Eckles Prize 2013: 22 Reflection Essay My essay, “Hierarchy, Home, and Homeland: The Dutch Golden Age in Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape,” began as a research assignment that I was both intimidated and unexcited by. However, the challenge it posed encouraged me to think creatively to find a way to do research that interested me and that could contribute something new to art history scholarship. As I delved into my research, I was able to discover how to approach my assigned topic in a way that would inspire my thinking. Through this project, I learned how to organize pages of research into a clearly structured paper and how to incorporate many images and examples into a logical progression. One of the most important aspects of research that I learned through this project and will incorporate into future research is the step of making the topic my own. The theme of group portraiture was assigned to me, but I found that the research I did concerning Dutch Civic Guard portraiture, which dominates the genre, did not excite me. By focusing on a family portrait instead, I discovered that Family Group in a Landscape, a formerly minor painting, was crucial to our understanding of the genre. At first, my research on this painting was very broad because I was unsure of my direction. I knew that I wanted to explore the use of gesture in portraying gender roles, but I also knew that I would not be able to properly discuss the work without addressing the black boy. Thus, I had to examine race relations as well. It came as an “Aha!” moment when I realized that my paper should surround this one painting and address many topics rather than focus on either gender or race, as that narrow view was stopping my research from becoming focused. However, it also would have been incomplete if I were to focus on group portraiture but neglect the topic of Civic Guard portraiture. In Eckles Prize 2013: 22 1
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Eckles Prize 2013: 22 Reflection Essay
My essay, “Hierarchy, Home, and Homeland: The Dutch Golden Age in Frans Hals’s
Family Group in a Landscape,” began as a research assignment that I was both intimidated and
unexcited by. However, the challenge it posed encouraged me to think creatively to find a way to
do research that interested me and that could contribute something new to art history scholarship.
As I delved into my research, I was able to discover how to approach my assigned topic in a way
that would inspire my thinking. Through this project, I learned how to organize pages of research
into a clearly structured paper and how to incorporate many images and examples into a logical
progression.
One of the most important aspects of research that I learned through this project and will
incorporate into future research is the step of making the topic my own. The theme of group
portraiture was assigned to me, but I found that the research I did concerning Dutch Civic Guard
portraiture, which dominates the genre, did not excite me. By focusing on a family portrait
instead, I discovered that Family Group in a Landscape, a formerly minor painting, was crucial
to our understanding of the genre. At first, my research on this painting was very broad because I
was unsure of my direction. I knew that I wanted to explore the use of gesture in portraying
gender roles, but I also knew that I would not be able to properly discuss the work without
addressing the black boy. Thus, I had to examine race relations as well.
It came as an “Aha!” moment when I realized that my paper should surround this one
painting and address many topics rather than focus on either gender or race, as that narrow view
was stopping my research from becoming focused. However, it also would have been incomplete
if I were to focus on group portraiture but neglect the topic of Civic Guard portraiture. In
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 1
figuring out how to incorporate the subgenre, my main argument blossomed. Because my
research on Family Group in a Landscape revealed information that seemed very different from
what one usually hears about group portraiture, I was able to bring my early research about Civic
Guard portraiture into the discussion in a way that genuinely interested me, and I could make a
contribution to the field.
In terms of the research itself, I was very overwhelmed in the beginning when my
research questions were unspecific. I felt like I had to read entire books and the notes I was
taking were relatively useless because they had no focus. When I made the decision to split my
paper into sections, the research became much more manageable because I was able to
concentrate on one objective at a time instead of feeling like I had to do everything at once. It
also made my time researching more manageable, since I could switch from one topic to another
when I felt like I was slowing down or hitting a dead end for one section of research. One
prominent success I experienced in my research came about by going on to jstor and searching
the topics of every one of my sections, rewording my search as many times as possible. I believe
I found at least three crucial sources during that session of research.
