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Reality as Icon – The cottage motif in Dutch landscape painting 1600-50
d a v i d b u r m e i s t e r k a a r i n g
n the first decades of the 17th I
century,
a number of Dutch artists began to
produce landscapes in drawings,
etchings and later paintings, which depicted
local landscape in an apparently realistic
fashion. The depiction of simple and
usually dilapidated rustic dwellings plays
an important role in the landscapes of
these naturalists. The aim of this essay,
which takes its point of departure in a
number of drawings and etchings from
the Department of Prints and Drawings at
Statens Museum for Kunst, is to throw light
on the meanings the motif could contain
and which made it particularly interesting
for the naturalists. I will argue that it is an
inadequate description to say that the artists’
depictions of cottages can be explained as
an expression of the aesthetic sensibility
they met and interpreted nature with, and
which compelled them to seek out the
old, asymmetrical and extraordinary. In the
following pages I will argue that the cottage
motif played a central part in the theoretical
discussion of landscape art in that period,
and that the motif was also an intentional
marker of the naturalists’ artistic project: the
portrayal of reality in all its various aspects.
The role of the cottage in early tonal
landscapes
A group of artists connected with Haarlem
developed a radically new way of painting
landscapes in about 1625. This saw the
end of the mannerist wealth of detail in
the landscape and especially the very
time-consuming colourist tripartite division
of the picture surface, which demanded
that each section was painted separately.
Instead they experimented with an almost
monochrome colour scheme and an idiom
that was typified by swift sketching and in
many ways a graphically inspired treatment
of the landscape motif. The new painting
was based on a brown monochrome painted
sketch which was completed in one process
with transparent layers of colour, so that the
underlying sketch determined the tone of the
final layer of paint. This was the inception of
tonal painting.
It was not the painting style alone that
97 david burmeister kaaring
changed, however. The focus changed as
regards motifs, and it is noticeable that the
weathered cottage is a particularly frequent
motif in artists’ drawings and paintings,
especially in the formative years of the
tonal landscape. This is not to say that the
cottage had not been a regular motif long
before the 1620s, but until this time it was
usually just one of many different motifs
which combined to form the synthetic
“world landscapes”, which were very common
in the 16 th century in particular.
Fig.1
The cottage also served the role in mannerist
landscapes primarily of a backdrop for
anecdotal depictions of peasants’ festivities,
the changing seasons, work on the land, or
even biblical stories. Cottages are an important
element in Lucas van Valkenborch’s
(after 1535-1597) Peasant Wedding from
1574 [fig. 1] and its counterpart Kermis. 1
In both cases, however, they act first and
foremost as backgrounds for the real motif
of the paintings, which is the anecdotal
portrayal of the country people’s behaviour.
If one compares Pieter van Santvoort’s
(1604/5-1635) drawing Cottage under a
Tree [fig. 2] with Van Valkenborch’s, or even
Hendrick Avercamp’s (1585-1634) winter
landscapes from the 1620s, it is clear that
Van Santvoort’s cottage is no longer just a
backdrop or secondary motif. It is now the
main motif, and not even a single figure has
been permitted to draw attention from the
little cottage under the crooked tree.
Jan van Goyen in 1627
Jan van Goyen (1596-1656) is the most
obvious example of the tonal painters’ adoption
of the cottage motif in the 1620s. In his
early years, Van Goyen painted landscapes
in the Flemish tradition as we know it from
Avercamp and also to a certain degree from
the early paintings of Esaias van de Velde
(1587-1630). Van Goyen’s landscapes
from this period mostly express the
cyclical changes of nature by depicting the
months or seasons, and the figures in the
landscape are usually numerous and lend
a gay and anecdotal tone to the pictures
which dominates the actual portrayal of
the landscape. One can trace a significant
change in artistic orientation, however,
starting with his drawn sketches and then
in his tonal paintings from 1627 and on. At
this point, drawing nature studies began to
have a greater importance for Van Goyen,
who filled sketch-book after sketch-book
with motifs from the Dutch countryside.
This practice is mainly documented in the
shape of two collections, now known as
The London Album and The Catchmade
Morgan Album. Both of them consist of – or
consisted, as the latter has been broken
up and the drawings sold off individually –
drawings from the years 1623-27. Both of
the albums reveal how Van Goyen repeatedly
sought out village streets, thatched inns and
first and foremost peasant cottages when he
went out into nature to draw.
It is noteworthy that when Van Goyen
abandoned the Flamisant type of landscape
in 1627 for tonal painting, his style not only
changed from colouristic to a more muted,
tonally oriented and not least faster style
of painting, but his choice of motif also
changed. He no longer painted pictures
full of figures in a landscape which was
little more than a backdrop; now he painted
pictures where it was the qualities of the
landscape, the light, air, spaciousness and
atmosphere which were in focus. At the
same time, the cottage became a primary
motif. In Van Goyen’s Winter Landscape
with Skaters from 1627 [fig. 3], he
concentrated on portraying the effect of
the sun on the slowly collapsing roof of the
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Fig. 2
cottage while the figures in the landscape
were reduced, and were summarily (but
effectively) sketched and not least placed
on the periphery of the picture. Whereas
people were in the centre in his early works,
here they were subservient to the landscape
and contributed to giving the landscape a
sanguine atmosphere.
An Arcadian theme
Why was the cottage such a dominant
motif in the tonal landscapes of the 1620s
and 1630s? One explanation could be that
people in The Dutch Republic were very
concerned with defining the identity of the
nascent country after the break with The
Southern Netherlands at the end of the
16 th century; this found expression in their
interest in what was local. 2 Poets seized
the possibilities of the Dutch language with
both hands, and in his anthology of poetry
Den Nederduytschen Helicon, the painter,
poet and art theoretician Karel van Mander
(1548-1606) summed up this feeling by
declaring that the Haarlem dune Witte Blink
would be his source of inspiration in the
future rather than Mount Helicon. 3
One of the clearest examples of Van
Manders’ principle of seeking out the
validity of local landscape as an equivalent
to the classical idyllic landscape is Jan van
de Velde’s (1593-1641) Some Particularly
Beautiful Regions from 1616. 4 The series
consists of 60 etchings of landscapes
with Roman ruins, pastoral landscapes,
landscapes with ruined Haarlem castles,
and other typical Dutch landscapes. The
fact that the series is so varied seems to
provide decisive evidence that the local
Dutch landscape was considered to be on a
par with classical landscapes.
There are several depictions of cottages
in the Dutch landscapes in this series.
Perhaps the most noteworthy is Dilapidated
Farmhouse [fig. 4], as the building portrayed
is in a total state of disrepair. But the
etching does not give rise to any doubt as
to the relevance of the tumbledown hovel
as an Arcadian motif. The Arcadian theme
regarding the motif is implicitly denoted
by the title of the series Some Particularly
Beautiful Regions, and furthermore it finds
concrete expression in the shape of the
music-making shepherds who have chosen
the old cottage as a suitable place to rest.
