Adriaen Brouwer. Master of Emotions

Adriaen Brouwer MASTER OF EMOTIONS Katrien Lichtert (ed.) Adriaen Brouwer MASTER OF EMOTIONS BETWEEN RUBENS AND REMBRANDT ‘Ae n de n cons tri jcke n e n wi j t b eroem d en j on gm a n , Adri ae n Brouwe r, s chi l d er va n O ud en a erd e’ Index 11 Foreword GUY HOVE 13 Preface GEERTRUI VAN KERKHOVEN 15 ‘Ick hoop nog meer’ K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT 19 A painter without precedent K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT 25 Adriaen Brouwer, mobility and artistic innovation KAROLIEN DE CLIPPEL, FILIP VERMEYLEN 37 ‘Natif d’Audenaerde’? New insights into the origins of Adriaen Brouwer and his life in the Northern Netherlands A N G E L A J A G E R , S T I J N LY B E E R T, M A R T I N E V A N W E L D E N , ERIK VERROKEN 51 Adriaen Brouwer’s props: everyday objects as models for painters ALEXANDRA VAN DONGEN 63 Adriaen Brouwer. The new Bruegel K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT 79 Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT 99 ‘Rederijker, kannenkijker’ Adriaen Brouwer and rhetorical culture in the Northern and Southern Netherlands ANNE-L AURE VAN BRUAENE 105 Brouwer’s unruly portraits ADAM EAKER 115 The painter’s painter C H R I S AT K I N S 127 ‘The scum of the earth for the flower of the nation’ Adriaen Brouwer and his public in the Netherlands of the 17th century ELMER KOLFIN 141 Exhibtion catalogue Adriaen Brouwer: cat. nos. 1-27 197 Overview of the exhibited works 203 Notes 211 Bibliography 223 Credits Foreword GUY HOVE The historic city of Oudenaarde in south-east Flanders, situated in the valley of the River Scheldt and surrounded by the hills of the Flemish Ardennes, has a rich but highly eventful past. The combination of the surrounding green countryside - ‘Flanders Finest Landscape’ - with an art history and an art heritage that are second to none make Oudenaarde an attractive port of call for visitors of all kinds. But perhaps the most important thing about the city is its authenticity. The focal point in the city centre is unquestionably the market square, with its internationally renowned Late-Gothic town hall (1526-1537) and its belfry, both of which are UNESCO world heritage sites. This medieval town hall is also the home of the MOU and provides a magnificent setting for the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions. A unique trump card, indeed! culture and tradition, as well as in the story told in the city museum. His name rings a bell with everyone living in Oudenaarde. They are proud of their famous fellow citizen and feel that he is part of who they are. By the same token, Brouwer is also unmistakably a part of the city’s wider cultural identity: local legends about his life and work are still legion in the region. His name is also associated with various local products and events, the most well-known of which are Adriaen Brouwer beer and the traditional Adriaen Brouwer festival. Extensive archival research in preparation for the exhibition has confirmed that the master was indeed born in Oudenaarde, so that the link between the artist and our city has now been scientifically proven. Pride From the 15th to the 18th century, tapestries were Flanders’ most important export product. Alongside Arras, Tournai, Brussels and Antwerp, Oudenaarde was one of the most important centres of top-class tapestry-making. It brought the city interregional, national and international fame. In the context of the present exhibition, it is a pleasing coincidence that there is a close link between Adriaen Brouwer and the craftsmanship of the tapestry-making art: Brouwer was born in Oudenaarde and his father worked in the tapestry industry. What’s more, works by Brouwer and, following in his footsteps, David Teniers, Brouwer’s most wellknown pupil, inspired future generations of cartoon designers and tapestry weavers to produce the so-called Tenières. The idea to organize an exhibition dedicated to the oeuvre of Brouwer was first floated by Geertrui Van Kerkhoven, the MOU curator, and supported by General Director, Luc Vanquickenborne. At the end of 2015, the City of Oudenaarde appointed Dr. Katrien Lichtert to conduct the research and curate the exhibition. For the past two and a half years she has led an interdisciplinary and international research project in preparation for the exhibition. The content and concept of Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions is therefore based on the most recent scientific and academic insights. The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp), with Professor Dr. Manfred Sellink, General Director and Head Curator of the museum as its driving force. We are extremely grateful to him for his generosity and assistance. He opened many doors for our museum. As an official partner, the KMSKA played an important advisory, facilitating and intermediary role. Identity The City of Oudenaarde invests in projects that strengthen its identity, in the sense that they are embedded in the history of the city and, by extension, Flanders. In this respect, the figure of Adriaen Brouwer is already firmly anchored in local (popular) 11 The research was supported by a scientific committee, which, in addition to Dr. Katrien Lichtert and Professor Dr. Manfred Sellink, consisted of Dr. Karolien De Clippel, Professor Dr. Koenraad Jonckheere, Dr. Mirjam Neumeister, Dr. Nico van Hout and Geertrui Van Kerkhoven. These works have been kindly loaned to the exhibition from prestigious museums, galleries and private collections in Europe and America. We are extremely proud that Oudenaarde and the MOU have been given the opportunity to bring together at a single location a large part of the known oeuvre of Adriaen Brouwer. The fact that these masterpieces are being united for the very first time - what’s more, in the artist’s own native city - makes this a unique exhibition of international importance, which can only benefit the visibility and reputation of both Oudenaarde and Flanders. The exhibition will display fifty-five paintings, drawings and prints. Together, they form a representative selection of Brouwer’s oeuvre, supplemented with works by fellow artists of his day. Preface Adriaen Brouwer, the MOU and the city of Oudenaarde GEERTRUI VAN KERKHOVEN 2012. The MOU is founded. The ambition: to create a lowthreshold starting point for the historical and touristic exploration of the city of Oudenaarde and the Flemish Ardennes. In the museum, local, Flemish and international visitors can make their acquaintance with all aspects of the thousand-year history of the city, while at the same time looking forward from that past to the future. With the organization of this ambitious exhibition about one of the greatest Flemish Masters, the city of Oudenaarde firmly secures its position in the history of old master painting. What’s more, Oudenaarde also offers an additional bonus: in our city, like no other, the close association between the traditional skills of tapestry and old master painting finds perfect expression in the person of Adriaen Brouwer, who was born as the son of an Oudenaarde tapestry-maker. The MOU focuses in particular on research into and the presentation of two important artistic industries for which Oudenaarde was once internationally renowned and which are closely associated with the story of the city and its identity: the production of historical tapestries and the craft of silversmithing, both of which were renowned throughout Europe. This combination places the MOU in a unique position in the museum landscape of the Flemish Ardennes and of Flanders in general, a position further enhanced by its location in the beating heart of the city. What was once just an ambitious dream has now become a reality. This book and the exhibition are the result of a long-term effort, but an effort that was well worthwhile. Together, they finally give Adriaen Brouwer the position he rightly deserves: alongside Rubens and Rembrandt. The realization of this remarkable project would not have been possible without the belief and support of Professor Dr. Manfred Sellink, General Director and Head Curator at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp). We are deeply grateful to him. Likewise, the enthusiasm, insight and tireless dedication of Dr. Katrien Lichtert ensured that we are able to offer the art world an exhibition of the very highest quality and the first ever oeuvre catalogue of Brouwer’s work. This book is destined to become the standard reference for many years to come: of that we are certain. Adriaen Brouwer has played an important role in the ‘Story of the City’ ever since the museum first opened its doors. The Brouwer exhibition now anchors him permanently as the third pillar in that story. The project ties in perfectly with the long-term strategy of the MOU, which seeks to profile the museum as high quality city museum with a national and international allure. 12 13 Last but not least, a word of thanks must also go to Tourism Flanders for its financial and promotional support; to the scientific committee, steering group and museum staff; and to the tourist department of the City of Oudenaarde. ‘Ick hoop nog meer’ (I hope for more) K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT Word of thanks by the curator and for the kindness with which I was received both in Belgium and abroad during my Brouwer quest. In particular, I would like to thank: Chris Atkins, Edwin Buijsen, Philippe Büttner, Bart Cornelissen, Anna Debenedetti, Katja Kleinert, Adam Eaker, Konstanze Krüger, Uta Neithardt, Mirjam Neumeister, Jan Schmidt, Gero Seelig, Karen Serres, Cécile Tainturier, Alexandra van Dongen, Sabine van Sprang and Arthur Wheelock. My heartfelt thanks to you all! Adriaen Brouwer (Oudenaarde, ca. 1604-Antwerp, 1638) is one of the most creative and versatile artists produced by the Low Countries in the 17th century. Even though his life was short, he left behind an impressive oeuvre, small in scale but of the very highest quality. In his own day, Brouwer was a phenomenon. He enjoyed the admiration of fellow artists and his work was avidly collected by them. Rubens owned no fewer than 17 paintings by Brouwer, while Rembrandt had six and a much greater number of drawings. Brouwer’s popularity was further confirmed by the many copies and brouwerkens made of his panels, which began appearing during his own lifetime. Even so, in comparison with the more famous masters and great public favourites like Rubens and Rembrandt, Brouwer is still relatively unknown. It is this situation that the exhibition Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions hopes to change. For the first time, a large part of Brouwer’s oeuvre is being brought together at a single location to give a wider audience an opportunity to discover his exquisite art. The fact that so many masterpieces from various public and private collections are being exhibited together - and, what’s more, in Brouwer’s native city - is unique. I also owe a similar debt of gratitude to the members of the scientific committee for their generous advice and guidance throughout this trajectory. Thanks also to Konrad Renger, one of the brightest stars in the Brouwer firmament, for his numerous insights. A very special word of thanks must likewise go to Karolien De Clippel, my Brouwer ‘partner in crime’: thank you for your erudition, your collegiality and your academic generosity. Long may we continue to ‘browse’ through our memories of our favourite artist! Last but not least, also a very big ‘thank you’ to my colleagues at the museum in Oudenaarde: Eline, Geertrui and Hilde. Together we made a great Brouwer team! This book is the result of large-scale interdisciplinary research, which was conducted as part of the preparation for this exhibition. In addition to a thorough study of the painted oeuvre, extensive research was also carried out in international archives throughout the Low Countries, providing us with a more complete picture of Brouwer and his work than we have ever had before. I am truly grateful to all the authors for their contributions to this book and their insights into Brouwer: Chris Atkins, Karolien De Clippel, Adam Eaker, Angela Jager, Elmer Kolfin, Stijn Lybeert, Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, Alexandra van Dongen, Martine Vanwelden, Filip Vermeylen and Erik Verroken: thank you, merci, dank u wel! I hope that together we have made a worthwhile contribution to Brouwer study, which will serve as an inspiration for further research into this most remarkable but still much underrated master. Or to use Brouwer’s own words: ‘I hope for more!’ Without the ambition, enthusiasm and powers of persuasion of many people, it would never have been possible to present the first ever Brouwer retrospective of this scale. Perhaps the largest feather in the cap should go to Geertrui Van Kerkhoven, the initiator and driving force behind the Brouwer project. Hats off also to the City of Oudenaarde, who were willing to commit themselves to this ambitious Brouwer dream. The support of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp and in particular the encouragement of its General Director and Head Curator, Professor Dr. Manfred Sellink, has been of fundamental value. Naturally, it is not possible to organize an exhibition of this kind without the goodwill of the many museums and private individuals who were prepared to lend their works of art. I am deeply indebted to numerous colleagues for their belief in our project 15 xxxx A painter without precedent K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT ‘D en smaeck van Brouwers Const, die Brouwers heeft ghebrouwen, Die sal de wereldt noch ghewis al lanckonthouwen.’1 (The flavour of Brouwer’s art that Brouwer brewed, Will long be remembered by the world) Sandrart (1675), Izaak Bullart (1682), Roger de Piles (1715) and Arnold Houbraken (1718/21).2 These biographies not only attest to the high reputation already enjoyed by Brouwer in the early years after his death, but also offer insights into the artist’s personality and how his work was perceived at the time. Brouwer is usually regarded as a bohémien avant la lettre, a somewhat dissolute figure who spent most of his time in taverns and who, like the people he painted, freely enjoyed the pleasures of both alcohol and tobacco.3 The biographers also drew attention to his nomadic lifestyle and to the fact that throughout his life he was often in financial difficulties, which has been confirmed by contemporaneous archive documents. De Bie continues his rhyme in similar fashion: With these words, Adriaen Brouwer’s biographer Cornelis de Bie (1627-ca. 1715) opens a verse composed in the artist’s honour. It is an illustration of the early appreciation that Brouwer enjoyed and testifies to the remarkable nature of his art, which, according to De Bie, would ensure that the world will continue to remember the artist and his work for a long time. But why exactly would the world remember Brouwer’s art for so long? In other words, what makes Brouwer such an outstanding artist? How did he (to use De Bie’s play on words) ‘brew’ his art? And what makes Brouwer specifically ‘Brouwer’? By answering these questions, we will be able to touch on the very core of Brouwer’s artistic personality and reveal the key characteristics of his oeuvre. ‘Hy heeft altijdt veracht al ’s wereldtsydelgoet. Was traegh in’t Schilderen, en milt in het verteren Met ’t pijpken inden mont, in slechte pis taveren, Daer leefden sijnejeught, schoon hy was sondergelt Ghelijckhy meestendeel was al den daghghestelt.’4 This image of Brouwer as a loose-living bon vivant was resurrected and exaggerated even further in the course of the 19th century and still largely determines how we view the artist today.5 It goes without saying that this clichéd image - which, like most clichés, contains an element of truth - does great injustice to one of the best and most creative genre painters of the 17th century in the Low Countries. The idea that Brouwer’s personality and lifestyle matched the subjects he painted - which in his case were peasants and down-and-outs from the lower echelons of society - is a frequently used topos in the literary genre of art biography: ‘the man is like his work’. Another well-know example is the description of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1526/28-1569) by Karel Van Mander (1548-1606).6 Van Mander characterized The master and the myth An important source for the study of Brouwer’s life and work is the collection of 17th and early 18th century biographies written by (the above-mentioned) Cornelis de Bie (1662), Joachim von Jan Lievens, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1640, chalk on paper, 22.1 x 18.4 cm, Fondation Custodia, Paris 19 Bruegel as ‘Pier den Drol’ (meaning Peter the Droll, because of the humorous aspects in his work) and argued that the artist must have been a peasant himself, otherwise he would not have been able to depict the peasant way of life with such accuracy. It is significant that Brouwer - ‘the new Bruegel’ - was given the same stereotypical biographical treatment as his illustrious predecessor and that this simplistic assumption still dominates our attitudes towards him. man. In particular, Rembrandt showed great interest in his drawn oeuvre. In this respect, an enlightening source is the estate inventory of the artist, art dealer and innkeeper Barend van Someren (1572-1632), who maintained close contacts with Brouwer over a long period. The auctioning of his estate in 1635 contained a sizeable lot of Brouwer drawings, which were bought by leading artists of the day, including the aforementioned Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606/7-1669) and Hendrick Uylenburgh (15871661).8 Brouwer’s drawn work is less known than his painting and not well studied.9 None of the sheets are signed, which further complicates attribution. However, there is a consensus about the core of Brouwer’s drawn oeuvre, which consists of eight sheets of figure studies spread over print cabinets in Berlin, Besançon, Dresden, Hamburg and at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. A ninth sheet was recently added to this corpus in the form of a study for The adoration of the shepherds, now held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (inv. 2015.102).10 These studies of individual figures and figure groups are drawn with remarkable accuracy: with just a few telling strokes of his pen, Brouwer was able to capture not only body posture and movement, but also the facial expression of his personages. Characteristically, the emphasis is on action and emotion. In the groups of figures, the dynamic between the different personages is central. All the sheets display close stylistic similarities and have almost exactly the same format (ca. 220 x 330 mm, although the New York sheet and the second Dresden drawing are smaller), so that it is plausible to suggest that they were part of the same sketch book.11 These sketches probably served as finger exercises, allowing the artist to practice different poses, expressions and compositions that he later used in his paintings. At the same time, all these early biographers are unanimously fulsome in their praise for Brouwer’s artistic talent and his insight into human nature. De Bie again: ‘Sijn verstant was soo groot, dat hy onder den deckmantel van spots-ghewijse, redenen en manieren, de sotte dulheydt des wereldts wist aenjeder te ontdecken.’7 (His understanding was so deep, that under the cover of his mocking rendition of manners, He knew better than anyone how to expose the mad folly of the world) It is precisely the combination of these two qualities - his pictorial skill and his psychological awareness - that makes Brouwer’s art so true to life. He was able like no other artist to capture and accurately depict both the essence of what it is to be human and the ‘mad folly’ of the world around us. The way in which he illustrated this folly - ‘de sotte dulheydt des wereldts’- was perceived as being highly comical. This emphasis on the witty and amusing aspect of Brouwer’s work runs as a recurring motif throughout his biographies. Although Adriaen Brouwer made no print designs of his own, there is a remarkably rich collection of prints based on his work.12 The earliest of these prints were already being made during his lifetime. The titles and the inscriptions on these etchings and engravings provide a fascinating insight into the significance, early reception and consumption of Brouwer’s art.13 His depictions of the Seven Deadly Sins and the Five Senses were particularly popular. It is also noteworthy that many of these depictions were comic: Brouwer held up a moral mirror to his viewers, but in a subtle and humorous way. In the 17th century, learning and amusement often went hand in hand, in keeping with Horace’s dictum ridendo dicere verum: tell the truth while laughing. The oeuvre: more than just peasants in taverns Brouwer’s trademark was smoking, drinking, gambling and fighting peasants, often situated in a tavern interior or sometimes in an outdoor setting. However, to simply classify his work as ‘peasant scenes’ detracts from his all-embracing and ground-breaking artistic personality. He also devoted himself to other genres, such as portraits and landscapes, where he introduced important innovations that were destined to have a lasting influence on these visual traditions in the long term. Although today Brouwer is primarily known as a painter, in his own time he also enjoyed an outstanding reputation as a draughts- 20 The painter’s painter ological-geographic division is neither evident nor ideal. His life was characterized by a high degree of mobility, as confirmed, for example, by recent research which has shown that during his early years in Antwerp he returned more than once to Haarlem.19 Defining the precise limits of Brouwer’s painted oeuvre is no easy task. Typical in this respect are the publications from 1884 and 1924 by Wilhem von Bode, in which the author respectively ascribes some 70 and 120 paintings to the master.14 In his 1962 monograph, Knuttel also refers to roughly 80 paintings that he regards as original.15 In recent decades, research by art historians like Konrad Renger and Karolien De Clippel have provided further fundamental insights into the scope of Brouwer’s work.16 Renger reduced the oeuvre to an acceptable 65 paintings. Currently, about 65 pieces are still regarded as being authentic. This corpus is spread across public and private collections in Europe and the United States. With 17 paintings, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich has the largest collection of Brouwers in the world.17 Brouwer’s mobility had a major influence on his artistic development. Perhaps more than any other artist in this period, he succeeded in assimilating the different fashions and trends from both the Northern and the Southern Netherlands in a manner that enabled him to create new types of imagery. This cross-border synthesis is one of the most important characteristics of his art. In his early years, Brouwer’s work closely followed the Bruegelian visual tradition, which he first discovered in the Northern Netherlands. His paintings from this time are characterized by a large number of figures set in an interior that is richly filled with domestic items, cutlery and crockery. The lively colour palette and the sometimes unusual combination of colours are also typical of this period, when Brouwer was mainly working in Haarlem and Amsterdam. It was probably in this latter city that he first came into contact with the Bruegelian idiom, most likely through the work of David Vinckboons (1576-1631) and other artists who had emigrated to the Dutch Republic from the Southern Netherlands. In Haarlem, he also made his acquaintance with a new genre that was destined to have a lasting impact on his artistic development: the so-called ‘merry companies’. These depictions of rich young men and women enjoying themselves were introduced by painters like Willem Buytewech (1591/1592-1624) and Dirck Hals (1591-1656). By applying aspects of these fashionable genre pieces to his tavern interiors, Brouwer was able to bring about a far-reaching and lasting pictorial revolution in the visual tradition of peasant scenes. He gradually reduced the number of figures in these scenes and devoted greater attention to the wider aspects of spatial development, resulting in more harmonious compositions, with a better balance between figures and space. As a result, his characters also became more expressive and true to life, which probably owed something to the portrait-like genre pieces of Frans Hals (1582-1666), who he most likely met in Haarlem. His paintings from this Dutch period were further distinguished by the introduction of previously unseen and topical new themes, like the smoking of tobacco. If there is one point on which all researchers agree, it is that these paintings all share the common characteristics of high artistic qualities and a generally innovative approach. Approximately a quarter of the works of the now known oeuvre was signed by Brouwer. Often, this was with the monogram ‘AB’, either with free-standing letters - sometimes separated by a full stop, sometimes not - or in ligature. In some cases, only the single letter A or B is legible. Occasionally, he signed his full name as ‘Brauwer’ (see, for example, The smokers, exhib. cat. no. 39) or ‘Brouwer’ (see, for example, Peasants celebrating, exhib. cat. no. 2 and The bowls players, exhib. cat. no. 46). Unfortunately, none of his paintings are dated, which obstructs a chronological reconstruction of his oeuvre. Brouwer nearly always painted in small formats on oak panels. Some of these panels are marked with an Antwerp brand mark, which indicates a date of production after 1631/32, when Brouwer moved to the city on the Scheldt. Furthermore, at least two of the marks are by Michiel Vriendt (active from 1615 to 1637), which also helps to narrow down the date of origin.18 Vriendt was one of the most renowned panel-makers of his day and, amongst others, was one of Rubens’ preferred suppliers. Occasionally, Brouwer also painted on copper (see, for example, exhib. cat. nos. 15, 15b, and 26). Based on iconographic and stylistic characteristics, Brouwer’s known oeuvre is usually divided into three broad periods: the early Dutch period (circa 1624/1630), his first years in Antwerp (circa 1630/1634) and the final years in Antwerp (circa 1634/1638). Although this division offers useful and important guidelines, it is important to acknowledge that in Brouwer’s case a strict chron- In 1631/1632, Brouwer took up residence in Antwerp. Typical for his work during this period is a more restrained colour palette, in which he above all makes use of brown, grey, green and blue 21 traiture, during these final years he also spent more time on landscape painting, always in a small-scale format with a focus on the changing effects of light at different times of the day, something that he was able to capture with consummate skill. These landscapes are typified by a virtuoso painting technique with a loose and sketch-like brushwork, which allowed him to apply layer upon layer of paint almost transparently on a ground that here and there still breaks the surface. In comparison with his early work, the palette is much more monochrome and makes use of ‘ton sur ton’ shading. This apparently modern painting technique was a conscious choice and marks a crucial step in Brouwer’s artistic development, allowing him to integrate form and content much more harmoniously than ever before. His consistent use of a small format, loose brushwork and monochrome colour palette were significant for the further evolution of his style and perfectly matched the depiction of the ‘low-brow’ subjects that were his preference.20 This harmonization of form and content was perhaps his greatest artistic achievement. Like no-one else before him, he was great in little things. Or as we say today: ‘less is more’. tints, a palette he occasionally extended with brightening splashes of pastel shades, like red and pink. Equally typical was a more hatched and nervous style of brushwork and a layered build-up of the flesh-coloured elements. The brighter colour accents were discarded, with the exception of the occasional interspersion of his characteristic white highlights, one of his most readily identifiable trademarks. He experimented with different types of imagery, but increasingly opted for a more close-up style of composition in which the figures were often depicted in half or three-quarter body format. This can best be seen, for example, in his ‘tronie’ studies or the grotesque heads that he regularly painted during this phase of his career. This visual formula offered him the opportunity to reproduce a wide range of emotions in his characters. The charm of these pieces lies primarily in their accurate and lifelike portrayal of ordinary people and their actions. At the same time, this far-reaching, almost exaggerated, characterization and Brouwer’s preference for the grotesque demonstrate close parallels with the comic elements in the repertoire of the rhetoricians. Last but not least, this period in his career also saw the increasingly frequent depiction of violent emotions in his work. In conclusion, then, we can say that Brouwer’s oeuvre was characterized by a remarkably high artistic quality and, notwithstanding his relatively limited production, an equally remarkable versatility. With his small and loosely painted scenes, bursting with life, Brouwer had a deep and lasting influence on the visual tradition in both the Northern and the Southern Netherlands. By virtue of his outstanding pictorial skill and his ground-breaking approach, he was unquestionably the most important genre painter in the Low Countries during the 17th century. Or to concur with the words of De Bie with which we opened: the world will indeed remember the art of Adriaen Brouwer for a very long time. It was above all in his final years that Brouwer succeeded in reducing seemingly spontaneous moods and states of mind to their essence, allowing him at last to do full justice to his remarkable talent as the master of emotions. During this search for perfection he tended to focus on just a single action, involving a limited number of people against a neutral background. In addition, he also introduced the idea of including portraits of himself and his fellow artists in genre settings, something that he accomplished in a masterful manner in his iconic group portrait known as The smokers (exhib. cat. 39). As well as moving into the field of por- 22 Adriaen Brouwer, mobility and artistic innovation KAROLIEN DE CLIPPEL AND FILIP VERMEYLEN T here is a broad general assumption that people today are much more mobile than in earlier times. This, however, is a misconception. Immediately after the outbreak of the Eighty Years’ War a migration took place from the Southern to the Northern Netherlands of a kind that had previously never been seen. True, traffic in the Low Countries was still hindered to some extent by high tolls and there was a constant threat of danger in the border region. Even so, the artistic exchange of ideas between the two regions continued to flourish, notwithstanding their mutual animosity at a political and military level. Adriaen Brouwer is a classic example of this kind of mobility. During his short but productive career, he moved with seeming ease between the artistic centres of Amsterdam, Haarlem and Antwerp. This not only helped to fundamentally shape his personal oeuvre, but also had a major impact on the development of genre painting in both North and South. the way people experienced this in the 17th century. Art dealers like Forchondt, collectors and connoisseurs like Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687) and art biographers like Karel Van Mander or Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719) made no distinction between the artistic production of both Low Countries and regarded this production as indivisibly ‘nederlants’ (Netherlandish), even after the region had been partitioned in 1648.1 In this sense, Adriaen Brouwer does not fit neatly into the traditional pattern of art historiography. From the 19th century onwards, art historians, responding to the nationalist impulses of the times, emphasized the division of art in the Low Countries into two distinct schools: a Flemish one in the South and a Dutch one in the North, each of which could lay claim to its own leading artists and distinctive visual language. Seen from this perspective, Brouwer was always a difficult artist to pin down. As a result of his non-sedentary nature, at various times he has been claimed by both Belgium and the Netherlands. But this was not These more or less permanent migrations had a major impact on the local art market. The most momentous exodus of artists from the Southern Netherlands took place in the decades following the outbreak of the so-called Eighty Years’ War. They were part of a much larger migratory flow which saw an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people flee the war-torn South to seek a better life in safer havens elsewhere, primarily in the northern provinces. The motives for migrating were often complex and involved a combination of religious, economic and artistic reasons. In terms of the latter, it is now generally accepted that the influx of Furthermore, the phenomenon of migrating and travelling artists in the early modern period is not as exceptional as it might at first glance seem. Since the 16th century, ambitious young talents had made study trips to Rome or had tried to make their way in one of the famous art centres closer to home, such as London, Paris, Antwerp, Haarlem or Amsterdam. These cities were fertile breeding grounds for the exchange of knowledge and artistic innovations, and offered the opportunity to rising stars to learn from famous masters, as well as coming into contact with influential collectors and dealers. 25 a large number of Flemish painters played an important role in kick-starting the Dutch artistic Golden Age.2 Migratory waves of this kind were crucial for the exchange of new ideas and served as a catalyst for artistic innovation, as a result of which local visual traditions were infused with external elements. cation that he was already on the road even as a young boy. In the summer of 1614, at the age of just nine or ten, he moved with his parents, Adriaen de Brauwere and Maria de Sutter, to a new home in the city of Gouda. The choice of Gouda was a logical one. By that time, the city had become an important centre for the so-called nieuwe draperie in the Republic, thanks in no small measure to the immigration of tapestry weavers from Oudenaarde.6 Since the Brouwer family had close links with the tapestry industry, Gouda would have been an obvious destination when they felt the time had come to leave Flanders. This decision was probably related to the poor economic climate and the decline of tapestry-making in Oudenaarde, although there may also have been other personal motives of which we are not aware. Whatever the reasons, Gouda seemed to offer the prospect of a fresh start and a brighter future. Alongside these more or less permanent migrations, it is known that artists in the Netherlands were also fairly mobile on a temporary basis and regularly crossed the frontier back and forth for short periods. This was particularly the case during the period of relative peace known as the Twelve Year Truce (1609-1621), which, for example, made it possible for Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) and a number of his colleagues to visit The Hague in 1612. Other artists made the journey in the opposite direction. In 1616, Frans Hals (1582/83-1666) spent several months in the city of Antwerp, where he sought inspiration for his work and entered into constructive dialogue with various local portraitists.3 Travel within the Netherlands - even in time of armed conflict - was made possible by the region’s excellent network of roads and canals. The reasonably regular services offered by coach and, above all, by horse-drawn barge provided relatively cheap and safe transport within the new Dutch Republic, but were also capable of reaching Antwerp.4 By the middle of the 1620s, the adolescent Brouwer was living in Haarlem, where he was probably active in the workshop of Frans Hals. There is no concrete proof for this assumption, although elsewhere in this publication Christopher Atkins makes a strong case for this hypothesis, based on the stylistic similarities in the work of both artists.7 It was also during this period that he was known to have been in Amsterdam, although only for relatively short visits, as in the summer of 1626. Here he would have met artists and dealers like Adriaen II van Nieulandt (1587-1658), Michel Le Blon (1587-1656) and Barend van Someren (15721632).8 Ironically enough, it was probably here - in the capital of the Dutch Republic - that he also first came into serious contact with Flemish art. These dealers had a large stock of works by the masters of the South to meet the growing demand for paintings in Amsterdam, and the leading Flemish artists were highly respected. Whether these cross-border movements were brief or lengthy, temporary or permanent, the importance of personal contact in cultural exchange cannot be overrated.5 Even today, it is still the physical meeting of artists that leads to the best possible cross-fertilization of ideas and the sharing of new techniques. In this respect, Adriaen Brouwer was a key figure in the artistic relations between the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic. Brouwer on the move Tradition says that in 1631 the impulsive Adriaen suddenly packed up his belongings and decamped to Antwerp ‘om zyne konstgenooten … te gaan bezoeken’ (to visit his fellow artists). Such was his haste that he even failed to apply for the necessary passport. As a result, he was regarded as a spy when he arrived in the Spanish Netherlands and was initially thrown into prison.9 Even so, the Liggeren (registers) of the St. Luke’s Guild for 16311632 list Brouwer as being a full master. It is thought that the Antwerp contacts of Le Blon and Van Nieulandt provided him with the necessary introductions to the city’s art world. It is known that Le Blon in particular had an extensive network in the city on the Scheldt, including prominent artists like Jacob Jordaens (1593- There were no doubt a number of factors that persuaded Brouwer to move from place to place at regular intervals. His restless personality is one possible explanation. But even if the precise reasons for the mobile lifestyle of this most elusive of artists remain shrouded in the mists of time, the documents that have come to light in the course of the preparation for this current exhibition at least offer us some important clues. We know for certain that travel was in Adriaen Brouwer’s blood. Erik Verroken has shown convincingly elsewhere in this publi- 26 1678) and Rubens – who, by the time of his death in 1640, was the owner of no fewer than 17 works by Brouwer.10 lems and ‘denkende dat ondertusschen die schult wel vergeeten zou worden’ (thinking that the debt would be forgotten while he was away), Brouwer eventually returned empty-handed and sick to Antwerp, where he died an early death in 1638.11 What was it that took Brouwer to Antwerp at that particular moment in time? Sadly, the surviving archival material is insufficient to draw up any credible hypotheses, but it seems likely that Adriaen was attracted by the city’s reputation as the premier art centre in the Southern Netherlands. It is also possible that his desire to visit the city was strengthened by his own Flemish roots. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that Antwerp in the 1630s offered numerous opportunities for an artist of talent who had already completed his training (by then, Brouwer was roughly 26 years old) to further develop his career as a genre painter. The fact that Adriaen quickly attracted a pupil of his own seems to confirm that he regarded the move to Antwerp as permanent, with the intention of setting up a workshop there. Houbraken makes mention of only one further long journey, to Paris. Pursued by financial prob- Because of his remarkable lifestyle and unquestionable talent, it is possible that Brouwer’s inability to settle in one place attracts more attention than it should. His wanderlust was by no means exceptional at the time. As already mentioned in relation to Rubens and Hals, since the 16th century artists had regularly travelled between Antwerp and Haarlem. The same was true of Antwerp and Amsterdam. It is no coincidence that Brouwer’s travels took him to all these leading centres of art in the Low Countries. These were the cities where the cultural industries were flourishing, which opened up attractive new opportunities, both commercial and artistic, for up-and-coming young painters. In this respect, it is worthy of note that even from an early age Brouwer was embedded in an influential network of artists, rhetoricians and art dealers, who facilitated his access to the artistic world in Haarlem, Amsterdam and, finally, Antwerp. It is also worth noting that many of his fellow-artists in Antwerp, such as Jan Lievens (1607-1674), Jan Cossiers (1600-1671) and Jan Davidz. De Heem (1606-1684) - all of whom he painted in his iconic masterpiece The smokers, dating from ca. 1636 - shared Brouwer’s love of travel. In each instance, a new stay in a new city had a significant impact on their oeuvre, while often giving new impulses to the local school of painting. This was certainly the case for Brouwer as well. A Netherlandish artist An integrated approach to the cultural heritage of the Northern and Southern Netherlands, with a focus on the mobility and artistic exchanges between the two regions, allows us to refine our opinion about the true artistic significance of Adriaen Brouwer. It is clear that Brouwer’s cross-border mobility not only had an impact on his own artistic development, but also on that of his fellow-painters and on the wider evolution of genre painting in both parts of the Netherlands. There are no tangible traces - either in the form of paintings or documents - of any art that Brouwer might have produced during his early years in Gouda. It takes until 1625/26 before we can Adriaen Brouwer, The smokers, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 46.4 x 36.8 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 32.100.21 27 Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants celebrating, ca. 1624/26, oil on panel, 35 x 53.5 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich, inv. no. R 4 Willem Pietersz. Buytewech, Merry company, ca. 1620, oil on canvas, 68 x 49.3 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. 1103 Pieter Van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The fat kitchen, 1563, engraving, 221 x 293 mm, Print Cabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam finally track him down as an artist, when he was active in Haarlem and Amsterdam. The first fruits of his brush during the years between 1624 and 1630 reflected the new type of genre painting that had come into being in Haarlem a few years earlier. These were the so-called ‘merry company’ interior scenes, first developed around 1620 by Willem Buytewech (1591/92-1624) and the brother of Frans Hals, Dirck (1591-1656).12 These small-scale depictions of elegant figures were distinguished by the use of lively local colours and the strategic application of several thin layers of paint one on top of the other, to create a greater impression of depth. In this sense, it is interesting to compare Brouwer’s Peasants celebrating in Zürich (exhib. cat. no. 4) with Buytewech’s Merry company in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Both paintings portray a compact but relatively large group of people sitting around a table in front of a wall in a shallow space. Like Buytewech, Brouwer frames the scene on the right with a fireplace, the flames and smoke of which are painted in a manner that gives them a tactile quality, a motif that became a kind of trademark in his early work. Brouwer’s composition also shares the same ‘humorous’ undertone as the work of his colleague from Haarlem. It seems as if both artists want to make fun of their personages: Buytewech with the arrogance of the young men and Brouwer with the boorishness of the peasants. In addition, Brouwer’s colour palette closely resembles that of Dirck Hals before 1628, with its characteristic strong contrasts between shades of lemon yellow, bright red, petrol blue, pink and white against a neutral background.13 In spite of all these similarities, even in his earliest works Brouwer already showed himself to be an innovator. In contrast to his fellow-artists in Haarlem, his paintings are not populated by elegantly dressed and sophisticated young men and women from the wealthy urban class, but by poor and primitive peasant types of the kind seen in the genre-like compositions that had established the reputation of Pieter Bruegel the Elder a century earlier, since when they had been further popularized in prints of his work. In addition, Brouwer’s ‘peasants’ distinguish themselves by an emotionality that is totally lacking in Buytewech’s and Dirck Hals’ stylized 17th century ‘yuppies’. This life-like depiction of boisterous genre figures had only previously been seen in the work of Dirck Hals’ brother and teacher: Frans Hals. Hals’ earliest genre piece from 1616 - Merrymakers at Shrovetide - was unique at that time. It was certainly related to the popular Flemish monumental style of the moment, but distinguished itself by 29 crete example is the depiction of recognizable models in compromising situations with negative connotations. This is clearly the case, for instance, in Brouwer’s iconic Smokers from circa 1636, in which the artist portrays himself and a group of his fellow-artists as the rowdy consumers of both tobacco and alcohol. This harks back to Hals’groundbreaking portrait of Pieter Cornelisz van der Morsch, also from 1616, which likewise showed a less attractive aspect of a well-known person in a humorous manner.15 Van der Morsch was depicted in the role of Piero, the jester of the Leiden chamber of rhetoric, who used his sharp tongue to point out people’s shortcomings. Again, it is noticeable that both works - Hals’ and Brouwer’s - can be positioned within a rhetorical context, underlining the significance of this society of thespians, poets and orators.16 It is interesting to see how right from the very start of his career Adriaen Brouwer focused on artistic innovation pur sang without making any distinction between North and South. Even in his formative years, he was able to reconcile two seemingly different and geographically defined styles of visual imagery and language - on the one hand, the Dutch ‘merry company’ motif and Hals’ portrait-based interpretation of the genre piece and, on the other hand, the Flemish pictorial jargon of Bruegel - to create a totally new visual approach. Further still, Brouwer’s mobility and the resulting confrontation with new forms of visual imagery, combined with his knowledge of local rhetorician culture, his life-like (and previously unseen) depiction of his personages who were characteristic for his locus at that time (Haarlem), and his sheer personal creativity, all helped to eventually give rise to the elaboration of an entirely new visual tradition. the extreme exuberance of the figures. This ‘dissolute’, almost bawdy representation of stereotypical characters from a performance by a group of actors has also been linked in the past to the Haarlem circle of rhetoricians, to which both Hals and Brouwer belonged.14 Without wishing to enter into the discussion about whether Brouwer was actually one of Hals’ pupils or not, it seems nonetheless clear that Brouwer’s accurate depiction of emotions owes much to the life-like quality to be found in this and other genre and portrait pieces by Hals from the same period. The lasting impact of Hals on Brouwer is also evident from the way in which the latter in his subsequent career regularly returned to the artistic innovations introduced by Hals decades earlier. One con- When Brouwer moved to Antwerp in 1631, his art took the city by storm. People had never seen anything like it. The small-scale and realistic genre pieces he had developed in the North were seen as a refreshing change from the endless repetition of the Bruegelian motifs with which the art market in the Southern Netherlands was flooded. After his return to the South, his oeuvre shows a preference for compact compositions with a limited number of people in close-up. But where did this method of working originate? In the North or in the South? Is this part of the heritage from Frans Hals? Or is it a clever, on-the-spot response to the monumental, Caravaggio-like genre pieces he found in Antwerp, typified in the work of Theodoor Rombouts (1597-1637) and Jan Cossiers? It is difficult to reach any firm conclusions on this matter, which in itself is indicative of the speed with which ideas were exchanged Frans Hals, Portret van Pieter Cornelisz van der Morsch, 1616, oil on canvas, 88.1 x 69.5 cm, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, inv. no. 61.42.2 Frans Hals, Merrymakers at Shrovetide, 1616, oil on canvas, 131.4 x 99.7 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 14.40.605 31 across regional and national borders. Whatever the answer, it is a fact that Brouwer’s pointed and loosely crafted small paintings of crude smokers, drinkers, fighters and revellers soon made a name for their creator amongst artists and collectors alike. The most well-known genre painter who clearly modelled himself on Brouwer is undoubtedly David II Teniers (1610-1690). Following his training with his father and painter of historical scenes, David I Teniers (1582-1649), Teniers junior finally went his own way from 1632/33 onwards. His earliest works from the 1630s are remarkably similar to those of Brouwer in terms of theme, colouration, technique and composition. For his Bonnet vert from 1636/37, where he depicts the intoxication experienced by smokers through their body posture and mimicry, he was able to seek inspiration from a number of perfect examples by Brouwer who always devoted great attention to the visualization of emotions in his paintings.17 Teniers gradually broadened his thematic spectrum to include other subjects, such as elegant companies, satirical situations, sorcery scenes and portraits, although after the death of Brouwer in 1638 his work takes on a milder tone. This is visible, for example, in the increasing numbers of landscapes, the ‘embourgoisement’ of his figures, a richer colour palette, a more subdued lighting and more polished brushwork. A similar trend Adriaen Brouwer, The smokers, ca. 1635/37, oil on panel, 41 x 37.4 cm, Apsley House, the Wellington Collection, Edingburgh inv. no. WM.1522-1948 Follower of Marten (I) of Cleve, altered by Peter Paul Rubens, St. Martin’s fair, ca. 1630/40, oil on panel, 76 x 106 cm, Rubens House, Antwerp, inv. no. RH.S.219 33 is also evident in other followers of Brouwer, such as Joos Van Craesbeeck (1605/06- ca. 1660), his only known pupil, and David III Rijckaert (1612-1661). Brouwer was not only able to impress his fellow genre painters, but also attracted the attention of the Low Countries’ leading and most versatile artist of the day: Peter Paul Rubens. By the start of the 1630s, Rubens was at the height of his fame and could afford the luxury of buying and experimenting with work that interested him at a personal and professional level. Brouwer’s oeuvre certainly came into this category and it is known that the two men met.18 Not only was Brouwer well represented in Rubens’ private collection, but the master of the Baroque also made serious efforts to make Brouwer’s style his own by retouching Bruegelian paintings ‘à la façon de Brouwer’. In 1638 - around the time of Brouwer’s death - he even took this process a stage further by painting his own version of A village fête, now in the Louvre. This piece is much more than an interpretation of Pieter Bruegel’s iconic work; it is a tribute to den tweeden Bruegel (the second Bruegel), who breathed new life into this tradition by investing its loose-living characters with a life-like quality never seen before.19 The genuine appreciation that the ‘painter of painters’ displayed for Brouwer underlines his position as the most influential figure in the development of genre art in both halves of the Netherlands during the 17th century. Moreover, with his Village fête Rubens recognizes Brouwer as the worthy successor to Pieter Bruegel the Elder and as the first painter to succeed in radically and successfully revising Bruegel’s peasant iconography. However, this artistic evolution would not have been possible without Brouwer’s personal contact with artists like by Willem Buytewech and the Hals brothers, art dealers like Michel Le Blon and Barend van Someren, and, of course, his confrontation with the art collections in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Haarlem. In this sense, we can confidently posit that it was Brouwer’s travels that shaped him as an artist, which in turn allowed him to have an equally significant impact on the other artists of his day. Peter Paul Rubens, Flemish country fair kermis, ca. 1638, oil on canvas, 14.9 x 26.1 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 1797 The hectic life and remarkable art of Adriaen Brouwer show that artistic innovation and renewal in both the Flemish and Dutch schools was in no small measure due to the great mobility of artists, objects and ideas during the turbulent first half of the 17th century. Brouwer’s life story underlines the importance of personal contacts and the resulting dialogue between artists from both North and South, which allowed them to create a common canon. 