Finally, the system I used to take and organize notes is definitely another research
method that I will take with me for future projects. I found that I was extremely successful in
organizing my ideas and keeping track of page numbers and sources through a color-coded list
system. Because I am an art history major, I also know I will try to create some kind of
presentation before writing future papers, even if I do not have one due, as I did in this case. By
organizing the images first, I was able to figure out a logical order for them and discern what was
important to say about each one. Writing in a presentation format allowed me to organize my
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thoughts in a more colloquial manner before transforming them into the language appropriate for
an essay.
In all, this research project was extremely influential in my growth as a writer and a
scholar. I learned how to take a seemingly uninspiring topic and make it my own and how to
transform what interests me into a unique contribution to the field of art history. Furthermore, I
was able to experiment with my own note-taking system and to discover techniques for
organizing my thoughts. Through this learning process, I have created a research essay that
addresses a new topic in an already well-explored genre and thus contributes art history
scholarship.
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 3
Research Paper
Hierarchy, Home, and Homeland: The Dutch Golden Age in Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape
Throughout the seventeenth century, portraiture was one of the most sought after genres
of painting in the Dutch Republic. The middle and upper classes of Dutch society commissioned
portraits for their ability to communicate specific perceptions of the subject’s wealth and status.
Commissioners of group portraits had these same motives in mind, using group portrayals to
define each subject by their role in relation to others’. This capacity for comparison is group
portraiture’s unique addition to the genre of portraiture, as it allowed carefully calculated
perceptions of the patrons to be created through the subjects’ interactions with each other, not
with the viewer alone. Group portraits were both products and active participants in the cultural
process that took place in Holland during the seventeenth century, and thus give us unique and
important insights into the complex cultural climate of the Dutch Golden Age.1
Rembrandt van Rijn’s The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van
Ruytenburch, better known as the Night Watch (fig. 1), of 1642, is arguably the most famous
group portrait of the Netherlands of the seventeenth century. It has come to represent the essence
of the Dutch Golden Age, glowing with the splendor of the Civic Guard’s power and harmony.
The Night Watch, however, is not alone in the genre of militia portraiture. Two striking
depictions of The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, one by Govert Flinck dating to 1642 (fig.
2), the other by Bartholomeus van der Helst dating to 1655 (fig. 3), are now on view and long-
term loan at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These works summarize the intent
1 Ann Jensen Adams, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland: Portraiture and the Production of Community (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 24.
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of all militia portraits to “immortalize the civic pride” of these leaders, who were the face of the
Dutch Republic.2
As magnificent as such group portraits are, however, we resign ourselves to tunnel vision
when viewing them as the sole contributors to the genre of group portraiture. These works do
indeed give insight into important institutions of the Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century,
but they cannot show us the full breadth and complexity of Dutch society at the time. For this,
we must look to lesser-known and lesser-celebrated group portraits, such as Frans Hals’s Family
Group in a Landscape (fig. 4), c. 1645–1648, to broaden our vision again.
At first glance, this work is a harmonious depiction of a quintessential upper- or upper-
middle-class family. The two middle figures, man and wife, mother and father, lock eyes
lovingly, their son greeting the viewer with twinkling eyes as if caught in a daydream, totally at
ease. The daughter gazes at her mother in admiration, separated from her by the family servant
who blends into the lush landscape behind them. To the right, the verdant scenery opens into a
dazzling vista, the pinks of the clouds complementing the warmth of the family’s faces and
spirits.
The Dutch of the seventeenth century prided themselves on the equality of their Republic.
Foreigners were often surprised by the freedom of women to socialize with men as they liked,3
and slavery was not legal.4 However, when examining works such as Frans Hals’s Family Group
in a Landscape more closely, many instances of hierarchy are revealed. This work brings great
insight into the family roles and race relations of the Netherlands of the seventeenth century, and
2 Henriette de Bruyn, Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2012). 3 Simon Schama, “Wives and Wantons: Versions of Womanhood in 17th Century Dutch Art,” Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1, Women in Art (Apr., 1980), 6, accessed April 21, 2013, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1360173. 4 Kate Lowe, “The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe,” in Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, ed. Joaneath Spicer (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2012), 26.