By transferring themes from the idyllic
landscape to the local landscape and further
by putting local ramshackle cottages and
the ruins of Dutch castles on an equal foot-
ing with classical idyllic and ruin landscapes,
this series establishes the rustic landscape
as a local equivalent of classical Arcadia. 5
The pleasures of the simple
country life
Another important theme in depictions of
cottages can be adduced from Abraham
Bloemaert’s (1566-1651) drawings of
cottages. This theme finds clear expression
in The Department of Prints and Drawings’
A Cottage among Ruins [fig. 5], which
is dated 1650, but demonstrates an
identical treatment of the theme as in his
drawings from the years shortly prior to
and after 1600. 6 The drawing portrays a
brick cottage which is now weathered and
tumbledown, and includes a depiction of
country paraphernalia, two working women
and a man at rest. The idyllic atmosphere
conjured up by these figures excludes
the possibility that the dilapidation of
the cottage and the relaxed man shall be
interpreted moralistically as a metaphor for
human idleness. 7 Bloemaert was presumably
indicating another time-honoured landscape
theme: the urban conception of the idyll of
the simple country life.
This theme was prominent in the
portrayal of country cottages, which is also
evident in the title page of Landscapes and
Cottages, a series of etchings executed by
Boëtius Adamsz Bolswert (c. 1580-1633)
after Bloemaert’s sketches. 8 The twelve
depictions of cottages are introduced with a
poem by the otherwise unknown G. Rijkius,
extolling the pleasures of the simple country
life, free of public responsibility, content
with inherited acres, enriched with crops
and with a hard-working wife: in a word,
happy. 9 The relevance of these notions
for this drawing from the Department of
Prints and Drawings of a relaxed man, his
industrious wife, various farming implements
and an old cottage is evident: not least seen
in the light of the introduction to the etched
Cottages and Landscapes and the affinities
between those etchings and our drawing. 10
The painterly
A noteworthy common feature of early
17 th century depictions of cottages is that
they almost always present their motif in
a ruined state. It has often been mooted
that the many depictions of dilapidated
cottages is a natural result of the artists’
dedication to the landscape that surrounded
them. While it is true that tumbledown
cottages were a common sight especially
in the early part of the century when the
after-effects of the Spanish invasion were
still in evidence, it is incorrect to perceive
the naturalists’ portrayal of rural decay as an
expression of the actual appearance of the
landscape. 11 The naturalism of landscape
art is typified by being selective, and while
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Fig. 3
certain motifs were continually depicted,
naturalists conspicuously omitted to portray
well-cared-for landscapes, newly built farms,
the newly developed transport canals which
revolutionised the country’s infrastructure
and the industrial exploitation of the land. 12
Thus there is an obvious question: what
aesthetic criteria explain the naturalists’
interest in the rustic landscape and the
country ruin?
It has often been suggested that the
naturalists’ choice of motifs reflects an ideal
of beauty which has been described as
schilderachtig, the painterly. 13 The term ap-
pears for the first time in Karel van Mander’s
Het Schilder-Boeck from 1604, 14 but it is
not precisely defined at that time. However,
the context makes it clear that whether
or not the painterly was used to describe
an artist’s activities or his pictures, it was
always used as a concept in connection with
the artistic ambition to take one’s point of
departure in reality, or at least portray the
motif as it could appear in nature. “I have
followed the “schilderachtig” saying (a say-
99 david burmeister kaaring
ing common among painters) that ‘the best
painters are those who get closest to reality’,”
the painter and poet Gerbrand Bredero
(1585-1618) wrote in 1618. Painterly
is correspondingly used as an aesthetic
concept in connection with works of art that
aim to resemble reality, or alternatively to
describe some part of reality that was so
striking that it was suitable as a motif for the
artist. Boudewijn Bakker concludes against
this background when analysing the concept
that the painterly typifies pictures that strive
to be faithful to the appearance of reality, to
express the diversity of nature, and which
employ an immediate and free composition
so that pictures are arranged but appear
random in their disposition. 15
Working from life
The painterly is accordingly very closely
related to the artistic way of working which
one called working from life (nae t’leven).
The undertaking of art had of course always
been to imitate visible reality. But whereas
the artistic theory and landscape painting of
the Renaissance typically understood imitation
as a commitment to finding expression
for the governing laws of nature, taking one’s
point of departure in reality, there was a
general perception in the period leading up
to the 17th century – and particularly in The
Dutch Republic – that art should imitate the
diversity and specific character of visible
reality.
To work from life is the expression of an
ambition to relate concretely to the various
modes of expression of reality. Claudia
Swan has pointed out that this is a form of
representation which pictorial art took over
from natural history, where herbariums, for
example, were dependent on illustrations
which documented the appearance and
individuality of the different plants. 16
It seems to be generally true that the
drawings of the first Northern Dutch painters
who focused on Dutch nature around the
beginning of the 17th century portray actual
recognisable locations, but this was by no
means necessary. The aim in working from
life was not topographical accuracy or the
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Fig. 4
documentary value of the picture, but rather
to give form to the motifs most typical
appearance by means of the particular. As
such a picture from life is an idealisation,
but one which aims at characterising what is
typical in the randomness of reality. Working
from life is thereby not just an imitative
strategy but an ideology which states
that it is through the particular that man
understands the universal. 17
It is obvious that the requirements of this
ideology as to imitating the concrete had to
bring into play other aesthetic ideals than
those which typify works of art based on
seeking what is hidden behind the visible
world. It also gives expression to aesthetic
ideals which evolved in the 16 th century
humanist art theory, it is true, but which
took on essentially new meanings. 18 There
was nothing new, for example, in the notion
that what made nature beautiful despite
the imperfections of its individual parts was
the harmonious effect ensuing from all its
diversity. But the ideology of working from
life ascribed greater importance to the notion
of variety and interpreted it differently
than had previously been the case. This
concept suggested not only the principle of
depicting the diversity of the landscape, but
also provided a legitimation of interest in
the uniqueness of the particular. Nature’s
diversity is not just an expression of the
difference between various species and
sorts but also of the infinite difference
there can be even between two objects of
the same type. Thus the appreciation of
the necessity of depicting nature’s diversity
results in the subject of the artist’s brush
not just being the most beautiful sides of
nature. Depictions of the unique character of
the individual aspect were particularly well
suited to expressing nature’s diversity: not
least when the motif had the appearance of
decay which emphasised that it was not just
different from everything else but was also
in a state of change and thus different from
itself, too. 19
The naturalists’ interpretation of the
theory of diversity thus resulted in the
complete opposite of ideal perfection: a
focus on the random nature of the particular
as a way of expressing what is characteristic
(aerdig) 20 of the landscape. This meant
that what is untypical or purely and simply
ugly became an important element in the
naturalists’ aesthetics, and artists like Van
Goyen and Rembrandt even seem to have
sought out the curious and anomalous so
as to investigate and challenge the limits of
realistic depiction. 21
Van Mander on Bloemart’s drawings
of cottages
Contemporary descriptions remove all doubt
that the overwhelming interest shown by
the naturalists for the dilapidated cottage
is closely associated with the from life
ideology and the aesthetics of the painterly.
