Westermann’s chapter in “The Books that Shaped Art History” (2013) provides a summary as well as an evaluation of the Alpers book’s massive impact on how Dutch Golden Age painting is seen nowadays.
The book’s main point seemed simple enough: Dutch Golden Age painting should not be understood as a form of narrating (typically the approach taken to understanding Italian Renaissance painting) but rather as a form of describing.
However, the book’s supporting arguments seem primarily calibrated to excite the cerebral cortex of professionals in art history. There are long discursive chapters on the 17th century poet, composer, and administrator Constantijn Huygens, the astronomer Johannes Kepler, and a gaggle of other 17th scientists that changed the way we came to see the world. The promised land of Dutch Golden Age painting is only reached after wandering through these pretty dry lands. But, in the end, the book succeeds in making even amateur readers like me to see clearly the “paradigm shift” introduced by Dutch painting.
Two art history sources proved helpful in overcoming reading difficulties. First, Baxandall’s book “Painting and Experience in 15th Century Italy: A Primer in the Social History of Pictorial Style” (1978) ably informs readers how people during the Italian Renaissance understood paintings. And second, Mariet Westermann’s chapter in “The Books that Shaped Art History” (2013) provides a summary as well as an evaluation of the Alpers book’s massive impact on how Dutch Golden Age painting is seen nowadays.
June 27, 2015
Senza l’occhio umano l’universo e’ buio.
Non riesco a vedere lontano se abito in una pianura e voglio scoprire e descrivere cosa vive al di la’, ma se abito tra le vette vivo nel limite del mio orizzonte e rimpiango solo se al di la’ di quelle vette degli dei scrivono libri che mai leggero’.
L’arte italiana e’ narrativa, nel senso che da’ consistenza visiva a quel che si trova scritto nei libri, nella storia sacra e nelle leggende degli antichi. L’arte nordica, e quella olandese in particolare, e’ invece descrittiva, nel senso che rappresenta la realta’ cosi’ come essa e’. (copertina)
(Svetlana Alpers) Arriva in questo modo a ipotizzare una centralita’ della vista, del vedere, come strumento di conoscenza nella cultura olandese del Seicento, rispetto a una presunta centralita’ del pensiero, della scrittura, della storia nella cultura italiana. (xiv)
Nel riferirmi all’idea di arte nel Rinascimento italiano, ho in mente la definizione albertiana di quadro: una superficie o una tavola incorniciata, posta a una certa distanza da un osservatore che guarda, attraverso di essa, un mondo altro o sostitutivo. Nel Rinascimento questo mondo era un palcoscenico su cui figure umane recitavano azioni significanti basate su testi di poeti. E’ un’arte narrativa. (5)
I ritratti, le nature morte, i paesaggi e le raffigurazioni della vita quotidiana colgono momenti di piacere in un mondo pieno di piaceri: quelli dei legami familiari, delle cose possedute e della vita in citta’, le chiede, la campagna. In queste immagini, … il Seicento ci appare come una lunga domenica dopo i giorni turbolenti del secolo precedente. L’arte olandese offre appagamento alla vista e sembra sollevare meno domande di quanto non faccia l’arte italiana. (8)
Giacche’, come intendo dimostrare, le immagini nordiche non mascherano significati, ne’ li nascondono dietro la superficie, ma mostrano piuttosto che il significato si trova per sua natura in cio’ che l’occhio e’ in grado di cogliere, per quanto ingannevole possa essere. (12)
O Tu che dai gli occhi e il potere
Da’ occhi con questo potere:
Occhi che, se resi vigili,
Vedono tutto cio’ che e’ da vedere. (35)
