Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Baroque Painting at Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza

Ferdinand Bol
Young man in feathered cap
ca. 1647
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

In 1651 the English writer Jeremy Taylor published a book called Holy Dying in which he shared his conviction that most people contrive to believe in a too-optimistic picture of life on earth. What Taylor saw instead was vileness carried to a grotesque (or baroque) extreme   "But if we could from one of the battlements of Heaven espy how many men and women at this time lie fainting and dying for want of bread, how many young men are hewn down by the sword of war, how many poor orphans are now weeping over the graves of their father, by whose life they were enabled to eat; if we could but hear how many mariners and passengers are at this present in a storm, and shriek out because their keel dashes against a rock, or bulges under them; how many people there are that weep with want, and are mad with oppression, or are desperate by a too quick sense of constant infelicity; in all reason we should be glad to be out of the noise and participation of so many evils and constant calamities."  

Jan Gerrit van Bronchorst
Young man playing a Theorbo
ca. 1642-45
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Nicolaes Maes
Portrait of a woman 
1667
oil on canvas
Museo-Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Nicolaes Maes
Portrait of a man
ca. 1666-67
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Jacob Jordaens 
Holy Family with Angel
ca. 1625-29
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Frans Hals
Family group in a landscape
ca. 1645-48
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Antoine Le Nain
The young musicians
ca. 1640
oil on copper
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Matthias Stom
Supper at Emmaus
ca. 1633-39
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Jacques Linard
Chinese bowl with flowers
1640
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Louise Moillon
Still life with fruits
1637
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
 
Sébastien Bourdon
Holy Familiy with St Elizabeth and St John the Baptist
1660s
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait of young woman with Rosary
ca. 1609-10
oil on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Francisco de Zurbarán
St Casilda
ca. 1630-35
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

David Teniers
Presentation of the Captain General's Baton to Antonio de Moncada in 1410
oil on copper
1664
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

David Teniers and Jan van Kessel
Submission of the Sicilian rebels to Antonio de Moncada in 1411
oil on copper
1663
Museo Thyssen-Bronemisza, Madrid

"When I have just reason  to think my superiours would have it thus, this is Musique to my soul ; When I heare them say they would have it thus, this is Rhetorique to my soule ; When I see their Laws enjoyne it to be thus, this is Logick to my soul ; but when I see them actually, really, clearely, constantly do thus, this is a Demonstration to my soule, and Demonstration is the powerfullest proofe. The eloquence of inferiours is in words, the eloquence of superiours is in action."

This text is from Sermon XVII by John Donne, published in 1640. Samuel Taylor Coleridge annotated his copy of Donne's Sermons in the early 19th century, and wrote about this passage  "A  just representation, I doubt not, of the general feeling & principle of the time Donne wrote. Men regarded the gradations of society as God's Ordinances, and had the elevation of self-approving Conscience in every feeling and exhibition of respect for those ranks superior to themselves. What a contrast with the present times! Mem. What a beautiful sentence. The eloquence of Inferiors is in words, the Eloquence of Superiors is in action!!"

– from Coleridge on the Seventeenth Century, edited by Roberta Florence Brinkley (Duke, 1955)

I am grateful for the excellent reproductions from Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.