Tag: Haarlem

Maarten van Heemskerck

Maarten van Heemskerck

Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

28 September 2024 – 19 January 2025

The Frans Hals Museum, Stedelijk Museum Alkmaar and Teylers Museum will organize the first major retrospective exhibition on Maarten van Heemskerck. The Frans Hals Museum focuses on Heemskerck’s early career.

Maarten van Heemskerck was one of the most successful, innovative artists of the Northern Netherlands in the 16th century. In his lifetime, he saw the advent of Protestantism, new technology and the rise of the Dutch Republic. The changes that happened around him are reflected in his work: before it had been the Church, now burghers also patronised the arts, the impact of the Italian Renaissance reverberated in Holland and artists longed to see the art of Antiquity and their famous Italian contemporaries with their own eyes, while the iconoclastic cleansing of the churches brought a violent end to church art in the Northern Netherlands.

Saint Luke painting The Virgin (1532), Maerten van Heemskerck (Dutch, 1498 – 1574), 168x235cm, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem.

In the Frans Hals Museum, the focus is on Maarten van Heemskerck’s early career. A comparison of his work with that of teachers and contemporaries such as Jan Gossaert and Jan van Scorel reveals how the up-and-coming, talented Heemskerck adopted and excelled in a remarkable new way of painting. This distinctly realistic style is clearly evident in the timeless portraits he painted for his increasingly successful burgher patrons. He depicted them with lifelike accuracy, down to the wrinkles and facial blemishes. Our exhibition concludes with his St Luke Painting the Virgin, the last work Heemskerck painted before leaving for Rome. It was one of the works Haarlem’s city council managed to save from the iconoclastic mob in 1566. A testimony to the high esteem in which Heemskerck was already held. St Luke Painting the Virgin has been restored specially for this exhibition and the spectacular result has revealed new insights into the way Heemskerck worked.

This year is the 450th anniversary of Maarten van Heemskerck’s death, then a wealthy, prominent burgher of Haarlem where he had settled after returning from Rome.

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594 – 1680)

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594 – 1680), “Still Life with a Roemer and Watch” (1629), 46x69cm, Oil on Panel, Mauritshuis, The Hague.

Let’s have Sunday brunch 17th Century style! And that’s best done with Willem Claesz. Heda, Dutch Golden Age painter from Haarlem, The Netherlands. He specialized in the genre of “banketjes” and “ontbijtjes” (banquets and breakfasts), and most of them in a monochrome manner. Not much known about his life, not even an exact date of birth or death. But his legacy can be seen in the important museums all over the world. Let’s have a closer look at the one from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. And let’s find the hidden message in what seemingly is just a banquet still life painting.

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594 – 1680), “Banquet Piece with Mince Pie” (1635), 107x111cm, Oil on Canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington.

This is the aftermath of a feast meal; a table filled with exotic food, luxurious tableware and precious glasses. The lemon and olives have been imported from the Mediterranean. The salt – expensive in those days – can been seen on a silver salt cellar. The mince pie, filled with meat and fruits and spices, is a dish for special occasions and on this painting has clearly been eaten already. A glass broke, the goblet fell over and the candle went out. But the message is shown exactly in the middle and in the front; it even sticks out of the painting right into our face. And that’s the piece of bread. The roll has not been touched. Bread in the Eucharistic meaning represents the body of Christ. Heda tells us that we should not overlook the Christian faith while being seduced by the pleasures and richness of food and earthly goods.

Willem Claesz. Heda (1594 – 1680), “Still Life with a Ham, Bread and Precious Vessels” (1654), 105x147cm, Oil on Canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest.

And here is another still life breakfast painting by Heda. It’s from the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. On the table a ham, lemon, oysters, the salt on the silver salt cellar, precious vessels, Venetian glass and even a “nautilus cup”, made of the nautilus shell imported from the Far East. This painting shows the wealth of a rich merchant from the Dutch Golden Age. But also here, on the left side of the table, is that very modest, untouched, lonely piece of bread. All the richness on one side of the table and on the other side, at that pure white clean tablecloth, the power of the Christian faith, symbolized by a simple bread roll. I guess the owners of these paintings, those rich merchants in the 17th Century, liked to show off their wealth and their taste for international and exotic treasures, but they also wanted to show how modest and down-to-earth they were. It’s true Calvinist behavior; almost as an excuse for wealth and success.