Dutch and Flemish Masters Depict Mankind in all its Glory and Grime
This is not to say that the artists in this exhibition do not render to their religious subjects an appropriate reverence and gravity. One could hardly ask for a more moving depiction of a biblical subject like Abraham and Isaac than Jan van der Straet’s drawing dating from around 1590 to 1595; and yet the drawing of a domestic scene like Maarten van Heemskerck’s “Visiting the Sick,” 1552, radiates a greater feeling of religious devotion than the ceremonial elaborateness of a “machine” like Abraham Bloemaert’s “The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine,” 1597.
However deep their religious beliefs may have been, the artists represented in this exhibition were always at their best in dealing with the humblest, most commonplace subjects. This, of course, was what Fry had in mind in his discussion of the “extreme earthliness” of Flemish art.
Hilton Kramer, Art & Antiques’ long-established art critic, is also the editor of The New Criterion.
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