… l’impressione che il mondo si depositi da se’, con i suoi colori e la sua luce, sulla superficie pittorica; la mancanza di un preciso punto d’osservazione, come se lo spettatore percepisse ogni cosa con occhio attento, ma senza lasciare traccia di se’. La Veduta di Delft di Vermeer ne e’ un esempio perfetto. (45)
… Keplero non solo definisce l’immagine sulla retina una rappresentazione, ma sposta la sua attenzione dal mondo reale al mondo ‘dipinto’ sulla retina. Tutto questo implica un’estrema oggettivita’ e la rinuncia a formulare giudizi di valore sul mondo cosi’ rappresentato. (56)
L’idea della mente come luogo dove immagazzinare le immagini visive era ovviamente comune a quell’epoca. Ma solo nell’Europa del Nord gli artisti raffigurarono questo stato mentale. Comunque si voglia giudicarle, la mancanza di uno stile ideale o elevato e la tendenza a un approccio descrittivo anche nel caso di soggetti elevati, sono dovute a questo modo di intendere la rappresentazione. (60)
Or non vedi tu che l’occhio abbraccia la bellezza di tutto il mondo? (65)
… cosi anche gli artisti olandesi hanno la passione per l’attenzione visiva. Infatti le loro opere sono rivolte agli stessi oggetti che attiravano l’attenzione di Beeckman: le nuvole gonfie di Ruisdael, alte sulla campagna, il guizzare di una candela o le pagine arricciate dei libri in pile che le nature morte di Leida fissano per il piacere dei nostri occhi; i cadaveri dipinti dai ritrattisti, per i quali la morte si presenta sotto forma di una lezione di anatomia. (148)
Nel descrivere che cosa vedono gli occhi degli animali o degli insetti, egli (Leeuwenhoek) richiama piu’ volte l’attenzione sul fatto che il mondo e’ conosciuto non in virtu’ della sua visibilita’, ma in virtu’ dei particolari strumenti che lo rendono visibile. (156-7)
Non facciamo nessuna scoperta se diciamo che l’arte olandese in genere condivide quel carattere nominativo e rappresentativo che veniva attribuito anche al linguaggio. Abbiamo pero’ un motivo ulteriore per fissare la nostra attenzione, come facevano appunto gli artisti olandesi, sulla descrizione della realta’, piuttosto che indagare sui significati nascosti dietro la superficie. (170)
L’intento dei pittori olandesi era di fissare su una superficie il maggior numero di conoscenze e di informazioni sul mondo visibile. Anch’essi, come i cartografi, affiancano immagini e parole, e costruiscono opere composite, che non si lasciano cogliere da un singolo punto d’osservazione. La loro tela non e’ una finestra secondo il modello italiano, ma assomiglia piuttosto a una carta geografica, a una superficie su cui e’ esposta una costruzione del mondo. (198)
Con l’aiuto della terminologia cartografica possiamo dunque affermare che la pittura nordica prende la via della descrizione, e non quella della persuasione retorica abbracciata dall’arte italiana. (208)
Uno dei motivi conduttori della nostra ricerca e’ che l’arte olandese, essenzialmente descrittiva, taglia i ponti con queste basi letterarie. La sua insistenza sul sapere visivo e sulla maestria tecnica dell’artista denota una cultura dell’immagine autonoma rispetto alle fonti letterarie. (277)
Nel suo bel saggio su Vermeer, Lawrence Gowing commenta in questi termini la qualita’ centrale della sua arte:
Vermeer si trova fuori dalle nostre convenzioni (quelle, s’intende, relative all’arte italiana) perche’ non puo’ condividere la grande illusione che le sostiene: che lo stile abbia un potere reale sulla vita. Per quanto un artista ami il mondo e cerchi di afferrarlo, in realta’ non potra’ mai farlo suo. Per quanta audacia possa muovere il suo occhio insaziabile e dominatore, le vere forme della vita restano intatte. (367)
Non riesco a vedere lontano se abito in una pianura e voglio scoprire e descrivere cosa vive al di la’, ma se abito tra le vette vivo nel limite del mio orizzonte e rimpiango solo se al di la’ di quelle vette degli dei scrivono libri che mai leggero’.
