Southern Netherlands in the 17^th century - Flemish painting of the Golden Age

The term “Flemish painting” covers the whole of Southern Netherlands. There is, however, an inconsistency in this current name, because Flanders is only one of the provinces which since 1581 (after gaining independence by Republic of the United Provinces of the Netherlands – popularly called Holland) were the domain of the Spanish Hapsburg governors (until 1714, when it was taken over by Austrian Hapsburgs) and a stronghold of the Counter Reformation in northern Europe. Apart from the earldom of Flanders other provinces included the duchies of Brabant, Limburg and Luxemburg and the earldoms of Hainaut (Henegouwen), Artois and Namur, as well as a formally independent bishopric principality of Liège in the Meuse (Maas) region. Most important and powerful in a political, economic and cultural sense were the cities in the duchy of Brabant: Antwerp (situated on the border with Flanders), Brussels, Mechelen (Malines), Leuven (Louvain) and those in the earldom of Flanders: Bruges (Brugge), Ghent (Gent) and Lille (Rijssel).

In the course of 16^th century Antwerp became a capital of international commerce and banking, rivaling Amsterdam in the 17^th century, especially in the period of the rule of the archdukes Albert and Isabella (1599-1633). It is here that – since 1608 (when Rubens returns from his sojourn in Italy) begins the Golden Age of the Flemish art, which is later symbolically closed by the date of Jacob Jordaens’ death in 1678. Anton van Dyck is active in this city until 1632.

Apart from the “Great Three”, Antwerp was home to the host of other remarkable masters such as Abraham Janssens, Frans Francken the Younger, Simon de Vos, Gaspar de Crayer, Willem van Herp, Jan Boeckhorst, Theodoor Rombouts who were painters of religious and mythological subjects; portrait painters: Cornelis de Vos and Gonzales de Coques; landscape painters: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Joos de Momper, Jan Wildens; artists specializing in still life and animal painting: Brueghel, just mentioned, Frans Snyders, Jan Fyt, Paul de Vos, Pieter Boel, Jan Davidsz. de Heem and Daniel Seghers as well as the artists painting low life genre scenes: Adriaen Brouwer and David Teniers the Younger.

Another important artistic centre was Brussels – the seat of the Spanish governors’ court, where numerous artists were active too: history painters – de Crayer mentioned above and Theodoor van Loon, landscape painter Jacques d’Arthois, still life and animal painter David de Coninck, genre painters – Teniers and Joos van Craesbeeck.

Flemish baroque painting is characterized by an extraordinary wealth. Sublime pathos and heroic formula coexist here with realistic and illusionistic tendencies in rendering human figures and objects in the scenes of everyday life. Sensuality, vital power, unprecedented exuberance of forms of nature and of the human world represent the main features of this school of painting. Flemish painting, however, does not merely seek the “feast for the eye” but also teaches a philosophical, moral and religious lesson, interweaving symbolical contents into the represented motives, in conformity with the neo-stoical, humanistic ethics and the ideology of the Counter Reformation theologians. These formal and ideological characteristics are present in an equal degree in each kind of the Flemish painting from religious, mythological, allegorical and historical themes, known under a common name of the “History” (storia) which – together with portraits – represent an official trend in art, to the minor genres, or specializations such as landscape, still life, representations of animals or scenes of everyday life.

Pieter Boel (Anntwerp 1622 – Paris 1674)
Still Life with a Globe and a Parrot, ca 1658
Canvas, 129 x 168 cm; signed with a monogram
Inv. no 757, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien, Vienna