35 Natif d’Audenaerde? New insights into the origins of Adriaen Brouwer and his life in the Northern Netherlands A N G E L A J A G E R , S T I J N LY B E E R T, M A R T I N E V A N W E L D E N A N D E R I K V E R R O K E N V ery little is known about the life of Adriaen Brouwer.1 It is generally assumed that he was born in Oudenaarde around 1605-1606, although local archival research carried out in the past was unable to provide proof for this. The artist can, however, be placed with certainty in the Northern Netherlands for a number of years during his adolescence, although it has never been clearly established what he was doing there and in which circles he moved. Brouwer finally settled in Antwerp around 1631. We have a better picture of his life during that period, thanks to his admittance to the St. Luke’s Guild, the debts registered against his name and the various inventories in which his works are mentioned.2 With the exception of these few indications, the researcher who wishes to investigate Brouwer’s early life is obliged to turn to the 17th and early 18th-century biographies. However, since these are also literary works, they have a high anecdotical, and in some cases even fictional content.3 (before 1641, see exhib. cat. no. 52). The inscription on the print reads: ‘Adrianus Brauwer / Gryllorum Pictor Antverpiae.’4 However, the later states of the print have a further clarifying addition: ‘Ghryllorum Pictor Antverpiae, natione Flander’. The 17th century biographers Cornelis de Bie (1662) and Joachim von Sandrart (1675) also attributed Flemish origins to Brouwer, but neither mentions a birthplace.5 The first reference to Oudenaarde as his place of birth was made by a contemporary of Brouwer, Izaak Bullart, in a posthumous publication (1682).6 Roger de Piles (1699) underwrote this point of view and added 1608 as the year of his birth.7 The North Netherlandish art historian and biographer Arnold Houbraken (1718) came to an entirely different conclusion: he believed that Brouwer was a native of Haarlem.8 He reached this conclusion on the basis of ‘a document’ in the possession of the amateur artist Nicolaas Six (1694-1731).9 Since Houbraken failed to describe the nature of this document and precisely what it said, its reliability has always been open to question. Houbraken also drew two further conclusions from the document: that Brouwer was a pupil of Frans Hals and that he was low-born. Based on these two conclusions, it was logical for Houbraken to assume that Brouwer came from Haarlem: poor parents could never afford to send their child to a master in a distant city. The biographer does, however, give two other options: Brouwer could’[...] in vroeger tyd met zyne ouders [...] uit Vlaanderen in Holland vervoert wezen: of ’t kan wezen dat Frans Hals, Brouwer met zig uit Vlaanderen heeft meê gebragt [...]’.10 In other words, Brouwer could have travelled north from Flanders with his parents or been taken there by Hals following one of his visits to the south. Brouwer’s birthplace: a historical puzzle These contemporary publications about the life of Adriaen Brouwer do not paint a uniform picture about his place of birth. Most do, however, suggest that the artist’s origins were Flemish. The earliest reference to Brouwer’s nationality is to be found in a print by Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert (ca.1586-1659) after a grisaille by Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), now in Boughton House 37 Since Houbraken’s biography, much work has been carried out in different archives to track down Brouwer’s origins, but with little success.11 In 1816, the Oudenaarde historian Jean-Joseph Raepsaet presented his research into Brouwer’s life in a lecture that was never published. According to the notes made by one of the people present at the lecture, Raepsaet referred to an inventory of the estate of Brouwer’s father.12 This document apparently stated that the father had worked in Oudenaarde as a painter of cartoons for the tapestry industry. His ‘estate’ consisted largely of debts, which were not accepted by the guardians of his children, who were still minors. It was also mentioned that his son Adriaen, 16 years old and a painter, was no longer living at home. This document could have been a valuable source, if its date and location were known, but since then it has not proved possible to retrieve this estate inventory. In his Oudenaardse Kroniek (1828), Bartholomeus De Rantere, the first city archivist in Oudenaarde, mentioned the possible names of Brouwer’s parents - Judocus and Joanna - and also gave the artist’s date of birth as 23 November 1608: ‘Brauwer Adriaen of Judocus, Vlaemschen schilder, wierd geboren tot Audenaerde, Tusschenbrugge, den drijentwintigsten november sesthienhondert acht van Judocus de Brauwere en Joanna Bleekers’.13He also recounted how Joanna had sold the young Adriaen’s first paintings on linen to ‘buijtenvrouwen’and how Brouwer had left his native Oudenaarde at an early age to lead a nomadic life wandering between various Flemish cities.14 Unfortunately, De Rantere provided no details of his source for making these assertions. Like his grandfather before him, Henry Raepsaet (1852) failed to find the estate inventory of Brouwer’s father or any other reference to the painter in the city archives in Oudenaarde.15 Raepsaet did, however, find two entries in the register of births for the St. Walburga Church, which suggested that Adriaen’s parents were not Judocus De Brauwere and Joanna Bleekers, but Adrianus de Brauwere and Maria de Sutter. He also referred to a daughter, Maria, born on 16 February 1600 and a son on 2 April (without name or year).16 We will return to both these putative pairs of parents later in our search for the painter’s origins. Extract from the chronicle of Bartholomeus de Rantere, Decanal Archive, St. Walburga, Oudenaarde means ‘brewer’ in Dutch. Johan Hendrik Willem Unger (1884) provided the first evidence that Brouwer had actually been in Haarlem, in the shape of Brouwer’s registration as a member of ‘De Wijngaertrancken’, a Haarlem chamber of rhetoric, in 1626, and the dedication of a verse drama in 1627 by the Amsterdam poet Pieter Nootmans ‘aen den constrijcken en wijtberoemden jongman, Adriaen Brouwer, schilder van Haerlem’18 The archivist Abraham Bredius conducted decades of research into artists in the Dutch archives and published his extensive findings in the seven volumes of his Künstler-Inventare (1915-1922) and in the journal Oud Holland.19 Despite his thorough research, Bredius found no new references to Brouwer in Haarlem.20 Bredius was, however, the first to find traces of Brouwer in Amsterdam: in 1626 the artist signed a notarial deed drawn up by the art dealers Barend van Someren (1572-1632) and Adriaen van Nieulandt (ca. 1586-1658).21 Within the framework of the exhibition Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions it was decided to re-examine the published biographical material and to supplement this with new research in the archives of Amsterdam, Antwerp, Gouda, Haarlem and Oudenaarde. The existing information about Brouwer’s life, and in particular his early life, raised more questions than it answered. Was he actually born in Oudenaarde? If so, when? With whom did he go to Haarlem at a young age? Was it with his parents or some other close member(s) of his family? Based on new and original archival research, this essay will focus on the artist’s origins and his early years. The results will be presented in geographical clusters. We will start with Oudenaarde, the place of Brouwer’s supposed birth, and then move on to Gouda, Amsterdam and Haarlem, the cities in the Northern Netherlands where he is believed to have worked. In view of Houbraken’s comments about Brouwer’s early life, over the years a search of the archives in Haarlem has also been conducted. Adriaan van der Willigen (1872) discovered an entry for an Adriaen Brouwer in 1640 in the register of burials in Haarlem.17 This turned out to be a namesake: Haarlem was an important centre of the beer brewing industry and people often used the name of their profession as their surname - ‘brouwer’ 38 Depiction of the city of Oudenaarde on the castellany map (1669), SAO, Collection of maps and plans, Oudenaarde 39 Oudenaarde 1604 and 1607.32 However, a check of the parish registers in Pamele has revealed nothing that might confirm this. The date of 23 November 1608, mentioned by De Rantere, actually refers to the birth of a Judocus, born into the family of Judocus and Elisabeth - in other words, the couple’s second known son.33 The career of Adriaen’s supposed father continued to be successful and the family’s wealth and status were further perpetuated by the next generation, in particular by his sons Philippeand Maximiliaan. Philippe, the bailiff of Melden, was also an alderman and the treasurer of Nieuwpoort. As a captain of cavalry in the service of Spain, Maximiliaan was appointed as lieutenantgovernor of the same town.34 The family also continued to be active in Oudenaarde. Family members who moved away, like Philippe and Maximiliaan, went westwards to the Nieuwpoort region, where they filled important positions and in some cases were even elevated to the ranks of the local aristocracy (de Brauwere van Steelant). In none of the sources consulted in relation to this branch of the family was there any mention of an Adriaen Brouwer. Earlier research in the local archives had tended to concentrate on trying to establish the birth of Adriaen Brouwer in Oudenaarde at some point during the period 1604-1608. This search proved fruitless, simply because the register of births for the St. Walburga Church is missing for the years 1603 to 1606. For this new research, we decided to adopt a different approach. Instead of trying to identify the artist’s exact place of birth, we instead inventoried all the different Brouwer families we could find in Oudenaarde and its hinterland during the relevant period. These details made it possible for us to assess the plausibility of the claims made by Bartolomeus De Rantere and Henry Raepsaet relating to Adriaen Brouwer’s origins. De Brauwere-De Bleeckere Bartholomeus De Rantere proposed Judocus (Joos) de Brauwere and Elisabeth (Liesbeth) de Bleeckere as the parents of the painter.22 Joos de Brauwere, son of Jan, was born in Melden and on 24 September 1604 was made a burgher of Oudenaarde, at the behest of the prince.23 On 24 July of that same year, Joos concluded a marriage contract with his future bride, Elisabeth de Bleeckere. A few days later, on 27 July 1604, Joos and Elisabeth, with the permission of the dean, were married in the parental home in Tussenbruggen.24 This marriage made Joos part of a rich and influential family, vassals to the lords of Petegem and important landowners. As a result, his career and personal fortunes blossomed. From being a humble master-at-arm and junior bailiff, he rose to become chief bailiff for the barony of Pamele.25 In 1617, Joos was mentioned for the first time as a vassal of this barony.26 He was also an ambitious businessman. Together with Joos de Bleeckere, he was granted privileges by the city of Oudenaarde for setting up a blue and black dye-works for ‘lynen laeckenen’ (linen cloth).27In Tussenbruggen, the family De Brauwere-De Bleeckere owned two houses. One of them was later sold by Joos to the Jesuits, with the exception of the cookers, tubs and calender mill.28 The family moved to the Hoogstraat, in a house they bought from Joos’s brother-in-law, Bernaert de Bleeckere.29 Joos and Elisabeth are known to have had at least eight children: Jacobus (1607), Judocus (1608), Franciscus (1610), Philippus (1613), Catharina (1617), Carolus (1619), Barbara (1622) and Maximilianus (1624).30 De Brauwere-De Sutter Raepsaet offered a second possibility for identifying the father of the painter: Adriaen de Brauwere, son of Matthijs.35 The earliest traceable reference to this person is in the burgher’s book in Oudenaarde. Adriaen, who was born in Melden, became a burgher of the city on 30 December 1589.36 He was first married to Anna Speynghers (Speynsers - Spencer).37 Following her death, on 16 September 1598 he made over 17 pounds of groats to Jan de Jonghe, husband of Anna Appaert.38 Three years earlier, in February 1595, Adriaen had bought a house in the Nieuwstraat, next to de Woeker (de Lombaert) from Joos and Joosyne de Pape.39 Before the turn of the century, Adriaen married for a second time, choosing as his bride Maria de Sutter.40 Maria de Sutter was the oldest child of Adriaen de Sutter and Joanna de Tavernier.41 Very few traces remain of the De Sutter family. We know that Adriaen de Sutter bought a house in the Hoogstraat in 1570,42 and that he died of the plague in 1581,43 leaving behind his wife and two daughters, Mayken and Magdaleenkin. Joris de Tavernier, father of the widow, and Jan de Sutter, brother of the deceased, were appointed as guardians.44 In 1590, Joanna remarried with Raesse Vanden Driessche. This second marriage produced a further child, Thomas.45 If this already large family received the addition of an Adriaen, this must have occurred in the parish of Pamele,31 between 40 Visualization of the houses around the Woeker on a maquette by de Nézot (1748-1752). Musée des Plans-Reliefs, Paris the tapestry-makers in Oudenaarde and the men who sold and exported the tapestries from Antwerp. After the death of Jan, his family remained in the city on the Scheldt. The marriage of Adriaen Brouwer and Maria de Sutter was blessed with at least six known children, whose baptisms are recorded in the registers of the St. Walburga parish in Oudenaarde: Joanna (1600), Anna (1602), Joannes (1606), Maria (1610), Jacoba (1612) and Elisabetha (1613).49 The spreading of this succession of births and the absence of the baptism registers for 1603 to 1605 means that it is not unreasonable to assume that Adriaen was born into this family during this period. Registration of the birth of Anna de Brauwere, daughter of Adriaen and Maria de Sutter. SAO, Parish registers, no. 905, f° 104, 15-02-1602 If we go back a further generation to look at the origins of Joris de Tavernier, the sources reveal that he was active in the linen trade.46 This trade must have prospered, since the official deed for his estate inventory mentions that he had the right to claim various rents and owned numerous properties.47 His brother, Jan de Tavernier, moved to Antwerp, where, after his death in 1594, he was explicitly mentioned as the factor or agent for the city’s merchants.48 In other words, he served as an intermediary between Analyzing the people chosen to act as godparents (susceptores) for the children, it is possible to reconstruct something of the social network around the Brouwer family. It was common for grandparents and other members of the family to be selected as godparents. In 1602, Joanna de Tavernier was registered as god- 41 mother of the oldest child, Joanna, and Raesse Vanden Driessche as godfather of Anna, the second daughter.50 Maria de Sutter’s half-brother, Thomas Vanden Driessche, was recorded as the godfather at the baptism of Jacoba in 1612.51 Vlaenderen’ to live in Gouda.54 It is more than probable that this is Adriaen de Brauwere, the son of Matthijs. It is possible that Adriaen already had relatives in the city: in 1595 ‘Arend de Brouwer van by Oudenaerde’ married Nele Adriaens of Bruges in Gouda.55 On 28 May 1608, in front of notary Vanden Berghe, Adriaen de Brauwere gave power of attorney to Raesse Vanden Driessche to sell his house in the Nieuwstraat. This power of attorney was confirmed before the aldermen of Oudenaarde on 2 June 1608.52 Two of the provisions in this notarial deed are worthy of attention. Adriaen had debts with Jacques de Moor in respect of overkerven. This was a frequent phenomenon in the tapestry industry and meant that an employee had run up debts with his employers. Adriaen also had debts with Gillis vande Kerchove, a tapestry dealer. Was the family in financial difficulties and preparing to leave the city? It has already been argued that De Brauwere was probably employed in the tapestry industry. During the period 1580-1610 dozens of tapestry weavers from the Southern Netherlands migrated to Gouda. Briels has already pointed to the policy of the Gouda magistrature to deliberately try and attract refugees from the South.56 The presence of eleven empty monastery buildings in the city, which were converted into weaving sheds or dye works, was possibly an additional factor enhancing the city’s attractiveness.57 A number of these emigrants, including the weaver Charles de Tavernier (1559-1632), are known to have come from Oudenaarde. We have already met this family name before: the mother of Maria de Sutter and therefore the putative grandmother of Adriaen Brouwer was Joanna de Tavernier. No evidence has yet been found that Charles and Joanna de Tavernier were related, but further research into this matter is desirable. It is possible that Charles de Tavernier could have been an important contact person for the De Brauwere family as they planned to move from South to North. After the sale of the house, three further children were born into the De Brauwere-De Sutter family. The birth of the youngest, Elisabeth (1613),53 is the final mention of this family in the Oudenaarde archives. Does this perhaps mean that the entire family then moved somewhere else? This follow-up research might reveal that the weaver Charles de Tavernier was the person who offered De Brauwere work and accommodation in Gouda around 1614. In 1587, also in Gouda, De Tavernier married Joanna van der Schelden, the grand-daughter of the sculptor Paul van der Schelden (active in Oudenaarde between 1531 and 1534).58 Before starting up his own business, De Tavernier was in charge of trading for the widows of mas- A stop-over in Gouda? We would suggest that the city of Gouda in the Northern Netherlands might well have been their destination. A deed dated 15 July 1614 issued by the burgomaster and aldermen of that city gave permission for ‘Adriaen de Brouwer van Oudenaerde in action Van Someren acted as an expert-intermediary between Blyenberch and Marines. It is not fully clear why this transaction was only confirmed more than a year later by notarial deed on 3 July 1626, but it is possible that there were problems relating to the payment. Brouwer’s witnessing of this document suggests that he was also in Van Someren’s house when the original deal was concluded; in other words, in March 1625.71 ter-weavers Joris de Potter and Jan Roos. He was also the head of the Gouda office of the Amsterdam tapestry merchant Dirck Simay (who died in 1629). As a result, he had built up a wide network of contacts in the tapestry world in Middelburg, Rotterdam, Schoonhoven and Amsterdam. Many of these contacts were tapestry dealers from Oudenaarde.59 In 1590, De Tavernier was accepted as a burgher of Gouda.60 Just before De Brauwere arrived in Gouda, De Tavernier set up his own tapestry dealing business and also became landlord of the tavern In Troyen.61 One of De Tavernier’s important agents, Mathijs van den Acker, is known to have travelled to Flanders in August 1613.62 Was the purpose of this visit to recruit employees for De Tavernier? If so, Oudenaarde would have been an obvious port of call. Is this perhaps, where he first made contact with Adriaen de Brauwere? Arnold Houbraken also mentions Van Someren in relation to Brouwer. He tells how the young painter was unhappy with his mentor Frans Hals in Haarlem and, egged on by his fellow apprentices, set off for Amsterdam. By asking around in the art world, he eventually came into contact with Van Someren: ’Zulks hy daar gekomen zynde niet wist tot wien hy zig zoude wenden: maar vernemende naar eenig konstkooper of iemant die handel met schilderyen dreef, geraakte hy by eenen van Zomeren toen waard in ’t schilt van Vrankryk, die in zyn jeugt de Konst geoeffent had [...]’.72 Van Someren had already worked as the landlord in other taverns in Amsterdam before he took over Het Schilt van Vranckryck on the Dam in 1626.73 The combination of art dealing and innkeeping was not uncommon, with the tavern serving as a De Brauwere probably continued living in Gouda. His son Adriaen Brouwer, our artist, eventually arrived in Amsterdam, probably with the help of an intermediary. There are a number of candidates for this role. The first is De Tavernier, who certainly maintained contacts with dealers in Amsterdam.63 Another possibility is the engraver, art dealer and agent Michiel Le Blon (15871658).64 Le Blon was based in the city and had an extensive and useful network on which he could rely.65 Moreover, he also had a connection with Gouda: it was there on 15 June 1615 that he married a local girl, Margriete Martensdr.66 Her brother-in-law, Claes Janse (Jansz), was an engraver and glass etcher in Gouda.67 It is to be hoped that follow-up research into the Gouda period of De Brauwere and the possible role played by the tapestry dealer De Tavernier or the art dealer Le Blon will help to fill up some of the gaps in the biography of the young Brouwer.68 Amsterdam The reference to Adriaen de Brauwere in the Chamber of Rhetoric Book in Gouda, Gouda. SAMH no. 93 (1614-1616), fol. 83 42 While there are still many questions to be answered relating to Adriaen Brouwer’s possible stay in Gouda, his presence in Amsterdam in 1626 is an established fact. On 23 July of that year, the artist Adriaen van Nieulandt and the artist, art dealer and innkeeper Barend van Someren declared that in March 1625 they had visited the house of the ribbon merchant Jan Marines to view 32 paintings.69 Brouwer signed this declaration as a witness. The document describes how the merchant Pieter Cornelisz. Blyenberch wished to buy the paintings for 24 guilders each.70 The sale was concluded ‘weynige daegen daer nae’ (a few days later) in the house of Van Someren. This indicates that in this trans- The entries for Michiel Le Blon and Barend van Someren in a rijfelarij register, ca. 1625. SAA, Library, cat. no. U00.3101 43 mans’sister was married to the merchant and collector Nicolaas Sohier (1590-1642).83 Sohier, Hellemans, Le Blon and the previously mentioned artist Adriaen van Nieulandt all belonged to the entourage of fencing master Gerard Thibault (1574-1627).84 Thibault had learnt his fencing from Van Someren’s father, Lambert.85 After his death in 1642, an inventory was made of Sohier’s important collection of paintings.86 This inventory mentions three works by Brouwer. Sohier was probably the ‘Heer du Vermandois’ mentioned in an anecdote by Houbraken. 87 Nicolaas’ son Constantin was elevated to the title of Baron de Vermandois by the German emperor in 1658, but Nicolaas himself did not use this title during his lifetime.88 According to Houbraken, he wanted to buy a painting by Brouwer and visited the home of Van Someren on several occasions with this purpose in mind.89 Vermandois eventually chose a painting by Brouwer depicting a fight between a group of peasants and soldiers over a game of cards.90 Van Someren told Brouwer to ask a hundred ‘ducatons’ (315 guilders) for his work, to which Vermandois much to Brouwer’s amazement - immediately agreed. The painting listed as Fighting peasants in the inventory of Sohier’s estate is probably the painting described by Houbraken in his biography.91 Van Someren died at the end of December 1632.92 The sale of his huge collection of prints and drawings was held in 1635 at his tavern, Het Schilt van Vranckryck.93 This auction was attended by numerous artists, dealers and art -lovers, which seems to confirm Van Someren’s reputation as a dealer of quality. The sale included no fewer than ten lots of drawings by Brouwer, which were sold (amongst others) to Rembrandt and the art dealer Hendrick van Uylenburgh (ca. 1587-1661). Van Someren’s paintings remained the property of his widow, whose own estate of some fifty paintings was auctioned after her death in 1649. A round painting made by Brouwer was scrapped from the list, with the annotation ‘toebehorende de vrint die in Portugael woont’ (belonging to a friend who lives in Poortugaal - which is a village in the Netherlands).94 The signature of Adriaen Brouwer on 23 July 1626, SAA, 5075, 393A, fol. 70 suitable platform for the display of works of art, as well as providing a steady flow of potential customers. Houbraken further suggests that Brouwer worked as a painter for Van Someren: ‘Deze nam hem in, en zette hem te schilderen’.74 This is perfectly possible: it was not unknown for art dealers to engage young artists to ensure they had a constant supply of new paintings for sale.75 One gets the impression that Van Someren was an important intermediary for the young Brouwer in Amsterdam.76 He certainly had an extensive network among the art, engraving and dealing communities. One of his contacts was the previously mentioned Michiel Le Blon: in circa 1625, Le Blon and Van Someren signed a register for a ‘rijfelarij’ together.77 A rijfelarij was a dice game in which, amongst other things, paintings could be won and lost as part of an evening of entertainment for Amsterdam’s cultural elite, involving gaming, eating, drinking and the smoking of tobacco.78 It was at occasions of this kind that Van Someren maintained his contacts with his fellow professionals and art lovers. In 1624, one of his merchant and innkeeping colleagues, Michiel le Fort, signed over his entire estate to Van Someren, probably to settle debts he may have run up in this manner.79 In 1612, Le Blon is known to have been living in Le Fort’s tavern.80 Carlo Hellemans (1595-1652), an important international dealer in art, jewels and other luxury goods, was another member of Van Someren’s network.81 In the summer of 1616, Van Someren declared before the authorities that Hellemans was visiting him in his home at the moment when a precious diamond ring was stolen.82 Helle- Haarlem The document of 23 July 1626 places Brouwer in Amsterdam, but earlier that same year he was also admitted as a member of the ‘De Wijngaertrancken’, a chamber of rhetoric in Haarlem.95 A chamber of rhetoric was an association where young men voluntarily came together to improve their social, communicative and intellectual skills.96 The members met weekly to practice conversation, write and recite poetry, and perform drama. Each member 44 Anonymous, A chamber of rhetoric (De Wijngaertrancken?), 1659, oil on panel, 46 x 43.5 cm, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, inv. no. os I-552 had his own motto, with which he signed his poems. Brouwer’s motto was ‘Ick hoop noch meer’ (I hope for more). We only know for certain that Brouwer was a member of the chamber in 1626. The records for 1627 only list the board of governors and the lists for 1628-1633 have not been preserved.97 The klinckert (sonnet) in Nootmans’play Van den bloedigen slach van Pavyen (1627) was concluded with Brouwer’s personal motto. It is therefore possible that the artist was also a member of the Haarlem chamber in that year.98 love) and ‘De Wijngaertrancken’ (Lyeft boven al’ - Love above all).99 ‘De Wijngaertrancken’ was extremely popular with artists and skilled craftsmen and many of the members have been identified as painters, goldsmiths, silversmiths, printers and booksellers.100 Belonging to an association of this kind with many other ‘cultured’ members was obviously useful in developing a professional network, which during competitions between chambers could be extended to a regional, national or international level. Brouwer’s supposed artistic mentor, Frans Hals, was also a member of ‘De Wijngaertrancken’ between 1616 and 1625, but not in 1626, when Brouwer first joined.101 At that time, there were three rhetorical chambers in the city: ‘De Pellicaen’ (with the motto Trou moet Blycken - Loyalty must be demonstrated), ‘De Witte Angieren’ (‘In liefde getrou’ - Abide to 45 city on the Spaarne.108 Van den Bergh was attached to Rubens’ workshop in the years around 1635.109 Brouwer also had contact with Rubens during that same period.110 Consequently, it is possible that Van den Bergh got the information about Haarlem from Rubens or from Brouwer himself. of their sons baptized there: Pieter in 1642 and Adriaen in 1643.123 Hans (Jan) Adriaensz. Brouwer of Oudenaarde and his wife Maijke Cornelis had no fewer than six children baptized in Haarlem in the years between 1639 and1651.124 The records suggest that the couple probably married elsewhere.125 The precise relationship between Brouwer’s residence in Haarlem and the periods he spent in Amsterdam is not wholly clear from the available documents.111 It is likely that Brouwer was already living in Haarlem before 1626. Arnold Houbraken reported that he was a pupil of Frans Hals, which would have put him in the city in his adolescent years.112 However, there is no archival evidence to show that Brouwer was ever apprenticed to Hals, although it may be significant that Hals was appointed in 1648 as one of three ‘expert’ artists to decide on the authenticity of a painting by Brouwer.113 The mention of Brouwer’s name in the notarial deed of 23 July 1626 is the only moment when we can physically place the artist in Amsterdam with certainty.114 However, the numerous traces left by Brouwer in the estate inventories of Amsterdam’s leading citizens suggest that he must have worked there for some time. His paintings are to be found in all the city’s major collections and art dealerships, and also in the private cabinets of leading artists, including Rembrandt.115 We can demonstrate the relationship between these different members of the same family by reference to the witnesses that were chosen at the various baptisms, in much the same manner as we did previously with the godparents in Oudenaarde. Tanneke acted as the baptismal witness for three of Hans’ children (in 1642, 1648 and 1651). Their common patronym demonstrate that they are both children of Adriaen and it is likely that they were brother and sister. Their names, patronyms and origins from Oudenaarde suggest they can be identified with Anna and Joannes, who were baptized respectively in 1602 and 1606 as children from the De Brauwere-De Sutter marriage. Zijntge is also recorded as being a baptismal witness for a child of Tanneke (1633) and of Hans (1638).126 In addition to Tanneke, Zijntge and Hans, the baptismal records also refer to other relevant witnesses. For example, one of the witnesses to the baptism of Zijntge’s son Adriaen (1642) was a certain Thomas Vanden Driessche, a name we have already encountered as the half-brother of Maria de Sutter. Vanden Driessche registered as a member of the Reformed Church in Haarlem on 5 January 1628: he was assisted by his mother and gave Oudenaarde as his place of origin. If he can be identified with the half-brother of Maria de Sutter, this means that Joanna de Tavernier was also in Haarlem in 1628.127 However, for the moment this identification remains no more than a supposition. The documents of the period contain two other entries for people of the same name in Oudenaarde: the owner of a house in the Neerstraat in 1617 and the widower of Joosyne Schietaes in 1637.128 In this same period, we can also find a link to Gouda: the baptism and marriage registers in Haarlem make mention of a Gabriel Brouwers from Gouda, who clearly had close ties with Zijntge and Hans.129 A Brouwer family from Oudenaarde in Haarlem In the same year that Adriaen Brouwer was known to be in Haarlem, another Brouwer family, whose members were originally from Oudenaarde, were also recorded as being in the city. We can identify these people with some of the children of Adriaen de Brauwere and Maria de Sutter. Matthijs van den Bergh, after Adriaen Brouwer, The peasant dance, 1659, drawing, 211 x 215 mm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin It therefore seems likely that Brouwer came to live in Haarlem sometime around 1626.102 In addition to joining the chamber of rhetoric, he was also admitted to the city’s St Luke’s Guild the guild for artists.103 The precise date of his inscription is not known, since the register for the period 1575-1631 was subsequently lost.104 According to the rules of the Haarlem guild, it was only possible to gain admittance if you were a burgher of the city,105 had completed the necessary training and had served at least one year as a journeyman or assistant under a master paint- er.106 Another important reference in this respect is the fact that Nootmans dedicated his Battle of Pavia drama on 10 March 1627 to ‘Iongman Adriaen Brouwer, Schilder van Haerlem’.107 In this dedication Brouwer was not only referred to as a painter, but also as being wijtberoemd (widely known), which means that by 1627 he must already have gained a degree of local fame. Finally, a work by Matthias Jansz. van den Bergh (1618-1687) after Brouwer bears the inscription ‘Adrian Brauwer harlemensis inventor’, which again seems to confirm that the artist was active in the On 23 May 1627, Tanneke (Janneke) Adriaensdr. Brouwers116 of Oudenaarde was betrothed in Haarlem to the widower Pieter Bruneel (Bruijneel).117 On 7 July 1627, this same Tanneke Brouwers, now as wife of Pieter Bruneel, was admitted as a member of the Reformed Church in Haarlem, with an attestation from Enkhuizen.118 The trail in Enkhuizen cannot be followed, since the relevant registers for this period were not preserved.119 Pieter Bruneel and Tanneke Brouwers had three of their children baptized in the Reformed Church in Haarlem: Maike in 1628, Adrianne in 1633 and Pieter in 1636.120 On 18 April 1631, Zijntge (Sijtje) Brouwers from Oudenaarde registered as a member of the same Reformed Church in Haarlem.121 It was there that Zijntge married the widower Elias Pieters on 27 April 1636.122 Zijntge and Elias also had two Last but not least, on 1 January 1633, at the baptism of Adrianne, the daughter of Pieter Bruneel and Tanneke Brouwer, a further witness in addition to Zijntge is also named: Adriaen Brouwers.130 This must be our painer. As the witness for Adrianne, this Adriaen Brouwer must have been closely related to the Brouwer family from Haarlem and therefore he can also be positioned as a son of the De Brauwere-De Sutter family in Oudenaarde. 47 Brouwer back in Antwerp is on 23 February 1633.133 This implies that Brouwer had the opportunity to return to Haarlem at the end of 1632. In 1631-1632, the Antwerp guild records also mention a certain ‘Peeter Bruynel, pasteybakker’, who was registered as being a member of the chamber of rhetoric known as ‘De Violieren’.134 For the guild year 1632-1633, he neglected to pay his annual fee.135 He resumed payment of the fee in 1633-1634.136 In our opinion, this ‘Bruynel’ can be identified with the Pieter Bruneel in Haarlem, husband of Tanneke Brouwers. It seems likely that Brouwer and Bruneel travelled to Antwerp together. At the end of 1632, the brothers-in-law most probably made a return journey to Haarlem to be present at the baptism of Bruneel’s daughter, Adrianne. Not long after the baptism of Adrianne in Haarlem, Brouwer returned to Antwerp. On 23 February 1633, Brouwer admitted ‘op den casteele van Antwerpen’ that he owed 1,600 guilders to Jan van den Bossche for the repayment of a loan. He promised to pay off his debt in monthly instalments with paintings.137 The castle or citadel in Antwerp was only used for holding prisoners of war or enemies of the state.138 The precise reason for Brouwer’s imprisonment is not known. His arrest was first mentioned in the biography by Bullart, who wrote that the artist had been picked up by the Spanish authorities in the Southern Netherlands because his clothes gave him the appearance of a Dutchman from the hostile North.139 Houbraken took this theory even further and claimed that Brouwer was suspect by the Spanish military of being a spy.140 Thanks to the discovery of Adrianne’s baptism records in Haarlem, we can now reasonably assume that Brouwer was detained during his return journey to Antwerp, although the precise reason for the time being remains a mystery. Registration of the birth of Adrianne, daughter of Pieter Bruneel and Tanneke Brouwer, witnessed by Adriaen Brouwer, HNA, DTB 9, fol. 106, 1-1-1633 Until now, it has been generally assumed that Adriaen Brouwer moved to Antwerp sometime around the year 1631. He was registered as a master in the St. Luke’s Guild in the Scheldt city during the period 1631-1632, and in that same year took on Jan-Baptist Dandoy as an apprentice. This indicates that Brouwer intended to settle in Antwerp.131 However, during the following two guild years (1632-1633 and 1633-1634) his name does not appear in the guild’s records. The last trace of Brouwer in Antwerp in 1632 is dated 5 October, when an inventory of Brouwer’s furniture was drawn up and handed over to one of his creditors, the silk merchant Jan van de Bossche.132 The next time we meet Conclusion A relatively short time after his death, there was already a lack of clarity about the origins of the artist Adriaen Brouwer. This retrospective exhibition in Oudenaarde was a welcome opportunity to reopen the investigation into those origins. On the basis of archival research carried out in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Gouda, Haarlem and Oudenaarde, we can now draw the following conclusions. 48 Adriaen Brouwer was most probably born in Oudenaarde between 1603 and 1605 as the son of Adriaen de Brauwere and Maria de Sutter. Unfortunately, there is no record of his baptism. His father, Adriaen de Brauwere had contact with senior figures in the tapestry industry in Oudenaarde and probably worked in that industry. Whether this was as a cartoon painter, as Raepsaet suggested in his biographical note, is not proven, since there is no extant document that refers to his profession. Between 1600 and 1613, six other children were born into the De Brauwere-De Sutter family. The birth of the youngest daughter took place in 1613, which is the last reference to the family in Oudenaarde, prior to them moving to the Northern Netherlands. Like many people from Oudenaarde and the surrounding region, Adriaen de Brauwere senior found refuge in Gouda, where he was possibly employed in the tapestry-making sector by Charles de Tavernier. It is also possible that Adriaen Brouwer junior came into contact in Gouda with the Amsterdam art dealer, Michiel Le Blon. Be that as it may, we know for certain that the artist was in Amsterdam in 1626, where he witnessed a notarial deed drawn up on behalf of the art dealers Barend van Someren and Adriaen van Nieulandt. In this respect, the archival research lends some weight to the claim made by Houbraken, one of Brouwer’s early biographers, that the painter lived with and worked for Van Someren. From 1626 onwards, there are references to Brouwer in Haarlem: in that year he became a member of the city’s ’De Wijngaertrancken’ chamber of rhetoric. In 1627, Pieter Nootmans referred to him as a ‘Schilder van Haerlem’ (a painter of Haarlem) in a celebratory verse. During that same period, a Brouwer family from Oudenaarde also makes its appearance in the Haarlem registers. The relationships within this family and the relationship with Adriaen Brouwer can be demonstrated through reference to the witnesses at various baptisms. Tanneke Adriaensdr. Brouwers can be identified as the second daughter Anna, born into the De Brauwere-De Sutter family in 1602. She was Adriaen’s sister. Hans (Jan) Adriaensz. Brouwers can be identified with the son Joannes, born into the De Brauwere-De Sutter family in 1606. He was Adriaen’s brother. Thomas Vanden Driessche, a possible half-brother of Adriaen’s mother, is also recorded as being in Haarlem from 1628 onwards. Adriaen Brouwer himself acted as a witness at one of the family baptisms in Haarlem; namely, the bapitism on 1 Janaury 1633 of Adrianne, a daughter of Tanneke Brouwers. Brouwer had already moved to Antwerp, but must have travelled back to Haarlem especially for this occasion. Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert, after Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1641-1655, engraving, 242 mm x 161 mm, Print Cabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-1940-1476 (2nd state) 49 Adriaen Brouwer’s props: Everyday objects as models for painters ALEXANDRA VAN DONGEN number of specifically French objects, it was possible to conclude that a number of Kalf’s peasant interiors were painted in Paris. These types of objects were not available in the Netherlands at that time and Kalf’s presence in Paris was already confirmed by other sources.2 The oeuvre of Adriaen Brouwer is also ideally suited to this kind of research, not only because his compositions contain an exceptional wealth of material objects, but also because Brouwer is a classic example of the kind of cultural mobility that existed in the art world of the Low Countries at that time. Like Kalf, Brouwer worked in a number of different cities. Moreover, the identification of Brouwer’s props can give additional insights into the manner in which he depicted these objects. By comparing the painted versions of his props with other early 17th century objects of the same kind, we can assess the degree of realism with which he painted the objects in question. The research takes as it starting point the assumption that Brouwer made use of the objects that were available in his environment at any given time, but it is also important to recognize that he may have repeated the use of some objects because of their significance as specific images or motifs. In other words, it is a search with potential pitfalls along the way, but as long as this is borne in mind, the methodology remains valid. However, it is also worth noting that this research method also has another limitation in Brouwer’s case; namely, the short period that he was active as a painter. Research into the painter’s inanimate models A driaen Brouwer used more than just people to stage his theatrical genre scenes; material objects also played a characteristic and important role in his work. These props give his visual representations a high degree of reality. As a painter of taverns, brothels and peasant interiors, he ‘decorated’ his spatial settings with a variety of objects drawn from real life: furniture, kitchen utensils, cutlery and crockery, serving jugs and bottles for alcohol and medicine, cooking pots and braziers, smoking attributes, etc. Although none of Brouwer’s surviving works are dated, there is a general consensus about the relative dating of most of his paintings, based on iconographic motifs, stylistic characteristics and painting technique. Written sources also confirm Brouwer’s presence at different times in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Antwerp. In similar vein, the material objects he included in his compositions can also be an indication of where various paintings were made. In 2011, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam launched the online research tool known as ALMA - Art Meets Artefacts - whose purpose was to investigate the use of material objects as models for painters.1 An earlier case study had previously been carried out on part of the oeuvre of the Rotterdam painter Willem Kalf (1619-1693).Through the identification of a 50 51 Brouwer’s props The slaughter feast (exhib. cat. no. 5) and Peasants celebrating (exhib. cat. no. 4) both contain the same conical-shaped amphora in red earthenware. This object has been identified as an Iberian storage jar made in Portugal (Mérida type), which was used for the storage and transport of wine or olive oil from Southern Europe. The Van Beuningen-de Vriese Collection at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen contains a similar jar, excavated near Amsterdam and dating from the period 1575-1625.3 This kind of earthenware storage jar, the characteristic shape of which dates back to prototypes from Roman times, was exported with its content to Northern Europe. Various examples have been found during archaeological excavations in both the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Because these Iberian jars were in circulation at various locations throughout Europe, they cannot be regarded as ‘local’ and ‘place-related’, nor can they be linked to a specific city, region or context of use.4 However, viewed in conjunction with other items in both paintings, it is nonetheless possible to place this Portuguese amphora in a broader context. In The slaughter feast we can also see a pewter serving jug, the specific shape of which identifies it as a typical product of Amsterdam. The collection at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen contains a miniature version of this Amsterdam model. In the painting Peasants playing cards (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, exhib. cat. no. 17) Brouwer depicts another Amsterdam model of a pewter serving jug.5 Adriaen Brouwer depicted a remarkable rich and interesting assortment of everyday objects, a number of which recur regularly in his compositions. Irrespective of the decors in which he sets his personages, the following objects are repeatedly included: amphorae, brandy bottles, pitchers, measuring jugs, musical instruments (flutes, lutes and fiddles), money pouches, goblets and wine glasses, cooking kettles, medicine bottles, pie moulds, tobacco pipes, serving jugs, tankards, crucibles, storage jars and fire pots. A first observation that can be made about the paintings exhibited in Oudenaarde is that Brouwer depicted his props in a very realistic manner. His precise and accurate reproduction of the typical characteristics of objects, both in terms of form and material (ceramics, glass, pewter, wood, leather, etc.) confirms that Brouwer used models from historical reality and did not simply paint them for memory. This means that making a comparison between these representations and surviving 17th century objects for which we know the date and place of manufacture, as well as their subsequent distribution (in trade and use), can be extremely relevant. Brouwer’s paintings contain a variety of objects with local, regional, national and international origins, made in Flanders, Holland, France and even Portugal. Household goods that were widely distributed throughout Europe in the 17th century as a result of the continuing growth in international trade can clearly not be used as indicators for a specific location where a particular painting was made. These objects are not place-related. It is, of course, the locally made and local used objects that offer the most interesting possibilities as pointers to the possible place of origin - as the following cases will illustrate. In The slaughter feast we also see a pie - some which seems to have been eaten - lying under the table in an earthenware pie mould. The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen again has a 17th century pie mould of this kind in Dutch earthenware, an archaeological find from excavations in Rotterdam. Adriaen Brouwer, The slaughter feast, ca. 1625/26, oil on panel, 34 x 37.3 cm, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Schwerin, inv. no. G 174 Amphora, Portugal (Merida), red-fired earthenware, detail The slaughter feast, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Schwerin Amphora, Portugal (Merida), red-fired earthenware, detail Peasants celebrating, Kunsthaus, Zürich Amphora, Portugal (Merida), red-fired earthenware, 17th century, excavation find Amsterdam, collection Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. F 4674 (KN&V) Serving jug, Amsterdam, pewter, The slaughter feast, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Schwerin 52 Serving jug (miniature), Amsterdam, pewter, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam, inv. no. OM 49 (KN&V) Serving jug, Amsterdam, pewter, detail Peasants playing cards, KMSKA, Antwerp Pie mould, Holland, earthenware, detail The slaughter feast, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Schwerin Pie mould, Holland, earthenware, excavation find Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam, inv. no. F 9076 (KN&V) Cellar bottle, Holland, glass, detail The slaughter feast, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, Schwerin 53 Cellar bottle, Holland, glass, 17th century, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, inv. no. F 5076 (KN&V) Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants celebrating, ca. 1624/26, oil on panel, 35 x 53.5 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich, inv. no. R 4 The same painting also contains a square brandy bottle in green glass, which is closely related to Dutch examples of the so-called kelderfles or cellar bottle, several of which were generally stored together in a wooden crate known as a keldertje.6 Brouwer’s Peasants celebrating includes a number of other typical items in Dutch earthenware, such as the tall serving or storage jar in the foreground or the ash pot with raised ears. The characteristic shape and colour of this kind of earthenware has been captured perfectly by the artist. The identification of all the above objects, and in particular the Amsterdam-style pewter serving jugs and the Portuguese amphora, make it highly likely that Brouwer painted both The slaughter feast and Peasants celebrating while he was in Amsterdam. This is in keeping with -and therefore serves to confirm - the early dating of these works by other means and the written records which show that the artist was present in Amsterdam during that particular period. Brouwer was probably still living in Haarlem at that time, but he worked in both the city on the Spaarne and the Dutch capital.7 Storage jar, Holland, red-fired earthenware Ash pot, Holland, red-fired earthenware 55 Another painting with interesting objects is Brouwer’s magnificent Interior with a lute player and a singing woman. In the foreground stands a large serving or storage jar with a pewter lid. This jar is made from grey-fired stoneware (note the grey colour of the base), which has been covered with red-brown engobe and a salt glaze. Brouwer painted this jar with great precision and realism. The readily identifiable shape, colour and texture make it possible to pin-point the exact pottery centre where the jar was made around 1600. The town of Raeren in the modern-day Belgian province of Liège had been making functional crockery for centuries, using locally sourced stoneware clay from the nearby Rhineland. The crockery was mass produced for export and found its way to many different places in northern Europe. Stoneware is a hard-fired form of ceramics, in which the clay is heated to very high temperatures (1100-1300°C). This results in watertight products that can be used for the storage of consumables or as drinking and serving utensils for beer and wine.8 Such jars have been found by archaeologists at excavation sites in Antwerp and Amsterdam. Once again, the widespread distribution of these Raeren jars and their frequent depiction in the art of the day means that they cannot be used as a valid indicator for the specific place where the painting was made. The same kind of Raeren stoneware jar with a pewter lid can also be seen in Brouwer’s Peasant Quartet, where it stands in the foreground to the left of a large wooden barrel, on top of which can also be seen a local Flemish jug. But more of this later. Interior with a lute player and a singing woman also contains an earthenware fire pot, at which the woman is warming her hands. Brouwer painted this brazier-like object on several occasions, and always with the same realistic accuracy. Similar examples of this kind of unglazed earthenware have been found by archaeologists both in Dutch cities like Delft and in Flemish cities like Antwerp.9 These fire pots had a simple, functional form and were produced in almost identical fashion at many different locations. Adriaen Brouwer, Interior with a lute player and a singing woman, ca. 1630/32, oil on panel, 37 x 29.2 cm, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv. no. CAI.80 57 Serving jar, grey-fired Raeren stoneware, with pewter lid, detail Interior with a lute player and a singing woman, Victoria & Albert Museum, London Serving jar, grey-fired Raeren stoneware, with pewter lid, detail Peasant quartet, Alte Pinakothek, Munich Fire pot, red-fired earthenware, detail Interior with a lute player and a singing woman, Victoria & Albert Museum, London Fire pot, red-fired earthenware, detail The arm operation/ Touch, Alte Pinakothek, Munich We have already mentioned The Peasant Quartet, in which a jug in Raeren stoneware is standing on the floor to the left of the wooden barrel. In the same painting Brouwer also depicted another jug of a different kind sitting on top of the same barrel, next to the head of the young mother feeding her child. This simple-looking jug in white-fired earthenware with a light yellow sheen has a characteristically Flemish design. Comparable jugs have been found during excavations in Antwerp.10 The presence of this local made pottery is therefore an important indicator to suggest that Brouwer painted the Peasant Quartet during his time in Antwerp. This kind of simple Flemish earthenware was produced exclusively for the local and regional market, and seldom found its way elsewhere. Of course, there is always a possibility that some types of local household objects moved from place to place with migrating families, but that seems unlikely in this case. These jars were not only simple, but also cheap and easily breakable, and therefore unlikely to be taken on long journeys or to survive if they were. Flemish serving jug, white-fired earthenware, detail Peasant quartet, Alte Pinakothek, Munich Adriaen Brouwer, Peasant quartet, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 43 x 57.3 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 109 Flemish serving jug, white-fired earthenware, excavation find Antwerp, collection Archaeology and Monument Maintenance, City of Antwerp other 17th century Parisian pewter tankard of this kind was painted in any other painting made in Flanders or the Netherlands. Might it be, then, that the inclusion of such a tankard in Drinking peasant serves to confirm the comment made in Houbraken’s biography that Brouwer once made a journey to Paris?13 Parisian pewter tankard, detail Drinking peasant Rubens House, Antwerp As the above observations relating to a number of the objects depicted by Brouwer in his paintings clearly show, the presence of these objects can be used to assist further research into the origins of the paintings concerned. In combination with other arthistorical analysis (iconography, style, brushwork, etc.) and investigation of the relevant archives, the study of inanimate models helps to provide a more complete picture of the artistic development of Adriaen Brouwer and the different locations where he lived and worked. It is probable that a systematic analysis of Brouwer’s complete oeuvre using this same methodology would produce even more results of a similar nature. In view of recent archive discoveries and the emergence of new details relating to Brouwer’s stay in the Northern Netherlands, research into the origins of the props used in his paintings becomes more relevant than ever and can help to stimulate greater cross-fertilization between the different disciplines of art research. It is already clear that the identification of primarily locally made and locally used objects can provide important indications in this respect. The possibilities offered by the dates of production and known periods of use of these objects for helping to confirm the dating of paintings, are potentially less fruitful. In terms of form and function, these were everyday objects which, in contrast to luxury goods, did not normally reflect the latest trends and fashions, but tended to stay the same over a relatively long period. As a result, the objects depicted in Brouwer’s paintings are not always contemporary and in many cases even look old-fashioned. The design of some of these objects dates as far back as the late 16th century. This is hardly surprising. Rough taverns and peasant interiors were not the places you would expect to find the very latest fashions in glass and tableware! Moreover, Brouwer’s props function - as he intended - as a very effective tool within the genre to underline the comical social mirror-image he wished to portray of boorish, drunken peasants. With this in mind, Brouwer paid very careful attention to the objects he selected for inclusion in his compositions. In this sense, these everyday objects contribute to the meaningfulness of Brouwer’s genre paintings, which once graced the interiors not of peasants but of art collectors and citizens of standing. Parisian pewter tankard, private collection A final interesting example for this kind of research relates to the pewter wine tankard depicted in the Drinking peasant. The tankard does not have either a specifically Dutch or Flemish design. According to pewter expert Jan Beekhuizen, it is actually a French tankard, probably made in Paris during the early 17th century.11 In this period, European craftsmen produced a wide range of pewter utensils, most of which were characterized by a typically local design. If they were accurately depicted by artists in their paintings, the origin of these utensils is often readily identifiable. Since most pewter was produced for local and regional distribution, and not for export, as was the case with Raeren stoneware, it is much more likely that the presence of a piece of pewter in a painting can say something about that painting’s origins. Of course, it is impossible to exclude the possibility that a French pewter tankard found its way from Paris to Antwerp, but this is not very likely, since Antwerp produced its own pewter in significant quantities. Apart from the Parisian tankard, the other objects depicted in Drinking peasant tell us little about where Brouwer painted the panel. The wine goblet held aloft by the peasant is in the Venetian style (façon de Venise), but these were produced in several cities in both the Northern and Southern Netherlands, as they were in France. In other words, this type of glassware was widely distributed.12 As far as I am aware, no Adriaen Brouwer, Drinking peasant, ca. 1630/33, oil on panel, 20.5 x 19.7 cm, Rubens House, Antwerp, inv. no. RH.S.187 61 Adriaen Brouwer. The new Bruegel K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT he caption to the famous portrait print of Adriaen Brouwer in Van Dyck’s Iconographie reads: ‘Adrianus Brauwer / Gryllorum Pictor Antverpiae’. This places Brouwer as ‘a painter of whimsies or oddities’ directly in the line of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the founder of the genre. In this contribution we will examine why Brouwer was called the new Bruegel and what exactly links him with the old Bruegel. T Pieter Bruegel: the founder of genre painting Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert, after Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1635/55, engraving, 242 mm x 161 mm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. S.IV 3616 Johannes Wierix (attributed to), Portrait of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1572, engraving, 203 x 124 mm, Print Cabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-1907-593 Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1526/28-1569) is regarded as the father of genre painting, which is known in historical terms as the genus gryllorum or ‘genre of grillae’.1 Generally speaking, genre pieces are seemingly spontaneous and realistic representations of scenes taken from daily life.2 They are characterized by the often comic depiction of specific types of people in specific situations. 