L’arte italiana e’ narrativa, nel senso che da’ consistenza visiva a quel che si trova scritto nei libri, nella storia sacra e nelle leggende degli antichi. L’arte nordica, e quella olandese in particolare, e’ invece descrittiva, nel senso che rappresenta la realta’ cosi’ come essa e’. (copertina)
(Svetlana Alpers) Arriva in questo modo a ipotizzare una centralita’ della vista, del vedere, come strumento di conoscenza nella cultura olandese del Seicento, rispetto a una presunta centralita’ del pensiero, della scrittura, della storia nella cultura italiana. (xiv)
Nel riferirmi all’idea di arte nel Rinascimento italiano, ho in mente la definizione albertiana di quadro: una superficie o una tavola incorniciata, posta a una certa distanza da un osservatore che guarda, attraverso di essa, un mondo altro o sostitutivo. Nel Rinascimento questo mondo era un palcoscenico su cui figure umane recitavano azioni significanti basate su testi di poeti. E’ un’arte narrativa. (5)
I ritratti, le nature morte, i paesaggi e le raffigurazioni della vita quotidiana colgono momenti di piacere in un mondo pieno di piaceri: quelli dei legami familiari, delle cose possedute e della vita in citta’, le chiede, la campagna. In queste immagini, … il Seicento ci appare come una lunga domenica dopo i giorni turbolenti del secolo precedente. L’arte olandese offre appagamento alla vista e sembra sollevare meno domande di quanto non faccia l’arte italiana. (8)
Giacche’, come intendo dimostrare, le immagini nordiche non mascherano significati, ne’ li nascondono dietro la superficie, ma mostrano piuttosto che il significato si trova per sua natura in cio’ che l’occhio e’ in grado di cogliere, per quanto ingannevole possa essere. (12)
O Tu che dai gli occhi e il potere
Da’ occhi con questo potere:
Occhi che, se resi vigili,
Vedono tutto cio’ che e’ da vedere. (35)
… l’impressione che il mondo si depositi da se’, con i suoi colori e la sua luce, sulla superficie pittorica; la mancanza di un preciso punto d’osservazione, come se lo spettatore percepisse ogni cosa con occhio attento, ma senza lasciare traccia di se’. La Veduta di Delft di Vermeer ne e’ un esempio perfetto. (45)
… Keplero non solo definisce l’immagine sulla retina una rappresentazione, ma sposta la sua attenzione dal mondo reale al mondo ‘dipinto’ sulla retina. Tutto questo implica un’estrema oggettivita’ e la rinuncia a formulare giudizi di valore sul mondo cosi’ rappresentato. (56)
L’idea della mente come luogo dove immagazzinare le immagini visive era ovviamente comune a quell’epoca. Ma solo nell’Europa del Nord gli artisti raffigurarono questo stato mentale. Comunque si voglia giudicarle, la mancanza di uno stile ideale o elevato e la tendenza a un approccio descrittivo anche nel caso di soggetti elevati, sono dovute a questo modo di intendere la rappresentazione. (60)
Or non vedi tu che l’occhio abbraccia la bellezza di tutto il mondo? (65)
… cosi anche gli artisti olandesi hanno la passione per l’attenzione visiva. Infatti le loro opere sono rivolte agli stessi oggetti che attiravano l’attenzione di Beeckman: le nuvole gonfie di Ruisdael, alte sulla campagna, il guizzare di una candela o le pagine arricciate dei libri in pile che le nature morte di Leida fissano per il piacere dei nostri occhi; i cadaveri dipinti dai ritrattisti, per i quali la morte si presenta sotto forma di una lezione di anatomia. (148)
Nel descrivere che cosa vedono gli occhi degli animali o degli insetti, egli (Leeuwenhoek) richiama piu’ volte l’attenzione sul fatto che il mondo e’ conosciuto non in virtu’ della sua visibilita’, ma in virtu’ dei particolari strumenti che lo rendono visibile. (156-7)
Non facciamo nessuna scoperta se diciamo che l’arte olandese in genere condivide quel carattere nominativo e rappresentativo che veniva attribuito anche al linguaggio. Abbiamo pero’ un motivo ulteriore per fissare la nostra attenzione, come facevano appunto gli artisti olandesi, sulla descrizione della realta’, piuttosto che indagare sui significati nascosti dietro la superficie. (170)
L’intento dei pittori olandesi era di fissare su una superficie il maggior numero di conoscenze e di informazioni sul mondo visibile. Anch’essi, come i cartografi, affiancano immagini e parole, e costruiscono opere composite, che non si lasciano cogliere da un singolo punto d’osservazione. La loro tela non e’ una finestra secondo il modello italiano, ma assomiglia piuttosto a una carta geografica, a una superficie su cui e’ esposta una costruzione del mondo. (198)