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can also be compared to Civic militia portraits of the time to allow a better understanding of the
hierarchies of broader Dutch society.
The Importance of Gesture
In order to fully comprehend group portraits of the time, we must start by understanding
the literature that was circulating and the cultural expectations of the elite classes, as these
informed the visual language artists employed. The value and discipline of manners and etiquette
grew as the hierarchy of Holland gradually strengthened.5 Etiquette books were in print as early
as the fourteenth century,6 though most were not translated into Dutch until about 1650.7 The
Dutch elite, however, had a reasonable command of languages and would have learned the rules
of courtoisie and civilité through such means as the Grand Tour, a trip that young men took to
France and Italy.8
Of course, the Dutch would have been most familiar with the manner books of Erasmus
(fig. 5), such as his extremely influential 1532 work, De civilitate morum puerilium. Erasmus,
like all etiquette authors, wrote on the importance of posture and prescribed certain ways of
holding oneself to members of the upper classes. He wrote that well-mannered people must stand
upright with a graceful and natural posture. They must not lean too far in any direction, as
leaning backward was a sign of conceit and leaning forward would appear ungainly.9
5 Herman Roodenburg, “On ‘Swelling’ the Hips and Crossing the Legs: Distinguishing Public and Private in Paintings and Prints from the Dutch Golden Age,” in The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Adele Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), 67. 6 Joaneath Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992), 88-95. 7 Herman Roodenburg, “The ‘Hand of Friendship’: Shaking Hands and Other Gestures in the Dutch Republic,” in A Cultural History of Gesture, ed. Jan Bremmer and Herman Roodenburg (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1992), 154. 8 Roodenburg, “On ‘Swelling’ the Hips and Crossing the Legs,” 66. 9 Ibid., 65.
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By the end of the seventeenth century, artists had written painters’ manuals, or
schilderboeken, such as Gérard de Lairesse’s 1707 Groot Schilderboek. These works
incorporated the manners of the etiquette books into the language of the arts, as seen in one of de
Lairesse’s illustrations (fig. 6). In his drawing, the elite stand in contrapposto with clear
elegance, while the peasants stand on both feet with bent knees, illustrating both the arrogant
backward lean and the unattractive forward hunch Erasmus warned against. Karel van Mander,
who is known to have taught Frans Hals, authored schilderboeken of his own.10 He, too, stressed
the importance of gesture, though he did not only discuss its importance in signifying class and
status. Rather, van Mander included a discussion of gesture based on gender, emphasizing that
men must act like men, and women must act like women.11 It is important to remember that
artists were already incorporating this kind of visual language into their works in the time
between the publication of manner books and painters’ manuals.
It is also necessary to review the emblem books that were circulating at the same time as
such etiquette books and painters’ manuals. In Andrea Alciato’s Book of Emblems of 1531,
published at almost the exact date of Erasmus’s manner book, there are three emblems that will
be important to consider in viewing Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape. The Symbol of
Faithfulness (fig. 7), emblem on Harmony (fig. 8), and emblem On Wifely Fidelity (fig. 9), all
include figures that grasp each other’s hand. In the emblem On Wifely Fidelity, there is also a
dog pictured by the feet of the couple.
Jan van Eyck employed these emblems of grasping hands and loyal dogs nearly 100 years
before Alciato’s Book of Emblems was even published, in Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his
10 “Frans Hals,” Oxford Art Online, accessed April 17, 2013, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T036318pg1?q=frans+hals&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1#firsthit. 11 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 85.
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Wife (fig. 10) of 1434. Thus, much like the Dutch comprehension of gesture before the
incorporation of etiquette books into painters’ manuals, these visual cues were engrained in the
people’s understanding of artwork before such emblems were officially published. These
emblems were long enduring, making an appearance in such works as Peter Paul Ruben’s The
Artist and His First Wife Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower (fig. 11), c. 1609–1610,
almost two centuries after van Eyck’s work.
