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| Jan Pynas Aaron transforming the Nile into Blood 1610 Rijksmuseum |
"Pharoah and his sorcerers look on in dismay as Aaron strikes the Nile with his staff, transforming the waters into blood and killing the fish. Pharoah is still not swayed, however, as his magicians duplicate this feat with false magic. (Exodus 7:20-22)"
– pararphrase supplied by the Morgan Library, New York
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| Meindert Hobbema Woodland Road ca. 1670 Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Hendrick ter Brugghen The Philosopher Heraclitus 1628 Rijksmuseum |
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| Rembrandt Conspiracy of the Batavians ca. 1661-62 Rijksmuseum |
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| Rembrandt Self-portrait ca. 1628 Rijksmuseum |
"Well, if you think about the great Rembrandt self-portrait in Aix-en-Provence, for instance, and if you analyze it, you will see that there are hardly any eye sockets to the eyes, that it is almost completely anti-illustrational. I think that the mystery of fact is conveyed by an image being made out of non-rational marks. ... There is a coagulation of non-representational marks which have led to making up this very great image."
– the painter Francis Bacon quoted by arts journalist David Sylvester, 1980
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| Philips Wouwerman Leaving an Inn ca. 1660 Prado |
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| Philips Wouwerman Cavalry Attack ca. 1650-55 Prado |
Denis Diderot needed more than a year to compose his critical evaluation of the Salon of 1767 (reprinted in translation by Yale University Press in 1995). The English edition runs to 344 pages, a fact I could verify when I checked the index to that volume. This index confirmed my own recollection that Diderot frequently referred to the now-forgotten Dutch landscape and genre painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668). On seven different occasions in the Salon of 1767 Diderot invokes Wouwerman (aleady dead for a century). He does this whenever he wishes to bestow particular praise on one of his own contemporaries for the handling of atmosphere, and in particular for the depiction of suspended clouds or mist.
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| Philips Wouwerman Rabbit Hunting ca. 1665 Prado |
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| Philips Wouwerman Landscape with Sandy Path ca. 1655 Rijksmuseum |
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| Philips Wouwerman A Stop at an Inn ca. 1655-58 Prado |
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| Philips Wouwerman Departure with Falcons ca. 1665 Prado |
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| Gerard de Lairesse Apollo and Aurora 1671 Metropolitan Museum of Art |
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| Gerard de Lairesse Bacchus and Ariadne ca. 1680 Mauritshuis, The Hague |
Dutch artist Gerard de Lairesse painted the original full-size version of his Bacchus and Ariadne (above) for Soestdijk Palace, home of the stadtholder Willem III (who would become King of England after the forced abdication of James II in 1688). Gerard de Lairesse also produced a reduced copy (below) of the same picture. It meandered for centuries from owner to owner in the Netherlands before settling fairly recently at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
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| Gerard de Lairesse Bacchus and Ariadne ca. 1680-82 Philadelphia Museum of Art |