Con l’aiuto della terminologia cartografica possiamo dunque affermare che la pittura nordica prende la via della descrizione, e non quella della persuasione retorica abbracciata dall’arte italiana. (208)
Uno dei motivi conduttori della nostra ricerca e’ che l’arte olandese, essenzialmente descrittiva, taglia i ponti con queste basi letterarie. La sua insistenza sul sapere visivo e sulla maestria tecnica dell’artista denota una cultura dell’immagine autonoma rispetto alle fonti letterarie. (277)
Nel suo bel saggio su Vermeer, Lawrence Gowing commenta in questi termini la qualita’ centrale della sua arte:
Vermeer si trova fuori dalle nostre convenzioni (quelle, s’intende, relative all’arte italiana) perche’ non puo’ condividere la grande illusione che le sostiene: che lo stile abbia un potere reale sulla vita. Per quanto un artista ami il mondo e cerchi di afferrarlo, in realta’ non potra’ mai farlo suo. Per quanta audacia possa muovere il suo occhio insaziabile e dominatore, le vere forme della vita restano intatte. (367)
May 12, 2023
A fascinating close look at Dutch paintings of the Golden Age. I'm no fan of many art history books but this is a work apart. She's actually LOOKING at the paintings and not just spouting off about politics.
A very well-produced book. What do I mean by that? Copious illustrations on or near the same page where the work is discussed, and even more brilliantly, if the work is discussed on multiple pages it is reproduced AGAIN so you don't have to go back and forth looking for it in another section of the book. I'm not sure I have ever read an art history/criticism book where the author and publisher were smart and generous enough to do that!! It makes a huge difference to the enjoyment of reading the book.
A very well-produced book. What do I mean by that? Copious illustrations on or near the same page where the work is discussed, and even more brilliantly, if the work is discussed on multiple pages it is reproduced AGAIN so you don't have to go back and forth looking for it in another section of the book. I'm not sure I have ever read an art history/criticism book where the author and publisher were smart and generous enough to do that!! It makes a huge difference to the enjoyment of reading the book.
November 20, 2020
I don't know if in trying to argue for an alternative discriptive mode of viewing Dutch Art as to the discursive mode of interpreting Italian art, and by overemphasizing the attention to the surface and description, the author also reduces the art and simplifies artists' preoccupation and ambitions. It does deserve merit for proposing a different approach to look at dutch visual art, independent of the mainstream scholarly apparatus of studying italian narrative art and it's legacies.
February 22, 2018
dense but endlessly fascinating. enriched my enjoyment and understanding of my favorite paintings, excited to read more.
January 20, 2021
This is THE text on Dutch Golden Age art. Required reading. No ifs and buts. Start here.
August 25, 2022
yawn its my fault tho idk why i thot i'd be into reading about dutch art
January 25, 2023
Some parts really good and fascinating, some hazardously boring ! Maybe a symptom of the inner contradictions of Dutch art ? Sure, why not?
Read
April 26, 2023read for class
March 24, 2015
I love Dutch genre painting and this classic on the subject had some really interesting ideas. However I felt there was rather an overwhelming focus on Vermeer, and I'm guessing this was a translation or not in her first language? Because a few sentences didn't really read quite right...
January 12, 2023
Right before COVID I went to an art opening in Hells Kitchen where the artist explained to me the theory of her photographed still lives by reading from this book. I think I have read all of Dr. Alpers' works by this point in my life...
April 23, 2015
Ongelofelijk dat de hele hollandse kunstgeschiedenis-wereld in de jaren 80/90 hiervan van de leg raakte.
Nogal taai, lees liever http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_han0012003...
Nogal taai, lees liever http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_han0012003...
October 16, 2015
To fully appreciate this book one needs to read Eddy De Jongh's review.
July 6, 2022
Just finished, already on my re-read list. Provides intelligent context for viewing, enjoying and comprehending Dutch art of the 17th century.
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