This relationship has been analysed in great
detail by Walter S. Gibson, who posed the
question: why are there so many tumbledown
cottages, ramshackle walls and dead
trees in Dutch pictorial art, when there is
nothing corresponding in contemporary
poetry, which otherwise shares many
essential characteristics with it? 22 According
to Gibson this is due to pictorial artists
seeking out these motifs in particular for the
very reason that their unique individuality
and rustic decay were regarded as painterly;
a taste arose for the visual rather than the
literary portrayal of nature’s most extraordinary
forms of appearance. 23
Nor can there be any doubt that drawings
like Abraham Bloemart’s Cottage among
Ruins was seen in the light of the aesthetics
of the painterly. Karel van Mander wrote
about Bloemart’s drawings of cottages as
early as 1604:
”Furthermore, with art lovers there are very
subtle landscapes by him with some wellobserved
and burlesque peasant houses,
peasants’ implements, trees and pieces
of ground – things which are to be seen in
great variety round about Utrecht and which
are drawn by him; for he does a great deal
after life and he has a very clever manner of
drawing and penmanship…”. 24
Dutch art historical writings from the 17 th
century are completely different from
their modern counterparts. They often mix
theory and practical advice to the artist; the
conceptual apparatus is very rarely defined
and neither are the fundamental aesthetic
and theoretical principles lying behind the
text. They do, however, become manifest
through parallels in the employment of
concepts or through a repeated treatment of
a particular subject.
In Van Mander’s description of Bloemart’s
cottage drawings, one sees that he
interprets the motif from the aesthetic
and artistic intention connected with the
imitative strategy of working from life which
he connects with this motif. Van Mander
therefore expounds the cottages as an
example of the multifariousness of nature,
meaning “infinite variety”. He also describes
the cottages, the pictures in their entirety
and even the style of drawing as “characteristic”,
25 bringing into play yet another key
concept of the aesthetics of working from
life and the painterly. Bloemart’s method
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of representation is further defined as one
of portrayal. Van Mander uses this concept
consistently to propose a reproductive way
of relating to and portraying visible reality,
and also as a method which is typified
by a (presumed) great faithfulness to its
subject. 26 This concept is consequently used
about portraits and landscapes, where one
expected that the appearance of reality and
that of the work of art depicting it were fairly
similar. 27
The description of Bloemart’s drawings
shows how Van Mander almost automatically
identifies the depiction of the cottage as
being from life, and consequently interprets
the motif as representative of the aesthetics
of the painterly.
The painterly cottage
The description of Bloemart’s drawings
of cottages is a direct extension of Van
Mander’s recommendations in his theoretical
study of the cottage in The Basics of
Painting. Under the heading “On unfamiliar
cottages and shepherds’ huts”, he writes,
I know no stranger wisdom
Than shepherds’ huts and peasants’ villages.
In dells, hollow trees and on poles
We shall create them with walls and roofs
Not with bright red tiles, just reddish
Fig. 5
101 david burmeister kaaring
Of earth, reed and straw, with patches
and holes
Also with strange plaster and covered
in moss. 28
The description of Bloemart’s dedication
to the ideology of working from life in his
drawings of cottages is complemented here
by an explanation of the aesthetic effect
of the motif. Once again working from
life is the focus, and once again a closely
related aesthetic concept is adduced: the
“unfamiliar” or “strange” (vreemd). According
to Hessel Miedema, Van Mander primarily
associates the concept with the depiction of
fanciful clothing, strange or comical figures
and with the burlesque motifs of Hieronymus
Bosch (c. 1450-1516) and Pieter Bruegel
(1526/30-1569). 29 But Miedema does not
mention that when the word is used as an
aesthetic term, it is most often in relation
to landscape motifs. 30 The term in itself
expresses dedication to the uniqueness of
the individual element but it also activates a
theme of desuetude. This is hinted at in the
quotation above but becomes more evident
when Gerard de Lairesse criticises those
artists who opt for depictions of their own
time, saying that they are merely engaged in
what “is continually undergoing change and
alienation”. 31 The unfamiliar or strange is
closely connected with working from life and
encouraging the uniqueness of the particular.
When we read this in conjunction with the
description of Bloemart’s drawings, we can
see how Van Mander establishes a close
relation between the cottage motif and the
working from life ideology. He goes as far
as elevating the motif so it is a metaphor
for the painterly and the view of art behind
it, when he recommends that cottages shall
be portrayed so that they live up to the
archetype of the painterly cottage. 32
Local tradition
The cottage was considered to have a
close connection to the naturalism of
Netherlandish landscape art long before
Van Mander wrote his text. In Domenicus
Lampsonius’ (1532-99) series Portraits of
Famous Netherlandish Artists from 1572, 33
the portrait of landscape painter Lucas
Gassel (before 1500-after 1568) is accompanied
by the words: ”Greetings, Lucas,
you who are dearest of all to me, whom
I honour no less than my own father. For
from the painting of fields and cottages by
your learned hand, first arose my love of the
visual arts.” 34 Lampsonius elevates the cottage
to represent landscape art in general:
pars pro toto. The fact that these words are
used in the context of Netherlandish artists
suggests moreover that there is a quite
specific quality in the landscape art which
Lampsonius had in mind.
Walter S. Melion has pointed out that
Lampsonius’ selection and description of
artists in Netherlandish Artists canonise a
particular area of Dutch pictorial art. 35 He
makes two general classifications: those who
are rooted in the original, native Netherlandish
artistic traditions and those who strive to
paint like Italians. Netherlandish Artists is
most sympathetic towards the former group,
which is characterized by an understanding
of art as first and foremost imitating reality
and thus it particularly distinguishes itself in
portraiture, landscape art and reproductive
engravings (and in that respect imitative).
Landscape art is accorded a pre-eminent
position, partly because the great majority of
the artists chosen are landscape specialists,
and partly because Lampsonius writes in his
verses to Jan van Amstel (c. 1500-1542) that
the Netherlands gain the greatest honour for
their landscape art.
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Letter to Vasari, 1564
It would appear that what awoke
Lampsonius’ love of art in Gassel’s “fields
and meadows” was their mimetic qualities.
Lampsonius added more nuances to this
view of art in a letter he wrote to Giorgio
Vasari (1511-1574) in 1564, which Vasari
quotes in part in the 1568 edition of Lives
of the Artists. 36 Walter S. Melion comments
that although Lampsonius gives expression
in the quoted passage to his acknowledgement
of Vasari’s invaluable treatise, he
employs Vasari’s conceptual apparatus to
give legitimacy to a view of art which Vasari
would never have accepted, and also to raise
objections to several of the most important
points in the treatise. 37
Lampsonius’ letter gives the impression
that he has found theoretical ballast in Lives
Fig. 6
of the Artists to support his own view of art.