63 Hans Sebald Beham, The country fair, 1535, engraving, British Museum, London, inv. no. 1895,0122.303 Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Peasant dance, ca. 1567, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, inv. no 1059 monumental. The paintings were also typified by the naturalism or sense of reality with which he portrayed his personages. Rather than using the imagery of the stereotypical ‘boorish’ yokel, as had often been the case in kermis scenes up to that time, Bruegel depicted his peasants as individuals with a certain psychological depth. He achieved this categorization not only by his accurate depiction of his figures’ faces, expressions and poses, but also by the personalization of their clothing and attributes. It is this far-reaching individualization that distinguishes Bruegel from his predecessors. Favourite personages include alchemists, beggars, quacks and charlatans, peddlers, drinkers, etc. The peasant is also a popular and frequent figure of fun. As the painter par excellence of country scenes and country dwellers, Pieter Bruegel had a clear preference for the latter. In this respect, he aligned himself with an existing visual tradition of longstanding. Kermis scenes like The fair on St. George’s day and The fair at Hoboken were in keeping with the kind of satirical representations that had been made in German print art since the first half of the 16th century by artists like Erhard Schön (14911542) and Hans Sebald Beham (ca. 1500-1550).3 In our time, Bruegel enjoys his fame as the ‘painter of peasants’ primarily to the pictures he made towards the end of his life, such as The wedding dance (1566, The Detroit Institute of Arts), The wedding banquet (ca. 1567, KHM Vienna) and The village kermis (ca. 1567, KHM, Vienna). With these large-scale works, Bruegel was able to elevate essentially ‘low-brow’ subjects into something Joannes and Lucas van Doetecum, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, St. George’s fair, ca. 1559, etching/engraving, 332 x 523 mm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels 64 Although Bruegel painted much more than just peasant scenes and his oeuvre is characterized by works in several genres, he is still best known as ‘den boeren-bruegel’. This image dates back to Karel Van Mander, Bruegel’s earliest biographer. In his Schilder-boeck (1604), Van Mander states that Bruegel was also of peasant stock. He made the assumption that only someone born in the countryside could possibly depict rural life with such stun- 65 From Bruegel to Brouwer Bruegel’s work was already very popular during his own lifetime. His prints sold in large numbers, but his paintings were also much sought after. In the decades following his death, this popularity and the demand for original Bruegels increased still further. This ‘Bruegel mania’ reached its highpoint around the turn of the 17th century, when it assumed unseen proportions. By that time, original paintings were almost impossible to find, since the vast majority already formed part of aristocratic and royal collections. This scarcity led to the large-scale production of copies, variants and forgeries. Key figures in this development were Abel Grimmer (ca. 1570-c. 1625) and Bruegel’s sons, Pieter II (ca. 1564/65-1637/38) and Jan I (1568-1625). Pieter Brueghel the Younger specialized in making copies of popular compositions by his father, such as peasant weddings, kermises and winter landscapes.7 These copies played an important role in helping to spread the Bruegelian visual language. Thanks to a number of immigrant ‘Flemish’ masters, such as David Vinckboons (1576-1631) and the brothers Jacob (I) Savery (ca. 1565-1603) and Roelant Savery (1576-1639), the Bruegel tradition also gained a strong foothold in the Northern Netherlands.8 The countless number of Bruegel prints in circulation further helped to disseminate and cement the Bruegel idiom in both North and South. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The flight to Egypt, 1563, oil on panel, The Courtauld Gallery, London, inv. no. P.1978.PG.47 ning accuracy.4 Van Mander recorded how Bruegel and his friend Hans Franckert used to dress up as peasants, so that they could mingle ‘unseen’ among the local people during village fairs and celebrations. It was from these trips to the country that Bruegel later drew his inspiration for his drawings and paintings depicting rural life. Bruegel’s biographer further claimed that ‘nature most cleverly found her man and was, in turn, most cleverly found by him’. According to the author, this imitation of nature - in other words, life-like depiction - is one of the foundations of Bruegel’s art. This was also emphasized by the well-known humanist and cartographer Abraham Ortelius (1527-1598). In his Album amicorum (1572), Ortelius included the following paean of praise to his recently deceased friend: ‘I have maintained that his paintings are so true to life that they have very little to do with style or painting technique. Yes, I even dare to say that he is not only the greatest of painters, but also that his work encompasses all art. And for this reason, I consider him to be worthy of imitation by all who come after him.’5 Ortelius even went so far as to describe Bruegel’s art as comparable to ‘nature’ itself - perhaps the greatest compliment that any artist can hope to achieve. Bruegel approaches the perfection of nature not only in his supreme landscapes (see, for example, The flight to Egypt) but above all in his life-like portrayal of the people who populate his pictures, something that Van Mander also considered to be the case. Moreover, Bruegel is able to do this in a witty and amusing manner, so that the viewer cannot help smiling - or even laughing - at the end result: ‘Oock siet men weynigh stucken van hem, die een aenschouwer wijslijck sonder lacchen can aensien, ja hoe stuer wijnbrouwigh en statigh hy oock is, hy moet ten minsten meese-muylen oft grinnicken.’6 66 It was only when Adriaen Brouwer arrived on the stage in the course of the 1620s that ‘a new Bruegel’ finally emerged. Brouwer was the first artist who came close to approaching Bruegel’s mastery in the field of genre painting. Moreover, he succeeded like none of his contemporaries in developing and legitimizing the genus gryllorum as a valid specialism in its own right. Pieter Brueghel the Younger, St. George’s fair, after 1616, oil on panel, 72.6 x 102 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 644 David Vinckboons, Village fair, ca. 1605, oil on panel, 52 x 91.5 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, inv. no. 937 Jacob Savery (and/or workshop), St. Sebastian’s fair, ca. 1598, oil on panel, 41.2 x 61.9 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 156 67 The new Bruegel Unfortunately, we know nothing about Brouwer’s early artistic training. On the basis of the so-called ‘Flemish’ nature of his youthful work, it has been suggested that he was first in Antwerp before he moved to the Northern Netherlands.9 Schmidt-Degener was even of the opinion that Brouwer was trained by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.10 As has been pointed out elsewhere in this publication, Brouwer moved at an early age with his family from Oudenaarde to Gouda. It is therefore more likely that he first came into contact with the Bruegelian tradition in the Northern Netherlands and, more specifically, in Amsterdam.11 It is above all in Brouwer’s early work that the link with Bruegel is most evident. Brouwer is known to have painted a number of outdoor scenes with drinking, dancing, playing and fighting peasants, only two of which have subsequently survived (see exhib. cat. no. 7). In these paintings, the focus is on excessive and therefore implicitly sinful behaviour. In most cases, the theme was alcohol abuse and its consequences. In this sense, Brouwer was following in the 15th and 16th century visual tradition of depicting the Seven Deadly Sins.12 However, Brouwer also introduced innovations to the genre, the most important of which was the integration of Bruegelian visual imagery into the newly emerging ‘merry company’ genre. This specific genre, which was connected with a rising adolescent culture in the Northern Netherlands, was very popular in the 1620s.13 It was Brouwer’s achievement to add elements of this genre to Bruegelian visual imagery to create an entirely new pictorial language. He also introduced a number of interesting new themes, such as the smoking of tobacco. However, perhaps the most striking feature of his work during this period was the far-reaching characterization of his personages. Like Bruegel before him, he made his subjects from the lower classes of society seem tangible by means of individualization and the careful attunement of their faces, expressions, clothes and attributes. Equally typical - and Bruegelian - was Brouwer’s ability to pictorialize the sinful behaviour of his ‘down-and-out’ characters in a highly amusing manner. Adriaen Brouwer, Tavern interior, ca. 1525/26, oil on panel, 18.6 x 26 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 847 69 Anonymous, supposedly after Pieter Bruegel the Elder / Adriaen Brouwer (rejected attribution), Keesje Licht-hart and Verblinde Swaan, from the series Heads of peasant men and women, series no. 8/12, ca. 1642, 111 x 155 mm, Print Cabinet, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-2472 ‘p. Bruegel Inventor, A. Brouwer in. et fec.’ Bruegel the Elder. The series consists of 36 sheets portraying 72 heads of farmers, their wives, three Moors and a wild man.19 The addition of Brouwer’s name as ‘printmaker’ dates from 1642; in other words, four years after his death. Twelve of the plates depict 24 heads of male and female peasants in pairs. This juxtaposition is essential, because the immediacy of the coherence between the counterparts adds vitality to the meaning of the whole. In addition, under each head a descriptive name is given for the person concerned. In their way, these epithets are as revealing as the portraits: Aecht Sonder-Ziel and Heertje Al-te-mooy; Dirck Domp and Zeedigh Kniertje; Foockel Lach-een-reys and Lazarus Sonder-Zeer; Houte Klaes and Kommer-Sloofs; Keesje Licht-hart and Verblinde Swaan ; Rijckje Schimmel-penninghs and Lubbert Leever-worst; Ritze Stijn and Schurckje Sonder-Baert; Schonkje Wel-bedocht and Pronckje Heel-Volmaeckt, etc. The names are not real names - for example, ‘Keesje Licht-hart and Blinde Zwaan’ translates as ‘John Light-heart and Blind Swan’ - but are comic designations that emphasize the humorous nature of the tronies in a way that contemporary viewers would have found highly amusing. These tronies closely reflect the kind of characters that you might expect to see in 16th and 17th century comic theatre, where personages were often named in a dubious (and sometimes scurrilous) manner after the profession, social position or character trait that typified them.20 In the Bruegel-Brouwer tronies the emphasis is on the latter; namely, the external Even during the 17th century, people were already regarding Adriaen Brouwer as the true successor to Pieter Bruegel the Elder. This can be seen, for example, in a series of prints of peasant heads for which Bruegel was thought to have made the initial designs but were converted - or so it was believed at the time - into print by Brouwer. 14 Although Brouwer’s role in the production of this series is now no longer accepted, this early connection between the old and new Bruegel speaks volumes.15 The series in question is a number of portraits or ‘tronies’ of distinctive peasant heads. More specifically, a tronie is the depiction of a face in a manner which reveals the true nature and character of the person depicted. Expressiveness is therefore key.16 By virtue of his remarkable interest in physiognomy and the portrayal of emotions, Bruegel played an important role in the development of the tronie as an artistic genre.17 As the master of emotions and the worthy successor to Bruegel, Brouwer in turn also played his part in helping to further elevate the significance and status of the tronie as an art form. In particular, his far reaching characterization of his personages and his accurate depiction of fleeting and extreme states of mind added a new dimension to the genre. 18 The initial series of prints was probably engraved by Joannes and Lucas van Doetecum, possibly after lost designs by Pieter 70 Adriaen Brouwer, Fighting peasants outside a tavern, ca. 1625/26, oil on panel, 25.8 x 34.2 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague (on long-term loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), inv. no. 919 visual manifestation of the nature and temperament of the figures in question. In this process, no attempt is made to avoid the ugly and the grotesque; on the contrary, exaggeratedly large or small noses, protruding eyes, grimaces and other physiological characteristics are all used to create the desired effect. This preference for in-depth characterization is not only typical for these tronies in particular, but also for the art of both the new and old Bruegel in general. Brouwer the landscape painter. Between Bruegel and Rubens Adriaen Brouwer also proved himself to be a worthy successor to Pieter Bruegel the Elder in the field of landscape painting. During his lifetime, Bruegel was particularly known as a landscape artist. In fact, several of his paintings and prints are still counted among the all-time great masterpieces of Western landscape art.21 71 Adriaen Brouwer, Peasant quartet (detail) It is less well-known that Brouwer also painted several sublime landscapes, which also had a significant impact on the further development of the genre during the 17th century.22 Although his interest in landscape only really came to the fore during his final years in Antwerp, the seeds of this interest were already evident at the start of his career. Among his early works are several outdoor scenes with playing and fighting peasants, (see, for example, exhib. cat. no. 7) in which the background landscape already plays an important role. Brouwer also introduced landscapes into his interiors by making them visible through open windows and doors (see, for example, exhib. cat. nos. 4 and 5). As time passed, he gradually devoted more and more attention to this theme, so that the landscape was moved from the background to the foreground of his paintings. Illustrative of this process by which the landscape systematically gained in compositional and atmospheric importance are the seethrough view in The Peasant Quartet and the sublime background landscape in Good friends (exhib. cat. no. 30). In his late atmospheric paintings Brouwer’s qualities as a landscape artist come fully into their own. The landscape is now promoted to the leading role in the composition and the peasants - who in the past were his protagonists - are now reduced to no more than staffage. Above all, Brouwer was fascinated by the different effects created by light at different times, especially in the morning, at twilight and at night. Characteristic are his Dune landscape in morning light in the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna (exhib. cat. no. 47), 72 Adriaen Brouwer, Twilight landscape, ca. 1633/37, oil on panel, 17 x 36 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. R.F. 2559 the Twilight landscape in the Louvre and Landscape with full moon in Berlin (exhib. cat. no. 48). Only a handful of these evocative landscapes have survived, although estate inventories suggest that Brouwer actually painted more. The titles in these listings suggest that in addition to the effects created by sunlight and moonlight, Brouwer also experimented with the depiction of specific natural phenomena, like lightning. The estate inventory of Jeremias Wildens mentions a painting entitled ‘Weerlichtken’ and Rubens also owned ‘un paysage avec un eclair’.23 a result, the paint is applied in an almost transparent way, with the background layer left visible. These technical and material devices all serve the same single purpose: to capture the fleeting moment in which the inner mood of nature is made visible externally; as, for example, in a bolt of lightning or the moon breaking through clouds. The experience of the natural landscape is central. Several of these atmospheric landscapes have become known as ‘dune landscapes’ (see exhib. cat. nos. 46, 47 and 48), even though they seldom involve ‘real’- in other words, topographical - representations. Brouwer certainly based his paintings on his ‘live’ observations (‘naer het leven’), but the final work was not intended to be of a topographical nature. In this sense, Brouwer’s land- Brouwer’s atmospheric landscapes are characterized by their small format, their schematic development and the use of a ‘ton sur ton’ painting technique applied with remarkably loose brushstrokes. As 73 AAdriaen Brouwer, Landscape with full moon, ca. 1635/37, oil on panel, 25.8 x 34.8 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no. 853B scapes can be compared with Bruegel’s: in spite of their realistic ‘natural’ appearance, they are actually a combination of real and imaginary elements. The registration of nature is authentic, but Brouwer’s compositions are constructions, carefully built up from different compositional features, which he arranges in the manner that allows him to create the most convincing depiction possible of a landscape scene. A good illustration of this method of working is the Landscape with full moon in Berlin. In the past, most authors have referred to this piece as a Dune landscape with full moon (see exhib. cat. no. 48). Knuttel is one of the few who doubts that the painting depicts dunes, although he believes it is actually a depiction of a stretch of the Western Scheldt. In this sense, he too assumes - erroneously - that it is a work of a topographical nature. In reality, it is not a topographical representation, but an imaginary composition in which the dynamic of the landscape is determined by a number of carefully chosen (and accurately painted) focal points and planes. The rolling landscape meets in a diagonal on the left, bounded in the foreground by three standing figures and in the background by the tower. The diagonal orientation in the right of the painting is further mirrored in the sky, by the separation between the dark clouds and the area lit by the moon. Various other elements, such as the building on the far right, the two figures in the distance and the sailing ships on the horizon, serve as repoussoirs, a compositional device that leads the gaze of the viewer through the painting. The use of this visual device is in keeping with the 16th century landscape tradition of the Southern Netherlands, of 74 Peter Paul Rubens, Landscape with moon and stars, ca. 1636/38, oil on panel, 64 x 90 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London, inv. no. P.G 380 and, in addition to Pieter de Molijn, an influential role in this development was also played by Hans Bol (1534-1593) and Frans Boels (ca. 1555-1596), supplemented by ‘home-grown’ Dutch artists like Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630). which Bruegel was the most important exponent. But in contrast to Bruegel’s panoramic landscapes, which were characterized by their variety and their expansiveness, the focus in Brouwer’s atmospheric small-scale landscapes is on a more direct experience of nature. He drew his inspiration for this approach from the visual tradition of the Northern Netherlands and, more particularly, from the landscape art produced in Haarlem during the 1620s and 1630s. For example, Brouwer’s paintings show remarkable similarities with the dune landscapes of the printmaker, artist and publisher Pieter de Molijn (1595-1661), who, like Brouwer, was an immigrant from Flanders and worked in the city on the Spaarne at the same time. Landscape art in the Northern Netherlands at the start of the 17th century was strongly influenced by the influx of Flemish artists from the South Brouwer and Rubens Brouwer’s exceptional qualities as a landscape painter were also noticed by Rubens. At this stage of his career, the master of the Baroque was also showing an increasing interest in landscapes and he closely followed the latest developments in the genre.24 During the final years of his life, Rubens regularly withdrew to his country 75 estate -’t Steen in Elewijt near Zemst, between Brussels and Malines - where he focused on the painting of atmospheric landscape scenes, not for commercial purposes, but for his own pleasure and enjoyment. Like Brouwer, he was fascinated by the effects of different weather phenomena, such as storms, on the natural landscape.25 The similarities between Brouwer’s landscapes and those of Rubens are striking, not only in Rubens’ oil sketches but also in his painted panels, such as the Landscape with moon and stars and The willows. The unusually small format of The willows (18.5 x 33.3 cm), the loose brushwork and the transparency of the thinly applied layers of paint reflect the technical qualities that are now regarded as characteristic of Brouwer. This is certainly also the case with the Landscape with moon and stars in The Courtauld Gallery, which has many features in common with Brouwer’s Landscape with full moon in Berlin (exhib. cat. no.48). The close resemblance between Brouwer’s and Rubens’ atmospheric landscapes has often been attributed to ‘the influence of Rubens on his young colleague’.26 Fortunately, this erroneous conclusion has now been revised.27 Karolien De Clippel has convincingly argued that it is more correct to see this influencing not as a one-way process, but as a mutual exchange of ideas, a kind of aemulatio in which both artists stimulated each other in their artistic development in the field of atmospheric landscape painting.28 Rubens’ high regard for Brouwer’s work is also evident from his art collection, which included no fewer than five landscape pieces among the total of 17 Brouwer paintings he owned by the time of his death in 1640. Other contemporary sources also testify to the mutual respect of the two artists and the degree of affinity between their respective landscapes. For example, the art cabinet of the Antwerp canon Johannes Philipus Happaert contained landscapes by both Brouwer and Rubens hanging side by side.29 In other words, in the field of landscape art Brouwer was once again a worthy successor to Bruegel the Elder, not in the least because of his ability to imitate nature with such sublime precision. Moreover, in this field he was also the equal of the great Rubens. Perhaps even more significantly for the future, his refined technical development of his theme and his innovative compositional approach today give his atmospheric landscapes a surprisingly ‘impressionist’ feel. Viewed from this perspective, he can rightly be regarded as one of the forerunners of modern landscape art. Peter Paul Rubens, The willows, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 18.5 x 33.3 cm, Speelman Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 77 Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions K AT R I E N L I C H T E RT T he title of this exhibition emphasizes Adriaen Brouwer’s virtuosity in the depiction of affects and emotions. There were various reasons to profile Brouwer as the ‘Master of emotions’. In the first instance, it offers a worthwhile alternative to the often clichéd approach that sees Brouwer as not much more than the painter of peasant scenes. Moreover, it places Brouwer in the same line - and on the same level - as Rubens and Rembrandt, who are normally regarded as the masters of emotion in the artistic tradition of the Northern and Southern Netherlands in the 17th century. Last but not least, this emotional aspect of Brouwer’s art merits attention because it is precisely this quality that touches people and makes his work so relevant today. proached. Because in this instance it is the oeuvre of Adriaen Brouwer and, more specifically, his ability to accurately depict states of mind that is central, an art-historical approach will be adopted. In addition to philosophical and theological writings, from the 16th century onwards a number of other texts began to appear, which detailed the working and the depiction of different states of mind.3 Perhaps the most significant of the early 17th century texts of this kind, certainly in terms of artistic theory and the pictorialization of emotions, was Karel van Mander’s Schilder-boeck (1604). In his didactic poem Den grondt der edel vry schilderconst he even devoted a full chapter to the topic: ‘Depicting the affects, passions, delight and suffering of people’. Van Mander clearly set out the problems facing any young artist who wishes to portray human emotions, which was generally regarded as one of the most difficult artistic challenges to accomplish successfully. Brouwer’s exceptional talent to depict the states of mind of his characters in a highly accurate manner was recognized almost immediately. Of his early biographers, it was above all Arnold Houbraken who stressed the artist’s emotionality: Brouwer’s development of emotional themes ‘Alles was zoo natuurlyck naar den aart der hardstochten in de wezentrekken verbeelt, en zoo verwonderlyck vast geteekent, en los geschildert, dat het wel tot een proefstuk van zyn konst kon verstrekken’.1 On the basis of writings and studies covering the entire period from classical antiquity to the present day, we can group emotions and their expression into five broad clusters: suffering (including pain, sorrow, shame, disappointment and contempt); anger (including hate, indignation, revulsion and rage); joy (including light-heartedness, pleasure, admiration and laughter); fear (including horror, anxiety, panic and amazement); and pride (including arrogance, courage and self-confidence). In the course of his artistic career, Brouwer depicted a very wide range of emotional expressions.4 Most of them, however, belong to the first three categories, with a focus on joy, anger and pain. In addition to the more extreme forms of emotion, he also portrayed more subtle variants as well. The expression of emotions and their depiction It is not easy to give an all-embracing definition of the concept of ‘emotion’. Phenomena that are described as emotional can be found in many different forms and there is no general agreement about precisely which phenomena these are.2 Much depends on the discipline and the theoretical background from which the subject is ap- 79 Another sublime example can be found in The flute player (exhib. cat. no. 26), which was also intended to depict the sense of hearing. In comparison with Village musicians, Brouwer has here managed to crystallize the theme to its essence. The focus is placed exclusively on the action - the playing of the flute - and the effect it has on the emotional state of the persons he depicts which in this case was clearly pleasure! Brouwer’s early tavern interiors already displayed his interest in emotional conditions, by virtue of the strong individualization of his human subjects and the careful harmonization of their (sinful) dispositions, facial expressions and body language. As the mirror of the soul, it is the face that first and foremost reflects the nature of his personages, although body posture, gestures and the specific positioning of his figures were also used to suggest character and inner state of mind.5 As time passed, Brouwer increasingly devoted more and more attention to the expression of specific emotions and the far-reaching characterization of his protagonists. It became clear to him that the senses and their perception offered a perfect way to explore states of mind and their physical externalization. Whereas in the 16th century artists had a preference for purely allegorical depictions of the five senses, usually by depicting a single person with a readily identifiable attribute, by the start of the 17th century it was becoming more common to depict the senses through everyday scenes, often in a genre setting.6 Brouwer was very much a pioneer of this trend. One of his favourite themes to visually express the senses was through the smoking of tobacco, which at that time was still a relatively new activity.7 He used this ‘fashionable’ subject for the portrayal of the two most obviously related senses - taste and smell - and his example was soon copied by others. Brouwer was also the first artist to accurately7 convey the physical experience of smoking and the effect that tobacco could have on people at different stages. Laughing figures also appear frequently throughout Brouwer’s oeuvre: grimacing, smiling, grinning, shrieking, etc. Brouwer manages to depict all the gradations of laughter, from the subtle to the excessive, with consummate skill and ease. This was all the more impressive if one considers that the laugh as the outward expression of happiness was regarded as one of the most difficult states of mind to capture successfully. As Van Mander put it: ‘Those who criticize us for being so poorly able to paint the difference between laughing and crying are not wrong […] But if we study these actions in life, we see that the laughing mouth and cheeks are wider and more raised, while the forehead is lowered and the eyes beneath it are half screwed closed, with small wrinkles running in the direction of the ears.9’ We must remember, however, that Brouwer was not the first artist to depict laughing people with accuracy. The pioneer in this field was Frans Hals, who introduced cheerful individuals with regularity into his genre pieces. They are reminiscent of the theatrical half-figures painted by the Utrecht Caravaggians, with the difference that Hals’ figures are more accurately depicted, almost as if they have just come directly from the tavern. These genre pieces gave Hals the opportunity to use a rougher style of painting and the more expressive use of emotions than in his commissioned portraits (at this time, portraiture tended to be formal, with the subjects in serious rather than light-hearted poses). Hals’ ability to capture fleeting emotions with great precision, allied to a lively and ‘modern’ technique, inspired not only Brouwer but also the young Rembrandt.10 Another theme that Brouwer liked to use in connection with the depiction of sensoriality was singing and playing. For example, his Village musicians in Munich, is a representation of the sense of hearing. It is possible that this painting was one of a series of five, with a panel for each sense. In this particular work we can see a fiddler sitting centrally, whose playing is accompanied by the singing of a group of men standing behind him. He looks at us invitingly, with an encouraging wink. This provocative pose - having one of the figures look directly at the viewer - was an artistic device frequently used by Brouwer to engage the public more intimately in his work.8 Adriaen Brouwer, Smokers in a tavern, oil on panel, 23.7 x 20.5 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 62 81 Adriaen Brouwer, The flute player / Hearing, ca. 1632/35, oil on copper, 16.5 x 13 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Brussels, inv. no. 3464 Frans Hals, Laughing boy with a flute / Hearing, oil on panel, 37.5 diameter, ca. 1626/28, Staatliches Museum Schwerin, inv. no. G.2475 Another of Brouwer’s preferred themes for portraying sensory expression was the medical operation. Surgical interventions on the arm, leg, back or other parts of the body offered numerous possibilities, particularly for emotions connected to pain and suffering. In this sense, Brouwer borrowed from the 16th century visual tradition of painting so-called ‘stone cutters’ and other charlatans, the most famous exponents of which were Jheronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The comical aspect of such depictions was to be found in the incompetence of these dubious medical practitioners and the stupidity of the patients who were foolish enough to let these quacks operate on them. Initially, Brouwer situated his operation scenes in carefully crafted interiors, but gradually he came to place more emphasis on the operation itself and, above all, its impact on the emotional state of mind of the protagonists. In this context, he often used a triangular composition with a standard configuration of a surgeon, a patient and an older woman as an onlooker. Examples of this device can be seen in Adriaen Brouwer, Village musicians/ Hearing, ca. 1633/35, oil on panel, 24 x 20 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 629 83 The arm operation, The foot operation and The back operation (exhib. cat. no. 22). This specific framing of the figures allowed the focus to be placed exclusively on the action and the effect it creates on those involved. It also made it possible for Brouwer to depict conflicting emotions in a single painting: in addition, to pain, we can also see revulsion, fear, determination and gloating. Moreover, this is done in such a way that these different emotions actually seem to strengthen each other. Brouwer’s far-reaching characterization of his personages and the accuracy with which he depicts their emotions immediately creates a sense of engagement in the viewer. The patient’s pain seems real and tangible. In his sublime Back operation this feeling is further enhanced by the fact that main character is looking directly at us.11 Brouwer continued to further refine his portrayal of extreme emotions in the later stages of his career. This found best expression in the ‘tronies’ or grotesque heads that he painted during the final years of his life in Antwerp. The most famous of these works is probably The bitter drink.12 The intense grimace of the central character - with wide open mouth, protruding lips, creased forehead and screwed up eyes - brilliantly displays the effect that the drink has had on the man who has just drunk it. We can almost taste it ourselves! The small medicine bottle and tray the man is holding are attributes that frequently appear in Brouwer’s operation scenes, which might suggest that we are here looking at a patient who is taking a fortifying drink before undergoing surgery. This work has also been interpreted as a depiction of the sense of taste, but in my opinion that need not necessarily be the case.13 During his later years, Brouwer regularly made tronies of this kind that had nothing to do per se with the representation of the five senses (see, for example, his ‘Youth making a face’, Washington DC). What’s more, even though this iconic piece has traditionally been known as The bitter potion, there is nothing to show (how can there be?) that the drink itself actually has a bitter taste. If anything, its effect seems to be more penetrating than bitter. If the ‘operation’ theory is correct, it is probably a potion with a high alcoholic content designed to prepare the patient for his ordeal. This would explain the intensity of the facial expression. Adriaen Brouwer, The village surgeon, oil on panel, 31.3 x 39.6 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 561 Yet although the young Rembrandt has often been cited as a source of inspiration for Brouwer, it is less common for Rembrandt’s development as a master of emotions to be assessed in the light of Brouwer’s innovative approach. Nevertheless, David De Witt has suggested that this influencing process was by no means one-directional and pointed - in my opinion with justification - to the possible impact of Brouwer’s work on Rembrandt.17 It is known, for example, that Rembrandt was a fervent collector of Brouwer’s work and written sources confirm that both masters were in Amsterdam during the second half of the 1620s.18 Although it is not recorded, it is perfectly possible that they met and that - as was also the case with Brouwer and Rubens - they mutually stimulated each other in their further search for the best possible depiction of emotions. For a good understanding of 17th century art in general and Brouwer’s oeuvre in particular, it is fundamental to realize that even the most famous masters often Adriaen Brouwer, The back operation / Touch, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 34.4 x 27 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, inv. no. 1050 Adriaen Brouwer, The foot operation / Touch, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 34.9 x 26 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, inv. no.1039 Adriaen Brouwer, The bitter drink, ca. 1636/38, oil on panel, 47.4 x 355 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, inv. no. 1076 It is not the drink that is bitter, but rather the fact of its drinking - and what comes after it. Whatever the truth of the matter, the portrait shows that the alcohol didn’t miss its mark! Rembrandt and emotions Brouwer’s deep interest in the emotions was perhaps only equalled by Rembrandt, who, like his Flemish colleague, showed a fascination for this subject from early in his career. From the point of view of Brouwer’s oeuvre and its relationship to Rembrandt’s, the period from ca. 1625 until the start of the 1630s is of particular interest, when Rembrandt was working primarily in Leiden. It was during this so-called ‘Leiden period’ that he also began his own search for the refining of emotional expressiveness, above all in portraits of himself.14 Rembrandt has, with good reason, been called the master of the self-portrait: we know of at least 40 paintings, 31 etchings and a handful of drawings in which he included his own likeness in some form or other, and it is worthy of note than more than half of these were crafted during his early years.15 A sublime example is the small Laughing portrait, painted on copper in circa 1628. But the most well-known of his etched portraits (exhib. cat. nos. 42 to 45) date from the period around 1630. It has been suggested that Brouwer drew inspiration from these exceptional portraits, not only in terms of their depiction of emotions but also in terms of technique.16 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait as a laughing young man, ca. 1628, oil on copper, 22.2 x 17.1 cm, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, inv. no. 2013.60 89 created their finest work in response to the examples set by other artists from previous generations and their own, with the aim of improving on these examples and thereby taking levels of technical and/or compositional perfection to new heights. Insight into this process of artistic rivalry or aemulatio is therefore essential for any meaningful understanding of Brouwer’s art as a whole. ently well known and respected in rhetorical circles and in 1627 the Amsterdam poet Pieter Nootmans dedicated a play to ‘den constrijcken en wijtberoemden jongman Adriaen Brouwer’,21 to which Brouwer responded with a sonnet in his own hand, signed with his motto Ick hoop noch meer (I hope for more). Brouwer’s literary background and activities were mentioned extensively by his early biographers. For example, De Bie (who was also a rhetorician) recounts the following anecdote. Having been robbed of his money and his own clothes by brigands, he made some new ones from sackcloth, which he then painted in the latest fashions. So realistic was this painting that no-one realized the clothes were not genuine, until Brouwer revealed the secret himself during one of his public performances on stage by wiping away the paint with a sponge. De Bie sees this not only as an indication of his remarkable technical ability, but also of his moralizing dislike for outward show.22 Kannenkijkers and comic farces In contrast to the huge number produced by Rembrandt, we know of only one self-portrait of Brouwer that has survived to the present day. In his iconic group portrait known as The smokers (exhib. cat. no. 39) he depicted a likeness of himself as the central figure amongst a group of his fellow Antwerp artists. The company is clearly a merry one, well provided with tobacco and alcohol. Elsewhere is this publication, Anne-Laure19 van Bruaene has suggested that Brouwer used this humoristic typecasting as a way to refer both to his to his own activities as a kannenkijker, a popular slang term to describe the members of the 17th century chambers of rhetoric, and also to the excessive drinking of which these societies of poets and actors were suspected. It is probable that Brouwer came into contact with the rhetoricians at an early age.20 This connection is confirmed as early as 1626, the year in which the artist was accepted as a ‘beminnaer’ (devotee) into the ranks of the Haarlem chamber, known as ‘De Wijngaertrancken’. Brouwer was appar- Brouwer’s close connections with the rhetoricians found expression in his preference in his art for themes that reflected their essentially comic repertoire. The farce or esbattement was a genre of comic theatre, the name of which indicates its amusing nature. By and large, these were stories that were easy to tell and repeat, often about mischief-making, skulduggery and deceptions of all different kinds, but with a limited reservoir of scripts, props and dramatic devices. In short, they were simple and funny. They also contained a number of stock characters, such as quacks, old women, peasants and comic villains, the latter frequently in duos. The art - and success - of the genre consisted in providing sufficient variation within its standard routines of predictable situations and comic misunderstandings, in which the characters - and, in particular, certain combinations of readily identifiable characters - become involved. These comic figures with their fixed set of characteristics clearly have a lot in common with the figures who populate Brouwer’s tavern scenes. It is almost as if he has plucked them straight from the theatre stage! As ‘dens of iniquity’, where the drink flowed freely, these so-called ‘bad taverns’ were the perfect setting for depicting the stupid, clumsy or boorish behaviour of louts and lay-abouts of the lowest kind. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait with beret, wide-eyed, 1630, etching, 50 mm x 45 mm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. NHD 69,II, S.II 135 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait in cap, laughing, 1630, etching, 49 x 42 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-689 Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait with open mouth, as if shouting, 1630, etching, 73 x 61 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-280 Sometimes these tavern scenes not only reflect the content of rhetorical performances, but also some of their structural components. A good example of this is Brouwer’s ambitious Tavern scene, now part of the collection at The National Gallery in London (exhib. cat. no. 37). The deliberately theatrical arrangement of the composition, with the comic scene on the platform to the left, the peeping-tom at the window and a group of amused spec- Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait, frowning, 1630, etching, 75 x 75 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-20 91 tators on the right, almost seems like a realistic depiction of an on-stage farce. It is reasonable to assume that Brouwer’s keen interest in the accurate depiction of extreme emotions and exaggerated facial expressions also had its roots, to some extent at least, in his familiarity with rhetorical culture and its comic repertoire. The trueto-life, exuberant and almost caricatured facial expressions of his tavern scenes seamlessly match the grotesque realism that was typical of the farces performed by the rhetoricians.23 This visual and verbal exuberance, depicted so realistically you can almost hear it, is further strengthened by the masterful attuning of body posture, gestures, clothing and other attributes to harmonize with the physicality and mental state of the main protagonist(s), in a manner that also owes much to comic theatre. One of the more surprising examples is the sublime male figure in Youth making a face, in which a young man pulls a funny face while looking us straight in the eye. In this way, this sympathetic rogue holds up a mirror in which we can see ourselves mockingly reflected. Humour was an important instrument for stimulating the viewers of art and drama to self-examination, and it was one that Brouwer used frequently.24 Brutal, direct and comic: this is the master of emotions at his best. Adriaen Brouwer, Tavern scene, ca. 1635, oil on panel, 48 x 67 cm, The National Gallery of Art, London, inv. no. NG 6591 93 The origin of the dispute is a game of cards, which has gotten out of hand because the players have drunk too much. The dynamic portrayal of the fighters, their brutally contorted faces and the far-reaching individualization to which the artist subjects them are all typical of Bruegel’s approach to scenes of this kind. Rubens owned a copy of this painting, which he later revised. Brouwer’s earliest known fight scene (exhib. cat. no. 7) also owes much in terms of content and structure to Bruegel’s composition. The reason for the fight is once again the same: too much alcohol, leading to an argument about the outcome of a card game. But the young Brouwer already distinguishes himself by his absolute focus on the action and the manner in which he manages to capture the fleeting emotion of the moment through his precise depiction of the protagonists’ expressions and posture. Adriaen Brouwer, Youth making a face, ca. 1632/35, oil on panel, 13.7 x 10.5 cm, The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, inv. no. 1994.46.1 Affects and their effects: fight scenes There is one aspect of Brouwer’s development as a master of emotions that we have not yet considered: his preference for including fighting and violence in his work. Brawling members of the ‘lower classes’ - townspeople, peasants and soldiers - can be found in various guises throughout his oeuvre. It was a theme that Brouwer continued to refine as his career progressed, until he was finally able to reduce violent emotions to their essence. No other theme gave Brouwer the same opportunity to examine affects and their effects in different stages as the theme of physical conflict. Violence always releases a wide range of emotions: expressions of pain, disgust, anger, fear, determination, surprise, amazement and dismay, to name but a few. It was during his Antwerp period in particular that he explored this theme with great intensity, resulting in some of his finest works as the master of emotions. One of his most successful accomplishments was Peasants fighting over dice (exhib. cat. no. 35), a work that was later bought by Rubens, who had a particular interest in Brouwer’s fight scenes and the manner in which they encapsulated violent emotions. In this sublime masterpiece Brouwer succeeds in reducing the central action and its effects to their fundamentals. The way in which he manages to capture this fleeting moment is nothing short of brilliant.26 Another painting, also presumably part of Rubens’ collection, where Brouwer succeeds to crystalize violent emotions is the small-scale panel Two boors fighting by a barrel (Alte Pinakothek, Munich). Like his Peasants fighting over dice Brouwer manages to master the right moment, reducing the violent emotions and outrageous actions to their quintessence.27 The focus is entirely on the internal condition of both men and how this is reflected in their coarse action, including scattered drops of blood. Initially, fighting peasants was a motif where he again owed a debt of gratitude to the Bruegelian visual tradition. An important source of inspiration for him was a now lost painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which we only know through the numerous copies that were made of it.25 It depicts an outdoor scene in which a group of peasants, two women and a soldier are brawling in the foreground. Art that can move us is timeless. One of Brouwer’s most remarkable qualities was - and still is - his ability to touch a chord somewhere in our being. Like no other artist, he is capable of stirring us with his astonishingly precise depiction of a wide range of emotions. It is clear that in this field he was the equal of Rubens and Rembrandt, just as it is clear that both these great artists were inspired at some point by our master of emotions - like he, in turn, was inspired by them. Lucas (I) Vorsterman, after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Fight scene over a game of cards, before 1623, etching/engraving, 47 x 58.3 cm Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. inv. nr. RP-P-OB-33.075 95 Adriaen Brouwer, Fighting over dice, ca. 1634/36, oil on panel, 22.5 x 17 cm, SKD, Dresden, inv. no. 1058 Adriaen Brouwer, Two peasant fighting near a barrel, ca. 1635/38, oil on panel, 15.5 x 14 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 2112 Rederijker, kannenkijker. Adriaen Brouwer and rhetorical culture in the Northern and Southern Netherlands ANNE-L AURE VAN BRUAENE A Be that as it may, the manner in which Brouwer depicts himself in The smokers is striking. He looks at the viewer with an expression of surprise on his face. He exhales a huge cloud of tobacco smoke and the tankard he was in the process of raising to his lips is frozen halfway. For a modern public, this seems to identify the scene as nothing more than a bawdy ‘boys’ night out’ in a 17th-century tavern. In reality, it reveals Brouwer’s true identity. Brouwer was a kannenkijker - which literally means ‘someone who looks into a tankard’; in other words, a drinker - and therefore he was also a rederijker or rhetorician. Chambers of rhetoric were literary societies practising poetry and the dramatic arts, but in the 17th century the rhetoricians were frequently mocked as kannenkijkers, since their literary aspirations often took second place to the consumption of large quantities of beer and wine during their regular Sunday afternoon meetings. Historians have long taken this image of the rhetoricians as proof for their moral and social decline in the course of the 17th century.3 However, recent research has revealed that the rhetorical world in which Brouwer moved so comfortably had not yet lost any of its considerable social relevance during his lifetime. deceptively simple-looking tavern scene, now known as The smokers (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, exh. cat. no. 39), is a key work in the oeuvre of Adriaen Brouwer. To begin with, it contains the only known self-portrait of the artist. At the same time, it is also a group portrait: Brouwer is surrounded by his friends and fellow painters, Jan Lievens, Jan Davidsz de Heem, Joos van Craesbeeck and Jan Cossiers. The art historian Karolien De Clippel has made a convincing case that this work was painted around 1635, on the occasion of the admission of Jan Lievens and Jan Davidsz de Heem to the artists’ guild - the St. Luke’s Guild - in Antwerp. That same year, Brouwer was also admitted as a liefhebber (devotee) to ‘De Violieren’, an Antwerp chamber of rhetoric that was closely associated with the St. Luke’s Guild and had many members in common.1 It was not unusual for these rhetoricians-artists to donate a piece of their own work to these literary societies when they joined, although we do not know if this is what happened with this painting in 1635.2 Chambers of rhetoric were a cultural phenomenon typical of the Low Countries. During the 15th and 16th centuries, their centre of gravity lay in the southern part of the region, particularly in the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant. This changed after the outbreak of the Dutch Revolt (1568-1648) and the subsequent partition between North and South. Wartime conditions Adriaen Brouwer, The smokers, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 46.4 x 36.8 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 32.100.21 99 in the Catholic Southern Netherlands were not conducive to the public performance of drama. In fact, many chambers of rhetoric were targeted by both the civil and the religious authorities, who regarded them as hotbeds of Protestant agitation. Even so, the chambers were later able to re-establish themselves with relative ease, especially following the negotiation of the Twelve Year Truce (1609-1621) between the Republic of the United Provinces and the Kingdom of Spain. In 1613, ‘De Kersouwe’, a chamber of rhetoric from Brouwer’s native city of Oudenaarde, was even able to take part in a poetry competition in the Republic, organized by ‘De Wijngaertrancken’, a leading rhetorical company in Haarlem - the first time in 35 years that a chamber from the Southern Netherlands was present at a Dutch event of this kind.4 This development of closer relations between the chambers of rhetoric from the Northern and Southern Netherlands was due in no small measure to the network of immigrants. After the fall of Antwerp in 1585, many refugees with an intellectual, artistic or craft-based background tried to make a new life for themselves in the North. Joining the chambers of rhetoric in their new Dutch homes was a part of this process. Some migrants even founded new ‘Brabant’ or ‘Flemish’ chambers in Holland in cities like Amsterdam, Gouda, Haarlem and Leiden, where they not only sought to perpetuate their own literary traditions, but also proved themselves to be innovative in their approach to their new environment.5 In fact, during this period the chambers of rhetoric in general experienced a growth in numbers and popularity in the Republic. The rhetoricians took active part in the public debate about the political and religious form that the new state should take.6 Jan Steen, Rhetoricians at a window, ca. 1660/65, oil on canvas, 75.9 x 58.6 cm, John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv. no. 512 The young Brouwer was part of this milieu. In 1626, he was accepted as a beminnaer - a grade of membership, which literally means ‘lover’ or ‘amateur’ - in ‘De Wijngaertrancken’, which was the same chamber that had maintained contact with the ‘De Kersouwe’ chamber from his native Oudenaarde more than a decade previously. In his capacity as ‘a lover of art’, Brouwer no doubt wrote occasional verses of his own to delight his fellow members. In fact, as ‘Adriaen Brouwer, painter of Haarlem’ he enjoyed considerable prestige in rhetorical circles. In 1627, the Amsterdam rhetorician Pieter Nootmans dedicated a drama about the historic Battle of Pavia (1525) to him.7 During the period that Brouwer was active in Holland, the resumption of hostilities following the end of the Twelve Year Truce saw a new decline in contact at a public level between the chambers of rhetoric in the North and South.8 However, Brouwer’s own life story demonstrates that the borders between both regions were more porous 100 How does this all match the image of the rhetoricians as kannenkijkers that Brouwer shows us tongue in cheek in The smokers? It is worth noting that the first recorded use of the term kannenkijker occurred in connection with a dispute in Brouwer’s own ‘De Wijngaertrancken’ chamber in Haarlem, during the previously mentioned competition held in 1613. In his welcome speech, Jonas van Gherwen, the factor or official drama writer of the chamber, complained that too much was being drunk during the chamber’s meetings, so that ‘true’ art was being pushed increasingly into the background. Van Gherwen’s predecessor as factor, Adam van der Hagen, regarded this as a personal attack and responded with an acrimonious reply in print. According to van der Hagen, in his time it had become a popular proverb of the detractors of the Art of Rhetoric to address rhetoricians as ‘Retorijckers/ Wijvensmijters/ Kannen-kijckers’.15 In effect, he was saying that this clever and amusing rhyming triplet - which in modern parlance essentially means ‘rhetoricians-wife-beaters-boozers’ - was being used, either consciously or unconsciously, to slander him and the organization. than traditional historiography has sometimes suggested. The painter not only migrated back to the Southern Netherlands, but in 1635 also became a liefhebber in the ‘De Violieren’ chamber in Antwerp. This was one of the most prestigious chambers in Brabant and had always maintained close relations with other rhetorical companies both inside and outside its own region.9 For example, in 1613 it had taken part in a competition in Amsterdam organized by the Brabant chamber ‘Het Wit Lavendel’, which had a number of members who had moved away from Antwerp during the troubles.10 The chambers of rhetoric traditionally recruited their members from the circles of highly skilled craftsmen and tradesmen, active in sectors such as retail, the production of luxury goods, and art. They were part of what historians now call the ‘urban middling groups’. By uniting in various guilds and corporations (trade guilds, archery guilds, chambers of rhetoric, religious confraternities, etc.), the representatives of these middling groups occupied a collectively strong position in the highly competitive urban society of the late medieval and early modern Netherlands.11 This continued to be true in the turbulent years of the seventeenth century, although a new trend developed in both North and South. In the Northern Netherlands, the chambers of rhetoric continued to recruit from the ranks of the broad middle classes, but also began attracting more prominent citizens, intellectuals and artists.12 A comparable evolution also took place in the Southern Netherlands, where some chambers were also increasingly frequented by local politicians and merchants of standing.13 It is difficult to know whether van der Hagen was speaking the truth, but the expression kannenkijkers caught on. However, this personal conflict between two Haarlem rhetoricians needs to be seen in a much broader context. It was, in fact, a conflict that went to the heart of rhetorical culture as a whole. Should the chambers profile themselves as refined cultural groups, whose members embodied the ideals of dedication and moderation? Or was the opportunity to enjoy each other’s company their main purpose, creating bonds of friendship that were cemented by drink? This was by no means a new debate: since the sixteenth century rhetoricians had been formulating different visions about the value and nature of drink - and drunkenness - within their societies. For example, the Bruges rhetorician Eduard de Dene (ca. 1505-ca. 1578), a notorious drunkard, created a furore with his drinking verses, while the Leiden poet Jan van Hout pleaded for more sobriety.16 This development was clearly reflected in the experience of ‘De Violieren’ in Antwerp. This chamber had an institutional link with the St. Luke’s Guild of artists since the 15th century. And in the 17th century, it was still the chamber’s custom to recruit first and foremost among the master craftsmen in the artistic sectors. During the dark period after the fall of Antwerp, the city was forced to undergo a rapid but successful economic transformation from a trading metropolis to a centre for the production of luxury goods. The greater demand for ‘art’ (also for the restoration of churches damaged during the troubles) was a part of this transformation and allowed the highly trained masters in the artistic professions to climb higher up the social ladder. They were now well-respected citizens and as such came into more regular contact with the traditional urban elites. In ‘De Violieren’, this translated itself into a higher entrance fee and a growing social distinction between the well-to-do liefhebbers - amateur rhetoricians - and a group of young semi-professional actors.14 There is little doubt that the ‘eat, drink and be merry’ ideal enjoyed the greatest support. The historical data indicate that in comparison with present day norms there was indeed excessive drinking in the chambers of rhetoric and other similar organizations. At the start of the seventeenth century, the ‘De Kersouwe’ chamber in Leuven spent between a quarter and a half of the budget for its annual three-day banquet on alcoholic drink. The aim was to provide up to ten litres of beer and wine per capita.17 In a wider context, the banquets held by the trade guilds during the seventeenth century in the Southern Netherlands also became more 101 their customers. This image certainly reflected an existing reality, but the picture it painted was deliberately one-sided. Wealthy citizens also partook of this cheaper ‘out-of-town’ drinking and there were respectable taverns inside the city walls where people played dice and cards for money, fought or picked up a girl for the night. In other words, in the first instance the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ taverns was a useful moral tool for the middle and upper classes. It gave ‘decent’ citizens the illusion that their drinking habits were not so extreme as those of peasants and vagabonds, although historical research has shown that their consumption of alcohol was actually much higher.21 lavish (but also more socially exclusive). Campaigns launched by the Catholic Church to encourage greater moderation fell largely on deaf ears.18 A similar pattern was also apparent in the Northern Netherlands. Reformist preachers fulminated against the excessive use of alcohol, but found little support among a population whose prosperity was growing rapidly. The richly filled tables that we can see in paintings of the Dutch archery guilds speak volumes. (image. Frans Hals, Banquet of the officers of the Cluveniers archery guild, 1627, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem).19 In other words, there are numerous indications that Brouwer’s seminal work The smokers reflects cultural practices that were deeply embedded in both the Northern and the Southern Netherlands; practices which nonetheless were the cause of much discussion and criticism within society, led first and foremost by cultural and religious reformers. With a degree of caution, it is also possible to place Brouwer’s wider oeuvre of tavern scenes within this same context. Of course, it was impossible for the rhetoricians with their middle class and sometimes even elite profile to directly identify (or be identified) with the tipplers and misfits who populate Brouwer’s paintings. Much more than the genre painters of the sixteenth century, Brouwer wanted to show the seamier side of life. He painted peasants and other marginal figures who were unable to benefit from the rising prosperity of the period. In other words, he was depicting a very different milieu from the one to which he himself belonged.20 Frans Hals, Banquet of the officers of the Cluveniers archery guild, 1627, oil on canvas, 179 x 257.5 cm, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem By projecting the abuse of alcohol on others - in this case, the groups at the very bottom of the social ladder - it was possible for the well-to-do to play down their own drunkenness. This variable moral compass was certainly useful for the rhetoricians, who often met in taverns and who were increasingly branded as ‘drinkers’ as the seventeenth century progressed.22 Even so, the rhetoricians and genre painters were much more than the narrow-minded moralists for which they have so often been portrayed. The creation of a certain moral distance with the subjects depicted went hand in hand with much humour, self-mockery and a delight in double meanings.23 It is noticeable that Brouwer often placed tankards and serving jugs in a central position in his compositions or gave them a central role in the action; for example, in fight scenes. In this sense, he built further on the iconography of the earlier genre painters.24 However, the ubiquity of these tankards and jugs in his oeuvre can also be interpreted as a sign that rather than condemning the drinking behaviour of peasants and down-andouts, he actually wished to offer a reflection about the extreme drinking of his own social class. Brouwer saw nothing wrong in parodying himself as a kannenkijker. In this way, he was laughing at both the excessive drinking of the mainstream rhetoricians and the ‘holier-than-thou’ criticism of a small group of reformers. The setting for Brouwer’s scenes was often one of the so-called ‘bad taverns’. These were disreputable drinking establishments in dark alleys or, more often than not, outside the city walls, where they could escape payment of the municipal tax on beer. The drink was cheaper, but the interior and the atmosphere were shabbier. According to the authorities, these bad taverns were places where criminals gathered, fools gambled and prostitutes sought 103 Brouwer’s unruly portraits ADAM EAKER A driaen Brouwer’s short life coincided with a golden age of Flemish portraiture. From London to Palermo, itinerant Flemish painters working in the first half of the seventeenth century revolutionized the portrait, endowing it with a swagger, scale, and formal inventiveness that defined the aristocratic image well into the twentieth century. The two key protagonists in this development were Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, whose respective encounters with the most ambitious portraits of the Italian Renaissance informed their subsequent achievements at courts across Western Europe. Brouwer enjoyed close ties with both of these artists: a protégé and favorite painter of Rubens, he also sat for his own portrait by Van Dyck. Yet Brouwer worked on a very different scale, and in a very different manner, from his courtly contemporaries, and his achievement and legacy as a portraitist likewise sharply diverged from their examples. This essay explores Brouwer’s portraits, with a focus on the painting now known as The smokers, in which Brouwer depicted himself in the company of his artistic colleagues. In this unconventional self-portrait, Brouwer broke with those contemporaries who strove to represent themselves as artist-aristocrats, instead advertising a persona as the frequenter of dissolute taverns and a painter immersed in his own low-life subject matter. In his self-presentation as an ethnographer of unruly subjects, Brouwer declared himself the heir to the Flemish genre tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. At the same time, he created an alternate model of self-portrayal that such artists as Joos van Craesbeeck and David Teniers II would eagerly emulate. What is more, in his genre paintings, Brouwer made a specialty of human faces that twist and transform under the sway of passing states of drunkenness, David (II) Teniers, The smoker, ca. 1640, oil on panel, 45.09 x 34.29 cm, LACMA, Los Angeles, inv. no. 47.29.18 105 pleasure, pain, or disgust. Whereas Rubens and Van Dyck crafted fictions of aristocratic self-possession, Brouwer used portraiture to reveal the vulnerable human face lurking beneath the social mask. Early modern connoisseurs prided themselves on their ability to recognize not only different hands, but also artist’s models and disguised self-portraits, using conversations about works of art to display insider knowledge and visual acuity.6 A passage from Jacob Campo Weyerman’s eighteenth-century life of Brouwer vividly evokes this phenomenon: Brouwer’s earliest biographers understood him to be an artist who punctured worldly vanities. In Het gulden cabinet, first published in 1662, the Flemish rhetorician Cornelis de Bie captured Brouwer’s drive to expose human folly – a perilous inclination for a portraitist.1 De Bie’s life of Brouwer begins with an anecdote in which the artist uses his paintbrush to transform the ‘coarse, poor linen’ of his clothing into ‘the best and most costly fabric in the world,’ allowing the penniless young painter to appear in a costume that inspires envy in the young ladies of Amsterdam.2 But rather than maintaining the illusion, Brouwer leaps onto the stage at a theater, where he wipes off the painted embellishment of his humble clothing with ‘two dishrags’ in order to teach the audience a lesson about the deceptiveness of appearances. In De Bie’s admiring words, this episode reveals Brouwer as one of those ‘perfect masters’ whose ‘spirit seeks out the material with which to expose the vanity of the world to proud people.’3 De Bie’s Brouwer resembles contemporary moralists like the Jesuit writer Adriaan Poirters, whose work abounds in images of unmasking and exposure.4 …the well-known knight Karel de Moor was pleased to inform us that Adriaen Brouwer once painted a little history piece, consisting of the portraits of Jan Davidsz de Heem, Jan Cossiers, and his own portrait, the gentlemen being seated to smoke and drink. The aforementioned knight, who has seen J.D. de Heem in Antwerp, says that the likeness was wonderfully accurate.7 With this brief passage, Weyerman, who had apparently never seen the painting himself, asserted his authority as a critic by naming a socially elevated informant, the ‘well-known knight Karel de Moor.’ And this informant in turn distinguished himself with a knowledge of both art and artists, being able to assess the accuracy of a likeness and, implicitly, the merits of a picture, because of his acquaintance with one of the picture’s sitters, Jan Davidsz de Heem. wer’s hair is crimped, his mustache curled, and his arm elegantly slung in a cape.10 Only an inscription on the print, identifying Brouwer as gryllorum pictor (painter of whimsies or oddities) alludes to Brouwer’s actual practice as a painter, using a term that had previously been applied to Bosch.11 Van Dyck’s likeness in turn inspired a drawing by one of the putative sitters of The smokers, Jan Lievens, that provides an even more dandified depiction of Brouwer (exhib. cat. no. 51).12 For an artist like Van Dyck, the harmony between his self-presentation as an aristocrat and the image his portraits conveyed of actual noblemen made for a savvy advertising campaign. But the consistently elegant appearance of the artists in the Iconography series opened a potential cleft between self and subject matter, between pictor and gryllorum in the case of Brouwer. stated. In The smokers, Brouwer may appear in a squalid setting, but he does so in a costume (and with a mustache) that recalls the flair of Van Dyck and Lievens’s likenesses. Occupying the center of the panel, Brouwer’s leg, propped on a footstool, provides the fulcrum around which the rest of the composition turns. A row of silver buttons marches down his thigh, terminating in a dangling bow of red ribbon, while a handkerchief daintily protect the painter’s bottom from his seat. Along with the metallic thread in his jacket and the crimson lining of his turned-down cuffs, these embellishments distinguish Brouwer from his companions. He also differs in his reaction to the viewer’s putative intrusion on the scene, conveying more alarm and less self-control. By contrast, the men on the far left and right express sly amusement, the two men in the middle obliviousness. Of course, both the embellishment of Brouwer’s costume, and his apparent dismay, are merely painted fictions, much like the elegant painting overlaid on humble linen in De Bie’s anecdote. Perhaps, however, the divergence between Brouwer’s self-depiction and his portraits by Van Dyck and Lievens has been over- Were viewers really meant to perceive these smokers as portraits? From the earliest inventory records, we know that beholders of this picture have always been keen to play games of identification, and modern art historians have readily followed suit.8 Perhaps Brouwer was catering to a split audience, offering a morsel to the liefhebbers, in the form of disguised portraits, while knowing that his picture could still function as an engaging tavern scene without this insider knowledge. In using familiar models, he would have borrowed a page from the several Flemish painters who included the well-known guild servant Abraham Grapheus in their pictures, populating scenes of history and myth with a recognizable member of their trade.9 Crucially, De Bie’s anecdote is a tale of self-exposure; although Brouwer may mock the faddishness of the Amsterdam joffvrouwen, he’s the one dripping and unmasked on stage. The characterization of Brouwer as a self-deprecating prankster, at home in squalid taverns, may have its origins less in his actual character than in his self-portrayal in the painting now known as The smokers and housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (exhib. cat. no. 39). Among Brouwer’s most familiar works, this small panel is far more than one artist’s attempt to record his own physical features. Instead, it reveals a painter unmasked for his public. The painting depicts five men seated around a table, consuming tobacco and drink. The man on the far left winks at the beholder as he blows smoke from one nostril, while the figure on the far right, better behaved and better dressed, smiles out at us while filling his pipe. But it is the second man from the left, juggling tankard and pipe, who dominates the scene. A curlicue of smoke spills from his mouth, as he gapes in surprise at our intrusion on his revels. Centuries’ worth of commentators have identified this figure as the artist himself.5 The smokers was not the only image of Brouwer in circulation during his lifetime, and his other, more traditional portraits would have aided the work of identification in front of this unconventional image. In the series of portrait prints by or after Van Dyck known as the Iconography, Brouwer appears in a gentlemanly guise that would seem to have little to do with the character recorded by the early biographers (see exhib. cat. nos. 51, 52 and 54). In Van Dyck’s grisaille and the print that followed it, Brou- 106 Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1634, oil on panel, 21.6 x 17.2 cm, Boughton House, The Duke of Buccleuch Collection, Northamptonshire , inv. no. 2008/78 Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert, after Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1635/55, engraving, 24.2 x 16.1 cm, KBR, Brussels, inv. no. S.IV 3616 107 Jan Lievens, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1640, chalk on paper, 22.1 x 18.4 cm, Fondation Custodia, Paris, inv. no. I 1203 1650s and now in the Petit Palais in Paris.15 In this picture, which likely celebrates a gathering of the Antwerp and Brussels guilds, a raucous company of well-dressed men has gathered around a table set with oysters, pie, starched linen, and gleaming plate. They raise their glasses to greet the arrival of a fool in motley, his chest spangled with the metal plates or breuken associated with the guild.16 The gilt tooled leather wall hanging behind this merry company boasts several paintings, perhaps the work of some of the revelers themselves. However much they embrace a spirit of festive intoxication, paintings that depict the revels of rhetoricians quarantine artistic prodigality within a socially recognized framework, a licensed arena of excess equivalent to the In her extensive discussion of Brouwer’s work as a portraitist, Karolien de Clippel has argued that The smokers represents a scene of initiation, marking the year 1635, when ‘both Jan Lievens and Jan Davidsz de Heem had themselves registered as masters in the guild…[and] Adriaen Brouwer was admitted to the Violieren chamber of rhetoric.’13 The dating is plausible, and the milestones of that year offer an attractive sense of the bonds between these artists. But unlike other contemporary paintings that celebrate the fraternal rites of guilds and chambers of rhetoric, Brouwer’s picture lacks the trappings with which such organizations marked their institutional character.14 A fitting contrast appears in a group portrait painted by Gonzales Coques in the carnival season. Brouwer, by contrast, proposed something far more transgressive: inebriation as the artist’s natural state and the tavern, not the well-appointed guildhall, as his home. for Rubens, despite the gulf between their public personae and subject matter.21 Moreover, Brouwer’s technique, particularly in passages where the ground remains visible, was one more facet of his self-positioning as the heir to the genre painting tradition inaugurated by Bosch and given much of its lasting repertoire of pictorial motifs by Bruegel.22 Brouwer was not the only artist in the 1630s to associate his own creativity with the frenzy of drink. In his Prodigal son from the mid-1630s, now in Dresden, Rembrandt depicted himself and his wife Saskia in a tavern or brothel setting, raising a toast to the beholder.17 In their own scenes of ritualized carousing, the Northern European artists known in Rome as the Bamboccianti both travestied and drew vindication from the Dionysian tradition of wine-fueled inspiration. In the words of David Levine, one tavern picture by Pieter van Laer ‘lays bare the pretentious assumptions…that artists should be dignified, learned gentlemen, and that art can be taught by following a standard set of rules. At the same time it presents a serious counter-theory…that true artists are moved to create by forces beyond rational comprehension.’18 Brouwer cunningly updated this classical precedent when he emphasized the intoxicating effect of tobacco, a relatively recent import from the Americas that greatly alarmed local moralists.19 But other traditions have proposed similar equivalences between inspiration and intoxication. Writing on East Asian literati painting, Yukio Lippit has coined the phrase ‘rhetorical inebriation’ to argue for the ‘crucial distinction…between any actual habits of alcoholic consumption…and the way they are communicated as a physical and spiritual condition for artistic production.’20 Such a distinction allows us to separate speculation about Brouwer’s personal (bad) habits from a discussion of his visual enactment of inebriation in his brushwork or his self-portrait. Bruegel’s biographer Karel van Mander argued that the artist used to disguise himself as peasant so that he might mingle among the revelers at peasant fairs, gathering material for his art.23 In portraying himself as the participant-observer of his own subject matter, Brouwer thus claimed the mantel of Bruegelian ethnographic realism. The smokers in turn proved a potent source for later artists looking to position themselves within this same tradition. Brouwer’s student Joos van Craesbeeck embraced ‘rhetorical inebriation’ in his own self-portraits, perhaps expressing his indebtedness to his teacher rather than something essential about his own character.24 As De Clippel has noted, De Bie’s description of Van Craesbeeck’s self-portraits provides a suggestion of the artistic values that he may have learned from Brouwer: “he did not flatter himself with beauty but painted himself uglier than he really was, being painted now yawning then spewing or pulling faces and grimacing by biting his tongue…”25 In a painting now in Los Angeles, David Teniers the Younger made an even more explicit appropriation of Brouwer’s barfly pose (exhib. cat. no. 40). Teniers’s emulation of Brouwer is striking given the artist’s deep investment in securing the trappings of nobility and his appearance as a landed seigneur in other self-portraits.26 The LACMA self-portrait should be understood not as a statement of Teniers’s identification with his boorish subjects, but rather as an art historical pose, a self-positioning as Brouwer’s artistic successor. Teniers’s pictorial citation aligns with his employment as an archducal curator and reproductive artist, a painter who also worked as an art historian.27 Intriguingly, while Teniers faithfully reproduces certain details of Brouwer’s scene, such as the white kerchief on top of the stool and the earthenware jar below it, he replaced the window in the background with an Brouwer’s ‘rhetorical inebriation’ takes the form not just of lowlife subject matter, but of a performatively unruly and undisciplined application of paint that leaves the bare ground shining through, all the while achieving bravura effects of billowing smoke or the glaze of earthenware. As De Clippel has argued, Brouwer used ‘form metaphorically so that format, color, size, and technique became meaningful,’ and it was this harmony between form and subject matter that gave Brouwer his significance Gonzales Coques, The artists’ banquet, c. 1650, oil on copper, 59 × 75.5 cm, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris (Photo © RMN-Grand Palais / Agence Bulloz) 108 109 building block of visual storytelling.30 But Brouwer was not systematic in this way, or interested in the elevated genre of history painting. Instead, his grimacing faces bespeak a commitment to realism, understood here as another aspect of his furtherance of the tradition of Bruegel. expanse of blank wall. This passage, devoting almost a quarter of the panel to empty space, serves as a master class in Brouwerian technique, namely the application of loose brushwork atop a still visible ground. It is tempting to read such self-portraits at the margins of society as a rejection of the aspirational self-portraiture of Rubens and Van Dyck. But the friendship between Rubens and Brouwer reveals that the two poses - as either aristocrat or drunkard - were not necessarily hostile to one another, and indeed they could co-exist within the corpus of self-portraits by a single artist like Teniers.28 Rather, all of these self-portraits bespeak a canny recognition that artists were also brands, catering to an expectation from their public that they embody their subject matter. In The smokers, Brouwer painted not just his self-portrait but also his self-commodification as ‘Brouwer,’ an artist whose name was already a byword for the low-life of taverns, just as Bosch and Bruegel’s names were transformed into signifiers of devilish invention and peasant life respectively. By flanking himself with other artists, themselves recognizable to the initiated connoisseur who would have acquired such a picture, Brouwer proposed a provocative equivalence between the stock figure of the drunkard and that of the artist per se. Pieter Brueghel the Younger (?), Yawning man, oil on panel, 12.6 x 9.2 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels Alongside his collection of works by Brouwer, Rubens owned Bruegel’s depiction of a yawning man.31 His nose and cheeks flushed, perhaps with drink, his eyes narrowed to slits, the yawning man displays exactly the kind of face, ruled by bodily impulse as opposed to social convention, that fascinated Brouwer.32 Before they became the subjects of independent works of art, such unruly faces might make cameos within devotional painting, perhaps ringing the suffering countenance of Christ, a function they frequently serve in works by Bosch and his followers.33 Bruegel extracted grotesque faces from biblical narrative and embedded them in his depiction of peasant life. Brouwer in turn made yawning, grimacing, and wincing faces look like true portraits, grounded in the life study of sitters who were occasionally not anonymous peasants but rather fellow artists. A mediating figure between Bruegel and Brouwer is Caravaggio, whose legacy Rubens promoted in Antwerp and may have personally introduced to Brouwer.34 In paintings such as The boy being bitten by a lizard, Caravaggio sought to fix a transient moment of pain on a human face. Probably not a literal self-portrait, the disposition of the figure, cheating out toward the beholder while raising one hand, suggests that the artist studied his own expression for the painting, twisting away from the canvas to look in the mirror.35 Caravaggio may have provided Brouwer with one model of how to take the grimacing faces of Bosch and Bruegel in a new direction, merging their brutal honesty with the humanism of self-examination. Conventional portraiture enticed sitters with the fantasy of Apollonian self-mastery, a public face that operated outside the vulnerability of legible affect or mortal decay. A representative example from the same decade as The smokers is Van Dyck’s portrait of the Duke of Richmond and Lennox, which now hangs a few galleries away from Brouwer’s painting at The Met.29 Van Dyck’s duke is equal parts handsome and impassive, his aristocratic status expressed by both his affectless face and the chivalric emblems that spangle his clothing. The greyhound who rests her muzzle against his hip serves as a foil to his manly self-control with her unabashed expression of canine devotion. She also models our own deferential beholding of the portrait, looking up at the duke from below. The regal impassivity of Van Dyck’s duke can offer one measure of the extreme degree of affect that Brouwer projected onto his own sitters. In famous paintings such as The bitter drink or The back operation (exhib. cat. no. 22), Brouwer investigated the impact of extreme sensation - a foul taste, a brutal medical intervention - on the human face. Other seventeenth-century artists, most notably Charles Le Brun, studied the human face in extremis as a Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of James Stuart, Duke of Richmond and Lennox, ca. 1633/35, oil on canvas, 215.9 x 127.6 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889), New York 110 111 Boy bitten by a lizard has provided fodder for endless allegorical readings that perhaps distract from its fundamental interest as an erotically charged work of affective realism. Similarly, much of the literature on Brouwer’s portraits concerns potential allegories of the five senses or the seven deadly sins. But the putative ‘meaning’ of Brouwer’s portraits may have been frankly beside the point for an original audience that took more delight in admiring the artist’s skill or identifying his sitters. The so-called Fat man, for example, now in the Mauritshuis, is the bust-length image of a sitter who tucks his hand inside his jacket as he looks off to the side (exhib. cat. no. 29). This small portrait recalls some of the compositional devices of Van Dyck’s Iconography although Brouwer’s man is far more modestly dressed than Van Dyck’s sitters, his jacket unbuttoned around his paunch. De Clippel assigns this portrait an allegorical significance as a personification of Luxuria and identifies its sitter with the engraver Paulus Pontius.36 It is perfectly plausible that Brouwer did find a pretext for such unconventional portraits in an allegorical series, or that he took Pontius as his model. But the ultimate interest of such pictures lies elsewhere, in the scrutiny that Brouwer brought to bear on the human face as a vehicle of affect and not a social mask. The looseness of Brouwer’s brushwork echoes the nonchalance of his sitter’s attire, a kind of painting that lets its undergarments peek through. More than anything else, the man’s face, with its parted lips, swollen eyelids, and chin tucked into rolls of fat, distinguishes this painting from a commissioned portrait. Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, Boy bitten by a lizard, oil on panel, 66 x 49.5 cm, The National Gallery, London As a metaphor for a painter’s achievement, De Bie’s anecdote about Brouwer wiping away his painted embroidery may appear strangely destructive, Brouwer’s final gesture being one of self-erasure. Yet De Bie’s tale provides an apt analogy for a portrait like the The fat man, whose facture does indeed look wiped and smeared, crafted as much with a “wet dishrag” as with a brush. In his portraits, Brouwer removed the social make-up of conventional portraiture to examine the human face underneath. However unsparingly he examined the drunkenness and dissolution around him, this artist scrutinized no face more probingly than his own. What he found in the mirror, he then recorded in his art, for all the world to see. 112 Adriaen Brouwer, A fat man, ca. 1634/37, oil on panel, 22.9 x 16.1 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 601 The painter’s painter C H R I S T O P H E R D. M . AT K I N S A Artists as audience driaen Brouwer developed an open manner of painting that utilized exposed grounds and localized color to craft tonally complex scenes in which figures seamlessly inhabit the spaces in which they appear despite a limited palette. This highly innovative approach to painting was much admired by the artistic luminaries of his day, including Rubens and Rembrandt. Both artists, and others, collected Brouwer’s paintings and adopted techniques and forms from his pictures. The question is, why did Brouwer’s art resonate especially strongly with other artists? According to the 1656 inventory of his possessions, Rembrandt owned ‘een stuckie van Ad. Brouwer, sijnde een koekebacker’ (‘a piece by Ad. Brouwer, showing a pastry baker’).1 This painting may be Brouwer’s early Pancake baker now in the Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.2 The pancake baker encapsulates the artist’s highly innovative and impactful approach to painting.3 The protagonist, a humble figure who wears dirty and mended clothing and cap, prepares a simple meal over an open flame. His straggly facial hair, broad nose, and squat proportions mark him, and the rest of the characters, as members of the lower class. The interior space likewise conveys a level of disrepair evocative of individuals who are not thriving financially. The way this modest scene is painted is extraordinary. While a caricature, the pancake baker convincingly possesses volume and occupies space. The depth of the shallow scene is likewise successful despite the use of limited means to convey depth. The still life elements in the foreground showcase a variety of textures and light effects. The delicate licks of flame and thick waft of smoke are executed masterfully as these ephemeral, fleeting elements continue to be recognized as among the most difficult to render.4 Brouwer employed a limited palette and reduced number of paint layers to accomplish all of these features. Indeed, the ruddy red in the cap, sleeve, earthenware jugs, and elsewhere is an exposed mid-tone. In the background, Brouwer loosely painted atop a brownish preparatory ground to evoke the door, furniture, and far wall. Utilizing under layers in this way created tonal unity with an economy of means. This essay attempts to answer this question by tracing other painters’ deep engagement with his art and investigating the interrelationships between Brouwer’s particular, if not personalized, manner of painting and those of the painters who turned to his example, especially Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Rubens. In turn, this essay details Brouwer’s innovations, especially his approach to coloring and tonal unity, and places them in relation to then current theories of art to posit that Brouwer’s paintings offered pictorial formulations of several key concepts of early modern art theory. Adriaen Brouwer, The pancake baker, ca. 1624, oil on panel, 34 x 28.4 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, inv. no. 601 A surprisingly large number of Adriaen Brouwer’s pictures appear in the collections of other artists in his lifetime and shortly 115 thereafter. At his death in 1640, Rubens owned seventeen paintings attributed to Brouwer.5 By 1656, Rembrandt assembled seven pictures by Brouwer for his collection.6 Jan Miense Molenaer (1609/10-1668) owned five paintings by 1668.7 Earlier, the 1641 inventory of Jacques de Gheyn III’s (1596-1641) possessions lists a work by Brouwer.8 Later, Cornelis Dusart (16601704) owned fifteen paintings and an album of 40 drawings by Brouwer by 1704.9 In total, there are at least 45 instances in the seventeenth-century of artists owning paintings by Brouwer, an exceedingly high number. Brouwer’s known oeuvre currently stands at about 65 pictures. No doubt more pictures have been lost or misidentified, but as Brouwer died early at but 34 years old his total production must have been relatively low. As such, other artists acquired an exceedingly high percentage of Brouwer’s paintings for their personal collections. Arnold Houbraken’s life of Brouwer published in 1718 also demonstrates how artists in particular appreciated Brouwer’s paintings. As a painter himself, Houbraken’s decision to devote fourteen pages to Brouwer’s life is, in itself, evidence supporting this position. More so, Houbraken wove a tale of how Frans Hals came to appreciate Brouwer’s abilities. In the telling, Hals came upon a young Brouwer and immediately recognized his potential.10 Later in his biography Houbraken penned a related story of how Rubens admired Brouwer’s art. According to Houbraken, Rubens convinced authorities to release Brouwer from prison in Antwerp because he was so impressed with his paintings and he intended to erect a funeral monument to Brouwer, although Rubens died before he could commemorate his colleague in this way. Houbraken is not always a reliable chronicler so it is not possible to determine whether either story is based in reality. Regardless, Houbraken’s biographical anecdotes operate as efforts at characterization. In this light, Houbraken constructed an image of Brouwer who was appreciated by two of the greatest painters of his day. Adriaen Brouwer, The pancake baker, oil on panel, 28.9 x 36.3 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, inv. no. 909 117 Engagement and impact Correspondences between Brouwer’s and Hals’s styles do not occur until the mid-1620s when Brouwer likely was working as an independent painter. As Gerard Knuttel observed of Hals’s early works would have offered Brouwer no help establishing relationships between tone and color.12 Alternatively, Hals’s so-called Verdonck from about 1627 aligns with the effects Brouwer favored.13 Hals constructed his portrait from a warm yellowish-brown under layer that peeks through overlapping gray-brown washes to create a mottled background. The tones of this under layer also correspond to those in the figure’s face so that Hals achieves tonal unity and uses that unity to define space through color rather than shade. Likewise, the long wisps of unblended brushstrokes that create Verdonck’s hair, beard, and mustache correspond to Brouwer’s own choppy jabs of unblended paint. Those artists who admired and collected Brouwer’s paintings also directly engaged his paintings. Most frequently, Brouwer’s paintings have long been related to those of Frans Hals.11 Hals’s small, sketch-like renderings have the most in common with Brouwer’s approach. Compare the Young man in large hat in Washington from about 1630 with A fat man in the Mauritshuis. Similar in size, both of these small pictures have extremely limited palettes. Thinly painted washes of muddy gray enliven the still visible ground. Bold strokes of dark umber mark the contours and shadows. White is used sparingly to depict shirts beneath jackets. Despite the sparse material differentiation, the faces pulse with life. Frans Hals, Portrait of Pieter Cornelisz van der Morsch, 1616, oil on canvas, transferred to panel, 88.1 x 69.5 cm, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, inv. no. 61 42.2 Adriaen Brouwer, A fat man, ca. 1634/37, oil on panel, 22.9 x 16.1 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 601 118 Elements that appear in Brouwer’s paintings appear in Hals’s pictures up until the mid-1630s. Hals’s Malle babbe from about 1635 is built upon the warm, rich mid-tone of the under layer. Atop this, Hals painted shadows and highlights with broad, often wetin-wet strokes. Her face stands alone, but it is through the shared tones of her bodice and the background that her form emerges as a three dimensional presence. And, of course, as a character this rough-hewn member of the lower classes with tankard primed for another drink is a kindred spirit to the man in Brouwer’s Bitter Drink (see p. 88). Hals loosened his brushwork and enlivened their visages with juxtaposed swatches of unmodulated color, but they are not tonally unified in the same way. Under layers impact surface color, but they do not remain visible in uncovered windows to the modeling beneath. Only occasionally are the ground and dead coloring visible, and then only in the background. Over time, more and more of Hals’s build-up occurs atop these under layers. In the process, his paintings flatten so that they intentionally operate as surfaces more than they do as spaces with depth. Taking stock of Hals’s artistic trajectory in relation to Brouwer’s known oeuvre, it is difficult to assign the direction of influence. Brouwer did not date his pictures and we have few paintings by Hals that can be securely dated between 1616 and 1625. Around While Hals’s later portraits, those produced from 1635 onward, gradually incorporate elements from his earlier genre paintings, these features do not correspond to equivalents in Brouwer’s art. Frans Hals, Portrait of Verdonck, oil on panel, 46.7 x 35.5 cm, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, inv. no. 1200 Frans Hals, Malle Babbe, oil on canvas, 75 × 64 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no. 801C 119 1625, and certainly by 1627 when Brouwer likely would have been an independent master, elements that appear in Brouwer’s paintings occur in pictures by Hals. One thing can be said for certain – the similarities between the two artists’ approach to painting are possible without having witnessed each other paint. It is possible to discern how Brouwer and Hals achieved their tonal effects, utilized exposed under layers, and employed unblended brushwork from finished paintings.14 Pictorial affinities also exist between Brouwer’s paintings and those of other Dutch artists active in the late 1620s and early 1630s. Scholars have long known that Brouwer and Jan Lievens (1607-74) knew each other. Lievens drew a portrait (exh. cat. nr. 51) of Brouwer and Brouwer included Lievens in The smokers. Both of these works are dated to after 1635 when Lievens arrived in Antwerp. Knuttel posited that the two artists’ relationship may predate this as both were active in Amsterdam in the early 1630s and shared immigrant backgrounds in addition to being fellow painters of a comparable age.15 The works of both artists support Knuttel’s observation. Lievens’s Portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn from about 1628 in the Rijksmuseum has much in common with Brouwer’s approach to painting. Lievens situated Rembrandt’s head atop a cloak that shares its tonalities with the loosely washed background. Even more so the specific coloring of thin grays loosely brushed across brown grounds that frequently peek into the surface can be found throughout Brouwer’s paintings.16 Jan Lievens, Portrait of Rembrandt van Rijn, oil on panel, 57 cm × 44.7 cm, on loan from a private collection to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-C-1598 The interrelationships between Brouwer’s and Lievens’s work in the 1620s lends further insight to Rembrandt’s interest in Brouwer’s art given Lievens’s and Rembrandt’s cooperative relationship at the time. Rembrandt’s efforts in the latter 1620s likewise have much to do with Brouwer’s. Rembrandt’s Samson and Delilah now in Berlin with its simple interior cast of yellowed floorboards, exposed brown ground curtain, and gray washed far wall and overall thinly painted peripheral elements corresponds to Brouwer’s tavern settings. In the secular realm, Rembrandt’s Artist in the studio in Boston has more texture, but the color scheme, lighting, and drab conception of interior space finds echoes in nearly every genre scene Brouwer painted. Interestingly, the points of convergence between the two artists’ work dissipate when Brouwer moved to Antwerp in the early 1630s despite Rembrandt retaining possession of so many of Brouwer’s paintings by the time of the inventory of his possessions in 1656.17 This suggests an ongoing appreciation for Brouwer’s aesthetic even if it was more closely aligned with his own creations from near- 120 Rembrandt van Rijn, An artist in the studio, oil on panel, 24.8 x 31.7 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. no. 38.1838 As Karolien de Clippel has analyzed, Rubens’s engagement with Brouwer came later, in the 1630s, after Brouwer relocated to Antwerp. For De Clippel, Brouwer’s landscapes had the most appeal, perhaps as Rubens was turning to this genre himself at the time.22 There, as in Landscape with moon and stars (see p. 75-77) now in the Courtauld, Rubens emulated Brouwer’s thin layers and use of light to create mood, particularly as Rubens conceived of landscape as possessing emotional potency.23 In figure paintings, De Clippel argued, Rubens’s interests mirrored Brouwer’s interest in violence, dramatic gestures, and expressive faces even if the two artists worked in completely different genres, on different scales, and for clients of vastly different sorts. From De Clippel’s analysis, it seems that Rubens favored Brouwer’s later works, perhaps because these were the ones with which he was familiar from their shared time in Antwerp. Although, if Houbraken is to be believed, Rubens already had familiarity with Brouwer’s work by the time he met him in Antwerp.24 ly three decades earlier. One wonders if retention of Brouwer’s paintings also suggests that perhaps Rembrandt was inspired deeply by Brouwer’s art. Likewise, as elements of Brouwer’s approach to painting can be identified in the works of Hals, Lievens, and Rembrandt, perhaps it was Brouwer who influenced each of them. Coloring and brushwork In truth, many Dutch painters in the mid to late 1620s employed a tonal approach to painting. Mariët Westermann linked Adriaen van de Venne’s (1589-1662) grauwtjes from the 1620s and 1630s with Brouwer.18 Elsewhere, Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) developed an open approach to landscapes based on exposed brown grounds operating as mid-tones while Pieter Claesz. (1597/81661) and Willem Heda (1594-1680) utilized glossy finishes, but painted simple still lifes in muted browns and grays. Intriguingly, Jonathan Israel posited that Dutch artists might have needed to focus their palettes in the 1620s because the end of the Twelve Years Truce and resumption of hostilities with the Spanish reduced trade and imports, including of the materials from which other pigments were made.19 Browns, yellows, and grays were more easily locally sourced materials. In a related sense, John Michael Montias argued that utilizing under layers in the painting surface and working with thinner layers of paint had an economic benefit, if not motivation.20 For Montias, tonal painting would have lowered production costs by lowering the artist’s labor. This allowed artists to create more paintings and sell more pictures, even if the price of individual pictures decreased. Elsewhere it has been argued that Montias’s arguments might have been particularly apt given the economic conditions Israel described.21 This explanation fails, however, to take into account the aesthetic appeal of tonal painting and does not explain why other painters turned so frequently to Brouwer’s art. Brouwer’s art appealed to other painters, perhaps above all other audiences, because he developed a creative approach that was ensconced in contemporary aesthetic debates. De Clippel has postulated that Rubens turned to Brouwer because he employed color metaphorically.25 His brown and gray palette connoted dirtiness, drabness, and other less than positive qualities. By using these colors for subjects culled from the lower strata of society behaving badly Brouwer conveyed critique of the depicted activities, and those represented in his paintings.26 As Rubens himself was seeking to articulate a theory of color rooted in humanist concerns he must have appreciated Brouwer’s efforts, even if his subjects and themes were not as elevated as his own.27 Brouwer’s limited palette also focused attention on his handling of paint. As Westermann has traced, reduced color has a long tradition of “supreme finesse” from Albrecht Dürer’s (14711528) engravings to Hendrick Goltzius’s (1558-1617) pen paintings wherein artists’ avoidance of color offered opportunities to display manual virtuosity.28 Maria Pousão-Smith has argued that Brouwer developed a hybrid technique that simultaneously displayed elements associated with net (‘neat) and ruw (‘rough’) painting, the dominant ideologies for pictorial style in Dutch and Flemish artistic circles in the seventeenth century.29 Brouwer’s paintings evoked net through the thin paint layers and delicacy of brushwork while also connecting to ruw in the sketchiness of the pictures achieved through exposed brushstrokes.30 PousãoSmith continued to argue that these normally divorced techniques Rembrandt van Rijn, Samson and Delilah, 1628, oil on panel, 61.3 x 50.1 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no. 812A 123 encouraged active viewing as the net features drew viewers to inspect pictures closely while the ruw elements begged consideration from distance where the sketchy effects blend together. Brouwer’s achievement of tonal unity are the very features that resonated most frequently in the work of contemporary painters as evidenced by the frequency with which other painters experimented with related techniques. Brouwer’s exposed, loose brushwork also corresponds to the clearly visible virtuoso touches that sixteenth-century Venetian painters used to mark their paintings. Brouwer’s network of admirers including Rubens, Rembrandt, and Hals all developed their styles in relation to Venetian painting and the colorito aesthetic they displayed so it is reasonable to wonder if these artists perceived Brouwer’s paintings similarly.37 Or, as in the case of Hals, wherein the artist’s emulation of Venetian painting most likely was based on textual descriptions of Venetian painting rather than on direct observation of Venetian pictorial effects, perhaps Brouwer’s tonal paintings could have operated as northern visualizations of the aesthetics embodied by colorito in the absence of other models.38 Whether Brouwer himself derived inspiration from Venetian colorito or not is not possible to ascertain. But lack of intentionality on Brouwer’s part would not preclude others from understanding his paintings as corollaries to Venetian approaches to painting. Lossigheyt (‘looseness’) is another concept that early authors connected to Brouwer’s art. Houbraken used a form of the word twice in his life of the artist. Houbraken characterized Brouwer’s paintings in general as ‘things smeared loosely with spirit’.31 Later he described a particular picture as ‘drawn with such wondrous certainty, and painted so loosely that it could serve as a demonstration piece of his art’.32 As viewers ‘were astonished by his facility, wit, and inventions’, looseness was a quality worthy of praise for Houbraken. Though he did not use the term, Isaac Bullart had earlier identified the concepts encapsulated by the term lossigheyt in his poem composed around 1650 when he wrote in reference to Brouwer ‘that a vulgar or grotesque action, perfectly represented by the brush, will always find greater approval than a pompous and prominent one that is done in bad grace’.33 As Pousão-Smith has excavated, Samuel van Hoogstraten and Franciscus Junius, among others, used lossigheyt to describe manual suppleness and flexibility of movement on the part of the painter.34 In turn, the agility of the artist’s hand could manifest itself materially in passages of painterly accomplishment ranging from the articulation of different depicted materials to calligraphic brushstrokes. As a result, Houbraken and Bullart employed concepts of looseness to acknowledge and praise Brouwer’s facility with the brush. ued Brouwer’s art independent of his reputation and prestige as various sources suggest he was frequently in dire financial situations. Likewise, Brouwer died early, before he might have been able to reap benefit fully from the regard in which he was held, at least among painters. It was Brouwer’s approach to painting that engendered appreciation of the artist, not appreciation of an artist engendering adoption of specific means. Artists admired and valued Brouwer’s art and must have enjoyed looking at the resulting products. In turn, perhaps it was painters who could best appreciate what Brouwer accomplished. Colorito, lossigheyt, and other aesthetic concepts help us understand how Brouwer and early modern viewers were interested in the artist’s self-conscious explorations of the distinctive capacities of oil paint. Like Rubens, Rembrandt, and Hals, Brouwer experimented with what could be done in paint. Traversing beyond the potential of brushwork, he developed creative solutions to coloring, tonal construction, and tonal integration. These concerns, of course, are the exclusive domain of painters. Perhaps this is why other painters responded so positively to Brouwer’s art. Seeing his pictures they could imagine Brouwer’s process, empathize with his concerns, and appreciate his solutions. They knew fully the technical challenges posed by their shared materials and could marvel at Brouwer’s deceptively simple innovations. Given the relationships between color and handling, it is possible that some of these early viewers also connected Brouwer’s art to Italian art discourse and the concept of colorito.35 Since the sixteenth century colorito, (‘coloring’), was one of the leading components of Italian art theory. As opposed to its alternative, designo (‘design’), colorito centered on the act of applying color through paint and brushwork, usually without a preparatory sketch or under drawing. Epitomized by sixteenth-century Venetian painting, especially that of Titian, colorito concerned building forms, tonal schemes, and light effects through non-linear application of paint, including the utilization of under layers and grounds. As David Rosand delineated, early modern artistic discourse defined Venetian painting and colorito by its process.36 As a result, process carried meaning. In many ways, colorito correlates with the tonal approach of Brouwer. Though a known draftsman, Brouwer’s paintings are the result of worked up layers of paint wherein layers beneath the surface create tonal unity. And, this approach to construction of space through color rather than line as well as Most often scholars explore the interrelationships between artists as emulation or appropriation. In these processes, an artist seeks to enter into dialogue, often through shared formal elements, with another master as a means to assert his or her own abilities. In other instances, emulation and appropriation have been interpreted as a means to establish a market niche or brand by positioning one’s art in relation to another’s. Both scenarios are dependent upon the valued identity of the artist being emulated. Brouwer’s case perhaps suggests a different dynamic. Artists may have val- 124 125 The scum of the earth for the flower of the nation Adriaen Brouwer and his public in the Netherlands of the 17th century ELMER KOLFIN T he artist and diplomat Peter Paul Rubens was one of the leading figures of his day. As early as 1632, he already owned a painting of a peasant dance by Brouwer, a work that has only been Paulus Pontius, after Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1645/46, engraving, 23,4 x 15,6 cm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels inv. no. S.II 29711 Matthijs van den Bergh, after Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants dance, 1659, drawing, 21,1 x 21,5 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, inv. no. KdZ 133 127 Brouwer in books preserved in the form of a drawn copy. It depicts a shameless group of dancing, cavorting and vomiting yokels.1 By the time of his death in 1642, the highly ambitious Amsterdam merchant Nicolaas Sohier (1590-1642) was the proud possessor of a Kontafvegertje by Brouwer: a painting of someone wiping a child’s bottom (exhib. cat. no. 23).2 As far as we know, the two earliest printed texts about Brouwer’s work are two poems. They were written by Willem Schellinks (1627-1678), who was also an artist, and they were published in 1656-1657.7 The first is a paean of praise to a painting about a quack; the second is equally enthusiastic about a singer of songs. It is not possible to identify with precision the two paintings to which the poems refer.8 In the poem about the quack, Schellinks praises Brouwer’s depiction of the well-known comic figures of the deceitful charlatan and the boorish peasant, in which the characteristic slyness of the former and the gullibility of the latter are played off against each other, while the viewer is able to see through the natures of both. According to Schellinks, the entire scene is so convincingly reproduced that you can almost hear the quack talking when you look at the painting.9 Rubens and Sohier were just two of the many respectable and respected citizens of standing who took delight in looking at paintings which depicted this kind of boorish, highly unrespectable behaviour. In his analysis of the 17th century biographies of Brouwer, the art historian Hans Joachim Raupp points to the clear moral undertone that is associated with his paintings. He suggests that this functions as an embedding for the high appreciation of Brouwer and his work. In this respect, Raupp draw parallels between the biographical descriptions of Brouwer and those of the cynical philosophers. As a result, he places Brouwer’s work in the tradition of classical satire.3 Following on from Raupp’s discourse, this article will seek to give a detailed analysis of Brouwer’s public and the manner in which that public responded to his art, in the hope of explaining how Brouwer managed to appeal to the flower of the nation with paintings depicting the scum of the earth, and also why he did it. How did he ensure that his public remained fascinated, even though they had seen the joke time after time, so that they continued to be willing to pay high prices for seemingly small and simple panels?4 To understand this, our focus will be placed on Brouwer’s visual language and not on his virtuoso technique, even though this undoubtedly played a role in his success.5 Op een Quakzalver Geschildert van Adriaan Brouwer Hier zwetst een snaakzen Asculááp’, Men hoort hem schier zijn klap-lit roeren; Hoe listigh licht men hier den aap! Wat isser aandacht in de Boeren! Het Schilder-wit is hier geraakt. ’t Penceel toont ons dit wonder heden. Hoe diende Brouwer het geluk! Men kan het uit dit konst stuk merken Zo heer’lijk als dit Meester stuk Zijn al zijn noit volprezen werken. The topos of seeming to hear what someone in a painting wants to say as an indication of the realism with which the scene is portrayed is again reflected in the opening and closing lines of the poem about the peasant singer. The final lines also contain a play on words: ‘setting people on fire’ can not only mean ‘putting new life into them’ but also ‘exciting their passions’: The texts written in the 17th century about Brouwer and his work paint a consistent picture of praise and admiration for the artist.6 The inscriptions under prints made to Brouwer designs indicate what meanings people attached - or thought they could attach to his scenes. The inventories of estates allow us to see exactly who his public were and how they reacted to his paintings. Last but not least, a brief journey into the world of the poet and Brouwer’s contemporary, Adriaen Gerbrandsz. Bredero (1585-1618), will provide us with insights that might have influenced Brouwer in making the artistic choices he did. A combination of these different sources will help us to answer the question of why Brouwer’s low-brow compositions were so popular with an essential high-brow public that was proud of its own perceived cultural sophistication. Op een Liet-zinger Hoe geestig lokt dees Boere-Orphé, Het volk van alderhande sné! ‘t Is of men hem zijn grollen Bescheidelijk hoort lollen. ’t Penceel stelt ons hier puik ten toon, Een schat van konst, zo overschoon Dat uytroept elk aanschouwer: Noit groter geest als Brouwer. 128 Hoe achterhaelt de konst natuir! Hier hapert maar Prometeus vuur, Om ’t Volkjen aan te steeken; Haar schort niet als het spreeken. sion in the introduction by Isaac Bullart to his survey of the life and work of Brouwer, which appeared posthumously in Academie des sciences et des arts (1682). Bullart argued that in music, literature and art there is such a thing as a serious genre and a light-hearted genre. The task of art was to reproduce nature. Consequently, the value of this art was derived not from the subject it depicted, but from the veracity with which that subject was depicted. In other words, a base subject perfectly painted was worthy of greater merit than an elevated subject imperfectly painted. Never before, concluded Bullart, had the portrayal of base subjects been achieved with such telling and life-like precision than in the paintings created by the farcical genius of Brouwer.13 Schellinks appreciated Brouwer for his ‘groter geest’ (greater spirit); in other words, the skill with which he was able to depict the essential distinctiveness of each of his comic figures with lifelike accuracy. This is a common theme in texts about Brouwer and it demanded both insight into human nature and a high degree of artistic talent to be able to express it. Brouwer owed this deep insight, or so it was believed, to his own manner of living. Cornelis de Bie was the first writer to comment that Brouwer’s work reflected Brouwer’s life: ‘En soo hy was in’t werck, soo droegh hy hem in’t leeven’.10 He was able to paint dissolute and sensuous artistic scenes because that was the kind of life he lived in practice. At the same time, De Bie makes clear that Brouwer was much more than just a degenerate, and acknowledges that he had a sharp intelligence and a clear understanding of the humanity inherent in people’s shortcomings: ‘Siet hoe veer de verstanden van perfecte Meesters sijn swierende. Hoe veer dat hunnen gheest de stoffe gaet soecken om de ydelheydt des wereldts aen hooveerdighe menschen voor ooghen te houden’.11 The most exhaustive text over Brouwer was contained in Arnold Houbraken’s Grote Schouburg (1718-1721). He dealt with the same themes as his predecessors, but also gave more information about the artist’s life and work, and was the first to name some of the early owners of Brouwer’s paintings.14 He was also able to express well what made Brouwer such an outstanding artist. Describing the naturalism and precision that made Peasants fighting with soldiers a text-book example of Brouwer’s work, he wrote: ‘Alles was zoo natuurlyk naar den aart der hartstogten, in de wezenstrekken verbeeld, en zoo verwonderlyk vast geteekent, en los geschildert dat het wel tot een proefstuk van zyn Konst kon verstrekken’.15 Likewise, the realism and humanity of another piece with card-playing prison wardens and a man defecating in the background was so affecting that one could not help but laugh: ‘[Het was] zoo natuurlyk en potsig vertoont was, dat men ‘t zelve zonder te lachen niet konde aanzien’.16 Houbraken was more explicitly fulsome in his praise about the key aspect of Brouwer’s work that Schellinks, De Bie, Von Sandrart and Bullart had already described: the natural and realistic depiction of the essential characteristics of comic figures, which made Brouwer’s paintings so irresistibly funny. Houbraken also added a comment about the technical virtuosity with which everything was painted. An important constant in the praise for Brouwer’s work as expressed in the early literature was therefore an admiration for the life-like manner in which the artist portrayed the undisguised emotions and sensual behaviour that typified rural peasant life.17 At the same time, the authors of these early biographies concurred that while Brouwer’s work is light-hearted, it is never frivolous, but always gives meaningful insights into the human condition. Even so, as the 17th century progressed, appreciation for Brouwer’s work was no longer something that could be taken for granted, but instead required knowledge of what he was trying In 1675, the German artist and writer Joachim von Sandrart followed the general tenor of De Bie’s opinions in his own biographical description of Brouwer in the Teutsche Academie, by concurring that Brouwer was able to invest his scenes with a remarkable profundity, which demonstrated both his great understanding and his artistic excellence. In this respect, he was well served, according to Von Sandrart, by his own cheerful nature, which naturally tended towards the amusing and the farcical, in the manner of Diogenes’ cynics.12 By this time, art had moved on and entered a new phase. The crude depiction of base subjects was no longer in vogue. It had been replaced by classicism, with its focus on the idealization of exalted beauty. One consequence of this was that the quality of Brouwer’s art now needed to be explained and defended. This meant that his work, with its low modus and its loose style of painting, became more explicitly art for connoisseurs; art of which the value was no longer self-evident, but for which you needed to have developed a broad taste based on an equally broad knowledge. This new trend found perhaps its most telling expres- 129 Lucas Vorsterman, after Adriaen Brouwer, Pride, engraving, 194 x 141 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-1905-3955 Greed, engraving, 189 x 142 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam inv. no. RP-P-OB-33.071 Envy, engraving, 192 x143 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam inv. no. RP-P-1905-3954 Lust, engraving, 190 x 150 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam inv. no. RP-P-OB-33.067 Sloth, engraving, 190 x 141 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam inv. no. RP-P-OB-33.068 Wrath, engraving, 191 x 140 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam inv. no. RP-P-1903-A-23718 to achieve. In other words, these early biographers thought that his painting could best be appreciated by an educated public - in other words, the same public for whom they were writing their books - and not by the broader general public that generally preferred more mass produced works.18 One of the most important themes was the Seven Deadly Sins. The earliest ‘sins’ series after Brouwer dates from 1622-1628 and was cut by Lucas Vorsterman (1595-1674). It remained a much-loved series throughout the 17th century, the plates for which were transferred after 1628 to the Amsterdam publisher Claes Jansz Visscher (1587-1652). Cornelis Danckerts I (16041656), also from Amsterdam, the Parisian printmaker Sebastian Vouillemont (c. 1610-after 1660) and the Amsterdam printmaker/ publisher Jacob Gole (1665-1724) all made copies.21 As a result of these various different versions, the Seven Deadly Sins represent a sizeable and coherent body of work within the Brouwer prints. The anonymous inscriptions in Dutch seamlessly match the pictorial tradition of depicting the sins by exposing the foolishness of the sinner and, by extension, the vanity of the world.22 This was the interpretation expounded by Cornelis de Bie in his 1661 biographical text and in 1675 by Von Sandrart, when he placed Brouwer in the same camp as the cynical philosophers. At a more general level, the public of the day would probably have associated Brouwer with the tradition developed earlier by two of the other great comic painters of the Low Countries: Jheronymus Bosch (ca. 1450-1516) and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Brouwer in prints This same suggestion of an appeal to an educated public is also evident in the inscriptions on works in graphical art based on Brouwer designs. Prints of Brouwer paintings were highly popular and many publishers had him in their portfolio. As far as we know, Brouwer never engraved in copper himself. Even so, the earliest prints of his peasant scenes were already appearing during his lifetime, apparently without much interference on his part.19 Of the 129 identified 17th century Brouwer prints, 23 have Dutch inscriptions, 18 have French inscriptions and 11 have inscriptions in Latin.20 These inscriptions often make clear how his contemporaries viewed the scenes he depicted. 130 Gluttony, engraving, 191 x 140 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam inv. no. RP-P-OB-33.073 131 Pierre Mariëtte, The foot operation, engraving, 203 x 146 mm, Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, inv. no. H II 44, S 54. Marinus Robyn van der Goes, after Adriaen Brouwer, The arm operation, engraving, 276 × 211 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-23.116 The other dominant theme in Brouwer’s genre pieces are sensoriality: the human senses.23 Even so, there is only one print series of all five senses, the 17th century attribution of which to Brouwer is open to question on stylistic grounds.24 It is perfectly plausible - and understandable - that in this context the name of Brouwer was used to boost the sale of other artists. The inscription texts express the comments of the peasant in the popular vernacular of the day, which was clearly intended to be humorous. In Touch, in which a peasant is having a tooth pulled, the peasant says: ‘Get Miester hou ie hant. De duycker is dat woelen’. To which the dentist rhymingly replies: ‘Trock me iou soo een tant. Jy sou het me wel voelen’.25 This last sentence might just as easily be addressed to the viewer as the patient. The theme of a peasant who has a tooth pulled by a quack, while also being relieved of his purse at the same time, had been a long standing joke in printed and painted art ever since the famous 1621 print of Lucas van Leyden (1494-1533).26 In general, these painters and their publishers wanted to expose the foolish gullibility that people sometimes display. But this was not the case with Brouwer. No pockets are picked in his scenes, which says much about the way he approached his comic works. Unlike other painters, his humour was not to be found in a suggestive story with an amusing plot that the viewer - but not the main character - saw coming. He sought to inject humour into his scenes through the depiction of extreme and unrestrained emotional expressions, irrespective of whether those expressions reflected joy, anger or pain. It was the naturalism of the expressions, which were mirrored in popular language in the print inscriptions, which made 132 Cornelis Visscher, after Adriaen Brouwer, The fiddler, engraving, 268 x195 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP P 1891 A 16674 Pierre Mariëtte, after Adriaen Brouwer, Three peasants in an interior, engraving, 190 x 146 mm, The British Museum, Londen, inv. nr. S.6262 Brouwer prints, according to 17th-century standards, inadvertently funny.27 ers. And of course, as his earliest biographers made clear, this irresistible comic effect was enhanced by the life-like precision with which Brouwer was able to depict the reactions of his protagonists. Along with tooth extraction, the painful operation was another theme regularly used by Brouwer to depict the sense of touch. It was not so much the pain experienced by the peasant that was comic (taking pleasure in other people’s pain was deemed improper), but the fact that he allowed himself to be treated by such a charlatan. Or as Mariëtte expressed it in the inscription under a print of a foot operation: ‘Een bedrieger likdoorns zien verwijderen van een boerenvoet, wie zou kunnen stoppen met lachen, is het niet heel vermakelijk’.28 (image 5) The paradox of a quack displaying intense concentration as he causes pain to the poor peasant with his clumsy movements in The arm operation (images 11 and 12) must have had the same inadvertent comic effect on its view- Smoking, which was used in association with the senses of smell and taste, was the most common motif in his sensorial works. Smoking was still relatively new at the start of the 17th century and was the subject of a fierce public debate about its physical and moral desirability.29 If we can believe the paintings and prints of the day, the peasant class embraced the new habit unreservedly. This led some people to make fun of them. The inscription under one print by Pierre Mariëtte I (1603-1657) read: ‘Tabak zuivert de hersens van een dwaas, een wijze of een kalf’.30 An anonymous inscription under a later copy of this same print went even further in its ridicule: ‘Weer aen’t smoken, weer aen stincken, Tis nú 133 eer taback te drincken’.31 Yet another print mocked the peasants for failing to realize the social harm they were causing: ‘T sa vrienden, al te saem, maakt uwe smookschoü ree:/ Die nu niet smoken kan die mach niet langer mee’.32 Two of the prints with inscriptions have music making as their theme, a subject that had obvious associations with hearing. One of these inscriptions encapsulates the idea that human beings are driven by primary sensory impulses: ‘Ieder wordt door zijn zinnelijke lust voortgedreven’.33 In keeping with the existing visual tradition, the publisher thought that peasants were the perfect subject to illustrate this idea.34 Anthony van der Does, after Adriaen Brouwer, Man with a tankard and woman with a glass, engraving, 219 x 17 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-BI-7062 134 In one way or another, all the above inscriptions make clear that prints of Brouwer’s paintings and, by extension, the paintings themselves were intended for a sophisticated or even a well-educated public, who were familiar with the humanist tradition in which visual representations, in the manner of Erasmus’s Lof der Zotheid (In praise of folly), were not only funny, but also encouraged reflection and greater self-insight. This was the tradition that had been perpetuated by Bosch and Bruegel. Both the joke and its associated insight revolved around the vagaries of human nature. It seems that Brouwer’s work was especially appreciated because he succeeded in bringing together these three elements - joke, insight and human nature - in such a telling and realistic way. According to his biographers, he owed this ability to his clever mind and his artistic talent. The phrase, printed in Latin, is borrowed from Virgil’s Bucolica (Ecl.2 verse 65). This makes clear that the print was primarily intended for an educated public. This is equally true for all other prints with a Latin text. One of them used a saying from the Adagia, the collection of adages compiled by Erasmus (14661536): ‘Suus cviqve crepitus bene olet’ or ‘Your own turd always smells sweet’. This particular text was added under a variant of the Mariëtte print with three peasants by a fire.35 The publisher apparently thought they must have been breaking wind, although it might also be an allusion to the stench of tobacco smoke. Other publishers preferred to uses pearls of philosophical wisdom in their inscriptions, such as the following text which reflects the Stoic teaching of detachment from the world and is reminiscent of Petrarch’s De Vita Solitaria:36 ‘De wijze in gewijde eenzaamheid teruggetrokken in zijn eenzame grot is in zijn eenzaamheid dan doorgaans minder eenzaam’. These words were added beneath a print in which an illiterate peasant, with his proverbial bluntness, is sharpening a pen. The suggested pointlessness of this action is amusing in its own right. In addition to prints and literature, estate inventories sometimes give further and/or confirmatory insights into the public for Brouwer’s art and the manner in which they responded to it. Various inventories drawn up in the 17th century make mention of works by Brouwer: roughly 110 in the cities of the Northern Netherlands, and a comparable number in Antwerp.38 In both instances a clear distinction was usually made between originals and copies. This is the case with at least 70 of the recorded mentions in the North.39 Only 16 of these works were designated as copies, a figure that is probably much too low. In Antwerp, the situation is reversed: 65 of the 112 pieces were said to be copies. It would therefore seem that the public in Antwerp were more critical, perhaps through a combination of their greater knowledge of the artist and greater social control.40 This linking of a high modus in the textual inscription with a low modus in the visual depiction was regarded at the time as a comic stylistic tool. On the one hand, it added an additional layer to the joke; on the other hand, it gave people pause for thought once they had finished laughing. In one print depicting a peasant couple, in which a man with a jug approaches a girl with a glass, the accompanying text promotes the latter to the status of a maenad, the female followers of Bacchus: ‘Menaden, viert feest in vervoering ter ere van Bacchus,/ De Treicische profeet is dood, die bittere plaag/ Jouw razernij, meisje, je vervoering zullen mij aangenaam zijn/ en je gelaat zal dat van Bacchus gelijk zijn’.37 This text would appear to be a quotation, but the source is not known. Brouwer paintings were expensive to buy. While Brouwer was active, a skilled craftsman could expect to earn between 1 and 1½ guilders per month. It is instructive to compare this average purchasing power with the values in the estate inventories. In the Northern Netherlands, Brouwer copies were valued at between 3 and 12 guilders. His original paintings were valued at between 4 and 10 guilders (five times), between 25 and 50 guilders (three times) and between 60 and 90 guilders (three times). Two other paintings were valued at 100 guilders and 230 guilders. Valuations in Antwerp were different. Very little data for copies has survived, but originals were seldom valued at less than 20 guilders.41 Values between 36 and 100 guilders are more common (seven times), but this was by no means the ceiling. In 1636, while the artist still lived, two of his paintings were valued at 120 guilders and 240 guilders. In 1643, a Brouwer was included in an auction book with a value of 150 guilders. At the time of his death in 1687, postmaster Jan Baptist Anthoine had no fewer than five Brouwer paintings in his collection, valued at between 200 and 400 guilders, although the prices in this inventory are generally on the high side.42 Because size was an important factor in determining value and because Brouwer’s panels were usually small, these are serious prices and reflect the high esteem in which he was held. If a work by Brouwer was accepted as original, it was guaranteed to be expensive and highly sought after. This, of course, also explains why so many copies were made. Brouwer must have appealed to a broad public. Especially in the Northern Netherlands, his work appears in relatively modest estates, with a small number of simple paintings - although it is open to question to what extent these were always genuine Brouwers.43 However, this was much less the case in the Southern Netherlands, where original pieces by Brouwer tended to be the preserve of major collectors and connoisseurs, like the Antwerp postmaster Jacob Roelants (1568-1651), the Antwerp alderman and publisher Jan van Meurs (1585-1652) or the Amsterdam merchant Nicolaes Sohier, all of whom are known to have bought some of their paintings directly from Brouwer himself.44 Brouwer in the home It also seems clear that Brouwer was a painter’s painter. His works are mentioned in the estate inventories of ten artists in the Northern Netherlands and seven in Antwerp, which represents a disproportionately high percentage of the total.45 What’s more, these were not just any artists; they included some of the greatest names of the day. The most well-known examples are Rubens and Rembrandt, but other like Jacques de Gheyn III (1594-1641), Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680) and Bartolomeus van der Helst (1613-1670) also had works by Brouwer in their possession.46 Because many artists were also art dealers, it is not always clear whether they were interested in Brouwer’s work for their personal collections or for sale. The oeuvres of Rembrandt and Rubens suggest that they both regarded Brouwer as a source of artistic inspiration. In contrast, the Haarlem painter Jan Miense Molenaer had only a single unfinished Brouwer piece depicting backgammon players, which he had completed himself by time his estate inventory was compiled. 47 In view of the wide range of other paintings also listed, this was probably with the intention of sale. 135 Many art dealers also had works by Brouwer in their portfolio. In Antwerp in particular, there was a broad mercantile class who were keen to own a Brouwer. Although many of these buyers have been classified in the past simply as ‘merchants’, we know that they actually included a steward, a surgeon, a goldsmith, a sail-maker and a carpenter. It was no different in the North, with the exception that in Antwerp the local aristocracy also took an interest in Brouwer’s art. The 1643 estate inventory of Albert de Ligne, Prince of Barbançon (1600-1674), contains a Brouwer, as does the 1654 inventory of Dowager Emerentia Gallo de Salamanca and the posthumous 1691 inventory of Jean Baptiste Anthoine, knight and postmaster of Antwerp.48 The clergy in the city on the Scheldt were equally fascinated by Brouwer’s work. The canon of the Cathedral of Our Lady, Johannes Philipus Happaert (died 1686), had a Brouwer landscape in his collection.49 We know that this landscape was displayed in the canon’s art cabinet, amongst a number of other landscapes and still lifes with flowers and fruit. If the order in the inventory matched the order on the wall in the cabinet, this means that Brouwer’s piece was hung next to three landscapes attributed to Rubens, which must have made a fine ensemble.50 Other inventories from both North and South show that Brouwer’s paintings tended to be displayed in large representative spaces with a formal function, described variously as ‘best room’, ‘hall’, ‘reception room’, ‘large front room’, etc. Many owners had more than one work by Brouwer. For the major art connoisseurs with numerous valuable works of art in their collection this could sometime reach the same proportions as Rubens, who owned 17 Brouwers. Paulus Pontius, Portrait of Jacob Roelants, engraving, 360 x 274 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-1941-272 It is not always easy to know how Brouwer’s paintings were hung among those of other artists. The only indications we have are the summaries in the estate inventories that were drawn up room by room and wall by wall, which, as with Canon Happaert, was sometimes the case. In instances of this kind, Brouwer pieces are often to be found amongst other rural and peasant scenes. The ‘best room’ in the Amsterdam mansion of Anthony de Brul (1612-1653) contained 18 of his circa 100 paintings.51 A ‘peasant dance’ by Brouwer hung alongside a ‘breast fondling’, an ‘old woman and a peasant’ and a ‘peasant sitting at a table’. But the room also contained paintings of a ‘dead child’, a ‘Christ tronie’ and a ‘large canvas with a swan’. The place of honour above the fireplace was reserved for a kitchen scene. Rembrandt’s sponsor, the wealthy investor Herman Becker (c. 1617-1678) of Amsterdam, also found it fitting to position ‘a piece after Brouwer’ with 136 ‘a number of small pieces of singers and players by Jan Steen’.52 The main upstairs room in the Gulden Leeuw mansion on the Oudebeurs in Antwerp contained nearly all of the 34 paintings in the collection of the house’s owner, the silk merchant Jan van den Bossche.53 According to the 1636 inventory, The sleeper by Brouwer was kept company by another ‘sleeper’ by Saftleven (probably Cornelis, 1607-1681), another unidentified ‘figure’ by Brouwer and a robbery scene by Maarten van Kleef (1527-1577). The fact that an internationally renowned professor of medicine like Franciscus de Le Boe Sylvius (1614-1672) had a quack painting attributed to Brouwer in his front room says much about both the man’s sense of humour and the way Brouwer’s art was perceived by his contemporaries.54 his collection. This all suggests that he must almost certainly have been a patron of the artist. Another interesting case is that of the Lord of Vermandois from Amsterdam whose Brouwer - a fight between a group of peasants and soldiers - was praised by Houbraken as a fine example of the artist’s loose brushwork and life-like depiction of emotions: ‘een gevegt tusschen Boeren en Soldaten, ontstaan (zoo ‘t scheen) uit het spelen met de kaart, waar van de bladen alzins over den grond verstrooit lagen. Hier slaat de een den anderen met een bierkan op den kop, daar leit ‘er een op den grond geslagen, die de doodverf al gezet heeft, egter zig schynt te willen wreeken door zyn degen, welken hy tragt onder ‘t worstelen uit de scheê te trekken. Aan den anderen kant ziet m’er een in volle gramschap, met het mes in de vuist van zyn stoel opryzen, als wilde hy tusschen de kampioenen indringen. In ‘t verschiet ziet m’er een in allen haast met een tang in de hand den trap afkomen, enz. Alles was zoo natuurlyk naar den aart der hartstogten, in de wezenstrekken verbeeld, en zoo verwonderlyk vast geteekent, en los geschildert dat het wel tot een proefstuk van zyn Konst kon verstrekken […]’59 As Bert Timmermans has commented, the presence of works by Brouwer in important collections must have given a significant boost to his reputation, but this was a process that could also work in the opposite direction.55 A typical case in point is the collection of Postmaster Jacob Roelants, a man who was portraited by Brouwer’s landlord, Paulus Pontius. When an inventory of Roelants’ estate was drawn up in 1663, his collection was found to contain thirteen Brouwers.56 Seven were paintings in a series of the Deadly Sins, probably the same series that Vorsterman used to make his prints. There were also paintings of ‘a man’, ‘a brothel’, ‘a large landscape’, ‘two small landscapes’ and ‘a barber scene’. This last painting was engraved by Marinus Robyn van der Goes (1606-1639) for the publisher Anthony Goetkind (died 1644) before 3 July 1638 for the sum of 100 guilders, with a dedication to Roelants.57 It is not known whether Brouwer was involved in this venture: he died in the January of that year and the surviving sources do not specify precisely when Van der Goes made the plate. What we do know is that the contacts between Brouwer and Roelants dated from considerably earlier. In 1633, Brouwer made an official declaration that he would paint two works for Roelants as payment for a debt of 500 guilders that Roelants had taken over from the silk merchant Jan van den Bossche, the same Van den Bossche who was later recorded in a 1636 inventory as the owner of a Sleeping figure by Brouwer.58 This was not only a way for Roelants to help an artist he admired, but also a way to ensure that he acquired two more of his works. By the time of his death, he had increased his collection of Brouwers to thirteen, which clearly marks him as both a major collector and a huge devotee of the artist’s work. Viewed in this context, accepting the dedication of the Van der Goes print not only enhanced Brouwer’s reputation, albeit posthumously, but also his own reputation and that of Houbraken also record an anecdote that suggests just how avidly Brouwer’s work was collected, even during his own lifetime. Brouwer asks what he thinks is a ridiculously high price for the painting, to which Vermandois - to the artist’s amazement - instantly agrees: ‘Des de Heer du Vermandois, die groote begeerte had om een stuk van hem te hebben hem daar kwam opzoeken, en het gemelde konststuk ziende straks bevallen daar in had, en naar den prys vraagde (…). Brouwer antwoordde dat hy ‘er 100 Ducatons voor hebben moest, ‘t geen gemelde Heer du Vermandois hem straks bewilligde, en verzogt hem mede te gaan aan zyn huis, om zyn vollen eisch in Ducatons te ontfangen[…].’60 137 The Lord of Vermandois has been identified as Constantijn Sohier de Vermandois (1624- 1671), Lord of Warmenhuizen. However, it is impossible for him to have bought the painting - he was only 14 years old when Brouwer died in 1638. 61 Consequently, the enthusiastic purchaser was most likely Vermandois’ father, Nicolaes Sohier, a powerfully rich and ambitious hosiery merchant who fled from Antwerp to Amsterdam. To give some idea of his wealth, when Sohier sold his Huis met Hoofden mansion on the Keizersgracht in 1634, the inventory included no fewer than twelve works by Rubens, who was the leading - and most expensive - artist of the day.62 It seems clear that Houbraken confused the father and the son, but the rest of the anecdote has a ring of truth to it. The inventory of Sohier’s estate drawn up on his death in 1642 contains three works by Brouwer amongst the list of 44 paintings, which also includes masterpieces attributed to Veronese (1528-1588), Titian (1477-1576), Sebastiano del Piombo (1485-1547) and Guido Reni (1575-1642). The Brouwer panels depicted ‘an arse-wiper’, ‘tobacco drinking’ and, indeed, ‘a peasant brawl’ - the painting referred to by Houbraken. If the order of paintings in the inventory reflects their relative positioning in Sohier’s home, the Brouwer hung alongside a painting of the Medusa’s head by Rubens and Frans Snijders (1579-1657).63 driving the poorest of the poor from one chaotic - and comic situation to the next. Brouwer’s choice in this respect showed that he was less willing than other artists of the day to alienate his public from his protagonists. In fact, there are some indications that he even wished to invite his well-to-do and educated public to feel a sense of identity with the rough and crude peasants he portrayed in his paintings. To make this possible, Brouwer made use of the talent that most set him apart as an artist, the talent to which all his earlier biographers constantly referred: his life-like characterization of that rough and crude peasant life in all its honesty and humanity. Precisely how and why this works was explained by the poet and artist Gerbrand Adriaensz Bredero in the foreword to his Groot Lied-boeck (Great Songbook) from 1622, in which he argued that ‘the best artists are the ones who come closest to life.’66 Viewed in terms of his artistic choices, we can see that this could just as easily have been Brouwer’s motto. Bredero condemned the mannerist style in art, with its distorted figures, and defended instead his own unadorned style, in which he used peasant language for peasant types in his songs. In what almost seems like the echo of a comment in Erasmus’s Lof der Zotheid, Bredero proposes precisely the things for which Brouwer would later become so famous: the use of a seemingly light-hearted theme to give insights into life through the persuasive power of the naturalism with which it is created.67 This cleverly forces the reader either to accept the depth of his songs or to be branded as superficial: Brouwer originals and Brouwer-like works were therefore admired by a broad public, ranging from relatively humble craftsmen to members of the aristocracy. His biggest social group of devotees was probably the merchant class. Most of the serious art-lovers were to be found in the upper echelons of this class, in both the Northern and the Southern Netherlands. It was they who bought the best - or at least the most expensive - Brouwer paintings, charmed by both his technical virtuosity and his iconographic complexity. ‘Eenige Neus-wyse en nau-gesette Lieden, met een vooroordeel inne ghenomen zijnde, sullen dese mijne Liedekens van lichtvaardigheytbeschuldigen, al eer sy de moeyten sullen doen van te ondersoecken waarom, waar toe, en hoe die ghemaackt zijn, swaarlijck sullen sy konnen gelóóven dat ick de sottigheden eeniger menschen met een lacchelijcke manier beschrijf, soetjes berisp en haer dwaling voor de óógen houw, straffe, en andere waarschouwinge doe, om die dwaal-wegen bequamelick te vermyden.’68 Brouwer and Bredero: two of a kind Whereas many artists developed their comic scenes in such a way that everything was in position for the visual ‘punch line’, which the viewer could see coming but the protagonists could not, Brouwer sought to create his humorous effect through the accurate depiction of human behaviour and emotions.64 According to the satirical tradition, such behaviour and emotions were found in their most extreme forms in the lives of the ‘schuim des volks’: the scum of the earth.65 It was among the members of the lower classes that sensuality and passion were at their most unbridled, And once Bredero has compelled his readers to recognize the wisdom in his staged scenes, he completes his case by inviting those readers to recognize themselves in the behaviour of the peasants he sings about: 138 ‘Veel dinghen heb ick op sijn boertsch gheset, die nochtans voor ettelijcke Ste-lieden haar Rekeninghe zijn, die ick, vermits ick hare sieckte, kranckheyt en schurfte kende, aldus heb moeten handelen, wetende dattet anders al te korresyvich, bitter en te scharp byten soude, en om dat het by velen niet qualijck genomen soude werden, gaan sy al vermomt, onder boeren ghedaanten daer henen met veranderde namen en bekleedinge.’69 As one might expect from a competent writer, it is difficult to find flaws in his argument. Brouwer and Bredero never met; the poet died in 1618. But Brouwer will almost certainly have known of the Groot Lied-Boeck. And in view of the work he later produced, it is not difficult to imagine that he read Bredero’s introduction and was inspired to follow its example and its reasoning. After all, the poet and the artist both wanted the same thing: to expose the foolishness of the world in the best traditions of Erasmian humanism. To achieve this, they both ‘manipulated’ the public on whom they were dependent in exactly the same way, by using comic devices that forced them to come closer than ever before to the uncomfortable realities of life. In view of Brouwer’s widespread popularity, it seems that very many people came to share this view, although it is difficult to know whether they all fully understood the different layers of meaning in his art. The indications would suggest that at the very least the most intellectually developed segments of his public, the segments on which Brouwer must have consciously focused his attention, recognized and appreciated both his high intentions and the comic brilliance with which he was able to put those intentions into practice. This is one of the reasons why Brouwer’s work continues to fascinate, even once the laughing has stopped. In this way, the Pictor Gryllorum introduced a whole new visual language, defining a genre that quickly found a place at the heart of Dutch art - which is where it still remains to this day. Exhibition catalogue Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions ADRI AEN BROUWER Sheet with figure studies I n comparison with his painted work, Brouwer’s drawn oeuvre is less well known and has been studied relatively little. It consists of a number of sheets with figure studies spread over collections in Berlin, Besançon, Dresden, Hamburg, London and New York. These studies, which depict both single figures and groups, are drawn with a remarkable surety of technique. They are often first sketched with a lead crayon, over which the broad lines of the body contours, posture, movement and facial expressions are added in brown ink with vigorous strokes of the pen, before finally being waxed. The drawings are characterized by action and emotion, and in the group compositions the interacting dynamic between the figures is central. The different drawings display a close similarity of style and have an almost identical format (ca. 220 x 330 mm; although the sheet in New York and also a second drawing in Dresden are smaller). This uniform format has led to the suggestion that they were all originally sheets from the same sketch book. ca. 1626/32, pen and brown ink, waxed over sketch in charcoal 218 mm x 329 mm Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon, inv. no. D.62 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 1 Brouwer’s works on paper were very popular as collector’s items. Rembrandt showed a particular interest; in addition to six paintings, his 1656 inventory also lists a large collection of drawings. Moreover, Rembrandt’s inventory is by no means the only evidence for the early appreciation and reception history of Brouwer’s drawn oeuvre. In this respect, the inventory of the estate of the artist, art dealer and innkeeper Barend van Someren is of particular interest. Van Someren was known to have had regular contact with Brouwer and the auctioning of his estate in 1635 included several lots of Brouwer’s work, including many drawings which were bought by other leading artists of the day, including Rembrandt. The drawing in Besançon is a fine example of Brouwer’s technical skill and artistic genius. We can see different figures in different poses, such as a smoker, a man eating mussels, a man playing a bowling game and a couple fighting. The central group is probably a preparatory depiction of Smell, one of five senses he so regularly painted. There are also similarities with the panel The unpleasant duties of a father in Dresden (exhib. cat. no. 23). The dynamic nature of the figures and the confident accuracy of the penmanship are typical of Brouwer: it is remarkable how he can bring his figures to life with so few pen strokes, imbuing them with genuine vibrancy and emotion. Like the other sheets in the group, this drawing probably served as a finger exercise, in which the artist was practicing to find the right postures, expressions and compositions for his painted work. PROVEN A NC E Legacy of J. Gigoux, donated to the museum in 1894 LIT ERAT U R E Bode 1924, p. 63-66; Bernt 1957-1958, vol. 1, cat. no. 131; Knuttel 1962, p. 170-171; Schnackenburg 1981, vol. 1, p. 38-39, 72-73; Scholz 1982; Renger 1988, p. 282-283; exhib. cat.Cologne – Antwerp 1992/1993, cat. no. 124.I; Turner and White, ed. Evans 2014, p. 376-377, cat. no. 455; exhib. cat. Paris 2017, p. 160, cat. no. 60a; Lichtert 2018, p. 267-269. 