Time and Transformation in Dutch Art

POUGHKEEPSIE, N.Y.

:Landscape paintings with ruins, scenes of weathered cottages, still lifes that feature human skulls, pictures of newsworthy catastrophes. These were among the notable subjects of Dutch art of the Old Masters, as museum-goers have long known. Until now, though, no single exhibition has identified and explored the theme that runs through all of these images.

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College will offer just such a far-reaching exhibition when it presents "Time and Transformation in Seventeenth Century Dutch Art," on view from April 8 through June 19. Organized by Susan Donahue Kuretsky, the Sarah Gibson Blanding Professor of Art at Vassar College, the exhibition is the first to examine how Dutch artists of this period dwelt on the workings of time and circumstance upon the physical world.

"Time and Transformation" draws together a wide range of works from the art center itself, from private holdings and from the collections of more than a dozen major American museums. Included are some 90 paintings, drawings, prints and illustrated books, ranging in date from 1600 to 1690. Among the artists represented are Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Ruisdael, Joachim Wtewael, Abraham Bloemaert, Aelbert Cuyp, Hercules Segers and Daniel Vosmaer.

"Time and Transformation" highlights one of the key cultural innovations of the Dutch Republic: the depiction of the passage of time, as shown in nondevotional images that encompass both secular subjects and religious narratives.

As early as the Fifteenth Century, Ms Kuretsky notes, artists in the Netherlands had created devotional paintings that incorporated images of ruins. By locating the Nativity or The Adoration of the Magi within a crumbling shed, artists expressed both the humility of the Holy Family and the passing away of the old, pre-Christian order. An important example in the exhibition is Joachim Wtewael's painting "Adoration of the Shepherds in the Ruins," circa 1600. In the following century, when many churches were destroyed in northern Europe during the Protestant Reformation, Dutch artists continued to incorporate ruins into narrative works, such as "The Tower of Babel" or "The Disasters of the Jewish People."

But it was only in the Seventeenth Century, when an independent Dutch Republic became established through religious and political warfare with Spain, that entirely secular images of ruins began to appear. Such images first became common as prints, Ms Kuretsky observes, suggesting that they appealed to a popular taste and often served a patriotic purpose. Because many of the buildings being shown as ruins were local sites that had been damaged during the wars with Spain, "These pictures were not only images of transience but also reminders of the new nation's recent and heroic past."

Among the outstanding works to be shown in this context are a rare etching by Hercules Segers, "The Ruins of the Abbey at Rijnsburg," on loan from the Cincinnati Art Museum, and paintings by Aelbert Cuyp, "Landscape with Ruins of Rijnsburg Abbey," circa 1643-45; Jan van Goyen, "Riverscape with the Pellecussen Gate near Utrecht," 1648; and Jacob van Ruisdael, "Landscape with Half-timbered House and Blasted Tree," 1653.

In making such pictures, many Dutch artists drew on a well-established practice of visiting Italy and studying the relics of its past. As a result, a large category of Dutch ruin scenes consists of Italianate landscapes. Many of these were made for art collectors who wanted to experience Italy without the hazards of an actual journey; some were even painted by artists who had never left home. Notable paintings of this type in the exhibition include Willem van Nieulandt, "Laban Searching for his Idols," 1630; Jan Baptist Weenix, "Ruins in the Roman Campagna," circa 1650-55; and Adriaen van de Velde's "Figures and Cattle with a Ruined Aqueduct," 1664.

But to suggest time's passing, a building did not have to be antique or medieval. As part of their development of a landscape tradition, artists of the Dutch Republic also painted images of weathered, rustic structures. Important works of this type are Willem Kalf's tiny painting "Barn Interior: the Ruined Cupboard," 1643, Jacob van Ruisdael's drawing "The Collapsed Hut" and Rembrandt van Rijn's etching "Oblong Landscape with Cottage and Hay Barn."

Although Dutch artists rarely depicted contemporary events except in the form of allegory, printmakers and painters of this period did make a number of extraordinary pictures recording the aftermaths of floods, fires and other memorable catastrophes. Among such works on view are Daniel Vosmaer's painting "The Delft Thunderclap," 1654, Ludolf Backhuysen's painting "Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast," 1667, and an illustration by Jan van der Heyden from his innovative handbook on firefighting, published in Amsterdam in 1690.

Rounding out the exhibition are telling images of nonarchitectural ruins, such as Gerard Dou's painting "Ancient Hermit with Dead Tree," 1670, and N.L. Peschier's painting "Vanitas Still Life," 1661.

Vassar College and the University of Washington Press will publish a major catalog in conjunction with the exhibition.

Located at the entrance to the historic Vassar College campus, the art center can be reached within minutes from other mid-Hudson cultural attractions. For information, www.fllac.vassar.edu or 845-437-5632.