He also tells that he restricted himself to
portraying human figures because he was
not skillful enough to paint landscapes,
which demanded the ability to depict
fleeting phenomena such as light, clouds,
water and fire. Lampsonius not only makes
this imitation of reality the yardstick of art
but he goes so far as to reject the central
dictum of Lives of the Artists which states
that istoria, narration centred around the
figures in a work of art, is the most elevated
motif of art. And as if this was not enough
he delegates this status to landscape, one of
the peripheral motifs of painting!
Another of the fundamental precepts of
Lives of the Artists is under attack shortly
after when Lampsonius ends his letter by
thanking Vasari for having thrown light on
the principles of painting, instead of praising
it for its account of disegno, the intellectual
conception of the work, which is born by
the art of drawing. 38 For Vasari, depingere –
painting – was closely connected with pure
craftsmanship, i.e. the actual execution of
the picture, which is first and foremost what
expresses mimetic illusionism.
The letter to Vasari adds nuances to
the view of art which Lampsonius was an
advocate of in Netherlandish Artists, in that
it makes it plain that his interest in the
indiginous Netherlandish tradition of art
stems from the fact that they work from life.
So when Lampsonius writes that his love of
art was conceived by Lucas Gassel’s “fields
and cottages”, these images do not only
represent Gassel’s landscapes but attach
the motifs to the whole artistic project which
typifies the position of the indiginous artist,
which is dedication to working from life.
The cottage and Small Landscapes
The close connections between the cottage
motif and working from life as an artistic
method are hardly ever better expressed
than in the etched landscape series Small
Landscapes. 39 The 48 landscapes were
issued in two series in 1559 and 1561 by
the Antwerp publisher Hieronymus Cock
(1518-70) and were etched by the brothers
Van Doetecum from drawings made by
unidentified artists from the circle of Pieter
Bruegel. 40
The Department of Prints and Drawings
possesses a single drawing by the Master
of the Small Landscapes, Houses behind
Trees [fig. 6], which was not, however,
included in the etched series. But there is
no doubt that the drawing was included in
the preliminary phases of the publishing
of Small Landscapes, because just as the
preliminary drawings for the prints, the
drawing in the collection of The Department
of Prints and Drawings has also been
“corrected” by another hand, which is easy to
identify both because the added passages
are darker than the original line and also
because his characteristic way of drawing
foliage like swags of garlands is distinctly
different from the Master of the Small
Landscapes’ treatment of similar sections.
These passages are a clear indication to us
that the drawing was originally prepared for
being transferred to a copper plate, and was
only rejected at this point.
The rejection of Houses behind Trees
testifies to the clear thematic framework of
Small Landscapes, but which is played down
to a certain extent by the modern title. This
thematic disposition is more evident on the
original title pages and in contemporary
descriptions of the series. The title page
of the 1559 edition speaks of “Many and
very attractive locations of various country
cottages, farmsteads, fields, roads and the
like, embellished with all sorts of animals” 41 ,
whereas the title page of the 1561 edition
is more concise: “Pictures of farms, country
houses, and rustic villages engraved in a
most elegant and lifelike manner”. 42 The
more recent title accentuates the landscape
aspect whereas the original titles call
attention to rural buildings as the focal point
of the series. This accentuation of the series
as concerned with the depiction of rural cottages
is confirmed by publisher Christoffel
Plantijn’s (1519/21-1589) description in
1568 of the series as “Dorphuys boecken”,
i.e. Books with Village Houses, while the
inventory of the estate of Hieronymus Cock’s
widow in 1601 merely calls the series
“boerenhuyskens”, i.e. peasants’ cottages. 43
The landscapes that finally appeared in
Small Landscapes were in fact almost all
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depictions of village streets with thatched
cottages; Houses behind Trees (and the other
rejected drawings) was quite simply too urban
in relation to them.
Small Landscapes also reveals a close
connection between the cottage motif and
the working from life idiom. This relationship
is even made explicit on the title page from
1559 in that it states that the landscapes are
“portrayed from life and mostly in the environs
of Antwerp”. This is actual confirmation
by The Master of the Small Landscapes’
“boerenhuyskens” that the cottage was
considered to be associated with working
from life. The series does not only reflect
the qualities attributed to the cottage, it also
consolidated them and established them as a
convention of the rustic landscape art of the
17 th century. Small Landscapes attained such
popularity soon after the publication of the
first edition in 1559 that it remained in print
throughout the rest of the 16 th century, and
when Hieronymus Cock’s widow died in 1601,
the copper plates were purchased by a rival
publishing house in Antwerp, which reprinted
the series several times in the course of
the 17 th century. The series was also readily
available in The Dutch Republic, at the very
least in the shape of the copies published by
Claes Jansz Visscher (1586-1652) in 1612.
When Northern Dutch artists began to work
from life in the local rural landscape after
1600, Small Landscapes was the dominant
point of reference, not just stylistically and
compositionally, but also as regards choice
of motif. The old landscape series thereby
conventionally established the rural cottage
as the focal point of landscape art from life.
Summary
The analysis of Lampsonius, Van Mander
and The Small Landscapes demonstrates
how art criticism and the visual tradition
have joined hands to establish the cottage
as a primary motif in landscape art. These
pictures and texts especially consolidated a
close association between the cottage and
the modality of working from life. That the
cottage became a primary motif among the
naturalists in the 1610s and 1620s was no
coincidence. By opting for the cottage motif
they did not merely depict a random part of
nature. Rather, by choosing that particular
motif they activated a set of themes and
associations that had been connected to
103 david burmeister kaaring
the cottage motif during the past several
decades. And as the following will show, the
naturalists’ choice was closely related to
the simultaneous break-through of the from
life ideology in the Dutch Republic and to
the theoretical discussions which arose as
a result.
Fig. 7
The relationship of art to nature
In a recent study of Rembrandt’s paintings
of the female nude, Eric Jan Sluijter
accounted for how Dutch history painting in
the early decades of the 17th century split
up in two different directions. One of them
held on to mannerism’s elegant stylisation of
the motif, and the other made a conscious
break with mannerism “to emphasise the
mundane and the ungraceful”. 44 Sluijter
refers to Statens Museum for Kunst’s
painting Galathea (Amphitrite?) from 1619
[fig. 7] to demonstrate his point of view;
here Werner van den Valckert depicts a
mythological nymph whose ungainly human
appearance – according to Sluijter – must
have amazed a public accustomed to the
elegance of Bartholomeus Sprangerian mannerism.