142 T ADRI AEN BROUWER his animated interior scene is unmistakably one of Brouwer’s earliest known works. The panel was painted during his ‘Dutch period’, when he was active in both Amsterdam and Haarlem. Typical of the paintings from this period are the large number of figures depicted in the interior, a remarkably vivid colour palette and a fine attention to detail, such as the household articles, crockery and cutlery. A boisterous group of drunkards is sitting around a table in what seems to be a simple rural tavern. The scene is a merryone. The old woman standing on the left surveys her companions with a full glass of beer in her hand. Her neighbour refills the tankard of one of the men sitting at the table, while the man behind her swings his arms to the rhythm of the music. His fellow tippler, slumped in the barrel chair, is also singing lustily to the melody played by the fiddler sitting on the left. On the right, in front of the fireplace, an almost separate scene is depicted, where one of the drunkards tries to embrace a woman, who angrily pushes away his hand.As a result, the porringer on her lap falls to the ground, much to the dismay of the hungry child for whom it was intended. Behind this group, a man with his back to us stands in an open doorway. Peasants celebrating ca. 1624/26, oil on panel 35 x 53,5 cm Kunsthaus Zürich, inv. no. R 4. inv. no. R 4. Signed in the bottom right on the basket: Brouwer EXHIB. CAT. NO. 4 The most striking aspect of this painting is its remarkable vitality. You can almost hear and feel the celebrations, like in a tableau vivant. It also contains a collection of figures and themes that reoccur in some of Brouwer’s later tavern scenes: the old shrew, the singing drunk with raised arms, the jolly musician, the sitting woman troubled by the amorous advances of a man, the crying child, the standing figure framed by a door.Elements such as the smouldering fire in the hearth and the still-life detail of everyday objects, in this case arranged on a shelf on the wall, are likewise part of Brouwer’s standard repertoire, which he would continue to use throughout his artistic career. In his later tavern interiors, Brouwer reduced the number of such ‘extraneous’ objects and also the number of figures, which resulted in more balanced compositions. In this painting, we can therefore recognize the hand of the young Brouwer, an artist in full stylistic development who is searching to find the right sense of equilibrium and harmony in his work. In spite of the cheerful nature of the scene, the central theme is one of excessive - and therefore sinful - behaviour; in this case, the sin of drunkenness or alcoholism. In this sense, the painting belongs to the 16th century pictorial tradition of portraying the so-called ‘Seven Deadly Sins’. The disproportionately large depiction of the glasses, tankards and beer jugs emphasizes the message. At the same time, it is typical of Brouwer that he is able to convey this message in a remarkably amusing and entertaining manner, through his perceptive rendering of ordinary, low-class people going about their everyday lives. PROVEN A NC E Collection A. Schloss, acquired at the A. Schloss auction by L. Ruzicka in 1949 LIT ERAT U U R Bode 1924, p. 46; Zurich 1949, p. 13, cat. no. 4; Knuttel 1962, p. 66-69; Renger 1986, p. 48-49, 63, 133, cat. no. 21; exhib. cat. Cologne 1992, p. 415-416, cat. no. 69.1; exhib.cat. Haarlem – Hamburg 2003-2004, p. 190-191, cat. no. 45. 144 ADRI AEN BROUWER A colourful and varied group of people are sitting around a wooden table in a sober interior. On the left, a heavyset woman stares thirstily into her large glass of beer. Her conversation partner looks enviously at the same glass, perhaps wishing it was his. Another of their companions hands his glass to the woman behind him, so that she can refill it. Alongside him, a man who has had one too many vomits onto the back of his neighbour, who seems oblivious to what is happening and simply continues to pick food from between his teeth with a knife. To the right of the table, there are two sleeping figures: an indolent older man slumped in a barrel chair, his cap pulled down over his eyes, with one hand inside his trousers and the other resting on his rotund belly; and a younger man sitting on a stool, clinging to a beer barrel as though it were a cushion. At the back, another portly man is leaving through the door, with his back turned towards us.On the left, two more figures are standing next to the fire, one of whom seems to be surveying the scene with some amusement. Also noticeable is the abundance of meat, other items of food, cutlery and crockery. On or under the table we can see a pig’s head, a roast chicken or turkey and a pie. Above the fire, there is a dripping pan to collect the fat from a spit. At the front, a large pewter serving jug with a lid has been placed on a three-legged stand, with an amphora lying on the ground beneath it. On the right, a large brandy bottle rests on a smaller table between the two sleepers. The wall shelf at the back holds a set of weighing scales and a pair of tongs.The cat at the front is amusing itself with a tallow candle. The slaughter feast ca. 1625/26, oil on panel 34 x 37,3 cm Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, inv. no. G 174 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 5 PROVEN A NC E Groβherzogliche Gemäldegalerie Schwerin, acquired before 1807, inv. G 174 LIT ERAT U R E Schlie 1882, p. 77-79; Hofstede de Groot, 1910, nr. 56; Bode 1924, p. 42-43; Knuttel 1962, p. 84; Schwerin 1984, p. 42-43; Renger 1984, p. 269; Seelig 2003, The theme of the painting is clear: excessive eating and drinking, and the consequences of such excess.The series of objects and other elements so copiously portrayed by Brouwer all allude in one way or another to this central message. Consequently, this composition is in keeping with the 15th and 16th century visual tradition of representing the Seven Deadly Sins in art; in this case, the sins of Gluttony (Gula) and Sloth (Desidia). Motifs such as the gigantic glass, the vomiting man and the sleeping wastrels are drawn directly from this tradition. As such, they form part of the standard repertoire in Brouwer’s tavern scenes. At the same time, the specific iconography is also reminiscent of Bruegel’s The fat kitchen and other related works from the same period. p. 28; exhib. cat. Rotterdam-Frankfurt 2005, p. 102-103, cat. no. 19. Pieter van der Heyden, after Pieter Bruegel de Oude, The fat kitchen, 1563, engraving, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Brouwer depicts the excessive eating and drinking habits of the poorer classes with great care: the composition and the use of colour, light and shade are built up in a well-balanced manner. The scene is dominated by powerful splashes of colour, like the red cap draped over the back of a chair on the left, counterbalanced by the cap of the sleeping young man on the right, with the sausage interlaced in the fabric as an additional attribute. In addition, this sleeper is dressed in 146 a bright pink jacket and yellow trousers, which reflect the light. Other brighter and more luminous elements include the further reflection of light from the serving jug, the scarf and cap of the woman on the left, and the fur of the cat at the front. Brouwer’s ability to individualize his subjects is exceptional, an effect that he achieves not only through the accurate reproduction of physiological characteristics, but also through his great attention to detail and his harmonization of body posture, clothing, colour, headwear and other attributes. The slaughter feast is one of Brouwer’s early works, painted while he was active in Haarlem and Amsterdam. Recent research by Alexandra van Dongen into the utensils depicted in his paintings confirms the early dating of this panel, as well as its origins in the Northern Netherlands: the type of pewter serving jug with a lid was specific to the Amsterdam region. 147 ADRI AEN BROUWER A t the centre of a shabby interior, a man is sitting in front of an open hearth. With his left hand, he is holding a frying pan above the fire. With his right hand, he is stirring what will soon become a pancake. The man is as shabby as the room: dressed in rags (note the tears and numerous traces of earlier repairs in his hat, jacket and trousers) and with unprepossessing features (including unsightly facial hair and a wart), he is hardly a pancake baker to whet the appetite! To the left of him sits a second figure, who seems to be watching his activity with interest.The posture suggests this is a child (as argued by Valentiner and Bode),but according to Knuttel it is the baker’s wife. Further to the left, a young girl is feasting on porridge from a bowl. At the back, a group of figures are sitting around a table: two of them are also eating, while the third is raising a large mug of beer to his lips. A fourth standing figure has his back to the viewer. The wall is ‘decorated’ with what seems to be a landscape painting. This is a motif seldom seen in Brouwer’s work, but is nonetheless in keeping with the wider habit during this period of The pancake baker ca. 1624, oil on panel 34 x 28,4 cm John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia EXHIB. CAT. NO. 6 embellishing the interiors of ‘merry company’ compositions of this kind with maps and paintings (see exhib. cat. no. 13 and 14). painting of the fire, generally regarded as one of the most difficult things to paint well. One of the most striking features of the painting is the ‘larger-thanlife’ depiction of the pancake baker. The balanced colouration, dominated by brown, grey-green, pink and red tones, lightened by occasional patches of white, is typical of Brouwer’s early period, when he was mainly active in Haarlem and Amsterdam. The tall hat hanging from the back of a chair is characteristically Dutch, which helps to confirm the early dating of this panel, as does the earthenware jug next to the baker. The pancake baking motif is common in Brouwer’s work. A painting in the Kunstmuseum Basel (inv. no. 909) illustrates a female variant on the same theme. A second version of this Woman baking pancakes is now part of the John G. Johnson Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts (inv. no. 680). A print of the same subject by Theodor Matham (ca. 1605-1676) credits Brouwer as its inventor. The inventory of Rembrandt’s estate, drawn up in 1656, mentions that the master owned ‘a work by Ad. Brouwer, namely a pancake baker’. It is not known whether this is the painting that can now be viewed in Philadelphia. What we do know is that the motif was also used for a now lost drawing, which was once part of the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden. Equally striking is Brouwer’s delicate use of light and shade; for example, in the silhouettes of the still-life elements in the foreground. The subtly applied highlights on the earthenware jug, mirroring the light from the fire, are a fine example of Brouwer’s exceptional mastery, which in this work perhaps finds even better expression in the PROVEN A NC E Collection M. Favet 1896, Collecton John G. Johnson 1910 LIT ERAT U R E Adriaen Brouwer, Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 38; Valentiner 1913, p. 169-170, cat. no. 680; Bode Woman making pancakes, 1924, p. 53-54; Winkler 1960, p. 216; Trautscholdt 1961; Knuttel 1962, p. 57, oil on panel, ca. 1624, 73-75; Philadelphia 1972, p. 13, cat. no. 680;Renger 1984, p. 60; Dittrich 1987, Kunstmuseum Basel, p. 22; Renger 1994, p. 27; Scott 1994, p. 38; Renger 2006, p. 176-178. inv. no. 909 148 149 A ADRI AEN BROUWER quarrel outside a tavern seems to have gotten completely out of hand. On the left, at the end of a wooden table, a man is grabbed by his head as he makes ready to strike with his sword. Behind them, two other men are grappling with each other, as a woman tries in vain to separate them. The elegant young man at the front is preparing to draw his own sword and join the fray. The woman to his left tries to prevent him and another of the men likewise puts a restraining hand on his shoulder.The reason for the fight is clearly a game of cards and a dispute about its outcome, no doubt made worse by the fact that the players have already drunk too much. Fighting peasants outside a tavern ca. 1625/26, oil on panel 25,8 x 34,2 cm Mauritshuis, The Hague (on long-term loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), inv. no. 919. Signed at the bottom right, on a piece of wood: AB (in ligature) Playing cards was regarded as a pointless waste of time and its exponents had a generally poor reputation, certainly when the game was combined with drinking alcohol. The knocked-over jug of beer and the cards falling from the table serve to underline this message. Spread throughout the rest of the composition we can see other bawdy details that suggest the loose morals of those involved. The bare bottom of the crouched man defecating in the background, the vomiting drunk at the table and the copulating pig and dog in the right foreground all leave little to the imagination.These are clear depictions of the sins of Gluttony or Indulgence (Gula), Wrath (Ira), Sloth or Idleness (Acedia) and Lust (Luxuria). In this respect, the painting is in keeping with the tradition of visualizing the Seven Deadly Sins in the art of 16th and early 17th centuries. EXHIB. CAT. NR. 7 PROVEN A NC E Count Fraula, Brussels, 1738; W. Lormier, The Hague, 1738-1763; A.L. van Heteren Gevers, The Hague, 1800-1809; on long-term loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. no. SK-A-65), since 1954 LIT ERAT U R E Schmidt 1873, p. 36-37; Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 657-658, no. 166; Bode This painting is the only known example of a Brouwer ‘fight scene’ that is not set in an interior. It says much that in 1873 Schmidt offered his opinion that the panel was a ‘high-quality original by Bruegel’. Yet although Fighting peasants outside a tavern does indeed lean towards Bruegelian representations of the same theme in terms of content, the master of emotions manages to distinguish himself by his fresh and innovative approach to the subject. The emphasis in the scene is on action and Brouwer has managed to ‘freeze’ this action convincingly at just the right moment.It almost seems as though the figures could burst back into life at any second. Viewed in these terms, the painting is a forerunner of the modern snapshot. Throughout his career Brouwer remained fascinated by this challenge of ‘mastering the moment’, gradually refining his technique until he had reduced it to its essence. In particular, the attention he pays to the individual characters and their psychological depth is remarkable, as is his ability to give new and previously unseen expression to violent emotions, often through the ‘grotesque’depiction of certain physical and facial characteristics. 1924, p. 59-61; Reynolds 1931, p. 25-26; Böhmer 1940, p. 72-74; Knuttel 1962, p. 34, 76-78, 185; exhib. cat. New York – Maastricht 1982, p. 34-35, cat. no. 2; Renger 1986, p. 30, 35, 44, 45, 48, cat. no. 20; exhib. cat. Haarlem-Hamburg 2003-2004, p. 188-189, cat. no. 44; Renger 2006, p. 173-174; Van Suchtelen, Buvelot 2016, p. 72-75, cat. no. 6. Jacob Matham, Fight in a brothel / The consequences of drunkenness, 1619/25, engraving, 179 x 200 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-27.055 150 151 T ADRI AEN BROUWER his, again, is one of Brouwer’s favourite themes: the seemingly innocent pastimes of ordinary people. The result is a sublime painting, one of his most successful depictions of this kind of scene. In the centre we can see a self-assured lute player. He sits sideways on his stool, both feet firmly planted on the ground, looking directly at the viewer with an amused grin on his face. He is watched by a female spectator, who sings along merrily to his tune, while warming her hands over a smouldering firepot. The atmosphere is congenial and the two clearly seem to be enjoying themselves during a moment’s relaxation. The only other figure is a cat, enthusiastically licking clean a discarded cooking pot, but still casting suspicious glances in the direction of the viewer. Interior with a lute player and a singing woman ca. 1630/33, oil on panel 37 x 29,2 cm Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv. no. CAI.80. Signed on the wall on the right under the candleholder AB (in ligature) The cosy interior is surprisingly bright and cleverly depicted. In particular, the way Brouwer uses perspective and divides up the flat background surfaces betrays a painter of rare quality. So, too, does the balanced composition of the objects and figures in the main foreground space. Brouwer’s mastery is evident everywhere you look; from the light reflected in the Raeren stoneware jar at the front to the flickering wall candle on the right. The delicate plume of smoke rising from this extinguished candle is yet another example of his fine eye for detail. The back wall has one of his typical still lifes, this time in the form of a shelf crammed with a variety of objects. The pink gown of the lute player is carefully modelled and his distinguished-looking head is painted with surprising economy in a series of fine brushstrokes. The subtlety with which he expresses the musician’s high-spirited mood is masterful. From a technical perspective, this is one of the finest examples of Brouwer’s outstanding talent. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 11 While the link with the 16th century Bruegelian idiom is more obvious in Peasants celebrating (exhib. cat. no. 4), The slaughter feast (exhib. cat. no. 5) and the tavern interiors in Rotterdam and The Hague (p. 62, 69), with this painting Brouwer distances himself to a far greater degree from this tradition. Above all, the moralizing tone seems to be absent. During his years in the Northern Netherlands, Brouwer came into contact with a new genre that was destined to have a major influence on his artistic development: the genre of the ‘merry companies’ (see exhib. cat. nos. 12 to 14). These depictions of rich young men and women enjoying themselves reflected the rise in a new form of youth culture during the early 17th century. Brouwer transferred this fashionable genre to his own preferred low-life subjects. It is possible he drew his inspiration for the lute player motif from the Utrecht Caravaggians and from his presumed teacher, Frans Hals. PROVEN A NC E ? Collection P.P. Rubens, Antwerp 1640; J. Meyer, Rotterdam 1722; Duke of Hamilton sale, Christies 1882, lot. 45; Collection V&A from 1900 (Constantine Alexander legacy) LIT ERAT U R E Waagen 1854, p. 300; Bode 1924, p. 150-154; Knuttel 1962, p. 125; Kauffmann 1973, p. 48-49, cat. no. 50; Muller 1989, p. 141, cat. no. 282; De Clippel 2004, p. 307-308; Ellis, Roe 2008, p. 68. 152 The back of the panel bears the mark of the Antwerp panel-maker Michiel Vriendt (active circa 1615-1637). Vriendt was one of Rubens’ favourite suppliers and this work shows that Brouwer used Vriendt’s panels as well. The mark is a further indication that Brouwer painted the piece when he was already living in Antwerp. The earlier dating of circa 1625, which was primarily based on a com- parison with The pancake baker (cat. no. 6), is no longer defensible. The painting clearly belongs to the early years of the artist’s Antwerp period, since the influence of Dutch genre painting is abundantly in evidence. A dating of circa 1630/33 is therefore realistic. Furthermore, it is possible that this painting is the same as Un joueur de luth, which is known to have been part of Rubens’ collection. 153 ADRI AEN BROUWER Smokers in an inn I n this tavern scene Brouwer gives us a masterly depiction of a group of smokers. The smoker at the front is sitting in a relaxed manner on a stool, resting one of his feet on a nearby bench. In one hand he is holding a jug and in the other his pipe, on which he puffs enthusiastically. He stares drunkenly ahead of him, most probably a result of his empty jug and the tobacco smoke. His companion on the right is concentrating on spreading tobacco over a leaf of fine paper. Behind him, another of their companions is gently sleeping, his head resting against the shoulder of the fourth smoker. The jug on the table again suggests that this man has been drinking as well as smoking. The scene is completed by a fifth figure, who is unashamedly licking clean a bowl of gruel. ca. 1627/30, oil on copper 17,5 x 23 cm National Museum in Warsaw, Warschau, inv. no. 103. Signed on the bench, under the foot of the smoker: A.B. In Brouwer’s time, smoking was still a relatively new habit. As a pastime, certainly in conjunction with the use of alcohol, it was widely disapproved. The so-called ‘tobacco suckers’ or ‘smoke drinkers’ were seen as being no better thandrunkards. According to the following poem by Constantijn Huygens (1630), both activities were closely linked: EXHIB. CAT. NO. 15 ‘Roock-drinckerskrijgen dorst van drincken: want die dorst Komt van haer binnenste te droogen tot een’ korst: Die korst eischtvochticheit en moet van niewsgenatt zijn; Soodrinckens’haerdoornatt tot dat sijdrinckenssat zijn: Die over-vochticheitvereischt weer niewenroock. Soozynsijstadighaen ’t gelep of aen ‘gesmoock En dat rad gaet rondom; hoe soumenseggen mogen, Of droogens’om ‘tgenatt, of natten s’om het droogen?’ Brouwer did more than simply depict his smoking contemporaries enjoying their favourite pastime. The master of emotions was also the first artist to give visual expression to the physical experience of smoking, which he did in his own inimitable style. With typical expressiveness and nuance, he portrayed the different stages and effects of tobacco inhalation, an addiction which he clearly understood. The earliest example of a smoker can be found in his Interior of an inn, now in Rotterdam (p. 62), where the smoking figure forms part of a larger group of unsavoury characters. However, the emphasis is on the sin of drinking and the consequences to which excessive behaviour can lead, rather than having any clear focus on smoking. But in later works Brouwer uses smoking as an independent theme, both in a group context, as in the Warsaw panel, but also for the portrayal of individual figures in allegorical and sensory compositions (see, for example, cat. no. 24). PROVEN A NC E Purchased by the museum from the Straus collection, Vienna in 1933 LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 638, no. 135; Warsaw 1938, cat. no. 133; Tomkie- This iconographic evolution reflects Brouwer’s artistic development, which gradually saw him devote greater attention to individual emotions and expressions. The smoking of tobacco was a subject ideally suited to this approach. Moreover, Brouwer experimented with new forms of composition, as is clear from this Warsaw painting. The different postures of the figures are harmoniously attuned to each other and their internal dynamic is further enhanced by the artist’s search for the right framing elements, which in this instance gives the resulting totality a surprisingly modern feel. Yet notwithstanding these innovations, Brouwer still has an eye for the traditional depiction of the Deadly Sins, as represented here by the sleeper (Desidia) and the gluttonous porridge eater (Gula). wicz 1950, no. 88; Warsaw 2007, p. 252, 266. 154 155 ADRI AEN BROUWER Peasant drinking I n the centre of this scene we can see a figure seated on a bench, dressed in a light-pink jacket and yellow trousers, a shabby-looking hat perched on his head. With mouth wide open - is he singing or just jabbering? - he raises his glass enthusiastically. His expression is one of happiness, perhaps explained by the fact that he is clearly drunk. Even so, his exuberant toast and his full glass suggest he is not yet ready to go home. In the left background a similarly merry group is also singing and drinking around a table. In the small room to the right a man sits on the toilet. These three elements in the composition - a central figure drinking in the foreground, another cheerful group in the background and a man relieving himself - are motifs that regularly recur in Brouwer’s tavern interiors. So too does the use of an understated still life, in this case in the form of the shelf on the back wall of the otherwise sober space. In contrast to the early tavern scenes, which were characterized by an excess of cutlery and crockery, in this instance Brouwer places his protagonists in an almost bare room. The clearly defined interior is only sparsely ‘decorated’ by the still life on the shelf and by a subtly positioned broom, bench and earthenware pot on the left. This same arrangement of motifs in the same position within the composition can also be found in Brouwer’s more famous painting of The smokers. In contrast to that iconic work, this present painting is not recorded in the professional literature. Brouwer painted the scene on copper, which is unusual within his known oeuvre (see also, for example, cat. nos. 15 and 26). However, Brouwer’s remarkable technique, with its typical hatched brushwork, is still clearly evident. Copper was an excellent carrier, the texture of which - in contrast to the oak panels more commonly used by Brouwer - is smoother. Moreover, the sheen of the metal is still visible here and there through the paint, which gives this small work a remarkable light-grey tonality. ca. 1632/33, oil on copper 18 x 19 cm private collection, Germany EXHIB. CAT. NO. 15B On the basis of the compositional development, the iconographic characteristics and the clear colouration - particularly in the central figure - a dating of circa 1632/33 seems realistic. An interesting detail in the composition is the beaker being held by the central figure. This type of beaker with smooth sides, decorated with pearls of glass, was typically produced in the Southern Netherlands during the last quarter of the 16th and the first quarter of the 17th century. They were often ornamented with three rosettes, as can be seen in the example in Brouwer’s painting.1 PROVEN A NC E Thomas Andrew Payne Knight, Downton Castle, Shropshire; Dennis Lennox, United Kingdom; Christie’s, London 4 May 1979; Klaus Edel Art Dealers, Cologne 1. Thanks to Alexandra van Dongen for this information. 156 ADRI AEN BROUWER Drinking peasant I n a sober interior sits a high-spirited drinker. In one hand he holds an open pewter serving jug and in the other a glass of wine, filled to the brim, which he raises skywards in celebration. The thought that he will soon be emptying the glass seems to make him happy! However the scene in the right background depicts a less pleasing aspect of the consequences of excessive drinking: a disreputable-looking character is slumped sideways on a bench, spewing his guts out. Two other figures are leaving the tavern, the man on the left being supported by his companion on the right, who gently guides him to the door. A third figure watches them from outside as they go. ca. 1631/33, oil on panel 20,5 x 19,7 cm Rubens House, Antwerp, inv. no. 187. Brouwer here attempts to show us the different phases of drunkenness and the effects of alcohol abuse. As in so many of his works, there is once again an enormous richness of detail: the loaf of bread on the table, the carving knife, the pewter plate, the carefully draped white table cloth, a piece of chalk, even a broken beer pot on the bench next to the drinker’s table.Taken together, they create a naturalistic whole which is reproduced with startling accuracy, almost like a still life within the wider composition. Brouwer possibly found his inspiration for this approach in the still lifes of Pieter Claesz (ca. 1596/97-1660/61) and Willem Claesz. Heda (ca. 1593-1680), who developed their artistic careers in the Haarlem of the 1630s. It has been more recently suggested that a still life by David II Teniers (Collection of Count Carl-Axel Wachtmeister, Wanas, Sweden, dated 1635) may have influenced Brouwer to put together this particular collection of items (see: exhib. cat. Antwerp 2004, p. 204). The similarity between the objects chosen is indeed striking, although the glass à la façon de Venise in Teniers’ scene is clearly different from the glass in Brouwer’s version (note the swan neck). The pewter jug is also of a different type (see the essay by Alexandra van Dongen in this publication). In my opinion, it was not really necessary for Brouwer to seek inspiration from Teniers; it might just as easily have been the other way around. Brouwer probably painted this work at the start of his Antwerp period circa 1631/33. It is therefore possible that this is the same painting listedin the inventory of Rubens’ estate in 1640 under the title un paysan avec un verre de vin & un pot. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 16 PROVEN A NC E ? Collection P.P. Rubens, Antwerp 1640; E. Osterrieth, Antwerp prior to 1886; L. Osterrieth, Antwerp; R. Van den Broeck, Brussels 1955; P. de Boer, Amsterdam 1958; Sidney J. van den Bergh, Wassenaar 1968; acquired by the Rubens House in 1979: Christies, London 1979, no. 109 LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, vol. 3, p. 622, no. 155?; De Vries 1968, p. 32; New York – Maastricht 1982, p. 48-49, cat. no. 9; Antwerp 2004, p. 204-205, cat. no. 43. 158 ADRI AEN BROUWER T he central component of this composition is positioned in the left foreground, where two card players face each other across a primitive wooden table. With a triumphant grin, the man on the right shows his winning ace to his opponent, who is still concentrating carefully on the fan of cards in his left hand. A third man absent-mindedly fills his pipe, while following the game with interest. Over his shoulder, a woman is also watching events unfold with a certain degree of amusement. In the left corner, a man is standing in a posture that suggests he is urinating against the wall. At the back right, another group of figures sit drinking in front of the fire. One man is lying asleep on a bench; a second bends forward to light his pipe; a third raises a mug to his thirsty lips. Right at the very back, two shadowy figures are leaving the tavern. Peasants playing cards ca. 1625/28, oil on panel 25 x 39 cm Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 642. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 17 This painting has a number of different moral messages. The corrupting influence of card playing is represented by the three cards lying on the ground. Card games - like most other games - were generally regarded as a wasteful and improper use of valuable time. When the game was accompanied by heavy drinking, the level of social censure was even greater (also see exhib. cat. no. 7). The mug on the table, the drinking cup that the losing card player ostentatiously holds against his chest and the large pewter serving jug in the foreground all point to the evils of drunkenness, a theme that became increasingly prominent from the 16th century onwards. In keeping with this tradition, Brouwer here clearly depicts alcohol as a source of other vices. As well as excessive drinking (Gula), the sleeping figure on the bench also embodies the Deadly Sin of Sloth (Acedia). This motif of a sleeper on a bench recurs on a number of occasions in Brouwer’s early work. So, too, does the image of a drunkard emptying a mug into his wide open mouth and the duo who leave the tavern together. The colourful composition is dominated by brown-red and bluegreen tints. White accents lighten the scene, particularly the bright white tobacco paper on the barrel, the reflection on the serving jug and the fur of the dog, all of which are harmoniously and artfully balanced. This colouration and theme point to an early dating. Alexandra van Dongen’s identification of the serving jug as a type made in Amsterdam confirms that the painting was made during Brouwer’s Dutch period. PROVEN A NC E Acquired by the museum in 1880, at the Courtebourne auction. LIT ERAT U R E Bode 1924, p. 48; Knuttel 1962, p. 36; Antwerp 1988, p. 75; exhib. cat. Rotterdam - Frankfurt 2005, p. 104-105, cat. no. 20. 160 A ADRI AEN BROUWER t the centre of a sober interior, a sleeping man sits on a stool. He is leaning slightly forward, with his eyes closed and his hands resting on a walking stick. The mug beside him on the ground suggests that he has recently been drinking. An excess of alcohol combined with the warmth of the pot stove have caused him to nod off. In contrast to the people who usually populate Brouwer’s paintings, this man is clearly well-to-do. The same cannot be said for the loving couple in the background, who are also being watched through the window by a peeping-tom. Old man in a tavern ca. 1632/35, oil on panel 35 x 28 cm Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. IB08.004 The disproportionately large representation of the main figure is striking and can be compared with the depiction of the innkeeper and his wife in Brouwer’s tavern interiors in Munich (Alte Pinakothek, inv. nos. 1281 and 2014). The build-up of the composition in The sleeping innkeeper is also similar to the Antwerp painting: a single, large, sleeping figure at the front of the interior space, with a group of other figures seated at a table in the background.Much the same applies to the content: both paintings focus on sinful behaviour, such as Sloth (Acedia/Desidia), Gluttony (Gula) and Lust (Luxuria). In The sleeping innkeeper the central message is reinforced by the pigs eating up the vomit and faeces of the tavern’s drunken customers. Although these visually vulgar elements are lacking in Old man in a tavern, the moral message is unmistakably the same.The man who spies on a cuddling couple is a comic detail that Brouwer used often in his later work (see, for example, cat. no. 37). EXHIB. CAT. NO. 20 The spatial development of the panel, in combination with the contrast between the shimmering brown background on the right and the more opaque areas on the left, give the composition a dynamic character. The clever use of light and shade, combined with Brouwer’s usual attention to detail - the jug with the pewter lid (note the subtle reflection of light), the crushed coals and ash in front of the stove - once again illustrate the artist’s remarkable virtuoso painting technique. The magisterial depiction of the main figure, and in particular the delineation and modelling of the face and its abundance of hair with a series of fine brushstrokes, is a genuine tour de force. Adriaen Brouwer, The sleeping innkeeper, oil on panel, Alte Pinakothek, München, inv. no. 2014 Bearing in mind the nature of the theme, the compositional elements and the level of technical virtuosity, it seems reasonable to date this painting to circa 1632/35. PROVEN A NC E Collection Count Bergereyck, prior to 2007, Sotheby’s Amsterdam 2007, lot. no. 46; Gallery Arnoldi-Livie, Munich 2008; purchased by the museum in 2008. 162 ADRI AEN BROUWER A lthough Brouwer’s interest in the inner emotional condition of his subjects was already evident in his early work, this aspect came more and more to the fore as time passed. This intense interest often found its best outlet in the so-called ‘tronies’, which involve the exaggerated or grotesque depiction of facial expressions. A subject like sensoriality proved itself to be ideally suited to the exploration of states of mind and their externalization. This painting of an arm operation, representing the sense of Touch, illustrates the innovative approach of our master of emotions. While in his earlier paintings he depicted operations performed by charlatans or village surgeons in carefully crafted interiors, the focus here is now placed fairly and squarely on the operation itself and its effect on the main characters. The arm operation/Touch ca. 1633, oil on panel 23,5 x 20,3 cm Alte Pinakothek, München , inv. no. 581. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 21 On the table at the front left we can see an earthenware fire pot, a cloth, a glass bottle containing medicine or alcohol, and the other attributes of the village surgeon.With a look of deep concentration - note how his lips are pursed - the surgeon picks at the arm of his unfortunate patient, who cries out in pain and grabs his arm with his free hand. His half-closed eyes, contorted face and pouting lips give masterful expression to his discomfort. The accurate portrayal of the characters and their restrained emotion demonstrates Brouwer’s ability to visually reproduce emotional conditions in a life-like way. This was only possible thanks to his deep insight into human nature and his exceptional artistic talent, a combination with which only very few artists have been blessed. This painting of The arm operation represents the sense of Touch in a series of five works illustrating the five senses. It is one of the few surviving Brouwer paintings for which we know with certainty the identity of the original owner. The painting belonged to the collection of Jacques Roelants. This Antwerp postmaster, whose portrait was engraved by Paulus Pontius, owned no fewer than 13 paintings by Brouwer (for Roelants’ collection, also see the essay by Elmer Kolfin on p.127). In 1638 - the year of Brouwer’s death - The arm operation was made into a print by Marinus Robyn van der Goes, with a dedicatory text to Roelants. PROVEN A NC E Düsseldorf Gallery, 1716 LIT ERAT U R E Bode 1924, p. 45; Knuttel 1962, p. 137; Scholz 1985, p. 41-44; Renger 1986, p. 38 and further, cat. no. 8; Renger, Denk 2002, p. 48; exhib. cat. Rotterdam-Frankfurt 2005, p. 112; Neumeister 2009, p. 62-64. 164 ADRI AEN BROUWER The back operation/Touch I n a sober interior, a young man is sitting sideways at a table, with his face turned towards the viewer. His crumpled white shirt has been pulled down, so that an operation can be carried out on his back. With great concentration, the surgeon inserts his knife into the wound. A woman stands to watch the operation. Her seeming amusement is in sharp contrast to the patient’s pain. His contorted facial expression and body position are portrayed with great naturalism: the half-open mouth, the screwed-up eyes, hunched shoulders, one hand clamped between his legs, the other clutching his right arm in nervous anticipation. This life-like depiction makes his pain almost tangible. ca. 1636, oil on panel 34,4 x 27,0 cm Städel Museum, Frankfurt, inv. no. 1050. Signed on the table on the right: AB (in ligature) The surgeon’s clothes have a transparent blue-grey undertone, painted with open and free brushstrokes. The pure white shirt and the pale shoulder of the patient are well-lit. These elements form a strong contrast with their darker surroundings, in which the colours are harmoniously blended.On the table and on the wall shelf to the right we can see the tools of the surgeon’s profession: bottles of medicine, jars of ointment and other attributes are carefully arranged to create charming still life elements within the scene. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 22 A number of pentimenti are visible in this painting. These alterations testify to Brouwer’s constant search to find the right compositional balance. This kind of triangular composition - embracing the combination ‘charlatan-patient-spectator’, with the latter figure, often an old hag, at the point of the triangle - is a formula that Brouwer liked to use. The focus is placed exclusively on the action and the effect which that action has on the people involved.The direct nature of this approach and the choice of a specific framework help to engage the viewer. In the sublime Back operation this effect is further strengthened by the fact that the gaze of the main character- the patient - is aimed fairly and squarely at that same viewer. A similar compositional structure can be found in The foot operation, which is also part of the Frankfurt collection and was probably the counterpart to this painting. PROVEN A NC E Acquired in 1868 by the Frankfurter Kunstverein, inv. 1050 LIT ERAT U R E Weizsäcker 1900, p. 54, no. 148; Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 33; Bode 1922, p. 39; Bode 1924, p. 50; Knuttel 1962, p. 98-101; Scholz 1985, p. 241; Renger 1986, p. 123; Muller 1989, p. 139 and further, cat. no. 273; exhib. cat. Rotterdam 1990, p. 34, cat. no. 1; Sander, Brinkmann 1995, p. 23; exhib. cat. Rotterdam-Frankfurt 2005, p. 112-113, cat. no. 24; Tieze 2009, vol. 1, p. 91-100. 166 T ADRI AEN BROUWER he inventory of the Amsterdam merchant Nicolaas Sohier mentions an ‘an arse-wiper’ by Brouwer, which might possibly be this painting. The description certainly fits, since we can see a man wiping the bare bottom of a child. The father carries out this task with reluctance: his facial expression, with its tightly closed eyes and wrinkled nose, is one of disgust. Behind the man stands an ugly older woman, who seems to be shouting something at him. The motif of an old hag as spectator can often be found in Brouwer’s tavern and other interior scenes. However, in this case the domineering manner in which she behaves suggests she belongs to another visual tradition of the day, in which women are ‘bossy’ and men are under their thumb. Popular scenes such as Fighting for the trousers and The hen-pecked husband illustrated in a comic way the troubled relationship between the sexes, with, for example, a weak husband forced to do the household chores by his overbearing wife. In this painting, the theme is enhanced by the addition of a spindle to the right of the father: as well as cleaning the child, the unfortunate man will next be expected by his dragon of a wife to spin some wool, which was traditionally a female task. The father’s disagreeable task/Smell ca. 1631, oil on panel 20 x 13 cm Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, inv. no. 1057 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 23 Separate from this comic theme, Brouwer also draws inspiration here from another visual tradition: the depiction of the five senses. Whereas during the 16th century it was usual to depict the scenes in allegorical compositions through the use of attributes, by the start of the 17th century it was becoming more common to illustrate the senses in everyday scenes, often in a genre setting. Brouwer was one of the pioneers of this new artistic trend. His deep interest in sensory perception and the visual representation of emotions prompted him to introduced radical changes to the genre. As the pictorialization of Smell, The father’s disagreeable task possibly formes part of a series of five paintings on the ‘senses’ theme. On the other hand, it is also possible that it is linked to the widely known Emblemata by Johan de Brunes (1624). One of the illustrations in this book shows a woman cleaning her child in the same manner. The inscription reads: ‘Dit lijf, wat ist, als stanck en mist?’ (What is this body, but stench and piss?) In Brouwer’s scene we can see a rolled-up cloth lying on the table to the left, with a cooking pot and a brush alongside it. The wall shelf at the back holds a number of jars and a lump of bread with a knife. In contrast to most of Brouwer’s interior scenes, this is clearly a domestic setting and not a tavern. This impression is strengthened by the comic portrayal of the dictatorial woman and her ‘domesticated’ husband. PROVEN A NC E Probably acquired in 1755 from the Bouexière collection LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 47; Bode 1924, p. 71; Höhne 1960, p. 33-34; Knuttel 1962, p. 105; Scholz 1985, p. 186; cat. Dresden 2006, p. 352; Schmidt 2010, the man, the blue of his hat and the ochre of the child’s dress - the three-quarter composition and the painting technique make it reasonable to suggest a dating of circa 1631. The way in which the theme is developed, the colour palette - the dominance of brown tints, highlighted by the orange-red jacket of p. 61 ff. 168 169 A ADRI AEN BROUWER the start of the 17th century, smoking was a relatively new phenomenon, which was viewed in different and often contradictory ways. Some people thought it had a therapeutic value; others saw it in a more negative light. In particular, the way the habit was adopted by the ‘lower classes’ was widely condemned. ‘Tobacco smokers’ or ‘tobacco drinkers’ were viewed in the same light as alcoholics. Nevertheless, they were one of Brouwer’s favourite subjects. He portrayed them in a number of variations, one of which even showed himself as a practitioner of the twin vices of smoking and drinking (see exhib. cat.no. 39). Moreover - and in contrast to his contemporaries - Brouwer succeeded in creating visual representations that made the physical experience of smoking more tangible to others. The smoker/Taste ca. 1632/35, oil on panel 30,5 x 21,5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SKA 4040 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 24 The Amsterdam Smoker is a fine example. A smoking man is sitting half-slumped at a table, his legs spread wide and his shirt hanging out of his trousers. He stares blankly into the distance, while a delicate plume of smoke escapes from his lips. Behind him, his companion has fallen asleep on the table. At the back right a third man enters, probably after a visit to ‘the smallest room’ (he is still buttoning up his trousers). The smoker is probably another of Brouwer’s visual representations of the senses. Smoking is an obvious way to depict both the senses of smell and taste. It is not known if this painting was one of a series of five (one for each sense). What is clear, however, is that the tavern scene also reflects the 16th century tradition for depicting the Seven Deadly Sins. In this case, the focus is on Gluttony (Gula) and Sloth (Acedia). In this painting Brouwer’s artistic talent finds its best expression in the portrayal of the smoker himself, which shows strong similarities with A boor asleep in the Wallace Collection. The clarity of the depiction and the harmonizing of the physiognomy, body posture, clothing and gestures of this indolent ‘tobacco drinker’ are sublime. PROVEN A NC E Acquired by the museum in 1961 as part of the De Bruijn-Van der Leeuw legacy LIT ERAT U R E Bode 1924, p. 115; exhib. cat. Bern 1943, cat. no. 36; Jaffé 1944; Knuttel 1962, p. 140; Bruyn 1973, p. 204; exhib. cat. Amsterdam 1976, cat. no. 7; Van Thiel 1976, p. 152; Klinge1982, p. 13-14; Renger 1986, p. 35-38; exhib. cat. Rotterdam-Frankfurt 2005, p. 24-25. 170 T ADRI AEN BROUWER he eye-catcher in this painting on copper is obviously the roughish musician. With his arms resting on the table at which he is sitting, he breaks off from his flute playing to look the viewer directly in the eye. He holds the flute, the source of his delight, lightly in his hands. His high-spirited look almost seems to invite us to listen in, once he resumes playing. In this respect, the laughing man who stands behind him sets a good example. The flute player/Hearing 1632/36, oil on panel copper 16,5 x 13 cm Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. 3464 The virtuoso painting technique of this work once again demonstrates Brouwer’s talent as the master of the emotions. The manner in which he depicts both the affects and the sensoriality has been reduced to its essence. The focus is placed exclusively on the action and the effect it has on the emotional condition of the characters. The laugh, as an expression of joy, is generally regarded as one of the most difficult of all affects to depict - but here Brouwer achieves it brilliantly. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 26 Another master in the life-like painting of laughing figures was Frans Hals. He was the first artist to paint laughing men and women from the poorer classes in an accurate and natural manner. His Laughing boy with a flute (ca. 1626/28, exhib. cat. no. 27) shows strong similarities with Brouwer’s Flute player. The subject, the way the player’s gaze is targeted at the viewer, his relaxed body posture, his spontaneous look and the artist’s perfect pictorialization of his emotional state of mind are the same in both cases. It is typical of Brouwer, however, that he takes things a stage further by harmonizing form and content through the use of a small format, a dark colour palette, and remarkably loose but technically refined brushwork. As already demonstrated, this ability to harmonize form and content was one of Brouwer’s most outstanding qualities: like few other artists, he was the living embodiment of the concept that ‘less is more’. PROVEN A NC E Collection of C. Van Loo, Paris 1881; purchased by the museum during the public auction of the collection of Valentin Roussel de Roubaix in Brussels, 1899 LIT ERAT U R E Van Dyke 1914, p. 13-14; Höhne 1960, p. 65; exhib. cat. Brussels 1961, cat. no. 19; exhib. cat. Brussels 1961, cat. no. 12; Brussels 1984, p. 37; Bosmans 2002, p. 130-131; exhib. cat. Paris 2013, p. 20-21; Chu 2015, cat. no. 47. 172 ADRI AEN BROUWER A fat man D e This corpulent, somewhat slovenly man is looking to one side, with his right hand tucked into his jacket. In the background we can vaguely see a dune landscape, in which a couple are walking on the left. For many years, this painting was regarded as a self-portrait. This attribution was based on the assumption that Brouwer’s preference for ‘low-brow’ subjects was a reflection of his own character: ‘The artist is like his work’. And indeed, this impressive half-body study does have portrait-like qualities: the depiction is both natural and startlingly accurate. In reality, however, this is not a self-portrait (the man bears little resemblance to the other known portraits of Brouwer - see exhib. cat. nos. 39, 51 and 52). Nor is it the portrayal of one of the stereotypical comic characters from his tavern scenes. ca. 1634/36, oil on panel 22,9 x 16,1 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 601 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 29 Buyck was the first to show that this is not a self-portrait but is actually a depiction of the one of the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust (Luxuria).The painting was initially part of a series of seven (one for each sin), of which copies were made relatively soon after their completion, probably by Joos van Craesbeeck (exhib. cat. no. 29B). This is confirmed by an entry in the inventory of an Antwerp estate in 1663: ‘seven cleyn schilderykens wesende de Seven Doodtsonden bij Brouwer geschildert met seven copyekens daeraff’. We also know that prints of the series were made by Lucas Vorsterman (cf. essay Kolfin). In other words, Brouwer’s Fat man reflects the visual tradition developed in the 15th and 16th centuries whereby the Seven Deadly Sins were represented through the allegorical depiction of a single person. It was typical of Brouwer, however, that he approached this theme in an innovative way. At first glance, this realistic figure in an atmospheric landscape does not immediately make us think of deadly sin. But what we are actually seeing is one of his ‘tronie’ studies, which Brouwer frequently used to express sensory emotions, although in this case - and in contrast to works like The bitter drink - the more ‘grotesque’ contortions of the face that generally characterize these studies are lacking. Moreover, we now know who the fat man was: Karolien De Clippel has convincingly identified him as Paul Dupont or Paulus Pontius (1603-1658). This draughtsman and printmaker was well respected in the artistic circles of the day and, amongst others, made prints of the works of Rubens and Van Dyck. Brouwer and Pontius knew each other well; in fact, Brouwer even lived in Pontius’s home for a short period. It matches what we know about Brouwer’s nature and his sense of fun that he should take delight in including his own friends and fellow artists in his genre paintings, as he also did in his own inimitable fashion in his iconic group portrait PROVEN A NC E Probably from the Lapeyrière auction, Paris 1817; Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell Gallery, London; purchased there by A. Bredius in 1897, who sold the painting in the same year to the Mauritshuis LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 690-691, no. 229; Bode 1924, p. 22, 24; Schneider 1927, p. 154-155; Reynolds 1931, p. 53-55; Höhne 1960, p. 50-51; Knuttel 1962, p. 159, 182-183; Buyck 1964; exhib. cat. New York-Maastricht, p. 52-53; Duverger 1984-2004, vol. 8 (1995), p. 334; exhib. cat. Boston-Toledo 19931994, p. 414-416; De Clippel 2003, p. 204-209, 212; De Clippel 2006, vol. 2, p. 286, 552; exhib. cat. Frankfurt 2009, p. 109-110; exhib. cat. Haarlem 2013, p. 51-52. 174 of The smokers (exhib. cat. no. 39). It therefore seems likely that Brouwer’s use of Pontius for an allegorical depiction of Luxuria was more likely to be a source of amusement to all concerned, rather than a cause for offence. In terms of composition and painting technique, The fat man closely resembles Brouwer’s Good friends (cat. no. 30), which, like this work, was painted during the last years of the artist’s life in Antwerp. A dating of circa 1634/37 is therefore realistic. 