Christiaan Huygens – A family affair - Proeven van Vroeger

this constituted but a relative small part of his activity, and certainly not the main element. The
immense body of correspondence, memoirs, poetry and other writings are used to find this
back-projected “essence of Constantijn Huygens,” and deviating language and motivations are
either neglected or seen as incomprehensible aberrations of an otherwise very well
understandable personality. 110 The answer to the question why certain poems or musical works
are composed at specific moments during his life, when this is asked in the first place, is sought in
the direct textual or historical vicinity, i.e. paying little attention to a bigger context of
Huygens’s socio-professional considerations or his long-term ambitions.
I do not see the solution to a deeper understanding of the life and work of both
Constantijn and Christiaan Huygens in either of these approaches. The meaning of
Constantijn’s language is not obvious – it is historically contingent and deeply colored by
socio-economic and political factors and circumstances – nor is it irrelevant. The important use
of poetry, music and the mastery of several languages for Huygens’s social and professional
fashioning has not been discovered by a permanent gaze on his poetic works itself. Hofman, 111
though at some points giving a too literal reading, should be given much credit for setting an
important first step in the direction of integrating political, social and religious explanatory and
descriptive elements. It is Roodenburg and especially Blom, 112 however, whom I take to have
aristocracy. Also: SLIVE, S. & ROSENBERG, J. (1995) Dutch painting 1600-1800, New Haven, Conn.,
Yale University Press., p186
109 The preface of DEURSEN, A. T. V., GROOTES, E. K. & VERKUYL, P. E. L. (1987) Veelzijdigheid
als levensvorm : facetten van Constantijn Huygens' leven en werk : een bundel studies ter gelegenheid van zijn
driehonderdste sterfdag, Deventer, Sub Rosa. (p7) states that the poet ought to take the first place,
something “one should not wish to be otherwise.” However, the editors are happy that substantial
attention is paid to Huygens the musician and that this element is not regarded by their authors as a
“theme apart.” “(…) Huygens in his multi-sidedness is more than the sum of a series of connected
components.” Other “accents” are “lighter:” the natural sciences, theology, politics and architecture.
However, “[c]alculated after their meaning for Huygens himself their share expressed in quantities
could have been greater.” Other writers show a likewise prioritization.
110 Poelhekke, for instance, sees it as an impotence of a selection of Constantijn Sr.’s contacts that they
did not appreciate him just for the thing Poelhekke and other historians of literature appreciate him: his
Dutch poetry. Furthermore, he is tempted to say that Constantijn Sr. was almost secretary ‘in the
meantime’ – and thus is surprised that Huygens was so successful at it. POELHEKKE, J. J. (1973)
Ludiek met Constantijn Huygens : voordracht gehouden te Nijmegen op 15 Februari 1973, Amsterdam, University
Press., p2, 7
111 HOFMAN, H. A. (1983) Constantine Huygens (1596-1687) : a christian-humanist bourgeois-gentilhomme in
service of the House of Orange, Utrecht, HES Uitgevers.
112 ROODENBURG, H. (1991) The 'hand of friendship': shaking hands and other gestures in the
Dutch Republic. IN BREMMER, J. N. & ROODENBURG, H. (Eds.) A Cultural history of gesture :
from antiquity to the present day. Cambridge, UK, Polity Press, ROODENBURG, H. (1997) How to Sit,
Stand, and Walk. Toward a Historical Anthropology of Dutch Paintings and Prints. IN FRANITS, W.
E. (Ed.) Looking at seventeenth-century Dutch art : realism reconsidered. Cambridge [England] ; New York,
Cambridge University Press., HUYGENS, C. & BLOM, F. R. E. (2003) Mijn leven verteld aan mijn
kinderen in twee boeken (De vita propria sermonum inter liberos), Amsterdam, Prometheus., historical
introduction.
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