In the same way, Sluijter interprets
Rembrandt’s staging of himself by way of his
handling of the oils and his way of depicting
the mythological and biblical female figures
in a very profane way as being a conscious
involvement of his artistic work in the on-
going art theoretical discussion. Rembrandt
is proclaiming his support for the from life
ideology.
Sluijter demonstrates that the from life
ideology was defined in a running dialogue
with its opposite, the idealising approach
to art; furthermore that the working from
life ideology’s oppositional positioning in
relation to mannerism does not only find
expression in the works of art themselves
but also in some of the unfortunately few
written treatises on the art of the early
century. Because of this dialectical relationship
between different artistic positions, he
argues that the late 17 th century classical
criticism of from life ideology does not
express a view of art which only arose
after Rembrandt’s death, as is normally
believed. 45 He points out that the opposite is
true: the fundamental principles of classical
criticism’s treatment of the artistic project
and ideal of beauty inherent in the from life
ideology was already present in Karel van
Mander’s description of Caravaggio, and
not least in a pamphlet written by Jacques
de Ville in 1628. 46 In this de Ville describes
the complete contrast between on the one
hand the well-informed painter-architect
who believes that art must be founded on
knowledge of perspective, proportion and
geometry, and on the other the “bad artist”,
who is so ignorant as to think that all the
artist has to do is to work from life. This
pamphlet is clear proof that classical criticism
is rooted in art theoretical discussions
which were already circulating in the 1620s,
and that working from life was seen in
relation to its opposite, idealisation.
We can cap this argumentation by
referring to the fact that Lampsonius
Domenicus’ distinguishing between the local
art tradition of portrayal and the idealising
tradition with its Italian inspiration presents
the fundamental expression of contrast
between the perceptions of art and concepts
of beauty in the two positions – at least in
an embryonic form.
The Antique and the Modern
Late 17th century theoreticians were very interested
in the relationship between the two
artistic projects outlined above. Gerard de
Lairesse’s (1641-1711) Groot Schilderboek
(1707) in particular sheds light on this. He
establishes a general differentiation between
71009_journal 2007.indd 103 12/17/08 9:29:44 AM

Fig. 8
the two contrasting artistic projects in his
treatise – the Antique and the Modern,
respectively. 47 What characterises the former
is a striving for ideal beauty, which can be
attained through an intelligent selection
from nature and especially from the masters
of Antiquity and the Renaissance. The
Modern, on the other hand, simply focuses
on its own time.
Even though these two approaches are
described by Lairesse as incompatible,
the Modern and the Antique project are
not necessarily each other’s opposite. The
crucial point is whether the Modern painter
believes that his purpose is merely to depict
reality “in a natural way”, or whether he
feels he has to select the most beautiful
aspects of reality. 48 If the latter is the case,
then the Antique and the Modern project
can be described as two roads leading to the
same result: ideal beauty.
This means that De Lairesse’s most
important criticism of the Modern is not
that they take reality itself as their point of
departure, although this, too, is discussed.
What is open to criticism is that some artists
believe that art need only resemble nature
and so they see this as encouragement to
depict everything ugly in the world, too. So
the basic dissimilarity lies in the difference
between thinking that the work of art must
seek out what is most beautiful in the world,
and thinking that art merely has to get as
close to reality as possible; i.e. the working
from life ideology.
With all this in mind, I believe that it
is not sufficient to explain the frequent
treatment of the cottage motif in the
naturalists’ works of art simply as the result
of the artists’ special aesthetic sensibility.
First of all, the cottage motif was not a
chance motif but one with an art theoretical
pedigree which was tacitly present in the
naturalists’ pictures. Secondly, De Lairesse
(and De Ville before him) furnishes proof in
his description that the naturalists’ explicit
setting out of their support for the working
from life ideology also participated in the
on-going discussion of art’s relationship to
nature, and also a principle discussion of the
concept of beauty in pictorial art.
By choosing a motif intimately associated
with working from life in both art theory
and pictorial tradition, I believe that artists
employed the cottage motif to position
themselves in these contemporary art
theoretical discussions.
The dilapidated building as a
naturalistic metaphor
The naturalists’ depiction of cottages in
a state of dilapidation can have acted as
a very direct reference precisely to the
world picture which their portrayals were
founded on. In the poet and art connoisseur
Joost van den Vondel’s (1587-1679) poem
Bespiegeling van God en Godsdienst,
interest in decay is presented as a metaphor
for the perception that nature is its own
guiding principle and that its actual
appearance is therefore a matter of chance.
Van den Vondel makes a serious criticism of
the naturalistic world picture which states
that nature is guided by chance, and in
this connection he makes an analogy to the
artist’s creation of pictures. 49 He says that
nature is created by God on the basis of an
initial rational concept whose function is to
be “the sketch for things created later”, just
as the artist works out his design in sketches
before the masterpiece is executed. 50 So it
is this concept which lies behind it all rather
than the particular nature of the individual
element which must be studied so as to
understand the world.
The connection between decay and
the concept of nature as its own guiding
principle is articulated by Leucippus, the
atomist philosopher of Antiquity, who in Van
den Vondel’s verses expresses the view that
a palace in ruins is more beautiful than a
well-built one, and that beauty can be found
in the random which outshines that of the
paintings of even Raphael, Michelangelo
and Titian. 51 With this formulation, Van
den Vondel transfers the polarity between
perceiving nature as chance or as organised
to the field of art, where decay becomes a
metaphor for the painterly aesthetic and is
propounded as a contrast to the idealisation
in Italian models.
In Van den Vondel’s conclusion soon after,
he employs a dilapidated building again as
the focus of his criticism of the naturalist
world picture. He writes that a neglected
building which is covered in dirt and has
collapsed because of the effects of wind
and weather may well be characteristic
(“aertighs”) but just as the wind changes
and ashes blow away, it will never be
anything other than a temporary aberration
from normality. His conclusion is that the
particular does not lead to an insight into
the order of nature. 52 Van den Vondel’s poem
suggests that the naturalists’ depictions of
dilapidated hovels not only functioned as a
reference to the working from life ideology
but also as a metaphor for the whole naturalist
way of seeing the world.
The role of the cottage
A picture begins to take shape of the naturalists’
depictions of dilapidated cottages not
merely being seen as “an intuitive choice of
(...) the weathered, dilapidated, anomalous
and even strange”. 53 I attribute great
importance to the fact that Lampsonius, Van
Mander, Van den Vondel and De Lairesse
english version 104
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Fig. 9
select the dilapidated building, and the
cottage in particular, when they discuss the
(misunderstood) painterly, the anomalous
and working from life. This suggests that the
motif was so deeply rooted in contemporary
theoretical discussions of beauty, the
purpose of art and the relationship of art to
nature that these more principle questions
were necessarily accreted in artists’ pictures
and were exploited by them. 54 Thus the
dilapidated cottage was almost the ideal
motif for the naturalists to proclaim their
relationship to the working from life ideology
and thereby participate in the debate of that
period on the purpose of art and the concept
of beauty.