Family Group in a Landscape: The Gesture of Gender
Considering the rules on etiquette, painters’ manuals, and emblem books of the day, we
can now perceive the messages of Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape as the Dutch at the
time would have understood it. The two middle figures, man and wife, greet each other with
great poise, grasping right hands in the well-recognized gesture of marriage and fidelity. They
lock eyes in a moment of mutual understanding, each accepting the role they play in their
relationship as man and wife, mother and father. Though their gaze may suggest a sense of
equality—perhaps that they look to each other for agreement and approval—the man’s role as
the authority is made clear through their physical positioning, which, considering the prominence
of etiquette books at the time, is quite telling.
While the woman must look up to reach her husband’s gaze, the man looks down at her.
His left hand sits atop his hip in a bold declaration of self-possession, his foot extending far in
front of his wife. Thus, he is in a position of control, as she is only able to move forward at his
approval. Furthermore, the man stands to the woman’s right (our left), which was common in
marriage portraiture of the seventeenth century.12 The couple’s positioning also indicates the
husband’s higher status, as the etiquette books of the time taught that one must always stand
12 Ibid., 112.
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behind and to the left of someone of a higher rank.13 This power dynamic illustrates the couple’s
virtues as man and woman: The husband embodies steadfast leadership, while his wife maintains
the virtuous obedience needed to compensate for her status as a “morally weaker” sex.14
The couple’s two children would have learned gender-specific manners, as discussed by
van Mander, from their same-gendered parent, and thus are placed accordingly—son with father,
daughter with mother. The son, following his father’s pose, places his hand on his hip in a
motion of confidence and pride commonly seen in men and boys in family portraits. He, like his
father, stands in the necessary contrapposto prescribed to their elite status. The boy stares out at
us, bridging the gap between our world and theirs, while his sister gazes at her mother for
inspiration, perhaps imagining the role she herself will fulfill as a wife and mother in the future.
The daughter holds a fan and wears gloves, both common symbols of high class and
marriage, and thus may be engaged. Her engagement could explain the placement of the dog that
peeks out from behind her, since the dog symbolizing fidelity was usually seen by the feet of the
couple, as we saw in Alciato’s emblem On Wifely Fidelity and in van Eyck’s Portrait of
Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife. Here, however, it represents both the fidelity of the couple we
see and of the future marriage the daughter will enjoy. Thus, this portrait fulfills its duty in
portraying an admirable image of its subjects. All considered, we see a husband, wife, son, and
daughter, who each fulfill their proper position and role in the family structure, illustrated clearly
through their interactions with each other on the canvas.
Clearly, this patriarchal family system was not unique to the family portrayed by Frans
Hals. In Juriaen Jacobsz’s Michiel de Ruyter and his Family (fig. 12) of 1662, the hierarchical
nature of the family is revealed and portrayed yet again. Michiel de Ruyter commissioned this
13 Roodenburg, “The ‘Hand of Friendship,’” 166. 14 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 100-110.
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 9
portrait to serve as a reminder to his family of his position as father and leader, since he was
gone at sea for most of their lives.15 Thus, even in his absence, Ruyter’s family portrait serves to
declare him the patriarch of a family of proper-mannered and elegant men and women.
Because men were in a position of such dominance in the family, they would have been
the ones commissioning the works, as seen in the case of Michiel de Ruyter and his Family of
1662. Therefore, men had the power to dictate the image of women in such portraits.16 Women
were thought to need male guidance and leadership because they were believed to be impulsive,
prone to excess, and likely to overindulge due to their vulnerability to temptation.17 Naturally,
then, one of the only paintings in which a woman denies a man’s proposition, suggesting her
independence and denial of male dominance and supervision, was painted by Judith Leyster in
her 1631 work, The Proposition (or, Man Offering Money to a Young Woman) (Fig. 13).18
Family Group in a Landscape: The Reality of Race
Returning to examine Frans Hals’s Family Group in a Landscape, we see one more
important indication of hierarchical values. The family’s black servant stands between the
mother and daughter, blending into the landscape as if part of another realm. His brown clothes
contrast with the black dress the family wears as a declaration of their wealth, as black clothing
was expensive and thus viewed as a status symbol.19 This boy is not displayed as another subject
in the portrait, but rather as an object indicating the family’s richness. It is interesting to note that
personal slavery did not exist in Holland, though this of course does not mean that hierarchies
15 Adams, Public Faces and Private Identities in Seventeenth-Century Holland, 42. 16 Simon Schama, “Wives and Wantons,” 5. 17 Benjamin B. Roberts, Sex and Drugs before Rock ’n’ Roll: Youth Culture and Masculinity during Holland’s Golden Age (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012), 81. 18 Schama, “Wives and Wantans,” 5. 19 Joanna Woodall, “Sovereign Bodies: The Reality of Status in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Portraiture,” in Portraiture: Facing the subject, ed. Joanna Woodall (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997), 91.