175 ADRI AEN BROUWER Good friends I n this delightful little painting, Brouwer depicts the upper body of a man, either kneeling or sitting, fondly stroking a dog that enthusiastically jumps on his lap. The central figure is wearing a simple dark grey-blue jacket and a red cap. His broad posture, large hands and tanned face suggest he is a farmer. This kind of ‘character head’ study occurs more than once in Brouwer’s oeuvre and, remarkably, also in the work of Van Craesbeeck, although often with noticeably more exaggerated facial expressions and much less sympathy for the subject (see, for example, De Clippel 2006, vol. 2, cat. nos. 119, 151 and 152). The title Good friends or Good comrades immediately explains the essence of this piece: the strong emotional bond between man and beast. The manner in which Brouwer gives visual expression to this bond is sublime. ca. 1636/38, oil on panel 16 x 13 cm private collection, Belgium EXHIB. CAT. NO. 30 The scene is set in an atmospheric landscape. Although some authors in the past interpreted this as a dune landscape, it is more likely to be set in the countryside (perhaps a cornfield?). Be that as it may, the background and the main protagonists are bathed in the glow of warm summer light. Brouwer’s mastery of colour is once again evident: a subtle palette with primarily blue tones (light blue in the sun-kissed skies, dark blue in the man’s jacket), but with hints of red here and there and ochre in the background landscape, which provides an undertone for the whole composition. The intimate nature of the subject and the brilliant virtuosity of the painting suggest a late dating. This is Brouwer at his best, and it leads us to ask the hypothetical question: given his outstanding compositional and technical talent and his ability to give visual expression to deep human emotions, what might he not have achieved if the fates had allowed him to live longer? PROVEN A NC E MauriceKahn auction, Paris 1911; J. Böhler, Munich; M. Van Gelder, Ukkel; D. Katz, Dieren; J.C.H. Heldring, Oosterbeek, acquired by the present owners at the auction of Heldring collection ,Sotheby’s, London 1963 LIT ERAT U R E Schmidt-Degener 1908, p. 48, 56; Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 219; Bode 1924, p. 146; Gerson 1960, p. 144; Knuttel 1962, p. 159; exhib. cat. New YorkMaastricht 1982, cat. no. 10.. 176 T ADRI AEN BROUWER his small painting shows a peasant sitting at a bench. He is clearly concentrating hard on what he is doing, but what exactly is not clear. Perhaps, as some suggest, he is cutting his thumbnail? Or maybe he is sharpening a quill? In that case, the scene would identify him as a pennensnijder or pen cutter. Even though we do not usually associate the making of writing implements with the type of ‘peasant’ character that Brouwer here depicts, it was nonetheless a popular theme in the 17th century. The combination of a ‘blunt’ farmer working to create a ‘sharp’ pen was regarded as amusing. The comic element was found in the performance of an essentially futile task: an illiterate farmer would have no need of something to write with (for humour and its function in Brouwer’s work, see the essay by Kolfin, p. 127 ) Peasant with a knife ca. 1630/33, oil on panel 13,3 x 10,5 cm Kremer Collection, Amsterdam EXHIB. CAT. NO. 31 This work belongs to a group of paintings made by Brouwer in which a single figure, usually shown from the waist up, is depicted against a neutral background. These ‘tronie’ studies were made in the course of the 1630s, when the artist was largely active in Antwerp. They are typified by their small scale, sketch-like design, fine brushwork, diffuse background and a limited palette. A more dramatic and ‘grotesque’ example is the sublime Youth pulling a face in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.. This panel has the same dimensions as the piece in the Kremer Collection, but was probably painted later. PROVEN A NC E Collection of Count Bloudoff, St. Petersburg; Van Diemen & Co, art dealers, Berlin, 1930; auction at Christie’s, New York 1995, no. 21; Salomon Lilian, art dealer, Amsterdam; Kremer Collection (acquired in 1996) LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 671-672, no. 190; exhib.. cat. Vaduz 2002, cat. no. 5; exhib. cat. Cologne-Kassel 2008, cat. no. 6. 178 T ADRI AEN BROUWER his small piece also belongs to the series of ‘tronie’ studies that Brouwer painted during his years in Antwerp. This visual formula gave him the opportunity to pictorialize a wide range of emotions. Here we can see a merry man sitting a table. In his right hand he holds a large tankard. He turns his lolling head sideways to look at someone or something outside our immediate view. His red nose and general appearance leave us in no doubt: this gent has looked far too deeply into his glass – and probably not for the first time! Singing man with a tankard ca. 1632/36, oil on panel 14,8 x 12,1 cm Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, inv. no. G 1958.13 In the past, authors like Bode have pointed to the ‘sinful’ nature of this type of depiction. Yet although drunkenness and excessive behaviour were generally regarded as improper and were condemned as such, in this painting the focus is on the accurate portrayal of the drunkard and the comic nature of his antics. It goes without saying, of course, that the owner of the painting would not have identified himself with the personage depicted. But this does not necessarily mean that Brouwer’s wider public would have seen works like Singing man with a tankard as a representation of one of the Seven Deadly Sins (in this case Gluttony or Gula). For the people of Brouwer’s time, these scenes were more a source of amusement than moral exampla of how they should (not) behave. Their charm was in their life-like portrayal of real people and their comically expressed emotions. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 33 As already mentioned, this kind of accurate depiction requires a keen insight into human nature, allied to great artistic talent. Very few artists were able to combine these two gifts like Brouwer, a point that was emphasized repeatedly by even his earliest biographers. PROVEN A NC E Max Geldner legacy, Basel 1958 LIT ERAT U R E Bode 1924, p. 118; Schmidt 1957-1958, p. 111; Bott 2000, p. 60-63, cat. no. 8. 180 T ADRI AEN BROUWER his painting is one of Brouwer’s most successful accomplishments as the master of emotions. In a hard-to-identify space we can see three men, two of whom are fighting. The figure on the right, seated at the table, is being attacked by the standing man, who is seething with anger. He bites hard on his opponent’s hand, while simultaneously pulling his hair. The victim of this assault looks in anguish toward the viewer, screaming out his pain. As if this were not enough, the attacker is holding a jar in his hand, which he clearly intends to bring down on his enemy’s head. A third man tries to prevent him from this rash action. The reason for this brawl is a game of dice and, presumably, a dispute about the outcome. Like playing cards, playing dice was regarded as a useless and undesirable waste of time, certainly when it was combined with the drinking of alcohol - which often led to the result that Brouwer depicts here. Fighting over dice ca. 1634/36, oil on panel ca. 22,5 x 17 cm Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, inv. no. 1058 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 35 Fights in general were one of Brouwer’s favourite themes. His oeuvre contains numerous examples of violent altercations between members of the lower classes (both urban and rural). Although the motif was already present in his early work (see, for example, exhib. cat. no. 7), it was above all during his Antwerp period that he explored this subject more deeply and refined his approach. His predilection for fighters was rooted in his fascination with human nature and emotions. No other theme gave him the same opportunity to examine affects and their effects in different stages as physical conflict. Violence always releases a wide range of emotions: expressions of pain, disgust, anger, fear, determination, surprise, amazement and dismay, to name but a few. In his magnificent Fighting over dice Brouwer succeeds in reducing the central action and its effects to their essence. The way in which he manages to capture this fleeting moment is nothing short of brilliant. The compositional development also betrays an innovative outlook: he deliberately chooses to freeze the action at the highpoint of the fight, both literally and figuratively. PROVEN A NC E Possibly bought directly from Brouwer by Rubens; H.K. von Keyserlingk Collection, Dresden; purchased in 1741 along with 177 other paintings from the collection by Elector Frederik August I of Saxony This work is probably one of the Brouwer paintings detailed in the inventory of Rubens’ estate in 1640: ‘Un combat de trois, où un frappe avec le pot’ (three men fighting, one of them striking a blow with a pot). As the master of the Baroque, Rubens also had a clear interest in the development and depiction of emotions. He closely followed evolutions in the field and no doubt noted with approval the innovations introduced by his younger colleague. The central emotions in Fighting over dice are rage and pain, which are closely related to the Deadly Sin of Anger (Ira), which was possibly the original intention of this work. LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 630, no. 168; Bode 1924, p. 97; Knuttel 1962, p. 143, 187; Mayer-Meintschel 1982, p. 121, cat. no. 1058; Liedtke 1984, p. 13-14; Scholz 1985, p. 115, 197; Muller 1989, p. 140, cat. no. 279; Walther 1992, p. 132, cat. no. 1058; De Clippel 2004, p. 317-319; exhib. cat. Antwerp 2004, cat. no. 41; Schmidt 2010, p. 67-68. 182 Be that as it may, the composition was extremely popular and we know of at least four copies. One of these- and possibly even a fifth version - is mentioned in the inventory of the estate of Herman de Neyt, an Antwerp art dealer. The Dresden panel is generally accepted as the original. The rear of the panel has a stamp of the coat of arms of the City of Antwerp, probably attesting to the fact that Brouwer painted this work during the years when he lived and worked there. A dating of circa 1634/36 is therefore reasonable. 183 ADRI AEN BROUWER Two peasants fighting I n a tavern, two drunken peasants have become involved in a fight. With a face contorted with rage, the man on the left bangs the head of his opponent so hard into a barrel that he loses his balance. The victim tries to release his attacker’s grip with his left hand, while clinging desperately to the barrel with his right hand in an attempt to prevent himself from falling. He stretches out his left leg in the hope of being able to force his way upright. Even so, it looks as though both he and the barrel might topple over at any moment. A third man calls on the fighters to stop and seems to be on the point of intervening. In the background, a fourth figure is pulling up his trousers, having just risen from the toilet. Perhaps he, too, intends to join the fray. ca. 1633/35, oil on panel 30,7 x 25,7 cm Alte Pinakothek, München, inv. no. 861 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 36 The central focus of action in this painting is an explosion of violence, pain and anger. As so often, excessive drinking of alcohol is the cause of all the misery. Brouwer locates the scene in a ‘bad tavern’ or ‘tavern of ill-repute’, a miserable drinking establishment of which there were so many in his day, often hidden away down dark alleys or outside the city walls. These were regarded as places of evil and corruption, since the drink was plentiful and the standards of behaviour dissolute. On the window shutter to the left we can see the chalk marks that note how much each customer has had to drink. On the wall near the adjacent shelf, there are drawings of a phallus and an owl, which say much about the tone of the place. Graffiti of this kind often appear in Brouwer’s tavern interiors. The painting has an almost monochrome colouration, with an emphasis on brown and ochre tints. The faces of both protagonists are fully lit, while the other two figures remain in half-shadow. There are just a few white accents to lighten the scene, such as the cloths on the barrel and the window shutter, the chalk on the bench and the cuffs of the two combatants. PROVEN A NC E Acquired in 1698 by Gisbert van Colen for Elector Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 175; Bode 1924, p. 98 e.v.; Reynolds 1931, p. 36; Van Puyvelde 1940, p. 144; Knuttel 1962, p. 129-133; Renger 1986, p. 51, 72, 110; Renger, Denk 2002, p. 54; Neumeister 2009, p. 65-67. 184 T ADRI AEN BROUWER he tavern interior in the National Gallery is probably the most ambitious scene that Brouwer ever painted. The complex compositional structure, the perfect depiction of a wide range of emotions and expressions, the different layers of meaning and the sheer brilliance of his technical mastery make it one of the finest examples of Brouwer’s consummate artistic ability. It is also by far the largest of his known works. Tavern scene ca. 1635, oil on panel 48 x 67 cm, The National Gallery of Art, London, inv. no. NG 6591. Signed on the step: ‘Brouwer’ On the left, we can see a tippler who puts his hand up the dress of the young woman sitting next to him. In his drunken haste - his trousers are already open - he has knocked over the mug of beer in front of him. The woman resists his advances, forcing away his hand and pulling his hair, causing him to cry out in pain. This amuses the others who are watching. An old man who has been spying on the couple from a window above them has a broad grin on his face. Some of the drinkers in the group on the right are also enjoying the scene, although the two men sitting at the front still seem more concerned with their smoking and drinking - or else they are too befuddled to care. The red-faced man in the white cap on the far right, with a full glass in one hand and a serving jug in the other, is probably the innkeeper. EXHIB. CAT. NO. 37 Even so, in this scene the focus is clearly on the couple on the left, and in particular on their interaction with each other and the effect it has on the others in the room. In contrast to her amorous companion, the woman is of elegant, almost distinguished, appearance. She is wearing a white blouse covered by a finely embroidered pink jacket and a matching skirt. It has been suggested by some that she is a ‘woman of easy virtue’; in other words, a prostitute. It is certainly true that even though her ‘beau’ seems to have no intention of immediately removing his hand, she still has the situation under control. PROVEN A NC E D. Bleker, Amsterdam prior to 1658; G. van Colen 1697/98; Elector Palatine Max Emanuel: Antonio Triva 1698; Prince Galitzin auction, Paris 1825; F. Boursault, Paris 1833-1838/39; E. Higginson, Saltmarsh, auction 1846; E. Lake; Sir Hickman Bacon and heirs. Purchased by the National Gallery in 2002 LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 586-587, no. 69; Bode 1924, p. 156-158, 181-182; Gerson 1960, p. 144; Knuttel 1962, p. 92, 111-113; Benesch 1964, cat. no. 156; Blankert 1978, p. 36; Renger 1986, p. 10; exhib. cat. Boston-Toledo 1993, p. 411-412, cat. no. 65; exhib. cat. Haarlem 2017-2018, p. 98-99, 179, cat. no. 17. 186 Renger refers to a work that he describes as ‘a brothel scene’ and says that it is identical to Brouwer’s painting. It is not clear whether this ‘tavern’ is also really a brothel, but the symbolism and the various references to the sexual act in the composition certainly make this a possibility: the stick resting against the barrel, the suitor’s sheathed knife pointing at the woman and the spilt beer dripping over the steps all leave little to the imagination. ready mentioned: a dominant woman getting the better of a weaker man (see exhib. cat. no. 23). This emphasis on the ‘distorted’ man-woman relationship is confirmed by the presence of the peeping-tom in the window. He is holding a reel in his hand, an object traditionally associated with the female task of spinning. Reels were often used as an ‘inappropriate’ male attribute in the popular ‘battle of the sexes’ scenes of the day, such as the well-know Fight for the trousers. By integrating these two themes into his work, Brouwer shows his affinity with the comical repertoire of the rhetoricians, a link that can also be found in the compositional development of this theatrical scene (see also the essay ‘Adriaen Brouwer: master of emotions’). The motif of a man who cannot keep his hands to himself occurs on several occasions in Brouwer’s oeuvre and is part of a well-known 16th century visual tradition. However, the manner in which Brouwer interprets that tradition here is completely new: he depicts the couple in an exaggerated manner and places them in a realistic interior scene, where they become a source of amusement for the other revellers. At the same time, Brouwer also makes reference to another tradition we have al- One of the most striking features of the painting is the incomparably rich depiction of the different emotions of the protagonists, seldom seen elsewhere in his oeuvre. Only very rarely was Brouwer called upon to display such a range of facial expressions in a single work. The sublime rendering of the tavern interior and the attention to detail shown in the huge variety of ancillary objects are also remarkable. One feature of special interest is the monster-like ‘creature’ that hangs from the ceiling as a chandelier. It looks a little like a sea-horse with antlers. This is clearly not ‘life-like’ and although it cannot be identified it does resemble the kinds of weird and wonderful things that were kept in the ‘cabinets of curiosities’ which were so popular in early modern times. It is just one of the many veiled symbols that Brouwer liked to include in his art. In his biography of Brouwer, De Bie refers to a painting that might well be this work: ‘Hier siet men eenen quant near‘t meysens voorschoot grijpen’ (Here you can see a companion who makes a grab for the girl’s thighs). And in the Kupferstichkabinett in Dresden there is a sheet that Bode regarded as a preliminary drawing for the Tavern scene. In comparison with the painting in the National Gallery, some details have been added and others taken away (presumably to ‘improve’ the overall composition). For this reason, Knuttel assumes it to be the work of a later artist, based on a different version painted by Brouwer. It seems unlikely, however, that he ever made a second, slightly modified version. Consequently, the most likely explanation for the changes in the drawing is that these are the inventions of a later Brouwer imitator. 187 ADRI AEN BROUWER The smokers I n this iconic painting Brouwer portrays himself among a group of artist friends, who are all enjoying a good drink and a smoke. The smokers was recognized from early on as one of Brouwer’s best works and also that it depicted the artist and his circle. These early references were of importance, because in addition to the artist himself they also named two of his companions: Jan Davidsz. De Heem (1606-1683/84) and Jan Cossiers (1600-1671). In the 1920’s, Schneider confirmed the identity of the central figure as (a self-portrait of) Brouwer and also identified De Heem as the man on the far right. More recently, Karolien De Clippel has identified the others: Jan Lievens (1607-1674) as the clown-like, winking figure on the left, artist-baker Joos van Craesbeeck (ca. 1605/06-1660/61) in the centre, with Jan Cossiers to his right. The absent and confused look on the faces of both Craesbeeck and Cossiers, who are positioned more in the background, stands in sharp contrast to the direct contact that Lievens, Brouwer and also De Heem seek with the viewer. De Clippel has shown convincingly that Brouwer painted this group portrait on the occasion of the admission of De Heem and Lievens into the Antwerp St. Luke’s Guild in 1635/36. In that same guild year, Brouwer was also admitted as a liefhebber (devotee) in ‘De Violieren’, the chamber of rhetoric that was closely linked to the guild. ca. 1636, oil on panel 46,4 x 36,8 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 32.100.21. Signed at the bottom left: ‘Brauwer’ EXHIB. CAT. NO. 39 The smokers is the only known self-portrait by the painter. The manner in which he presents himself and his friends to the world is pioneering and set an example for others to follow. In contrast to traditional group portraits, Brouwer situated his portrait in a tavern interior, a setting usually associated with peasants and other people of low class. What’s more, the protagonists behave more in keeping with the people you can see in Brouwer’s tavern scenes than with the people who usually appear in the group portraits of the day. With the exception of De Heem, whose body language, clothing and ironic smile sets him apart from the rest of the company, the figures are all depicted in a way that is less than flattering. The humorous ‘typecasting’ of Brouwer himself and his highly respected fellow-artists is remarkable, to say the least. It is almost as if Brouwer equates himself with the ‘questionable’ people and scenes he so often paints in taverns. This gave rise to a cliché image of the artist that was popular with some of his later biographers, such as De Bie, who remarks that the master was like his art: ‘Met ’t pijpken inden mont, in slechte pis taveren’ (with a pipe in the mouth in piss-poor tavern). PROVEN A NC E L.H. de Loménie, Paris or Versailles 1662; L. van Oukerke, Haarlem 1818; J. De Vos, Amsterdam 1833; J. Steengracht van Oostcappelle, The Hague 1841; H. Steengracht van Oosterland, The Hague 1875; H.A. Steengracht van Duinvoorde, The Hague 1912; auction Galerie G. Petit, Paris 1913; Kleinberger, Paris and New York, 1913/19; M. Friedsam, New York 1931 LIT ERAT U R E Schmidt-Degener 1908, p. 22-23; Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 603-604, no. 113; Bode 1924, p. 172-175; Schneider 1927, p. 149-150, 153-155; Reynolds 1931, tellingly in the half-body portraits and ‘tronies’ that he produced in Antwerp during his final years. In addition, this group portrait is also a snapshot, the freezing of a fleeting moment in time in a magisterial manner. This can best be seen in Brouwer’s own body posture and facial expression: wide-eyed and open-mouthed, he looks as though he has just been surprised, twisting around to face the viewer. It is almost as if the smoker-drinker feels ‘caught in the act’ by our presence and for a moment stops what he is doing to turn and look at us. The virtuoso painting technique, with its loose, almost sketch-like brushwork, underlines the ephemeral and informal character of the scene. It was this synthesis of form and content that was one of Brouwer’s greatest achievements. Elsewhere in this publication Anne-Laure van Bruaene suggests that Brouwer’s humorous typecasting in The smokers is a reference to his activities as a rhetorician and a kannenkijker. Kannenkijker - the word literally means ‘someone who looks into a tankard’ - was a derogatory nickname for the rhetoricians, which referred to the excessive drinking habits associated with this society of poets, actors and orators. This interesting observation coincides neatly with Karolien De Clippel’s thesis relating to the origins of this painting and Adam Eaker’s contribution about Brouwer’s representation of rhetorical drunkenness. The technical virtuosity, the layered content and the pioneering approach - the piece is effectively a cross between portrait, history and genre painting - makes The smokers one of the most important works in Brouwer’s entire oeuvre. It is simultaneously a self-portrait, a parody of the popular clichés about drinking (which, ironically enough, have helped to colour our own image of Brouwer down to the present day: the artist is like his work) and an ode to comradeship and conviviality. At the same time, it is also a good example of the master’s perceptiveness, pictorial wit and his ability not to take himself - and life - too seriously. In short, it is Brouwer at his very best. in Brouwer’s footsteps, David Teniers also painted a number of self-portraits depicting himself as a smoker-drinker in a tavern. A particularly fine example is his Smoker in the LACMA (exhib. cat. no. 40, with a second version in the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, inv. no. P001791), in which he literally imitates Brouwer. But the artist who was most inspired by this iconographic innovation was Joos van Craesbeeck. He portrayed himself on numerous occasions as a smoker-drinker (see, for example, exhib. cat. no. 41), both in single portraits and integrated into genre scenes. The artist-baker clearly enjoyed depicting himself in this new way and thereby gave a new élan to Brouwer’s inventions. Brouwer’s innovative approach was quickly copied. It is interesting to note that three of the other people in his painting (Lievens, De Heem and Craesbeeck) all made (self-) portraits with drinkers and smokers soon after the completion of The smokers. Following p. 51-53, 63-66, 85-86; Winkler 1936, p. 163; Boon 1947, p. 55; Valentiner 1949, p. 88-89; Höhne 1960, p. 51-52; Knuttel 1962, p. 13 ff.; Liedtke 1984, The evocative facial expressions - particularly of the artist himself - reflect Brouwer’s never-ending search for the best way to accurately depict the true nature of human emotions, as can be seen most vol. 1, p. 5-10; Renger 1986, p. 17, 51; De Clippel 2003; De Clippel 2013, p. 51-52.. 188 189 ADRI AEN BROUWER Drinking companions at table: the bowls players I n In an enclosed outdoor space a number of drinking companions are sitting around a table. It seems as if they are taking a break during a bowling game (you can see the balls lying on the ground to the right). In the background, close to the open door, a man is standing in a posture which suggests that he is urinating or urgently needs to. In the small room through the door another man is already sitting on the lavatory. Behind the fence, an atmospheric landscape stretches away into the distance, dominated by a remarkable hill, on top of which two figures can be seen. To their left there is a third silhouette of the head and shoulders of someone who is walking up the far side of the slope. ca. 1635, oil on panel 25,5 x 21 cm Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. 2854. Signed at the bottom left under the bench: Brouwer In the past, this painting was linked to a passage in Houbraken’s biography of Brouwer, dating from1718-1721. Houbraken (who based his claims on Bullart) described how on his arrival in Antwerp Brouwer was arrested and imprisoned in the city’s south castle, also known as the citadel. He had arrived from Amsterdam and was dressed like a Dutchman, which in those troubled times was reason enough for suspicion. Surprisingly, some past authors have interpreted this painting as a depiction of the citadel, with the figures within the fence as ‘the prisoners’ and the figures high on the hill as ‘the guards’, viewing the whole as a symbolic representation of Brouwer’s subsequent freedom. In reality, such interpretations say more about the interpreters than about Brouwer and his work. The fence is clearly not a part of the ramparts of the Spanish citadel, but is no more than a simple wooden enclosure around a tavern garden! EXHIB. CAT. NO. 46 The theme of bowling is repeated a number of times in Brouwer’s open-air scenes. In one of his earliest known landscapes a bowling game is shown amongst various other leisure activities taking place in the garden of an inn (private collection; see: exhib. cat. Boston-Toledo 1993-1994, cat. no. 63). Similar motifs can be seen in his later landscapes as well. According to Bode, Brouwer painted this particular panel during his early period, whereas Knuttel believed it to be one of his final works. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. The setting certainly seems to be a precursor of the atmospheric landscapes that Brouwer created towards the end of his career (exhib. cat. nos. 47 and 48). In this series of remarkably fine and impressionist-like paintings, the focus is placed entirely on the natural beauty and emotional quality of the landscape. Brouwer’s typical smoking, drinking, fighting and playing peasants are nowhere to be seen. This is not the case, however, in The bowls players, where certain elements once again refer in a traditional manner to ‘sins’, represented here by the defecating man and the pig on the right. As always, the PROVEN A NC E Purchased by the museum in 1882 LIT ERAT U R E Schmidt-Degener 1908, p. 45; Hofstede de Groot 1910, p. 628-629, no. 105; Van Dyke 1914, p. 13; Bode 1924, p. 120;Reynolds 1931, p. 46; Böhmer 1940, p. 80-83; Brussels 1958, cat. no. 68; Knuttel 1962, p. 157-159; Buyck 1965; Antwerp 1991, p. 62-63; Brussel 2001, p. 170; De Clippel 2006, vol. 1, p. 192-193. 190 technical virtuosity and refinement of the painting is outstanding. Its most noteworthy feature is perhaps the extremely subtlety of the colour palette, with primarily blue, green and grey-blue tones, light- ened here and there (as so often in Brouwer’s work) by an occasional splash of red. 191 ADRI AEN BROUWER Dune landscape I t is less well known that in addition to his tavern scenes Brouwer was also an excellent painter of atmospheric landscapes. Although his fascination with this kind of painting only came to full fruition during the final years of his life in Antwerp, his early works in the genre are not without significance. This can be seen, for example, in the open air scenes he painted at the beginning of his career, which closely follow the Bruegelian tradition (see, for example, exhib. cat. no. 7). He also included landscape elements in his tavern scenes, in the form of views through open windows and doors. Gradually, he developed an increasingly close affinity with the landscape and became particularly fascinated by different light effects at different times (morning, sunset, night), as well by specific natural phenomena such as lightning and storms. An exquisite example of his approach is the sun-kissed background landscape in Good friends (exhib. cat. no. 30), which in terms of its atmospheric framework is similar to this Dune landscape in the Vienna Academy. This difference is that while the landscape in Good friends only plays a subsidiary role, in this Dune landscape Brouwer gives it the leading role. The figures are demoted from protagonists to ‘staffage’: little more than ‘added extras’. The focus is placed entirely on the ambiance created by a natural landscape, part in sun and part in shadow. The compositional development is brilliant. The key features are the small-scale format, the sketch-like design, the use of a ‘ton sur ton’ painting technique in conjunction with a remarkably loose brushwork, so that the paint is applied almost translucently, and a background layer that here and there breaks through the surface. This method of working is devoted entirely to a single purpose: the capture of that fleeting moment when the morning sun reappears from behind the scudding clouds. This choice of subject, combined with the refinement of Brouwer’s virtuoso technique, gives this painting as surprisingly modern and ‘impressionist’ feel. It is unquestionably one of the best landscapes Brouwer ever painted. ca. 1636/38, oil on panel with canvas 26 x 36,5 cm Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, inv. no. GG 705 EXHIB. CAT. NO. 47 PROVEN A NC E Donated by Count Lambergto the Akademie in 1822 LIT ERAT U R E Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 241; Bode 1924, p. 139-140; Böhmer 1940, p. 87-88; exhib. cat. Vienna 2002, p. 156-158, cat. no. 38. 192 T ADRI AEN BROUWER his Landscape with full moon is one of the most sublime achievements by Brouwer as a landscape artist. We can see a stretch of hilly countryside, with a farm on the right, behind which stands a group of trees. The land merges seamlessly into a large expanse of water, on which a number of boats are sailing. The full moon illuminates the dark clouds scudding above and its light is also reflected in the water. To the left there is an area of shrubland, from which a tower rises elegantly into the night sky. The landscape contains five figures: a group of three in the foreground and two others in the background, closer to the edge of the water. The moon bathes the whole scene in a subtle, atmospheric light. Brouwer painted this work with broad, sketch-like brushstrokes, so that the background layer of paint sometimes partially shows through, particularly around the farm and in the sky. The paint for the rolling landscape, the foliage and the figures was also applied with equal coarseness, but with a more paste-like finish. The colour palette is dominated by brown, green and grey tones, with a few touches of red (the jacket of the man standing on the left in the foreground) to brighten the scene. Landscape with full moon ca. 1635/37, oil on panel 25,8 x 34,8 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no. 853B. Signed at the bottom right (in ligature): AB EXHIB. CAT. NO. 48 This painting is usually referred to as Dune landscape with full moon. However, since the landscape in question is not a topographical landscape and certainly not a dune landscape, we have opted to call it Landscape with full moon. An additional argument in favour of this title is the reference in the inventory of Rubens’ estate - probably indicating this piece - to ‘un paysage à la lune’ - Knuttel even went so far as to identify the stretch of water as the Western Scheldt. It is most unlikely, however, that Brouwer painted the landscape with topographical accuracy. He was more concerned with visually representing the atmospheric effects created by the moon’s radiant light. During the final years of his life in Antwerp, Brouwer devoted himself increasingly to the painting of small-scale landscapes, in which he focused on capturing in his own sublime manner the changing nature of light at different times, particularly in the morning, at sunset and at night. These atmospheric landscapes show remarkable similarities with the landscapes painted by Rubens at the end of the 1630s, as he also approached the end of his life. The similarities are most striking in Rubens’ oil sketches and in his painted panels, such Landscape with moon and stars and The willows (exhib. cat. no. 49). The subject, the painting technique and the format are all remarkably similar. PROVEN A NC E Collection of P.P. Rubens, Antwerp 1640; ?Jan van Meurs 1652; Van Boom-Willemsens, Antwerp 1687; J.-B. Anthoine, Antwerp 1687; A. Brentano, Frankfurt-am-Main; B. Suermondt, Aachen 1870; purchased in 1874 by the Königliches Museum (later Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now Staatliche Museen), Berlin LIT ERAT U R E Schmidt-Degener 1908, p. 41; Hofstede de Groot 1910, no. 232; Bode 1924, p. 130-132; Böhmer 1940, p. 94-96; Knuttel 1962, p. 166, 187; Stechow 1966, p. 179; Renger 1986, p. 19, 52, cat. no. 22;Berlin 1986, p. 18, cat. no. 899; In the past, art historians explained these similarities as a consequence of Rubens’ influence on Brouwer. Fortunately, this erroneous conclusion has now been revised. Although Brouwer certainly operated within the wider sphere of influence of Rubens, most re- Braham, Bruce-Gardner 1988, p. 580, 584; Müller 1989, p. 141, cat. no. 288; exhib. cat. Berlin 1996, p. 24; exhib. cat. Antwerp 2004, p. 206-207, cat. no. 44; De Clippel 2004, p. 310-312; Waiboer 2005, p. 21-22; Kleinert 2014, p. 46. 194 cent opinion - as detailed elsewhere in this publication - suggests that Brouwer’s landscape style was a synthesis of the Southern and Northern Netherlands landscape traditions. Moreover, Rubens had a very high regard for Brouwer’s work, including his landscapes. As Karolien De Clippel has shown, it is therefore more correct to say that the ‘influencing’ was not all in one direction, but was actually more a mutual exchange of ideas, a form of aemulatio in which both artists stimulated each other in their artistic development in the field of atmospheric landscape painting. The fact that Rubens painted many of his late landscapes - in which the link to Brouwer is self-evident - not on commission but for his own pleasure serves to confirm this hypothesis. Over the years, reference has rightly been made to the striking resemblance between the Berlin Landscape with full moon and Rubens’ phenomenal Landscape with moon and stars in The Courtauld Gallery. This is not simply a question of the choice of subject and the composition, but also of the painting technique. The Rubens’ panel is painted schematically and the artist made compositional changes during the painting process. It is therefore highly plausible to assume that in this instance the great master of the Baroque was directly inspired by Brouwer’s Berlin masterpiece. 195 Overview of the exhibited works Adriaen Brouwer: the new Bruegel 1. 2. 196 Adriaen Brouwer, Sheet with figure studies, 1626/32, pen and brown ink, waxed over sketch in charcoal, 218 mm x 329 mm, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon, inv. no. D.62 6. Adriaen Brouwer, The pancake baker, ca. 1624, oil on panel, 34 x 28.4 cm, John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia 7. Adriaen Brouwer, Fighting peasants outside a tavern, ca. 1625/26, oil on panel, 25.8 x 34.2 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague (on long-term loan from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), inv. no. 919 8. Anonymous, Country fair, first half 17th century, oil on panel, 45 x 62 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 5021 9. Follower of Marten (I) of Cleve, altered by Peter Paul Rubens, St. Martin’s fair, ca. 1630/40, oil on panel, 76 x 106 cm, Rubens House, Antwerp, inv. no. RH.S.219 10. Deed drawn up by public notary P. de Breuseghem in the presence of Adriaen Brouwer, Peter Paul Rubens and Daniel Deegbroot in Antwerp on 4 March 1632, City Archives, Antwerp, N # 735, P. de Breuseghem, protocols, 1631-1632 (fol. 118) Pieter Brueghel the Younger, St. George’s fair, after 1616, oil on panel, 72.6 x 102 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 644 3. Jacob Savery (and/or workshop), St. Sebastian’s fair, ca. 1598, oil on panel, 41.2 x 61.9 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 156 4. Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants celebrating, ca. 1624/26, oil on panel, 35 x 53.5 cm, Kunsthaus, Zürich, inv. no. R 4 5. Adriaen Brouwer, The slaughter feast, ca. 1625/26, oil on panel, 34 x 37.3 cm, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, inv. no. G 174 197 Leisure and entertainment: Brouwer’s merry companies 11. 12. 19. Adriaen Brouwer, Interior with a lute player and a singing woman, ca. 1630/33, oil on panel, 37 x 29.2 cm, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, inv. no. CAI.80 20. Esaias van de Velde, Outdoor banquet, 1619, oil on panel, 34 x 51.5 cm, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, inv. no. os 76-415 David (II) Teniers, The smokers, 1633, oil on panel, 31.3 x 53.2 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 5043 Adriaen Brouwer, Old man in a tavern, ca. 1632/35, oil on panel, 35 x 28 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. IB08.004 28. ‘The bad drink’ Joos van Craesbeeck, The five senses, ca. 1640/43, oil on panel, 65 x 84 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 377 29. Master of emotions 14. 15. 15b 16. 17. 18. Dirck Hals, Merry company, ca. 1628, oil on panel, 30.5 x 40.4 cm, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, inv. no. M 1970-5 Willem Pietersz. Buytewech, Merry company, ca. 1620, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no. 1983 Adriaen Brouwer, Smokers in an inn, ca. 1627/30, oil on copper, 17.5 x 23 cm, National Museum in Warsaw, Warsaw, inv. no. 103 Adriaen Brouwer, Drinking peasant, ca. 1632/33, oil on copper, 18 x 19 cm, private collection, Germany 22. Adriaen Brouwer, The back operation / Touch, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 34.4 x 27 cm, Städel Museum, Frankfurt, inv. no. 1050 30. Adriaen Brouwer, Good friends, ca. 1636/38, 16 x 13 cm, private collection, Belgium 23. Adriaen Brouwer, The father’s disagreeable task / Smell, ca. 1630/32, oil on panel, 20 x 13 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, inv. no. 1057 31. Adriaen Brouwer, Peasant with a knife, ca. 1630/33, oil on panel (oval), 13.3 x 10.5 cm, Kremer Collection, Amsterdam 25. Adriaen Brouwer, Drinking peasant, ca. 1630/33, oil on panel, 20.5 x 19.7 cm, Rubens House, Antwerp, inv. no. RH.S.187 26. Adriaen Brouwer, Peasants playing cards, ca. 1625/28, oil on panel, 25 x 39 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 642 27. Adriaen Brouwer, circle of (?), The merry lute player, ca. 1630/40, oil on panel, 24 x 19 cm, private collection, Brussels 198 Jan Miense Molenaer, Boy smoking a pipe / Taste, ca. 1630/40, oil on panel, 31.1 x 21.3 cm, Kremer Collection, Amsterdam Adriaen Brouwer, The flute player / Hearing, ca. 1632/35, oil on copper, 16.5 x 13 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. 3464 Adriaen Brouwer, Two peasants fighting, ca. 1633/35, oil on panel, 30.7 x 25.7 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 861 37. Adriaen Brouwer, Tavern scene, ca. 1635, oil on panel, 48 x 67 cm, The National Gallery, London, inv. no. NG 6591 38. Joos van Craesbeeck, Tavern quarrel in ’t Wapen van Antwerpen, ca. 1635/39, oil on panel, 53.8 x 75.1 cm, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, inv. no. 731 B. Joos van Craesbeeck?, Portrait of a man / Vanity, ca. 1635/40, oil on panel, 22,9 x 15,9 cm, private collection, USA Adriaen Brouwer, The arm operation / Touch, ca. 1633, oil on panel, 23.5 x 20.3 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, inv. no. 581 Adriaen Brouwer, The smoker / Taste, ca. 1631/34, oil on panel, 30.5 x 21.5 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. SKA 4040 36. A Adriaen Brouwer, A fat man, ca. 1634/37, oil on panel, 22.9 x 16.1 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague, inv. no. 601 21. 24. Adriaen Brouwer, Fighting over dice, ca. 1634/36, oil on panel, 22.5 x 17 cm, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, inv. no. 1058 Tronies / The Seven Deadly Sins The senses 13. 35. 32. Adriaen van Ostade, Laughing man, ca. 1640, oil on panel (oval), 15.5 x 11.5 cm, Kremer Collection, Amsterdam 33. Adriaen Brouwer, Singing man with a tankard, ca. 1632/36, oil on panel, 14.8 x 12.1 cm, Kunstmuseum Basel, inv. no. G 1958.13 34. Joos van Craesbeeck, Portrait of a drunken man, singing, oil on panel (oval), 13.3 x 10.3 cm, Kunsthandel Alkmaar Self-portraits Frans Hals, Laughing boy with a flute / Hearing, oil on panel, 37.5 diameter, ca. 1626/28, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, inv. no. G.2475 199 39. Adriaen Brouwer, The smokers, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 46.4 x 36.8 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 32.100.21 40. David (II) Teniers, The smoker, ca. 1640, oil on panel, 45.09 x 34.29 cm, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, inv. no. 47.29.18 41. Joos van Craesbeeck (?), The smoker, c. 1640, oil on panel, 41 x 32 cm, Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. M.I. 906 42. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait with beret, wide-eyed, 1630, etching, 50 mm x 45 mm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. NHD 69,II, S.II 135 43. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait in cap, laughing, 1630, etching, 49 x 42 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-689 44. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait, frowning, 1630, etching, 75 x 75 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-20 49. Peter Paul Rubens, The willows, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 18.5 x 33.3 cm, Speelman Collection, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 50. Jan Lievens, Landscape with willows and figures, ca. 1640/50, oil on panel, 28 x 41.3 cm, Fondation Custodia, Paris, inv. no. 2787 Portrait gallery 45. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait with open mouth, as if shouting, 1630, etching, 73 x 61 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-OB-280 51. Jan Lievens, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1640, chalk on paper, 22.1 x 18.4 cm, Fondation Custodia, Paris, inv. no. I 1203 52. Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1634, oil on panel, 21.6 x 17.2 cm, Boughton House, The Duke of Buccleuch Collection, Northamptonshire, inv. no. 2008/78 53. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-portrait with arm leaning on a stone sill, 1639, etching, 206 x 164 mm, Print Cabinet Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, inv. no. RP-P-1962-10 54. Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert, after Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer, ca. 1635/55, engraving, 242 mm x 161 mm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. S.IV 3616 55. Paulus Pontius, after Anthony van Dyck, Portrait of Peter Paul Rubens, ca. 1645/46, engraving, 234 mm x 156 mm, Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. S.II 29711 Landscapes 46. 47. 48. Adriaen Brouwer, Drinking companions at table: the bowls players, ca. 1635, oil on panel, 25.5 x 21 cm, Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, inv. no. 2854 Adriaen Brouwer, Dune landscape, ca. 1636/38, oil on canvas, 26 x 36.5 cm, Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna, inv. no. GG 705 Adriaen Brouwer, Landscape with full moon, ca. 1635/37, oil on panel, 25.8 x 34.8 cm, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, inv. no. 853B 200 Notes A painter without precedent 12. Kolfin 2005, p. 107. 13. For comparison, see: Kolfin 2005, colour plate 4 and p. 108. 1. De Bie 1662, p. 92. 2. Idem, pp. 91-95; Von Sandrart 1675, vol. 3, p. 303; Bullart 1682, pp. 487-489; De Piles 1715, pp. 408-409; Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 3, pp. 318-333. 14. Liedtke 2011; Atkins 2012, in particular pp. 127-146. In 1616, the year in which this work was painted, Hals was a ‘beminnaer’ in the ‘Wijngaertranken’ chamber of rhetoric in Haarlem. 3. See: Muylle 2003. 15. De Clippel, Vermeylen 2013, pp. 51-54. 4. De Bie 1662, p. 93. 5. Muylle 2003; De Clippel 2006, vol. 1, pp. 27-37. 16. Van Thiel 1961, pp. 153-172; De Clippel 2003. Also see the contribution by Anne-Laure van Bruaene in this publication. 6. Van Mander, fol. 233r. 7. De Bie 1662, p. 91. 18. That they actually met each other is confirmed by a notarial act dated 4 March 1632. See: Van den Branden 1882, pp. 24-25; Renger 1986, p. 10. 8. For Van Someren, see the essay by Jager, Lybeert, Vanwelden and Verroken elsewhere in this publication. 19. De Clippel 2006, pp. 320-327. 9. Bode 1924, pp. 63-66; Knuttel 1962, pp. 167-174; Scholz 1982; Renger 1987b. 17. Klinge, Lüdke 2005, pp. 114-115. 10. See: Lichtert 2018, p. 267. 11. Bode 1924, p. 63; Knuttel 1962, p. 170; Scholz 1982, p. 57; Renger 1987b, p. 283. Natif d’Audenaerde? New insights into the origins of Adriaen Brouwer and his life in the Northern Netherlands 12. For Brouwer and graphic art, see: Scholz 1985. 13. Also see the essay by Kolfin in this publication. 14. Bode 1883; Bode 1924. 15. Knuttel 1962. 16. Renger 1986; Renger 1987a; Renger 1987b; Renger, Denk 2002; De Clippel 2003; De Clippel 2004; De Clippel 2006. 17. For the collection in Munich, see: Neumeister 2009, pp. 50-83. 1. For the most recent biographies, see: Renger 1986 and De Clippel 2011. 2. Here the work of Erik Duverger deserves mention: Duverger 1984-2000. 3. Cornelis de Bie (1662) and Arnold Houbraken (1718) tell, for example, how Brouwer was robbed at sea and later painted ‘naeckt ende bloot’ (naked and nude) to earn a living. For a discussion of this anecdote, see: Muylle 2006. 4. The description ‘gryllorum pictor’ identifies Brouwer as a painter of grylli, a term referring to the painting of grotesque and ridiculous figures. De Clippel 2006, p. 42. 5. De Bie 1662, pp. 91-94; Von Sandrart 1675, vol. 3, p. 305. 6. Bullart 1682, vol. 2, p. 488: ’Adrien de Brouwer, natif d’Audenaerde en Flandre’. 7. De Piles 1699, p. 408: ’Adrien Braur, d’Oudenarde, né en 1608’. 8. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 1, pp. 318-333. Houbraken had possibly read de Piles’ book and wrote: ’Sommigen willen dat hy geboren is te Oudenaarden in ’t jaar 1608’. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 1, p. 318. 18. See exhib. cat. no. 11, p. 152 19. See the essay by Jager, Lybeert, Vanwelden and Verroken elsewhere in this publication. 20. For Brouwer’s metaphorical use of form, see: De Clippel 2003. Adriaen Brouwer, mobility and artistic innovation 1. De Clippel 2016. 2. Rasterhoff 2017; Vermeylen 2013. 9. 3. For other examples, see: De Clippel, Vermeylen 2013, pp. 41-54. 10. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 1, p. 325. 4. Verhoeven 2009. 5. Burke 2007, pp. 23-28. 6. Abels 2002, pp. 361. 11. Archive research into painters in the 19th century took place within a framework of cultural nationalism following the partition of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1830. See: De Clippel, Vermeylen 2015. 7. Arnold Houbraken had already made the link with Hals as early as 1718. See Atkins’ contribution to this publication. 8. Recent research has made it plausible to suggest that Adriaen also visited Amsterdam as an adolescent in 1620 and 1622:see the essay of Jager, Lybeert, Vanwelden and Verroken elsewhere in this publication. 9. 12. Raepsaet 1852, p. 14. 13. De Smet, Dhoop 1986, pp. 29-30 14. Ibidem. 15. Raepsaet 1852. 16. Idem, p. 13. Houbraken 1718-1721. 17. Van der Willigen 1872, p. 346 10. Noldus 2006, pp. 51-64. 18. Unger 1884; Nootmans 1627. 11. Houbraken 1718-1721, p. 332. 19. Bredius 1915-1922. 203 57. Vanwelden 2006, p. 237. 20. The many notes that Bredius made of his research in the Dutch archives are preserved at the RKD - Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis; here, too, we fail to find trace of Adriaen Brouwer in Haarlem: RKD, Archief A. Bredius, access no. NL-HaRKD.0380. 58. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 3567, fol. 4. Paul van der Schelden sculpted the entrance portal to the chamber of aldermen in Oudenaarde. 21. Bredius, 1915-1922, vol. 3, 804-805m. 22. Henry Raepsaet also refers to this marriage. See: Raepsaet 1852, p. 11. 89. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol.1, p. 324. 60. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 507, fol. 49. 90. According to Houbraken ’heeft [dit stuk] naderhand gehangen in ’t kabinet van den konstminnenden Keurvorst van de Palts’: Houbraken 1718-1721, vol.1, p. 324. The catalogue from 1778 mentions ‘un estaminet par Adrien Brauer peint sur bois’: De Pigage 1778, cat. no. 342, plate XXV. The illustration of the painting is very small: a man and a woman are sitting in a tavern on the left, with some other figures in the right background who are hard to identify. 62. Van Ysselsteyn 1936, vol. 1, p. 115; vol. 2, p. 427. 24. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol.3660.Tussenbruggen is a historic street in Oudenaarde between the bridge over the River Scheldt and the bridge over the Burgschelde tributary. 63. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 399, fol. 297. 64. For le Blon, see (amongst others): Noldus 2006; Noldus 2011. 25. SAO, Acten en contracten, reg.80, fol.105; reg.83,fol.232 and reg.81, fol.94v. 65. Kok 2013, pp. 119-122; Montias 2002, p. 269; De La Fontaine Verwey 1969. 26. SAO, Acten en contracten, reg.81, fol.94v. 66. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 53, fol. 80r. The betrothal in Gouda was not known. 27. SAO, Acten en contracten, reg.80, fol.176. 67. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 53, fol. 448 and OA Gouda, no. 1252 (Thesauriersrek. 1606), fol. 87. 28. SAO, Acten en contracten Pamele, reg.76, fol.80. A calendar mill is used to make woven fabrics, paper and leather smooth and shiny. 68. Research is currently being conducted into the emigration of citizens from Oudenaarde to Gouda and immigration in Gouda in general for the period 1570-1640 (Erik Verroken). 29. SAO, Acten en contracten, reg.81, fol.163v. 30. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol.2247, 2256, 138, 2277, 160, 172, 214 and 232. 69. SAA, 5075, 393A, fol. 70; Bredius 1915-1922, vol. 3, 804-805m. 31. Analogous with the two oldest children in this family. 70. The sale was made with a bond charged against Jan Marines himself, a schepenkennis charged against Gerrit Jansz. Pol for the value of 300 guilders and the remainder in paint goods. SAA 5075, 393A, fol. 41, 16-7-1626. A schepenkennis was a declaration of debt made before the city aldermen. 32. Goethals 1849, no page number, also says that Joos was hoogpointer (senior tax official) for the castellany of Oudenaarde. Also without source reference, there is mention of two earlier births: Jean-Olivier (1605) and Judocus (1608). 33. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol. 2256. The priestincorrectly gave Joanna, and not Elisabeth de Bleeckere as the name of the mother. 71. Brouwer’s name does not appear in the other deeds that were drawn up in respect of this sale: SAA, 5075, 393A, fol. 2, 1-7-1626; fol. 3, 2-7-1626; fol. 41, 16-7-1626. 