The analysis of De Lairesse’s presentation
of the Modern and the Antique reveals that
the actual depiction of the most anomalous
and extraordinary sides of reality could
activate a whole principle discussion of the
concept of beauty and the way works of art
related to nature. De Lairesse sees these
questions as closely related to the depiction
of the cottage. In his examination of this
motif, he returns to the distinction between
Antique and Modern and criticises the
105 david burmeister kaaring
Modern landscape painters Pieter Bruegel,
Paul Bril (1553/54-1626) and Hans Bol
(1534-93) for painting “without distinguishing
between the best in reality and that
which is ordinary and bad”. 55 Cottages in
particular belonged to the latter group, as
he describes them as “bad and mean” and
without order. 56
According to De Lairesse, the cottage is
thus characteristic not only of the Modern
landscape but also of the aesthetic itself
which was attached to the most radical
interpretation of the Modern interest in what
was contemporary, the rustic landscape:
“A picture full of deformed trees, whose
boughs and foliage stretch out wildly to the
east and west, trunks bent, old and ruined,
with many knots and holes, with uneven
and broken, trackless ground, ... rude or
dilapidated buildings, whose constituent
parts are scattered, muddy streams, sombre
air full of heavy clouds, fields of skinny
animals and unsuitable itinerants...cannot
possible make up a beautiful landscape.” 57
Walter S. Gibson and Reindert Falkenburg
interpret this quotation as an account of
the aesthetic approach to the verisimilitude
of reality which motivated the naturalists’
choice of motifs - the painterly aesthetic. 58
But not even Gibson’s otherwise excellent
analyses of “the rustic ruin” comment on
the fact that the dilapidated cottage – apart
from being painterly – is also handed down
to the naturalists with a serious legacy
which was particularly relevant in the more
principle discussion occasioned by the
painterly. The cottage motif was a battlefield
encompassing a whole pantheon from The
Small Landscapes, Lampsonius, Van Mander,
C. P. Biens, Van den Vondel, to Jan de
Bisschop and De Lairesse. It was here the
principle discussion was fought out about
the purpose of art, its relationship to reality,
its ideal of beauty – and in more general
terms, too, the fundamental question of how
man attains true knowledge.
Rembrandt’s Farmhouse with Artist
Sketching
Rembrandt’s etching Farmhouse with Artist
Sketching [fig. 8] is perhaps the clearest
example of how the naturalists’ interest in
71009_journal 2007.indd 105 12/17/08 9:29:46 AM

the dilapidated cottage was also a manifestation
of the artistic project. Rembrandt’s
work plays on the notion of working from life
on several different levels. At the present
time it is clear that just by depicting an
ordinary farmhouse, Rembrandt activated an
expectation that the work of art was directly
recorded in nature. This notion is so strong
that it has been suggested even in our
day that the artist sitting sketching in the
bottom right corner is a portrayal of one of
Rembrandt’s apprentices who participated
in the séance. 59 I think this is considerably
unlikely. It is much more probably
Rembrandt’s way of thematising the imitative
approach itself and which affected his
choice of motif and the depiction of it. Claes
Jansz Visscher did exactly the same in his
Plaisante Plaetsen etchings from 1611/13,
where he depicted an artist sketching in four
of the twelve works in the series [fig. 9]. 60
As Boudewijn Bakker has remarked
recently, Farmhouse with Artist Sketching
becomes a visual manifesto of Rembrandt’s
ambition to investigate and give expression
to visible reality. 61
The final point is that the choice of
etching style is also closely related to the
experience of the picture as a depiction of
reality. Rembrandt’s use of a simple style,
the inclusion of both the simple idiom,
which includes several corrections, the way
the blank sheet of paper is used, and in
particular the summary, almost stenographical
account of the rustic surroundings of the
farmhouse, resembles the way the sketched
nature study accentuates the association
to working from life. It has even been
suggested that the etching itself may have
been done en plein air. But it is impossible
to decide whether this is the case, or
whether we just experience the work like
this because of Rembrandt’s exploitation
of some pictorial devices that occasion this
impression.
The elevation of the cottage motif to a
metaphor for the working from life ideology
is unmistakable in Rembrandt’s etching.
But even in works that do not give such
explicit expression to the this ideology, the
dilapidated cottage could act as a sort of
manifesto by virtue of the role of the motif
in contemporary theoretical discussions
of the relationship of art to reality and its
ideal of beauty. This potential seems to be
a crucial reason for the motif having such
popularity in the formative years of the
rustic landscape.
1 Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv.
KMS568 and KMS569 (both oil on panel, ø 30 cm).
I am grateful to Lene Bøgh Rønberg and Badeloch
Noldus for their comments on this article.
2 Simon Schama: The Embarrassment of Riches. An
Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age,
London 1991 (1st ed. 1987), pp. 57-8. The theme
is expanded considerably in Catherine Levesque:
Journey through Landscape in Seventeenth-Century
Holland, University Park 1994, pp. 93 ff.
3 Anonymous: Den Nederduytschen Helicon, Haarlem
1610, 108. See: Huigen Leeflang: ”Dutch Landscape:
The Urban View. Haarlem and Its Environs in
Literature and Art, 15th to 17th Century” in:
Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, vol. 48 (1997)
pp. 66-67 and Walter S. Gibson: Pleasant Places. The
Rustic Landscape from Bruegel to Ruisdael, Berkeley,
Los Angeles and London 2000, p. 99.
4 Ger Luiten and Christiaan Schuckman: Hollstein’s
Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts,
c. 1450-1700. Vol. XXXIII Jan van de Velde II to Dirk
Vellert, Roosendaal 1989, pp. 232-291.
5 Levesque, 1994, pp. 104 and 111-12. Levesque
provides a very subtle interpretation of the
landscape series which, however, in extension of the
book’s fundamental reading of the 1610s’ landscapes
in the light of what one presumes was that period’s
historical memory of the Spanish wars, tends
to overstress a postulated conflict between the classical
Arcadian landscapes of the series and modern
Dutch landscapes. Gibson, 2000, p. 163, suggests
that the rustic ruin in this particular etching in the
series can be compared with (or alternatively be
contrasted with) the “noble” ruins of Antiquity. I
think it is doubtful whether the dilapidated peasant
cottage really should be ascribed the same role as
ruined castles like Brederode or Huis ter Kleef. Not
least the figures in the landscape of this etching
(which Gibson does not relate to) are more probably
an indication that the work is in correspondence with
the classical idyllic landscape.
