To fall with your nose in butter

I have never fancied myself as a matchmaker but occasionally I meet people and think: “I reckon I know someone that you would get on with really well.  I think you guys should get to know each other – I bet you would hit it off”.  And this was the case when I happened upon Jan van Duren, the Dutch Burgomaster in New York and remembered ‘his perfect partner’, the charming lady with the fan, back in Melbourne. They are both ‘no nonsense’ people with a stylish but elegant simplicity. They are abstemious, like minimalist interiors and … they have the same taste in home furnishings.  Doubtless a match made in heaven – if only they could find each other!

The title of today’s post is a translation of the Dutch saying: ‘met zijn neus in de boter vallen’ which means to be at the right place at the right time.  I was reminded of this quirky description when I came across the painting of the Burgomaster by Gerhard ter Borch the Younger and this led me to the extraordinary resources on the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website in relation to their current Dutch exhibition.

The ‘boter’ (butter) is an exhibition called: ‘In Praise of Painting – Dutch Masterpieces at The Met’ which brings together much of the Dutch art of the ‘Golden Age’ that The Met has been collecting since it opened in 1871. The exhibition title comes from an address about art theory given on October 31, 1641 (the feast day of St Luke, patron saint of painters) by the Leiden artist Philips Angel. Angel (1618- 1664) was an artist who left no surviving works but is remembered for the publication of his lecture In which he describes the ‘essential  ability’ of painters to imitate nature and achieve realistic effects – the art of the so-called Fijnschilders.

The Met has sixty-seven works of art on view and these include wonderful examples from the ‘usual suspects’ – Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals and Ruisdael. The works are arranged thematically in order to shed new light on this ‘golden age’ of painting and cover themes ranging from debates about art and religion, to conspicuous consumption, as well as the domestic lives of the population.

It is interesting to compare works in The Met Collection with examples by the same artist in the NGV Collection.  When we do this, it becomes clear how impressive the NGV Dutch collection is. This may not be so surprising as The Met opened ten years after the NGV and was acquiring international art around the same time.

For example, the section ‘Faces of a New Nation’ looks at commissioned portraits which depict members of an affluent population who used art to express identity, status and ties of affection. In ‘A Musician and His Daughter’ 1629 by Thomas de Keyser we see a display of wealth and confidence that is similar to that seen in ‘Frederick van Velthuysen and his wife, Josina’ 1636.

The section on religious art, ‘Questions of Faith’, contains a church interior from 1660 by Hendrick van Vliet, ‘Interior of the Oude Kerk, Delft’, which is very like the NGV painting, ‘The interior of St Janskerk at Gouda’, 1662 – including the presence of a newly constructed grave.

In ‘Staking a Claim’ we have the beginnings of landscape painting independent from its function in religious or historical art. Landscape artists to explore this new art style include: Meyndert Hobbema, Jacob van Ruisdael, Salomon van Ruysdael and Aelbert Cuyp. Cuyp’s ‘Young Herdsmen with Cows’, c.1655-60 has the same sun-streaked clouds, agrarian labouring, and wonderful livestock as his earlier painting ‘Landscape with Cattle’ c.1639-1649 that we are familiar with.

Still life paintings are featured in ‘Eloquent Things’ and there is a pronkstilleven by Abraham van Beyeren, and a rather restrained work by Jan Davidsz de Heem from c. 1640 ‘Still Life with a Glass and Oysters’ – although with the same masterful technique we see in the NGV painting.

Finally, in the ‘Comic Painting’ section there are a range of earthy everyday genre works including the marvellous ‘The Dissolute Household’ c. 1663-1664 by Jan Steen where the artist sits surrounded by domestic chaos, romping children, animals running amok and adults coping by getting drunk. This painting definitely resonates with the challenges of social isolation we experience in today’s COVID-19 world.

The website contains a number of excellent features including: an ‘Exhibition Overview’, images of all ‘Exhibition Objects’, discussions of the themes in the ‘Exhibition Galleries’, a ‘Primer’ and an extensive ‘Audio Guide’ by experts from diverse field describing how the artworks inspired them. These can all be accessed at: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2018/in-praise-of-painting-dutch-masterpieces.

Having spent considerable time ‘trawling’ the exhibition, I ended up in the words of the Dutch: ‘op zijn tandvlees lopen’ (translation: walking on my gums – which means ‘to be exhausted’) and ‘met de mond vol tanden stann’ (translation: sitting with my mouth full of teeth –  meaning ‘speechless’).

I am sure if you explore the exhibition when you next look at the Dutch art in the NGV collection you will think ‘lets onder de knie hebben’, I have this under my knees which means ‘I have mastered it’!