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and prejudices were not extant. In fact, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, masters brought
their African “slaves” into the Netherlands and surrounding countries and continued to treat them
as such.20
Here we return once again to Andrea Alciato’s Book of Emblems of 1531. The emblem
called The Impossible (fig. 14), otherwise titled The Impossible Task, gives a sense of the Dutch
attitudes toward race at the time. The message that was paired with the image said, “Why do you
wash, in vain, the Ethiopian? Give up. No one can light up the darkness of black night.” In later
editions, a line was added, “Vices that are natural to the man, whether physical or spiritual,
cannot be eradicated.”21 Thus, the black man is used as a symbol of the depravities of mankind,
the blackness of his skin representing both physical and spiritual evils. The image itself portrays
the Ethiopian as a thing to be manhandled, and his lack of resistance could suggest he is a slave.
Images of blacks in portraiture were commonly used as foils for the whiteness of their
masters or mistresses, as in Anthony van Dyck’s portraits Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Cattaneo
(fig. 15) of 1623 and Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page (fig. 16) of 1634. In the
first, it is clear that the black boy is not in control of his own body, but rather must force himself
forward to keep up with his giant, poised mistress. Like the black boy in Family Group in a
Landscape, he is not seen as a subject; rather, he becomes part of the parasol itself, his sole
purpose to serve the white woman and thus magnify her grandeur by comparison. In the second
portrait, the massive white Princess Henrietta holds back her black servant. Her hand serves to
control his movement much like the husband’s leg is used to control his wife in Family Group in
a Landscape. Furthermore, the black servant cranes his neck to gaze up at his mistress, waiting
for his next command in an exaggerated version of the wife’s upward gaze toward her husband.
20 Lowe, “The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe,” 26. 21 Joaneath Spicer, “European Perceptions of Blackness as Reflected in the Visual Arts,” in Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, ed. Joaneath Spicer (Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2012), 43–44.
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 11
Hence, by considering van Dyck’s portraits alongside Family Group in a Landscape, another
important indication of hierarchy is raised. While women were lesser than men within the realm
of whiteness, gender became irrelevant once the racial boundaries were crossed.
Aelbert Cuyp’s A Page with Two Horses (fig. 17), c.1655–60, offers a seemingly
different view of a black servant, though it in fact speaks to the same hierarchical values. Though
his master is seen to the side wearing high-class black-colored clothing, the black page takes
center stage, a clear deviation from the portraits of van Dyck. At the time, if a slave or servant
lived with an artisan, he would have lived in part of the artisan’s house and eaten the food given
to him. Servants of noble people, in return, would have been housed, dressed, and fed quite well,
as we see here.22 Moreover, this page is standing in the contrapposto stance indicative of elite
society, suggesting his training in the rules of etiquette. He, however, would not have learned
such manners because his status demanded it of him, but instead would have learned them so he
could properly serve his elite master without offending him. Therefore, this painting once again
displays a black servant not as a subject, but as an object signifying the wealth of his master.