6 The drawing has its roots back in the years shortly
after 1600. Thus the depicted cottage appears for
the first time in Bloemaert’s work in a drawing from
c. 1600/3, Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Gallery, (pen,
wash, water colour, white lead, black chalk, 162 x
215mm). Reproduced in William W. Robinson: Bruegel
to Rembrandt. Dutch and Flemish Drawings from the
Maida and George Abrams Collection, Cambridge,
MA 2002, cat. 21. The cottage also appears in The
Prodigal Son, Blackheath, London, Ranger’s House (oil
on canvas, 60 x 69,3 cm), see: Marcel Roethlisberger:
Abraham Bloemaert and his Sons, Doornspijk 1993,
cat. 546 and Jaap Bolten: Abraham Bloemaert, c.
1565-1651: The Drawings, Leiden 2007, cat. 1637.
7 One can of course point to a number of examples
of moralising depictions of country decay, but in
general pictures like these are described in positive
terms, see: Gibson, 2000, pp. 143-44.
8 F. W. H. Hollstein: Dutch and Flemish Etchings,
Engravings and Woodcuts vol. III Boekhorst -Brueghel,
Amsterdam 1950 pp. 338-57 ff.
9 Gibson, 2000, p. 157.
10 Catherine Levesque points out that this theme was
predominant not only in the landscape art of the
period, but also in the poetry of the time.
11 Gibson, 2000, p. 143.
12 Ann Jensen Adams: ”Competing Communities in the
‘Great Bog of Europe’. Identity and Seventeenth-
Century Dutch Landscape Painting”, in: Mitchell,
W.J.T. (ed.) Landscape and Power, Chicago and London
1994, pp. 35-76.
13 Cf. Gibson, 2000, p. 143; Boudewijn Bakker: ”Nature
or Art? Rembrandt’s Aesthetics and the Dutch
Tradition”, in: Rembrandt’s Landscapes, (ed. Christiaan
Vogelaar and Gregor J.M. Weber) Leiden, Stedelijk
Museum de Lakenhal and Kassel, Staatliche Museen,
Zwolle 2006, pp. 162-66.
14 For a discussion of this concept see: Boudewijn
Bakker: ”’Schilderachtige’: discussies over term
en begrip in de zeventiende eeuw”, in: Caronine
van Eck, Jeroen van den Eynde and Wilifred van
Leeuwen (ed.): Het Schilderachtige: Studies over het
schilderachtige in de Nederlandse kunsttheorie en
architectuur, 1650-1900, Amsterdam 1994, pp. 11-24
and Boudewijn Bakker: ”Schilderachtig: Discussions of
a Seventeenth-Century Term and Concept”, Simiolus,
vol. 23 (1995), pp. 147-62.
15 Bakker, 1995, p. 154.
16 Claudia Swan: “Ad vivum, naer het leven, from the
life: Considerations on a Mode of Representation,”
Word & Image 11 (Oct.-Dec. 1995): p. 353ff.
17 Eric Jan Sluijter: Rembrandt and the Female Nude,
Amsterdam 2006, p. 195ff.
18 See Bakker, 2006, pp. 106-68.
19 Thijs Weststeijn: Samuel van Hoogstratens kunsttheorie
en de legitimering van de schilderkunst in de zeventiende
eeuw, proefschrift, Universiteit van Amsterdam
2005, p. 207ff.
20 Karel van Mander: Den grondt der edel vry schilderconst.
Uitgegeven en van certaling en commentaar
voorzien door Hessel Miedema, Utrecht 1973, vol. II
436-37; Bakker, 2006, p. 165.
21 Reindert Falkenburg: ”’Schilderachtig weer’ bij
Jan van Goyen”, in: Jan van Goyen (ed. Christiaan
Vogelaar), Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal
1996, p. 67.
22 Walter S. Gibson: ”Bloemaert’s Privy: The Rustic
Ruin in Dutch Art”, in: Time and Transformation in
Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art (Susan Donahue
Kuretsky, ed.), The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center,
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York 2005, p. 66.
23 Gibson, 2000, pp. 151-72; Gibson, 2005, p. 71.
24 Gibson’s translation, 2000, p. 31 of Van Mander:
Het Schilder-Boeck, Haarlem 1604 fol. 298r: ”By den
Const-beminders zijn oock van hem seer aerdighe
Landtschappen, met eenighe aerdighe en drollighe
Boeren huysen, Boerigh ghereetschap, boomen, en
gronden, dinghen die daer om Wtrecht seer veel en
verscheyden te sien, en van hem gheconterfeyt zijn:
want hy seer veel nae t’leven doet, hebbende een
seer aerdighe wijse van teyckenen, en handelinge
metter Pen…” Jaap Bolten notes that it seems
misleading of Van Mander to describe the drawings
as ”comical”, see: Bolten, 2007, p. 406. Bolten reads
this description as an expression of Van Mander’s
not knowing how to react to Bloemaert’s drawings
except by ascribing them to the tradition of Bruegel
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with his burlesque portrayals of peasant life. I do
not believe this is entirely convincing. As late as
1636, when depictions of peasant cottages were
a well established genre, Cornelis Pietersz Biens
also describes cottages as ”comical”. See: Cornelis
Pietersz Biens/ E.A. de Klerk: ”De Teecken-Const,
een 17de eeuws Nederlands traktaatje”, Oud
Holland, vol. 96 (1982), p. 51.
25 See Karel van Mander: The Lives of the Illustrious
Netherlandish and German Painters, Hessel Miedema
ed., Doornspijk 1995 (first published in Haarlem
1604), vol. II, p. 233.
26 Peter Parshall: “Imago contrafacta: Images and
Facts in the Northern Renaissance”, Art History, vol.
16 (1993), pp. 564 and 570.
27 Van Mander consistently refers to a portrait as
conterfeytsel nae t’leven, while landscapes are
often described using the word-order nae t’leven
conterfeyten. See: Van Mander, 1604, fol. 230r-v,
233r, 234r, 235r, 250r, and 262v.
28 Van Mander, 1604, fol. 36v-37r (”(…) Dan en weet ick
niet, wat seldtsamer cluchten / Van Herders hutten, en
Boeren ghehuchten, / In klip-kuylen, hol-boomen, en
op staken / Wy stichten sullen, met wanden en daken.
// Niet met schoon roo teghelen, eer met rosschen
/ Van aerde, riet, en stroo, lappen en breken, / Oock
vreemd’lijck beplaesteren, en bemosschen (…)”).
29 Van Mander/Miedema, 1604/1995, vol. III, p. 51.
30 Van Mander, 1604, fol. 35r, 36v, 37r, 50r and David
Burmeister Kaaring: Tegnekunstens betydninger for
den naturalistiske landskabskunst i Den Nederlandske
Republik, ca. 1600-1650, unpub. PhD-thesis,
University of Copenhagen 2007, p. 73.
31 Gerard de Lairesse: Groot Schilderboek, Haarlem
1740 (1st ed. 1707), p. 172 (”...want zy [de Moderne]
vermag, noch kan, niet meer als het tegenwoodige
verbeelden, en dat noch op en wys die nimmer stand
houd, maar gestadig veranderd en vervreemd word.”).
32 Bakker, 2006, p. 166. Van Mander’s recommendation
is repeated by Cornelis Pietersz Biens, see: Biens/
De Klerk, 1636/1982, p. 51. Biens focuses on decay
even more than Van Mander: ”For the cottages
choose the old, curious, broken and half-fallen
peasant houses covered with reeds or straw, with
overgrown green plants, with old walls, broken
doors and windows…” (”Tot de huyskens verkiest de
oude houbollige gebroken ende half vallende boeren
huysen, zijnde met riet oft stroo bedeckt, met groenten
bewassen, met oude muyren, gebroken deuren en
vensteren…).
33 F.W.A. Hollstein: Dutch and Flemish Etchings,
Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700. Vol. IV,
Amsterdam 1951, p. 184 nos. 1-23, II.
34 From Walter S. Melion: Shaping the Netherlandish
Canon. Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck, The
University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London
1991, p. 145. The original text is: Salve omnes, Luca,
ante alios carissime quondam nec levius proprio culte
parente mihi. Quippe mihi primus graphicus datus
auctor amandae, dum pingis docta pura, lasasque manu.
35 Melion, 1991, pp. 144-45.
36 Karl and Herman-Walther Frey: Giorgio Vasari. Der
literarische Nachlass, vol. II, Hildesheim and New York
1982, pp. 114-15.
107 david burmeister kaaring
37 See: Melion, 1991, pp. 146-47.
38 Melion, 1991, p. 23.
39 Henk Nalis (ed.): The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish
Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700. The
Van Doetecum Family, Rotterdam 1998, vol. 1, 94 no.
118-161.
40 An overview of the tentative attributions is given
by Hans Mielke in Otto von Simpson and Matthias
Winner: Pieter Bruegel d.Ä als Zeichner. Herkunft und
Nachfolg. Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, 19 Sept. – 16
Nov. 1975, pp. 139-140. Reinhardt Liess, ”Die
Kleinen Landschaften Pieter Bruegels d.Ä im Licht
seines Gesamtwerks”, Kunsthistorisches Jahrbuch
Graz, vol. 15-16 (1979-1980), 1-116, vol. 17 (1981),
35-180, vol. 18 (1982) 79-164, later attempted
unsuccessfully to reattribute a number of the
drawings to Pieter Bruegel. The most plausible name
to date has been suggested by Egbert Haverkamp-
Begemann, Joos van Liere. See: ”Joos van Liere” in:
Otto von Simpson and Matthias Winner (ed.): Pieter
Bruegel und seine Welt, Berlin 1979, pp. 17-28.
41 Nalis, 1998, vol. 1, 94 no. 118 (”MVLTIFARIVM
/ CASVLARIVM RVRIVM’Q.[VE] / LINEAMENTA
CVRIOSE / AD VIVVM EXPRESSA. Vele ende
seer fraeye ghe= / leghentheden van diuerssche
Dorphuysinghen, hoe- / uen, Velden, Straten,
ende dyer ghelijcken, met / alderhande Beestkens
verviert. Al te samen gehe- / conterfeyt naer dleuen,
ende meest rontom / Antwerpen gleleghen sijnde.”)
The English translation is from Walter Liedtke:
”Cottage Industry: Some Haarlem Landscapes of the
Early Seventeenth Century”, Apollo,vol. 158 no. 498
(Aug. 2003), p. 31.
42 See note 41 (”PRAEDIORVM VILLARVM
ET RVSTICARVM CASVLARVM ICONES
ELENOANTISSI=MÆ AD VIVVM IN APRE
DEFORMATAE”) The English translation is by Gibson,
2000, p. 2.
43 Henk Nalis (ed.): The New Hollstein Dutch and Flemish
Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts 1450-1700. The Van
Doetecum Family, Rotterdam 1998, vol. 1, p. 94.
44 Sluijter, 2006, p. 208.
45 See Jan Emmens in particular: Rembrandt en de regels
van de kunst, Den Haag 1968.
46 Sluijter, 2006, pp. 209-10.
47 De Lairesse, 1740, pp. 167 ff.
48 De Lairesse, 1740, p. 171:”Wel is waar, dat dit alles
konst is; of ten minsten wird het zo genoemd, wanneer
men het leven daar door natuurlyk uitdrukt…”.
49 To find an analysis of Van den Vondel’s mention
of painting in this poem, see: Boudewijn Bakker:
”Een goddelijk schildery: Vondel over landschap
en schilderkunst in zijn Bespiegelingen van 1662”,
Neerlandistiek.nl, no. 05.02, 2005 ttp://www.
neerlandistiek.nl/publish/articles/000091/article.
pdf).
50 Bakker, 2005, p. 10.
51 Joost van den Vondel: Bespiegeling van God en
godsdienst, in: J.M.F. Sterck et al (ed.): De werken van
Vondel. Deel 9, 1660-1663, Amsterdam 1936, verses
699-716.
52 Van den Vondel, 1662/1936, verses 733-747.
53 Bakker, 2006, p. 168: ”He made an intuitive choice,
opting for everything that was not new, smooth
and mathematically ordered, but on the contrary
weathered, dilapidated [bouvallich], anomalous and
even strange”.
54 Apart from the theoreticians mentioned here,
Samuel van Hoogstraten: Inleyding tot der Hooge
Schoole der Schilderkonst…, Rotterdam 1678, p. 139,
uses the cottage versus the well-made building
to exemplify the difference between the beautiful
and the characteristic. The same is the case in Jan
de Bisschop’s dedication to Jan Six of Paradigmata
graphices variorum artificum, Amsterdam 1671, see:
J.G. van Gelder and Ingrid Jost: Jan de Bisschop and
his Icones and Paradigmata, Doornspijk 1985, vol. II
[unpag.].
55 De Lairesse, 1740, p. 349: ”…even als die oude
beroemde Schilders Bruegel, Bril, en Hans Bol in de
voorgaande eeuwen geschilderd hebben, zonder
uitzondering van het best uit het gemeen en slegste
leeven te verkiezen.”.
56 De Lairesse, 1740, p. 357.
57 De Lairesse, 1740, pp. 419-420.
58 Falkenburg, 1996, pp. 66-67; Gibson: 2000, pp. 151,
171-172; Gibson 2005 pp. 66-71.
59 Cynthia Schneider: Rembrandt’s Landscapes. Drawings
and Prints, Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1990,
pp. 85-86 cat. 11.
60 Christiaan Schuckman: Hollstein’s Dutch and Flemish
Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, c. 1450-1700, vol.
38, nos. 149-160.
61 Boudewijn Bakker: ”Nature or Art? Rembrandt’s
Aesthetics and the Dutch Tradition”, in: Rembrandt’s
Landscapes (ed. Christiaan Vogelaar and Gregor J.M.
Weber) Leiden, Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal and
Kassel, Staatliche Museen, Zwolle 2006, p. 149.
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