Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract
In the 1620s, a generation of Dutch
landscape artists began to work in a
naturalistic mode very different from
that of the earlier generation of
Flemish mannerist landscape artists, a
number of whom had recently emigrated
to the Northern Netherlands.
The change from fantastic landscape
to representations of Dutch scenes
reflected political and economic
changes as the Northern Netherlands
established independence from Spanish
domination. This stylistic change
is reflected in changes in the painting
materials and practices of the realist
painters. In the 1620s, Dutch
painters of naturalistic landscape
adapted the efficient working practices
of the Flemish landscape
painters. They replaced the refined
handling of paint and bright colors
of the mannerist painters with limited
tonalities and an abbreviated handling
of paint to create convincing
views of the Dutch landscape.
Style and Technique in Dutch Landscape Painting
in the 1620s
E. Melanie Gifford
Scientific Research Department
National Gallery of Art
Washington, D.c. 20565
USA
Introduction
The early years of the seventeenth century saw a striking change of style in
landscape painting in the Netherlands. At this time, Flemish landscape specialists
produced paintings characterized more by fantasy than by close observation
of nature. In the 1580s and 1590s, large numbers of Flemish artists,
some of them landscape specialists, had emigrated to Holland to escape the
political and economic hardships of the rebellion against Spanish rule (1).
Around 1620, a very different, naturalistic style of landscape painting developed
in the Northern Netherlands, particularly around Haarlem. These paintings,
often based on drawings after nature, created distinctive images of the
Dutch landscape (2, 3, 4).
Such a dramatic change of style raises fascinating questions about how style
develops. Was the new, naturalistic landscape style sparked by the arrival of
the Flemish immigrants, or does it reflect an indigenous artistic sensibility? Is
artistic style dependent on painting practice learned from other artists, or do
artists modifY their practice to meet the demand for new styles?
In an ongoing technical study, the author has been looking for material evidence
for landscape artists' artistic concerns (5). This study seeks to characterize
the differences of technique between Flemish mannerist landscapes of
the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, landscapes by Flemish
immigrants to the Northern Netherlands during the same period, and the
first naturalistic Dutch landscapes, which date from the second and third
decade of the seventeenth century (6). In defining the artists' choices of
working methods and painting materials, the study seeks to expand our
understanding of the motivations, both fo rmal and practical, behind the
development of the naturalistic Dutch landscape in the 1620s. The present
contribution centers on developments in the handling of paint in these landscapes.
From the paintings studied to date, I have chosen five paintings as
illustration: a Flemish mannerist landscape, a mannerist landscape by a Flemish
immigrant, two naturalistic landscapes by Dutch artists, and a somewhat later
Dutch "tonal" landscape. A later, more complete publication will present full
analyses of the paintings' materials.
Flemish mannerist landscape
In the Flemish landscape painting tradition, space is defined by formal conventions
that convey an illusion of recession. Dark and light passages alternate,
often with shadowed foreground repoussoirs sharply outlined against a brightly
lit area beyond. Optical phenomena such as atmospheric perspective are represented
not illusionistically, but almost symbolically, by a space organized into
three zones defined by distinctly different tonalities. The darkened foreground
zone is typically a rich brown, the middle ground is green, and the distance
is a clear blue.
Study of the technique of Flemish mannerist landscapes reveals refined handling
combined with efficient working methods, which contributed to the
high output of busy workshops. The compositions were usually laid out with
a fairly complete underdrawing, most often including the figures, which were
planned as integral parts of the composition. With the underdrawing as guide,
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Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice