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On the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, MA, see the first post in this series. This post is available as a video at https://youtu.be/1_ZlsI0jOOY .

This week: paintings of the later 17th century.

1645-1646

Bartolomé Estebán Murillo, Fray Julián of Alcalá’s Vision of the Ascension of the Soul of King Philip II of Spain.

Brother Julián of Alcalá, surrounded by fellow Franciscans, points to the distance, where Philip II of Spain is being welcomed to heaven by a bevy of angels. It’s a pretty attention-grabbing painting. Enquiring minds (OK, my mind) want to know: why was this particular king chosen to be represented that way?

Answer: because Philip II was a hero of the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church’s attempt to regain ground from the various Protestant sects that sprung up in the 1500s. Philip II ruled Spain (1556-1598), Portugal (1580-1598), and parts of the Netherlands. Beginning in 1568, he waged a brutal war on the Protestant population of Spanish-controlled Netherlands. In 1588, he sent the Spanish Armada against those heretics in England. In France, he sent money and troops to support those who opposed the accession to the throne of Henry of Navarre, a Protestant. And Philip’s navy defeated the Ottoman Muslims at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. To good Catholics such as Fray Julian and Murillo, Philip II was a saint … even though he was never canonized.

This painting is an early work by Murillo (1618-1682), who became one of the most famous Spanish artists of the Baroque period, following in the tradition of Velazquez and Zurbaran. He specialized in religious works and sentimental paintings of peasant children, which explains why I’ve never paid much attention to his works. But in terms of style – the way he paints rather than the subject – I do like his work. The figure at the front of the detail above is lovely. More on this painting here and here.

1646

Claude (Claude Gellée, a.k.a. Claude Lorraine or le Lorrain), Rest on the Flight to Egypt.

Lorrain was one of the earliest artists to focus on landscapes. This painting is nominally about Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus resting on their journey from Bethlehem to Egypt. (As an avid reader, I love that Joseph sits off to the side reading a book.) Although the figures are a small part of the painting – almost incidental – they helped Claude and his contemporaries classify works such as this one as “history paintings”. History painting was a much more respected genre than mere landscape painting. More on that in Seismic Shifts. More on this painting here. For more on the history of landscape painting and its significance, see this essay from 2006.

1660

Jacob van Ruisdael, Landscape with Bridge, Cattle, and Figures.

Ruisdael (ca. 1629-1682) is considered the greatest Dutch landscape painter of the 17th century. He’s known for conveying mood – usually rather gloomy! – in his works. This painting is typical Ruisdael: meticulous detail for a mundane subject. Oh, man, I wouldn’t go across that bridge on foot, never mind with a herd of livestock! British painters Gainsborough (1727-1788) and Constable (1776-1837) were both greatly inspired by Ruisdael. More here.

1681-1684

Antoine Coypel, Allegory of Music. This is an early work by Coypel (1661-1722), who came from a family of prominent artists. It’s in an appealing style modeled on the work of Peter Paul Rubens. Coypel later became court painter to Louis XV of France, curator of the royal art collections, and director of the Royal Academy.

Oddly enough, the information that caught my eye in the label for this painting was the name Charles Perrault. Back in the 2010s, while researching the history of Central Park’s sculptures, I read up on Mother Goose. (See here.) Mother Goose was the creation of Charles Perrault (1628-1703), who wrote eight stories to amuse his children and published them under the title Histoires ou Contes du Temps passé – Les Contes de ma Mère l’Oye. Translation: Tales and Stories of the Past with Morals – Tales of Mother Goose. Among them were the stories of Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, and Cinderella. These became wildly popular in France and abroad.

Perrault was a favorite at the court of Louis XIV (L’État, c’est moi: I am the state); and those favored by Louis were very well off indeed. For his Paris home, Perrault planned an elaborate ceiling filled with with allegorical images of the arts and sciences. For such allegorical figures, the usual style was to make the faces classically beautiful and idealized. But Coypel decided to make Music a recognizable portrait of Louis XIV’s mistress, Madame de Maintenon – although she’s much younger than her actual age of 50. Around her are the king’s children by his first wife, Queen Maria Theresa of Spain. They’re utterly charming.

The elaborate allegorical ceiling was never completed. Perrault had been an administrative aide to Jean Baptiste Colbert, Louis XIV’s finance minister, since 1663. But in 1682, Colbert dismissed Perrault, and Perrault stopped receiving a writer’s pension. His home was razed in 1685, to make way for the Place des Victoires. Only a few of the paintings for the ceiling have survived; it’s unclear whether any of them were ever installed. For more on the paintings at Perrault’s home, see this Sotheby’s auction entry.

Next week: more works at the Clark Art Institute.

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