34. Goethals 1849. 37. There is no trace of this marriage in the Oudenaarde city archives, only a reference to a payment made on the death of Anna (see following note). 72. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol.1, p. 322. The Antwerp-born Van Someren worked for a few years as a painter in Rome, before moving to Amsterdam in 1601. See: Osnabrugge 2015, pp. 28, 30. Van Someren bought regularly at auctions: a search in the Montias/Frick Database on the ‘buyer name’ Someren resulted in 113 hit. At the sale of the estate of Gillis van Conincxloo in 1607 he also bought various pigments. The Montias/Frick Database, inv.no. 733, 1-3-1607. 38. SAO Acten en contracten, reg.74, fol. 186v. 73. Bredius 1915-1922, vol. 3, 805n; vol. 6, 2175g; vol.7, p. 209. 39. SAO Acten en contracten, reg.73, fol. 142v. 74. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol. 1, p. 322. The painter and engraver Daniël van den Bremden (ca. 1587-before 1631) likewise lived with and worked for Van Someren from an early age: on 6 March 1607 he bought - ‘Daniel van den Bremde tot Someren’ - various drawings and prints at an auction: the Montias/ Frick Database, inv.no. 753, 6-3-1607. He might also have been present with Van Someren at the auction of the estate of Gillis van Coninxloo that same year: Roever 1885, p. 46. Van den Bremden engraved De Pennesnijder by Brouwer. See: Scholz 1985, cat. no. 7. 35. Raepsaet also refers to Adriaen de Brauwere, son of Gheert. On the basis of the data, we can exclude this Adriaen as the father of the painter. 36. Van Butsele 1990, p. 37. 40. Again, for this marriage we were unable to find any record in the parish registers or in the records of marriage contracts in the notarial archives. 41. This is apparent from the estate that Adriaen de Sutter bequeathed: SAO, Staten van goed, reg.32, fol. 8v. 42 SAO, Acten en contracten, reg.60, fol. 84v. 43. Joanna de Tavernier, her sister Cathelijne, her oldest brother Raesse and his wife all died in that same year. The plague had hit the family hard. 75. Jager 2016, pp. 108-111. 44. SAO, Staten van goed, reg.32, fol. 8v. 76. Extensive research in the city archives in Amsterdam revealed no new information about Brouwer’s connection with Van Someren. 45. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol.45. 46. SAO, Staten van goed, reg.34, fol. 163v. 77 SAA, Library, cat. no. U00.3101. The betting book (rijfelarijboekje) is mentioned in: De Roever 1886, p. 195; Bok 2008, pp. 17-18. Four of these books are preserved in the city archives. This is the fourth book, indicated by Marten Jan Bok with a D. The book is anonymous and seems never to have been completed. 47. SAO, Minuten staten van goed, reg.119. 48. SAO, Staten van goed, reg.34, fol. 235. 49. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol. 94, 98, 196, 121, 130, 138. 52. SAO, Acten en contracten, reg.77, fol. 16. 53. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol.138. 54. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 93, fol. 83r. Mentioned in: Van Ysselsteyn 1936, vol. 2, p. 432. 55. SAMH, OA Gouda, no. 15, fol. 124v. This Arend is probably the same ‘Arend de Brauwere fs. Willems inboren en natyf van de prochie Melden’, who came to Flanders briefly in 1609 to sell a house in Melden. RAG, OA Melden, no. 298, fol. 242v. 92. Van Someren was buried sometime between 14 and 31 December. His name is the last entry in the burial register for 1632 for the Amsterdam Chamber of Board of Orphans: ‘Barent van Someren: op de dam.’ SAA 5004, inv. no. 16. There is no date alongside his name in the register but the previous burial took place on 14 December. 114. The checking of the biographies of the persons mentioned in this deed revealed no further connection with Adriaen Brouwer. His name is not mentioned as a witness in any of the betrothal and baptism records relating to Van Someren and Van Nieulandt. Pieter Nootmans was a friend, but the documents in which he is mentioned also make no reference to Brouwer. In any case, Nootmans was in The Hague from 1629 onwards. 93. The Montias/Frick Database, inv. no. 634, 22-2-1635, partially transcribed and included in : Bredius 1915-1922, vol.3, p. 796-800. SAA, 5073, inv. no. 961. 115. An Advanced Art Search in the Montias/Frick Database on Artist ‘Brouwer’ resulted in 64 hits, seven of which are recorded as copies. The 17th century art market in Antwerp was awash with copies of Brouwer’s work. See the many inventories in Duverger 1984-2000. 94. The Montias/Frick Database, inv. no. 1183, 14-9-1649. Brouwer’s painting is one of three works that belonged to this friend in Poortugaal. 95. NHA, 3162, inv. no. 597, no folio numbers. Van Boheemen, Van der Heijden 1999, p. 321. Gerrit Dircksz. Brouwer, who is also mentioned as beminnaar in 1626 can be identified with the Gerrit Dircksz. who was a member of the brewers’ guild in 1617. Also see the database: www.lustigegeesten.nl. 116. Once the name Janneke was written instead of Tanneke. 117. NHA, DTB 50, fol. 19. Pieter Bruijneel’s first marriage to Maaike Landtsheer took place on 8 November 1624: DTB 49, fol. 290. On 9 June 1626 they baptized a daughter: DTB 7, fol. 365; 8, fol. 2. 96. Van Dixhoorn 2009, pp. 129-150, 158. KL: refer to the essay by Van Bruaene elsewhere in this catalogue 118. NHA, 1551, no. 100, Membership Book 1609-1632, fol. 339. 97. The lists make a distinction between beminnaers (members) and cameristen (governors). According to Van Dixhoorn, there were only cameristen listed in 1627. See: Van Dixhoorn 2009, p. 74. The remainder of the archives that have been preserved reveal no further information about Brouwer: NHA, 3162, inv. no. 594 and 603. 119. There are notes referring to members who left with an attestation during the period 1624-1736, compiled ca. 1950, but no Brouwers are mentioned. WFA 1702-09, no. 15. There is a book from 1593 listing the then member s of the church in Enkhuizen, including an Adriaen Brouwer with ‘Anna sijn huijss’(wife). WFA, DTB 14, fol. 139. The first wife of Adriaen de Brauwere, who we propose as the father of Adriaen Brauwer, was called Anna Speynghers. However, research has not been able to confirm that this is the married couple mentioned in the records. 98. Nootmans 1627, fol. A1v, A2r. 99. The spelling of the chamber names and mottos vary from source to source. We have opted for the spellings used in Van Dixhoorn 2004. 100. Van Dixhoorn 2003, p. 73. 120. NHA, DTB 8, fol. 172, 19-3-1628; DTB 9, fol. 106, 1-1-1633, DTB 9, fol. 441, 2-31636. 101. The artist Horatius or Hans Gillisz. Bollongier (1599/1603-after 1675) became a member at the same time as Brouwer. He was the son of a Flemish immigrant born in Haarlem and brother of the floral still life painter Hans Bollongier (ca. 1600-after 1645). Horatius painted genre scenes in the manner of Brouwer. See: Van Thiel Stroman 2006, p. 114. 121. NHA, 1551, nr. 100, Membership Book 1609-1632, fol. 421. 122. NHA, DTB 50, fol. 352. 123. NHA, DTB 11, fol. 322, 23-4-1642 (Pieter); DTB 12, fol. 108, 9-8-1643 (Adriaen). 124. The children are Maijke in 1638 (NHA, DTB 10, fol. 185, 20-6-1638), Cornelis in 1639 (DTB 11, fol. 21, 27-11-1639), Janneken in 1642 (DTB 11, fol. 295, 4-21642), Jannetie in 1645 (DTB 12, fol. 286, 7-2-1645), Adriaen in 1648 (DTB 13, fol. 256, 12-2-1648) and Pieter in 1651 (DTB 14, fol. 304, 7-9-1651). 102. This cannot be concluded from his admission to the chamber, as Unger contends. See: Unger 1884, p. 165. The chambers of rhetoric had no entrance criteria: a member did not need to be a married, a burgher or even a resident. Apart paying the required annual fee, all that was necessary was to show general good behaviour during a few trial visits to the weekly meetings. See: Van Dixhoorn 2009, p. 82. 125. No marriage deed was found in Haarlem. 126. Sijtje is a female variant of the Friesian name Seije; see the Dutch First Name Bank/Meertens. It is not clear if the name is also related to the Latin name for Elisabeth, in which case it may be possible to identify her with the Elisabetha baptized in Oudenaarde in 1613. 104. Miedema 1980, p. 417. 128. SAO, Minuten op de Staten van goed, reg. 158 en Staten van goed, reg. 51 fol. 95. 82. Bredius 1915-1922, vol.3, 802c. Carlo Hellemans was the brother of Sohier’s wife, Susanna Hellemans. 105. The Haarlem burgher registers have not been preserved. 83. For Montias’ biographical details about Nicolas Sohier, see the ‘buyer’s notes’ in the Montias/Frick Database, inv. no. lot 686.0067. 107. Nootmans 1627, fol. A2r. 108. Obreen 1877-1890, vol.5, p. 202, note 1. 129. On 9 February 1642, Gabriel Brouwer ‘vander Gou’ went to Haarlem as the betrothed of Anna Dircks from Alkmaar. NHA, DTB 51, fol. 176. Gabriel seems to be related to the Brouwers from Oudenaarde: Zijntge’s husband, Elias Pieters, witnessed the betrothal (1642), and Hans Brouwer was witness to the baptism of his daughter, Maria (1643). DTB 12, fol. 82, 14-5-1643. 109. Vanaise 1965, p. 234. 130. NHA, DTB 9, fol. 106, 1-1-1633. 85. Idem, p. 7. 86. The Montias/Frick Database, inv. no. 232, 9-9-1642; Van der Veen 1997, pp. 92-94. 204 91. The other Brouwer paintings owned by Sohier were a ‘toebackdrinkertgen’ and a ‘naersvegertgen’: the Montias/Frick Database, inv. no. 232, 9-9-1642. 81. For Hellemans, see: Di Lenardo 2014. 84. De La Fontaine Verwey 1978. 56. Briels 1985, pp. 152-157. 113. Van Thiel-Stroman 2006, p. 218. The painting was sold as an original by the artist Wouter Knijff (1605/1607-1694) to the art dealer Jan Wijnants,the father of the painter Jan Wijnants (1632-1684). Wijnants summoned Knijff to appear before the courts, which appointed Frans Pietersz. de Grebber (ca. 1573-1649), Frans Hals and Cornelis Symonsz. van der Schalcke (1617-1671) as arbitrators. Knijffs request to appoint Jan Baptist Wolfaerts (1625-1671) was rejected. 80. Briels 1976, p. 111; De la Fontaine Verwey 1969, p. 105. 79. Bredius 1915-1922, vol.7, 208n. 51. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol. 130. 112. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol.1, p. 319. 103. The information comes from Miedema’s transcription of the membership list drawn up in 1702 by Van der Vinne: Miedema 1980, 1033. Bredius’ transcription does not mention the name of Adriaen Brouwer: Bredius 1915-1922, vol. 6, 2214. 78. Bok 2008, pp. 16-18. 50. SAO, Parochieregisters, fol. 94 and 98. 111. Adriaen Brouwer cannot be traced in the notarial archives in Haarlem. There are three separate and incomplete indices at the Old Notarial Archive and a search for his name or similar names drew a blank. A search was made for Brouwer’s name among the notaries who indexed their deeds on binding for the period 1620-1630. Some of the registers without index were also searched in their entirety by way of a sample, but again without result. 88. Zandvliet 2006, no. 35. 59. Briels 1985, pp. 152-157; Vanwelden 2006, pp. 259-261. 61. Van Ysselsteyn 1936, vol. 1, pp. 114-119. 23. Van Butsele 1983, p.37. 87. Bijleveld 1906, pp. 189-190. The Montias biographical details for Nicolaas Sohier do not refer to the connection with the title of Du Vermandois. 127. No traces of Joanna de Tavernier were found in Haarlem. 106. For the specific rules of the Haarlem guild, see: Boers-Goosens 2001, pp. 74-79. 110. De Clippel 2004. 205 131. The guild year started on 18 October. Brouwer paid 26-0-0 for his admittance: Rombouts and Van Lerius, vol. 2, 22, 29, 31. 11. See, for example, the essay by Karolien De Clippel and Filip Vermeylen elsewhere in this publication. 132. Duverger 1984-2000, vol. 3, no. 776, 313-314. 12. Renger 2006, pp. 172-190. 133. Duverger 1984-2000, vol. 3, no. 784, 333. 13. See the essay Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions, p. 134. Rombouts, Van Lerius 1961, vol. 2, p. 34. 14. The caption reads: ‘p. Bruegel Inventor, A. Brouwer in. et fec.’. 137. Duverger 1984-2000, vol. 3, no. 784, 333. 15. There are two series, the first of which was attributed to Joannes and Lucas van Doetecum. See: Bastelaer 1908, pp. 230-241; Hollstein 1950, p. 249; Scholz 1985, pp. 172-173; Muylle 2001, pp. 176-178; Muylle 2002, pp. 131-134, 140-147; Gibson 2006, pp. 59-60. 138. Van den Branden 1881, p. 39. 16. De Vries 1989; Muylle 2001; Muylle 2002; Hirschfelder, Krempel 2013. 139. Bullart 1682, pp. 488-489. 17. For the development of the genre in the early Netherlandish arts, see: Muylle 2001. 135. Idem, p. 45. Bruneel paid his 10 guilder fee for the year 1633-1634: Idem, p. 57. 136. Ibidem. 140. Houbraken 1718-1721, vol.1, p. 329. 18. See also the essay Adriaen Brouwer. The master of emotions, p. 79. 19. Muylle 2001, pp. 177-178. 20. The art of both Bruegel and Brouwer is closely related to the culture of the rhetoricians. See the essay Adriaen Brouwer. The master of emotions elsewhere in this publication. > verw. p. nr. Adriaen Brouwer’s props: everyday objects as models for painters 1. http://collectie.boijmans.nl/en/research/alma-en 2. Gaba-van Dongen 2006, pp. 24-35; Giltay 2011. 3. Gawronski ed. 2012, p. 185, cat. 403-404. 4. Hurst et al. 1986, pp. 65-67, image 29.80; Bartels 2011. 5. With thanks to Jan Beekhuizen, chairman of the Dutch Pewter Association, Henk van Wyk, chairman of the Dutch Pewter Library Foundation and Philippe Probst, chairman of the Flemish Pewter Association. 6. Henkes, van Dongen 1994. 7. Also see the essay of Jager et al. elsewhere in this publication. 8. Mennicken 2013. 9. With thanks to Johan Veeckman, deputy-coordinator of Archaeology and Monument Care for the City of Antwerp. 21. For Bruegel as a landscape artist, see: Sellink 2007; Silver 2011, pp. 93-135; Lichtert 2014, pp. 37-75. 22. See Bode 1924, pp. 119-144; Böhmer 1960; Knuttel 1962, pp. 154-167; Renger 1986, p. 52. 23. Duverger 1992, vol. 6, p. 493, nr. 572. 24. For Rubens’ landscapes, see: Adler 1982; exhib. Cat. London 1996-1997; exhib. Cat. Essen-Vienna-Antwerp 2003-2004; Kleinert 2014. 25. Kleinert, pp. 46 ff. 26. See for example: Renger 1986, p. 52; Vlieghe 1998, p. 194. 27. See the essay Adriaen Brouwer. The master of emotions elsewhere in this publication. 28. First suggested by Stechow, see: vol. 3 Stechow 1965. See also: Braham, Bruce-Gardned 1988; De Clippel 2004. 29. See the essay by Elmer Kolfin, p. 10. With thanks to Johan Veeckman. 11. Verdier 1992, pp. 258-259, no. 27; Boucaud 1958, pp. 126-127. 12. Gaba-van Dongen 2004, pp. 193-219; Henkes 1994, p. 214. Adriaen Brouwer. Master of emotions 13 See: Houbraken 1718-1721, p. 332. 1. Houbraken 1753, vol. 1, p. 323. 2. See: Frijda 2005; Plamper 2015, pp. 9-25. A basic work for the study of facial expressions is still Charles Darwin’s The expression of the emotions in man and animal, see: Darwin (1872) 1998. 3. For a good summary of the thinking and study relating to emotions in art and literature, see: Dickey Roodenburg, 2010; Plamper 2015; Broomhall 2017. Adriaen Brouwer. The new Bruegel 1. For the genus gryllorum, see: Vandenbroeck 1985; De Clippel 2006, vol. 1, p. 39 ff. 2. For the history of the term ‘genre’, see: Stechow, Corner 1975-1976. Also see: exhib. cat. Rotterdam 2015. 4. For the representation of feelings in Brouwers work, see: K. Renger in Exhib. cat. München 1986, p. 35-44. 3. See: Stewart 2008. 5. 4. For Van Mander’s description and interpretation of Bruegel as peasant-Bruegel, see: Miedema 1981; Muylle 1984; Miedema 1998; Lichtert 2014, pp. 19-26, 49-56. For body posture as a carrier of meaning, see: Roodenburg 2005, Roodenburg 2010 6. Kauffmann 1943; Nordenfalk 1985a; Nordenfalk 1985b, Veldeman 1991-1992; Exhib. cat. Sint-Niklaas 2012-2013, p. 11-30 5. See: Ortelius, Puraye 1969; Muylle 1981. 6. Van Mander 1604, fol. 233r. For humour in Bruegel’s work, see: Gibson 2006. 7. 7. For Bruegel’s sons and specifically the copying of his father’s works by Pieter the Younger, see (amongst others): exhib. cat. Essen-Vienna-Antwerp1997-1998; Erts 2000; exhib. cat. Maastricht-Brussels 2001-2002; Currie, Allart 2012. 8 See: Hahn 1996 9. Van Mander 1604, fol. 23v. 8. 9. Gaskell 1987; Gaskell 1997; See also cat. nos 15 and 24. 10. For the link between Brouwer and Hals, see Knuttel 1962, p. 65-71; Atkins 2012, p. 162-164; De Clippel, Vermeylen, 2013. For the link between Rembrandt and Brouwer see the essay by Chris Atkins elsewhere in this publication. Briels 1997, pp. 84-91; Vlieghe 1998, pp. 149-150; De Clippel 2006, pp. 19-21. Schmidt 1873, pp. 20-21; Schmidt-Degener 1908, pp. 8-9; Reynolds 1931, p. 11. 11. Karolien De Clippel has suggested that this is possibly a portrait of Jan Cossiers, one of Brouwer’s closest colleagues, who also appears in the group portrait 10. Schmidt-Degener 1908, p. 8. 206 of The smokers. This is certainly possible, in view of the enjoyment Brouwer derived from integrating images of his artist friends into genre settings. See: De Clippel 2004, p. 203. 9. Ramakers 2014. 10. Van Bruaene 2008, p. 181. 11. Van Bruaene, Blondé & Boone 2016. 12. There exist, the painting in Frankfurt is regarded as Brouwer’s original. Jaco Rutgers is currently preparing a study in which he investigates the different versions, by and after Brouwer. 12. Van Dixhoorn 2009, pp. 110-119, 302. 13. Van Bruaene 2005. 14. Van Bruaene 2005; Goossens & Van Dijck 2012; Ramakers 2014. 13. See, for example, Kauffmann, 1943, p. 141; Knüttel 1962, p. 150; K. Renger in Exhib. cat. München 1986, p. 39; Renger in Exhib. cat. Haarlem 2017-2018, p. 97. ‘Bitter’ can mean bitter in the sense of a drink fortified with herbs, but the authors use bitter here in the sense of the unpleasant taste of the drink, which is a wrong meaning. 15. Van Dixhoorn 2009, pp. 185-186. Wijvensmijters is probably a mocking reference to the often very physical and violent jokes of the rhetoricians. See: Kramer 2009. 16. Van Dixhoorn 2009, pp. 185-188; Van Bruaene & Van Bouchaute 2017. 14. For Rembrandt in Leiden see Bauch 1960; Exhib. Cat. London-Den Haag 1999-2000. 17. Van Uytven 2004. 15. For Rembrandts autoportraits see Chapman 1990; Grimm 1991; Gotwald 2010. 18. Deceulaer & Verleysen 2006. 16. Renger 1986; De Clippel 2013. See also the essay by Chris Atkins elsewhere in this publication. 19. Roberts 2004. Anna Tummers (red.), De Gouden Eeuw viert feest (exhib. cat. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 2011-2012), Rotterdam 2011 17. De Witt 2004, p. 269-270, first mentioned by Kurt Bauch. See Bauch 1960, p.30-37. 20. De Clippel 2004. 18. For Rembrandt’s presence in Amsterdam, see: Broos 2000. 21. International: Tlusty 2001; Kümin 2007; Hailwood 2014. For the Netherlands: Deseure 2006; Hell 2017. 19. For a detailed analysis of this work, see pp. 188-189; see also the essays of Eaker and Van Bruane elsewhere in this publication. 22. Van Bruaene & Van Bouchaute 2017, pp. 15-19. 23. Rothstein 2012; Nichols 2014. 20. For the link between the Oudenaarde tapestry industry and the chambers of rhetoric, see: Ramakers 1996, pp. 81 & 199-201. There were close ties between artists and rhetoricians in both the Northern and Southern Netherlands. See, for example: Lichtert 2014, p. 188 ff.; see also the essay by Anne-Laure Van Bruaene elsewhere in this publication. 24. (Refer to essay Lichtert, ‘Brouwer the new Bruegel), Also see the examples in De Bruyn & Op de Beeck 2003; Supplement Vakit? Van der Coelen & Lammertse 2015. 21. Nootmans was a member of the ‘Het Groen Laurierspruyt’ or ‘De Jonge Batavieren’ chamber in Amsterdam. For Nootmans, see: Unger 1884, pp. 166-167. See also the essay by Jager et al. elsewhere in this publication. Brouwer’s unruly portraits 22. See: Muylle 2003, pp. 199-200. See also the essay by Adam Eaker elsewhere in this publication. 1. 23. See the particularly fascinating book of Femke Kramer, Kramer 2009. 24. For humour in Brouwer’s work, see also the essay of Elmer Kolfin elsewhere in this publication. For the use of humour more general, see Verberckmoes 1998; M. Westermann in Bremmer, Roodenburg 1999, pp. 167-213; Exh. Cat. Haarlem 2017-2018. 25. Genaille 1980; Exh. Cat. Antwerp 2004, pp. 170-171, cat. no. 73; De Clippel 2004, p. 316. 2. ‘grof slecht lijnwaet;’ ‘beste ende costelijkste stof des wereldts;’, De Bie 1662, p. 91. 3. ‘twee schotel-vodden;’ ‘perfecte Meesters…hunnen gheest de stoffe gaet soecken om de ydelheydt des wereldts aen hooveerdighe menschen voor ooghen te houden;’. De Bie 1662, p. 92. 4. On Poirters, see Porteman, Smits-Veldt 2008, pp. 488-491. I am grateful to Bert Watteeuw for first introducing me to Poirters’s work and its relevance to Flemish Baroque portraiture. 5. For an up-to-date summary of the literature on this painting, see the online catalogue entry at https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435807. Of the many attempts to identify the various figures in this painting, my account largely adheres to that proposed by Karolien De Clippel, see: De Clippel 2003. 6. Eaker 2015, p. 182. 7. ‘Den beruchten Ridder Karel de Moor heeft ons gelieven te verhaalen, dat dien Adriaan Brouwer eens een historiestukje schilderde, bestaande in de Konterfytsels van Jan David de Heem, Jan Koerssiers, en in zijn eygen portret, zittende de Heeren te rooken en glaasje te drinken. Den voornoemden ridder, die J. D. de Heem heeft gezien tot Antwerpen, zegt dat deszelfs konterfytsel wonderlijk wel was getroffen.’ Zie: Weyerman 1729, vol. 2, p. 69 26. For the different versions and the interest of Rubens in the work of Bruegel and the way he depicted emotions, see De Clippel 2004. 27. See Exhib. Cat. Antwerpen 2004, pp. 199-200; cat. no. 40; Neumeister 2009, pp. 50-61. Rederijker, kannenkijker. Adriaen Brouwer and rhetorical culture in the Northern and Southern Netherlands De Bie 1662 pp. 91-92. For a recent discussion of the text in its cultural context, see Moran 2014. 1. De Clippel 2003. 2. Van Bruaene 2008, p. 125. For the gift culture in ‘De Violieren’ chamber in the first half of the 17th century, see: Ramakers 2014. 8. De Clippel 2003, p. 196, with references to the previous literature. 9. For Grapheus, see: Joubert 2012. 3. Grootes 1992. 4. Van Bruaene 2008, pp. 173-183. 10. For Van Dyck’s grisaille, see Bert Watteeuw’s entry in: Alsteens, Eaker 2016, pp. 145-146, cat. no. 40. 5. Van Dixhoorn 2009, pp. 119-120. 11. On Bosch and the gryllos, see: Koerner 2016, p. 100 6. Van Dixhoorn 2009, pp. 243-262. 12. See Gregory Rubinstein’s entry in: Wheelock, Dickey 2008, p. 241, cat. no. 102. 7. Unger 1884; Van Boheemen, Van der Heijden 1999, p. 321. 13. De Clippel 2003, p. 203. 8. Van Bruaene 2008, pp. 183-188. 14. For another perspective on links between The smokers and the chambers of rhetoric, see Anne-Laure Van Bruaene’s essay, also in this volume. 207 15. For the picture, see: Van der Stichelen 1990, pp. 117-118 schilder te worden? Daar hy straks ja op antwoorde, indien zyn moeder zulks wilde toestaan. F. Hals vraagde het zyn moeder, die zulks inwilligde, mits hy haar jongen den kost geven wilde.’ (That Frans Hals resolutely came up there and seeing how loose and witty he treated this work, asked him: would he not want to become a painter? as soon as he answered yes, if his mother wanted to allow this. F. Hals asked his mother, who agreed to this, provided he wanted to give her boy a living). See: Houbraken 1718-1721, p. 319. 16. Such breuken figure prominently in Cornelis de Vos’s portrait of the guild factotum Abraham Grapheus; see: Van der Stichelen 1990, pp. 25-31, cat. no. 7. 17. Chapman 1990, pp. 114-120. I am grateful to Allison Stielau for suggesting the relevance of the Prodigal son tradition to The smokers. 18. Levine 1987, p. 183 19. Gaskell 1987. 11. It has long been accepted that Brouwer studied with Hals during his time in Haarlem in the mid.1620s. Houbraken devoted considerable effort to establish the master-pupil relationship in his life of Brouwer but, there is no documentary evidence to support Houbraken’s position. Brouwer had to have completed his training by 1625 when he seems to have begun working independently. As Hals’s production from the first half of the 1620s appears to have been limited, one wonders if Hals would have had need for much studio assistance at that time or the financial ability to hire an assistant. 20. Lippit 2009, p. 178 21. De Clippel 2004, p. 317. 22. On the importance of visible ground in the genre tradition, see: Koerner 2016, esp. pp. 89-90 and 297-298. 23. Miedema 1994, vol. 1, fol. 233r. 24. For Van Craesbeeck’s self-portraits, see: De Clippel 2003, pp. 212-214. There is a discussion of his remarkable Bosschian self-portrait now in Karlsruhe in: Koerner 2016, pp. 264-266. 27. Vegelin van Claerbergen 2006 28. De Clippel 2004. 29. For an updated catalogue entry on the picture, see https://www.metmuseum. org/art/collection/search/436252. 30. Montagu 1994. 31. Exhib. cat. Antwerp 2004, pp. 158-160, cat. no. 25. The surviving Yawning man in Brussels is now attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger; Rubens may have owned another lost version by his father. 32. On the connection between this painting and The bitter drink, see: Renger 1987b, p. 278. Raupp 1984. 4 A different approach to the same question in Kolfin 2017, pp. 40-41. 14. Melanie Gifford and Lisha Deming Glinsman also found that the shared forms and styles of mid-century Dutch genre painters were possible without having witnessing other painters’ work, but from the finished paintings themselves. Gifford, Glinsman 2017. 5 Von Sonnenburg 1984; Pousao-Smith 2016. Atkins has shown that the ability to appreciate the loose style demanded a degree of schooling and was therefore something for art-lovers. See: Atkins 2012. Also see the essay by Atkins elsewhere in this publication. 15. Knuttel 1962, pp. 22-23. 6 Raupp 1984; Renger 1987; Muylle 2003. 16. Similar effects can be found earlier in Lievens’s personification of fire now in Kassel that dates to about 1626. 7 Rintjus 1656-1657, pp. 132-133. For Schellinks as artist and poet, see: De Vries 1883. 17. Rembrandt’s Concord of State from about 1640 may be the latest painting that indicates engagement with Brouwer’s art. 8 De kwakzalver (Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle inv. no. 1897) is regarded by Katrien Lichtert as the work of a Brouwer imitator. 18. Westermann 1999, p. 244. 9 For the topos relating to the transcending of the boundary between depiction and reality, see: Weber 1991, pp. 176-182. 19. Israel 1997, pp. 449-476. 35. On this point, and for a rich discussion of the painting in general, see: Fried 2010, pp. 7-38. 23. De Clippel 2004, p. 312 following Raupp 2001, pp. 159-179. 21. Atkins 2012, pp. 120-122. 24. De Clippel supports this assertion by noting that Brouwer was asked to authenticate a peasant dance owned by Rubens on March 4, 1632 almost immediately upon his arrival in Antwerp. Rubens had acquired the picture about a year earlier. See: De Clippel 2004, pp. 304-305. 36. De Clippel 2003, pp. 204-210. 25. De Clippel 2004, pp. 317-318. 26. David Levine has made a related argument for Hals. See: Levine 2012. The painter’s painter 27. De Clippel 2004, p. 318 and note 69. 28. Westermann 1999, pp. 238-239. 4. For Brouwer’s technical ability in rendering fire see: Pousão-Smith 2016, pp. 115116. For the appreciation of depictions of fire more generally in early modernity see: Atkins 2015, p. 64. ‘The scum of the earth for the flower of the nation’ Adriaen Brouwer and his public in the Netherlands of the 17th century 3 22. See also: Kleinert 2014, p. 46. For an extensive analysis of Brouwer’s technique see: Von Sonnenburg in: Renger 1986, pp. 103-112. 30 Pierre Mariëtte, see: Scholz 1984, p. 120, no. 30. ‘Le tabac purge le cerveau/soit dun fol dun sage ou dun veau’. Getty Provenance Index (http://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb, further abbreviated as GPI) N-2273. For Sohier, see: Zandvliet 2006, p. 81. 34. For Rubens’s reception of Caravaggio, see: Wood 2010, vol. 1, pp. 113-120. 3. 29 Gaskell 1997. 2 20. Montias 1987, pp. 455-466. Wilhelm Valentiner first posited the connection to the Johnson Collection painting in 1913. Valentiner 1913, p. 170. Peter Sutton reiterated and supported Valentiner’s position in: Sutton 1984, p. 163. 28 Scholz 1984, p. 121, no. 32, ‘Devoir un charlatan qui tire/ le cors des pieds dun paisant/ qui pouroit senpescher de rire/ cela nest il bien plaisant’. Duverger 1984-2004, part 3, p. 268, no. 760; De Clippel 2004, pp. 304-306. 33. See, for example, the Christ carrying the cross now in the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, and attributed to a follower of Bosch. 2. 38. Atkins 2012; exhib. cat. Haarlem 2013, pp. 19-24. 1 13. Karolien de Clippel linked Verdonck with The Smokers. See: De Clippel 2013, pp. 51-54. 26. For Teniers’s lordly self-fashioning, see: Dreher 1978. Strauss, Van der Meulen 1979, pp. 349-388, no. 1656/12. 27 For strategies of pictorial humour, see: Westermann 1997; Schiller 2006; Tummers, Kofin & Hillegers 2017. 12. Knuttel 1962, p. 68. 25. Cited in: De Cllippel 2003, p. 212. 1. 37. See, for example: Goldfarb 1998; Van de Wetering 2000, and Atkins 2012, pp. 91-99. 6. Strauss, Van der Meulen 1979, pp. 349-388, no. 1656/12. 33. Bullart 1682, vol. 2, p. 487 as translated in: Westermann 1999, p. 243. 7. Getty Provenance Index, N-5314. 34 Pousão-Smith 2003, p. 270. 8. Getty Provenance Index, N-1677. 9. Getty Provenance Index, N-5636. 35. Von Sonnenburg emphasized Brouwer’s distinctive approach to coloring and labeled him an experimental colorist. See: Von Sonnenburg in: Renger1986, pp. 104-110. 10. ‘Dat Frans Hals gevallig daar voorby komende en ziende hoe los en geestig hy dit werk behandelde, hem vraagde: of hy niet wel zin zou hebben om een 36. Rosand 1981, p. 85. 208 35 By Jan Visscher. See: Scholz 1984, p. 144, no. 82. 36 With thanks to Frans Blom. See also: Scholz 1984, p. 45; Ebert 2013, pp. 212-218. 37 Scholz 1984, p. 110, no. 14., ‘Menades in furijs almum celebrate Liaeum/ Treiecio Vati mors, et amara lues;/ Ira mihi tu dulcis eris, rabiesque Puella/ Et facies Bacchi Numinis instar erit.’ (translation: Frans Blom). 38 These mentions by no means tell the whole story, since a number of paintings may have been transferred from one collection to another. In other words, there will almost certainly be a number of double entries, so that the real total is actually lower. Nor is it certain that the works recorded as Brouwers or as copies were identified correctly. Finally, our view is limited to an urban public, with, in particular, the estates in Antwerp, Amsterdam and Haarlem being well recorded. 39 The difference with the previously indicated 110 mentions arises because not all the estates with works by Brouwer could be individually recorded in detail. Fock 1990, p. 12 mentions 24 paintings by or after Brouwer in Leiden. Biesboer 2002, p. 37 refers to 29 in Haarlem as late as 1745. 40 Example in: Duverger part 4, pp. 152-153, no. 987. 41 Examples in: Duverger 1985-2004, vol. 4, p. 28; part 6, p. 332; part 12, p. 96. 42 Duverger 1984-2004, part 12, pp. 85-99, no. 3988. 43 Example: GPI N-128; also see GPI N-1860. 13 Bullart 1682, part 2, pp. 487-488. 45 See also the essay of Chris Atkins, elsewhere in this publication 14 Houbraken 1753, part 1, pp. 318-333. 46 De Gheyn III, GPI N-1677 (1641); Bol et al., 2018 (1669); Bartolomeus Van der Helst, Bredius 1915-1922, part 2, p. 406 (1671). For Brouwer in Rembrandt’s estate, see: Van den Boogert 1999; for Rubens, see: De Clippel 2004; Lohse Belkin & Healy 2004. 44 For Roelants and Van Meurs, see: Timmermans 2008, p. 232. Sohier is discussed further in this article. 15 Houbraken 1753, part 1, p. 323. 16 Houbraken 1753, part 1, p. 330. 17 Also see the three poems about paintings of Brouwer by John Elsum (Elsum 1700). 19 See: Scholz 1984. For archivalia relating to early graphical reproduction, see: Duverger 1984-2004, part 4, p. 28, no. 899. Muller 1989, pp. 91-146. 34 For the tradition of peasant themes, see: Renger 1984; Raupp 1986. 12 Von Sandrart 1925, pp. 174-175. For the 17th century approach to cynicism, see: Raupp 1984, pp. 233-236; Schmitt 1993; Largier, Wyssenbach 1997; Herding 1998. 30. Von Sonnenburg also identified thick tracks of color deriving from broad brushstrokes as a hallmark of Brouwer’s style. Von Sonnenburg in: Renger 1986, pp. 106-107. 5. 33 Scholz 1984, p. 141, no. 77. ‘Trahit sua quemque voluptas’. 11 De Bie 1661, p. 92. For the importance of having a sharp mind for comic painters, see: Kolfin 2017. 18 Angela Jager (Jager 2016) has shown that this kind of ‘mass-produced’ work usually dealt with biblical scenes. 32. ‘Alles was zoo natuurlyk naar den aart der hartstogten, in de wezenstrekken verbeeld, en zoo verwonderlyk vast geteekent, en los geschildert dat het wel tot een proefstuk van zyn Konst kon verstrekken.’ Idem, p. 323. 32 Daniel van den Bremden, Scholz 1984, pp. 107-108, nr. 9. 10 De Bie 1661, p. 93. 29. Pousão-Smith 2016, pp. 107-123. 31. ‘Deze dingen los en geestig opgesmeert bevielen hun zoo wel, dat zy hem spoorden om wat meer tyds daar aan te besteden met beloften van het loon te verdubbelen.’ Houbraken 1718-1721, p. 320. 31 Daniel van den Bremden, see: Scholz 1984, p. 107, no. 8. 47 GPI N-5314. 48 Duverger 1984-2004, part 5, pp. 132-133, no. 1274; Duverger 1984-2004, part 7, pp. 36-40, no. 1925. Gonzales Cocques painted a portrait of Anthoine; see: White 2007, pp. 90-93, no. 21; Lisken-Pruss 2013, p. 251, no. 43. Van Dyck painted an equestrian portrait of Albert de Ligne; see: Barnes et al. 2004, p. 300, cat. III.66. 49 Duverger 1984-2004, part 11, pp. 371-372, no. 3754. Almost all the paintings were still lifes, landscapes and historical scenes. See also: Duverger 1984-2004, part 7, p. 332, no. 2146. 20 In addition, prints were made with a German, English and Italian text. See: Scholz 1984, p. 111, no. 15; p. 115, no. 23 and pp. 118-119, no. 28. 21 For Vorsterman, see: Scholz 1984, pp. 146-152, nos. 85-91; Dankerts: pp. 109-110, no. 113; Vouillemont: pp. 153-158, nos. 95-108; Gole: pp. 113-114, nos. 18-21. 50 For the relationship between Rubens’ and Brouwer’s landscape art, see: De Clippel 2004, pp. 310-313. Also see the essay by Katrien Lichtert elsewhere in this publication. 22 Blöcker 1993. 51 GPI N-2050. Estate from 1653. 23 Renger 1986, pp. 39-41; Schipper 2000, vol. 2, pp. 454-457, nos. 320-343. 52 Estate from 1678, GPI N-2288. See: Postma 1988. 24 Scholz 1984 pp. 170-172, nos. 134-135; Schipper 2000, pp. 355-356, no. 58. A second series initially attributed to Brouwer has now been rightly attributed by Scholz to Pieter Staverenus. See: Scholz 1984, p. 140, nos. 72-76. 53 Duverger 1984-2004, part ?, pp. 12-13; part 4, p. 12, no. 887. 54 Lunsingh Scheurleer, Fock & Van Dissel 1986-1992, part 3, p. 336. 25 Scholz 1985, pp. 170-172, no 134; Schipper 2000, vol. 2, p. 356, no. 58. 55 Timmermans 2008, p. 232. 26 Cornelis et al. 1996, p. 145, no. 157. 56 Duverger 1984-2004, part 8, pp. 334-336, no. 2526; Timmermans 2008, p. 232. 57 Duverger 1984-2004, part 4, p. 138; Scholz 1984, p. 122, no. 33. 209 63. GPI N-2273. 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Philosopher in Fool’s Cap’, Source 5:2 (1986), pp. 15-19. F. Winkler, ‘Brouwers “Raucher” im Louvre’, Pantheon 17 (1936), pp. 163-165. Bern 1943 Holländische und Vlämische Meister des 16. Und 17. Jahrhunderts (Exh. cat. Kunstmuseum, Bern 1943). Haarlem 2011-2012 A. Tummers, De Gouden Eeuw viert feest (Exh. cat. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 2011-2012). New York 2011 W. Liedtke, Frans Hals: Style and Substance (Exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2011). Boston 1998 H. Goldfarb, Titian and Rubens: Power, Politics, and Style (Exh. cat. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston 1998). Haarlem 2013 A. Tummers et al., Frans Hals. Oog in oog met Rembrandt, Rubens en Titiaan (Exh. cat. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 2013). Paris 2013 Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens et les autres. Peintures baroques flamandes aux Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Exh. cat. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris 2013). Boston 2000-2001 A. Chong (ed.), Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt. Art and Ambition in Leiden, 1629-1631 (Exh. cat. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston 2000-2001). Haarlem 2014-2015 G. Schwarz et al., Emoties. Geschilderde gevoelens in de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 2014-2015). Boston – Toledo 1993-1994 P. Sutton et al., The Age of Rubens (Exh. cat. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 1993; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo 1994). F. Winkler, ‘Ein frühes Werk von Adriaen Brouwer’, Pantheon 18 (1960), pp. 213-221. J. Wood, Rubens’ Copies and Adaptations from Renaissance and Later Artists. Italian Artists, 2 vols., London 2010. K. Zandvliet, De 250 rijksten van de Gouden Eeuw, Amsterdam 2006. Brussels 1961 Spel en tijdverdrijf (Exh. cat. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels 1961). Exhibition catalogues Brussels 1968 De muziekinstrumenten in de oude schilderkunst (Exh. cat. Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels 1968). Cologne – Antwerp – Vienna 1992 F. Badouin et al., Van Bruegel tot Rubens. De Antwerpse schilderschool 1550-1650 (Exh. cat. Wallraf-RichartzMuseum, Cologne; Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 1992-1993). Amsterdam 1976 E. de Jongh et al., Tot lering en vermaak: betekenissen van Hollandse genrevoorstellingen uit de zeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1976). Amsterdam 1997 E. De Jongh, G. Luijten, Spiegel van alledag. Nederlandse genreprenten 1550-1700 (Exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1997). Cologne – Kassel – Haarlem 2008-2009 P. Van der Ploeg et al., Rembrandt, een jongensdroom. 17deeeuwse Nederlandse schilderkunst. De collectie Kremer (Exh. cat. Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne; Museumlandschaft Hessen, Kassel; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 2008-2009). Antwerp 1986 P. Vandenbroeck, Beeld van de andere, vertoog over het zelf. Over wilden en narren, boeren en bedelaars (Exh. cat. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp 1986). Dublin 2005 A.E. Waiboer, Northern Nocturnes. Nightscapes in the Age of Rembrandt (Exh. cat. The National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin 2005). Antwerp 1991 M. Klinge, David Teniers de Jonge: schilderijen - tekeningen (Exh. cat. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp 1991). Antwerp 2004 K. Lohse-Belkin, F. Healy, A House of Art. Rubens as Collector (Exh. cat. Rubenshuis and Rubenianum, Antwerp 2004). Frankfurt 2009 J. Sander et al., Caravaggio in Holland : Musik und Genre bei Caravaggio und den Utrechter Caravaggisten (Exh. cat. Städel Museum, Frankfurt 2009). Antwerpen – Essen 1998 Pieter Breughel de Jonge - Jan Brueghel de Oude. Een Vlaamse schildersfamilie rond 1600 (Exh. cat. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp; Kulturstiftung Ruhr, Essen 1998). The Hague 1997 J. Van der Veen, Collections of Paintings in the Dutch Republic during the Period of Frederick Henry and Amalia (Exh. cat. Mauritshuis, The Hague 1997). 218 Paris 2017 E. Brugerolles et al., Dessiner le quotidien. La Hollande au siècle d’or (Exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris 2017). Haarlem 2017-2018 A. Tummers, E. Kolfin, J. Hillegers, De kunst van het lachen. Humor in de Gouden Eeuw (Exh. cat. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem 2017-2018). Philadelphia 1984 P.C. Sutton, Masters of Seventeenth-century Dutch Genre Painting (Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin; Royal Academy, London 1984). Haarlem – Hamburg 2003-2004 P. Biesboer, M. Sitt (eds.), Satire en vermaak. Schilderkunst in de 17de eeuw: het genrestuk van Frans Hals en zijn tijdgenoten 1610-1670 (Exh. cat. Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem; Kunsthalle, Hamburg 2003-2004). Philadelphia 2015 C. Atkins, The Wrath of the Gods: Masterpieces by Rubens, Michelangelo, and Titian, (Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 2015). Karlsruhe 2005 M. Klinge, D. Lüdke (eds.), David Teniers der Jüngere 16101690. Alltag und Vergnügen in Flandern (Exh. cat. Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe 2005). Rotterdam 1990 N. de Poorter et al., Rubens en zijn tijd (Exh. cat. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 1990). London 1996-1997 C. Brown, Making and Meaning. Rubens’s Landscapes (Exh. cat. The National Gallery, London 1996-1997). Rotterdam 1994 H.E. Henkes, A. Gaba-van Dongen, Gebruiksglas in beeld en verbeelding (Exh. cat. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 1994). London – The Hague 1999-2000 C. White et al., Rembrandt by himself (Exh. cat. The National Gallery, London; Mauritshuis, The Hague 1999-2000). Rotterdam 2015 P. Van der Coelen, F. Lammertse (eds.), De ontdekking van het dagelijks leven van Bosch tot Bruegel (Exh. cat. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2015). Maastricht – Brussels 2001-2002 PP. Van den Brink (ed.), De Firma Brueghel (Exh. cat. Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht; Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels 2000-2001). Rotterdam – Aachen 2006 A. Gaba-van Dongen, Alledaags & Buitengewoon. De gebruiksen pronkvoorwerpen van Willem Kalf (Exh. cat. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen 2006). Maastricht – London 1982 M. Klinge, Adriaen Brouwer, David Teniers the Younger: A Loan Exhibition of Paintings (Exh. cat. Noortman & Brod, New York – Maastricht 1982). Rotterdam – Frankfurt 2004-2005 J. Giltaij et al., Zinnen en minnen. Schilder van het dagelijks leven in de zeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, Frankfurt 2004-2005). Munich 1986 K. Renger, Adriaen Brouwer und das niederländische Bauerngenre 1600-1660 (Exh. cat. Alte Pinakothek, Munich 1986). New York 2004 A. Gaba-van Dongen, Longing for Luxury: Some Social Routes of Venetian-style Glassware in the Netherlands during the 17th Century (Exh. cat. Corning Museum of Glass, New York 2004). Sint-Niklaas 2012-2013 A. De Gendt, Over het genot van de zintuigen in de schilderkunst (Exh. cat. Zwijgershoek, Sint-Niklaas 2012-2013). 219 Vaduz 2002 P. Van der Ploeg et al., Dutch and Flemish Old Masters from the Kremer Collection (Exh. cat. Fondation Aetas Aurea, Vaduz 2002). Warschau 2007 Ziemba (ed.), Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens. Malarstwo flamandzkie doby Rubensa, van Dycka i Jordaensa 1608-1678 (Exh. cat. National Museum in Warsaw, Warschau 2007). Old prints, facsimilae and maps Consulted Archives Databases G.A. Bredero, Alle de wercken, so spelen, gedichten, brieven en kluchten, Amsterdam 1638. Amsterdam, Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA), 5004, Archief van de Weeskamer: begraafregisters. Getty Provenance Index G.A. Bredero, Groot Lied-boeck, s.d., 3 vols., ed. G. Stuiveling et al., Culemborg – The Hague 1975-1983. Amsterdam, Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA), 5073, Archief van de Weeskamer en Commissie van Liquidatie der Zaken van de Voormalige Weeskamer. The Montias Database of 17th Century Dutch Art Inventories. New York, The Frick Collection. http://research.frick.org/montias I. Bullart, Academie des Sciences et des Arts contenant les Vies en les Eloges Historiques d’Hommes Illustres, Amsterdam 1682. C. De Bie, Het gulden cabinet van de edel vry schilderkunst, Antwerp 1662. Vienna 2000 Rubens und die flämische Baroockmalerei in der Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien (Exh. cat. Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna 2000). N. De Pigage, La Galerie électorale de Dusseldorff, ou catalogue raisonné et figuré de ses tableaux, dans lequel on donne une connoissance exacte de cette fameuse collection et de son local, par des descriptions détaillées et par une suite de 30 planches, contenant 365 petites estampes rédigées et gravées d’après ces mêmes tableaux, par Chrétien de Méchel, Basel 1778. Zürich 1949 Gemälde der Ruzicka-Stiftung (Exh. cat. Kunsthaus, Zürich 1949). R. De Piles, Abregé de la vie des peintres, avec des reflexions sur leurs ouvrages, et un traité du peintre parfait, de la connoissance des desseins, et de l’utilité des estampes, Paris 1699. The Hague, RKD – Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis, Archief A. Bredius, toeg.nr. NL-HaRKD.0380. Ghent, Rijksarchief Gent (RAG), Oud Archief Melden, 298, Akten en contracten, Vonnissen. Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland (SAMH), 15, Hervormd trouwboek. Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland (SAMH), 53, Ondertrouwboeken. Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland (SAMH) 93, Kamerboeken. Gouda, Streekarchief Midden-Holland (SAMH), 3567, Goederenregister. F.V. Goethals, Dictionnaire généalogique et héraldique des familles nobles du royaume de Belgique, Brussels 1849. Antwerp 1988 Schilderkunst Oude Meesters, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp 1988. A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen ... zijnde een vervolg op het schilderboek van K. van Mander, 3 vols., ‘s Gravenhage 17181721. Berlin 1986 H. Bock, Gemäldegalerie Berlin. Gesamtverzeichnis der Gemälde, Berlin 1986. A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols., ed. Amsterdam 1976. (http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/houb005groo01_01/ houb005groo01_01_0151.phpp.). Brussels 1958 Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Oude Kunst, Brussels 1958. P. Nootmans, Van den Bloedigen slach van Pavyen, gheslagen, tusschen den victorieusten Roomschen Keyser Carel de Vijfde, ende den stoutmoedighen Coninck Franciscus Primus van Vranckrijck M.D.XXV.den XXIV. Februarij, Amsterdam 1627. Hoorn, Westfries Archief (WFA), 1702-09, Doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken Enkhuizen (DTB). H. Rintjus, Klioos kraam, vol verscheide gedichten, 2 vols., Leeuwarden 1656-1657. Oudenaarde, Stadsarchief (SAO), Oud Archief, 877, Oppervoogden, Z3, Staten van goed. K. van Mander, Het Schilder-Boeck waer in Voor eerst de leerlustighe Ineght den grondt der Edel VRY SCHILDERCONST in verscheyden deelen Wort voorghedraghen Daer nae in dry deelen t’leuen der vermaerde doorluchtighe Schilders des ouden en nieuwen tyds Eyntlyck d’wtlegghinghe op den METAMORPHOSEON pub. Ouidij Nasonis Oock daerbeneffens wtbeeldinghe des figueren Alles sienstich en nut den schilders Constbeminders en dichter oock allen staten van menschen, Haarlem 1604. Oudenaarde, Stadsarchief (SAO), Oud Archief, 877, Oppervoogden, Z31, Minuten van staten van goed. Brussels 2001 Musée d’Art Ancien. Oeuvres choisis, Brussels 2001. Philadelphia 1972 Catalogue of Flemish and Dutch Paintings, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia 1972. Schwerin 1984 Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Leipzig 1984. De Nederlandse Voornamenbank. Amsterdam, The Meertens Institute. https://www.meertens.knaw.nl/nvb/ Amsterdam, Stadsarchief Amsterdam (SAA), 5075, Archief van de Notarissen ter Standplaats Amsterdam. Museum catalogues Brussels 1984 Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Dept. of Old Master Paintings, Brussels 1984. Getty Provenance Index (http://piweb.getty.edu) Haarlem, Noord Hollands Archief (NHA), 1551, Kerkenraad van de Nederlands-Hervormde Gemeente te Haarlem. Haarlem, Noord Hollands Archief (NHA), 2142, doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken (DTB) (retroacta van de burgerlijke stand van Haarlem). Haarlem, Noord Hollands Archief (NHA), 3162, Aloude Rhetorijkamer De Wijngaardranken onder de zinspreuk Liefde Boven Al te Haarlem. Oudenaarde, Stadsarchief (SAO), Oud Archief, 26, Akten en contracten gepasseerd voor Schepenen. Oudenaarde, Stadsarchief (SAO), Oud Archief, 905, Parochiale registers. J. Von Sandrart, Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und MahlereyKünste, 3 vols., Neurenberg 1675-1680. J.C. Weyerman, De levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche konstschilders en konstschilderessen, met een uytbreyding over de schilder-konst der ouden, 4 vols., The Hague 1729. 220 221 Credits This list includes the credits that have been passed on by the lenders from various countries. The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Smokers - Adriaen Brouwer The Friedsam Collection, Bequest of Michael Friedsam, 1931 (32.100.21) Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerpen De kaartspelers - Adriaen Brouwer © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost Philadelphia Museum of Art Pancake Baker - Adriaen Brouwer John G. Johnson Collection, 1917. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Oude man in een kroeg - Adriaen Brouwer © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost Rokers - David (II) Teniers © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) The Smoker - David Teniers de Jongere / the Younger William Randoph Hearst Collection By Permission of Dulwich Picture Gallery, London interior of a Tavern - Adriaen Brouwer NGA Washington Youth Making a Face - Adriaen Brouwer Getty Museum, Los Angeles Self-portrait/Rembrandt Laughing - Rembrandt Philadelphia Museum of Art Road near a House - Adriaen Brouwer John G. Johnson Collection, 1917. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art De vijf zintuigen - Joos van Craesbeeck © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Landscape with Willows – Peter Paul Rubens’ The Edward and Sally Speelman Collection. TR.1652-2005 In ‘t Wapen van Antwerpen, Joos van Craesbeeck © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost Victoria and Albert Museum, Londen Interior of a Room with Figures (The Lute Player) - Adriaen Brouwer Bequathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides Pieter Brueghel de Jonge - Sint-Joriskermis © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust Portrait of Adriaen Brouwer - Anthony Van Dyck ”By kind persmission of the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry KBE Dorpskermis - Anoniem (navolger van Adriaen Brouwer) © www.lukasweb.be - Art in Flanders vzw foto: Hugo Maertens, Dominique Provost The National Gallery, Londen Tavern Scene - Adriaen Brouwer Bought with the support of a number of gifts in wills, 2002 Koninklijke Musea voor Schone kunsten van België, Brussel Drinkeboers bij een bolspel – Adriaen Brouwer foto: J. Geleyns - Art Photography Muséé des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon Feuilles d’etudes avec des paysans dans des poses et des senes variées - Adriaen Brouwer De fluitspeler - Adriaen Brouwer foto: J. Geleyns - Art Photography Fondation Custodia, Parijs Portret van Adriaen Brouwer - Jan Lievens Collection Frits Lugt Felix archief, Antwerpen N # 735,P. de Breuseghem, protocollen, 1631-1632 (fol.118) stadsarchief Antwerpen Heuvellandschap met wilgen en figuren - Jan Lievens Fondation Custodia, Collection Frits Lugt Particuliere verzameling, België De luitspeler Rubenshuis, Antwerpen Drinkende boer - Adriaen Brouwer Collectie Stad Antwerpen, RH.S.187 foto: Michel Wuyts ‘Goede vrienden’- Adriaen Brouwer Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België Zelfportret met baret en opengesperde ogen. Rembrandt van Rijn ‘Het Feest van Sint-Maarten - navolger van Maarten van Cleve (retouches door Rubens) Collectie Stad Antwerpen, RH.S.219 foto: Bart Huysmans, Michel Wuyts Portret van Adriaen Brouwer, Schelte Adamsz. Bolswert, naar Anthony van Dyck Portret van Peter Paul Rubens. Paulus Pontius, naar Anthony van Dyck 222 223 Commissioned by the City Council of Oudenaarde, led by Mr. Luc Vanquickenborne With the support of Tourism Flanders, KBC and the Province of East Flanders Coordination: Geertrui Van Kerkhoven Curator: Dr. Katrien Lichtert Steering committee: Luc Vanquickenborne, Geertrui Van Kerkhoven, Dr. Katrien Lichtert, Eva Roels, Piet Blondeel, Stijn Lybeert, Hilde Avet Scientific committee: Prof. Manfred Sellink, Prof. Koenraad Jonckheere, Dr. Karolien De Clippel, Dr. Mirjam Neumeister, Dr. Nico Van Hout, Dr. Katrien Lichtert, Geertrui Van Kerkhoven Administrative and substantive support, education: Hilde Avet, Eline Spileers - MOU Oudenaarde Scenography: Bailleul Design Agency – Ghent Decor: 3CS - Sint-Niklaas Graphic design: Stefan David – Zwalm Lighting: Chris Pype – Ghent Lettering, wayfinding and prints: Quadrifinish – Oudenaarde Texts: Patrick De Rynck – Wijgmaal Audioguides: Guide ID - Deventer, Sound Supply – Groningen Multimedia: Create - Ghent Communication: b.AD – Roeselare Website: Digital Cordon Bleu – Oudenaarde Promotion, marketing and product development: Oudenaarde Tourism Office, led by Eva Roels, with special thanks to Stéphanie Uytterhaegen, Bert Vandevyvere and Wendy De Clercq Department of Culture, led by Piet Blondeel Safety: Allseccon, with special thanks to Ibrahim Bulut Monitoring security team of MOU, with special thanks to Geert Lories Technical support: Led by Renaat De Croo, with special thanks to the joinery team, the painting team and the city electronics and logistics services Service Board - Infrastructure, led by Eddy Surmont Thanks to all the lending museums Cover illustration: Adriaen Brouwer, The smokers, ca. 1636, oil on panel, 46,4 x 36.8 cm, Metropolitan Museum of art, New York, inv. No. 32.100.21 Coverdesign: Xpair Lay-out: Xpair Translated from Dutch: Ian Connerty ISBN 978 94 6372 620 7 NUR 644 AUP is an imprint of Amsterdam University Press BV. © Oudenaarde/Amsterdam University Press BV Amsterdam 2018 This book is published under the imprint Pallas Publications. Pallas Publications is an imprint of Amsterdam University Press. All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.