Home and Homeland
Once more, we will be returning to Family Group in a Landscape. During the Dutch
Golden Age, there were many ideas circulating that the family was a microcosm of the state, the
foundation upon which society rested.23 In many genre paintings, such as Johannes Vermeer’s
Officer and Laughing Girl (fig. 18), c. 1657, a map of Holland is placed on the wall to signify
the interconnectedness of family matters and the state.24 Here, the man sits with his back to us,
his arm akimbo in a stance that exudes masculinity as he courts the laughing woman. A map can
22 Lowe, “The Lives of African Slaves and People of African Descent in Renaissance Europe,” 20. 23 Woodall, “Sovereign Bodies,” 86. 24 Schama, “Wives and Wantans,” 8.
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also be found on the back wall of Rembrandt’s Portrait of a Couple (fig. 19) of 1633, which
even more explicitly brings the realm of married life into the world of the Republic.
Although we resign ourselves to a narrow view of Dutch society of the seventeenth
century when viewing militia portraiture alone, it deepens our understanding of the complexities
of the Republic to view such renderings in light of works like Family Group in a Landscape.
Because family was seen as the microcosm of the state, it is logical to assume that the
prominence of hierarchy that is revealed through family portraiture would be reflected in the
depictions of those who represent the state itself. Thus, we must look beyond the seeming
equality and splendor that portraits of Civic Guards are meant to portray.
In comparing family portraiture to that of the Civic Guard of the time, we must first
identify the visual cues that span both subgenres. The use of emblematic detail to indicate the
character of a group is one part of the visual language of group portraiture that infiltrates both
family and militia portraits. Looking again to The Governors of the Klovenierdoelen (fig.2), by
Govert Flinck, we are met with four well-dressed, serious looking men in the midst of a meeting.
The Dutch at the time, however, would have recognized the ceremonial drinking horn and the
gleaming golden claw, the emblem of the Harquebusiers,25 and thus would have recognized
these men as important leaders.
Like these emblems, the men displayed here represent the civility of the entire
Harquebusiers’ company, though they only embody one faction. While the colonels and captains
oversaw the military functions of the company, the governors were responsible for the
Harquebusiers’ headquarters.26 Showing such men seated around their meeting table was typical
25 De Bruyn, Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam. 26 Ibid.
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by the middle of the seventeenth century27 and was one way of visually declaring authority by
indicating the seriousness of their work. Like the fathers who commissioned family portraits to
assert their abilities as patriarchs, these men used group portraiture to assert their ability to lead
the state.
In Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard (fig. 20), of 1616, Frans Hals
uses gesture to display the splendor and prominence that the Civic Guards wished to portray. In
this portrait, the arm akimbo is employed on the three men closest to the picture plane, radiating
the strength and self-assurance that the Dutch would have wanted to see in their Civic Guards as
much as they did in their male family members. However, these men’s elbows jut out toward the
viewer, declaring a power more vital than that which we see in the boy and father of Family
Group in a Landscape. This magnified depiction of the pose is appropriate to the understanding
of the family as a microcosm of the state: As those representing the state itself, the Civic Guards
had to portray an authority many times as potent as that which we see in singular patriarchs.
Although these two portraits, The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen and Banquet of the
Officers of the St George Civic Guard, first appear to project harmony and equality among the
men displayed, they, too, are permeated with the hierarchies of Dutch society of the seventeenth
century. While anyone could be drafted to the ranks of the ordinary militia, the captains,
lieutenants, ensigns, and sergeants came from the ranks of the political elite.28 Higher-ups like
the governors of The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen often married within the family to retain
such influence.29 In this image, only the governors of the company are portrayed, claiming the
power to represent the entire division. This was normal for Civic Guard portraiture of the time, in
27 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 106. 28 Paul Knevel, “Armed Citizens: The Representation of the Civic Militias in the Seventeenth Century,” in The Public and Private in Dutch Culture of the Golden Age, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. and Adele Seeff (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2000), 86–88. 29 De Bruyn, Civic Pride: Group Portraits from Amsterdam.
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which only these highly placed and affluent members of the company were depicted.30
Furthermore, the captain, lieutenant, and standard-bearer of the company are almost always
represented clearly in militia portraiture,31 while the ordinary ranks, made up of the middle class,
were never shown. Even in portraits in which the Civic Guard is seated around a communal
table, seen in both The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen and Banquet of the Officers of the St
George Civic Guard, the man who turns in his chair to address the viewer is meant to represent
the role of the second- and third-ranking officers.32
Though this illustration of rank is perhaps to be expected, these portraits also present an
issue of hierarchy that is subtler than that which we see in family portraiture. In works like
Family Group in a Landscape and Michiel de Ruyter and his Family, the patriarch commissioned
the work in order to portray each family member completely, fulfilling his or her role within the
accepted family structure and gender roles. In Civic Guard portraiture, however, each subject
paid separately according to his placement within the work.33 The captain, lieutenant, and ensign
would have paid the most to have the most prominent position in the piece, while the other
members of the portrait would have been placed according to competitive payment and rank.
Consequently, the seemingly harmonious depiction of the company was infiltrated with
hierarchical tension based on the economic situation of each subject.34 Not only were
hierarchical values employed in deciding who would be portrayed in such grand portraiture, but
they also came into play in creating the compositions of such works.
30 Wolfgang Kemp, Introduction to The Group Portraiture of Holland, by Alois Riegl, trans. Evelyn M. Kain and David Britt (Los Angeles: The Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities, 1999), 29. 31 Ibid., 27. 32 Spicer, “The Renaissance Elbow,” 106. 33 Harry Berger, Jr., Manhood, Marriage, and Mischief: Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ and Other Dutch Group Portraits (New York: Fordham University Press, 2007), 49. 34 Ibid., 51.
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Hidden Hierarchies
While these Civic Guard portraits continue to claim center stage as radiant
representations of the glorious Golden Age, family portrayals are a crucial component to the
genre of group portraiture and, unfortunately, are too often overlooked. They alone have the
capacity to reveal the gender and racial inequalities that are impossible to show in group
depictions of powerful white men. By exploring such family portraits as Frans Hals’s Family
Group in a Landscape, we are able to understand the extreme extent to which such hierarchies
permeated Dutch society, and thus open ourselves to look past the façade of harmony in Civic
Guard portraiture.
When museums like the National Gallery of Art exhibit militia portraits alone in the
genre of group portraiture, it is easy to be fooled by the paintings’ superficial displays.
Consequently, we come to admire works like The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen as
illustrations of the supposed equality and splendor of the Dutch Golden Age. However, when we
are given the opportunity to view group portraits like Family Group in a Landscape, which show
inequality more clearly through the subjects’ gestures and positioning, we are encouraged to
recognize inequality in the entire genre. By comparing the differences in family depictions and
militia portrayals, such as who is commissioning and paying for the work, we are better able to
tune into subtle hierarchies, like tensions of economic status, which Civic Guard portraits try to
conceal.
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 16
Figure 1 Rembrandt van Rijn The Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, known as the Night Watch, 1642 Oil on canvas 379.5 x 453.5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Figure 2 Govert Flinck The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1642 Oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam On loan from the City of Amsterdam
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 17
Figure 3 Bartholomeus van der Helst The Governors of the Kloveniersdoelen, 1655 Oil on canvas Amsterdam Museum
Figure 4 Frans Hals Family Group in a Landscape, c.1645–1648 Oil on canvas. 202 x 285 cm Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 18
Figure 6 Figure 7 Gérard de Lairesse Andrea Alciato Groot Schilderboek, 1707. Book of Emblems: Symbol of Faithfulness, 1531
Figure 5 Hans Holbein the Younger Erasmus, 1523 Oil on wood 73.6 x 51.4 cm The National Gallery, London On loan from Longford Castle collection
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 19
Figure 8 Figures 9 Andrea Alciato Andrea Alciato Book of Emblems: Harmony, 1531 Book of Emblems: On Wifely Fidelity, 1531
Figure 10 Jan van Eyck Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, 1434 Oil on oak 82.2 x 60 cm The National Gallery, London
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 20
Figure 12 Juriaen Jacobsz Michiel de Ruyter and his Family, 1662 Oil on Canvas 269 x 406 x 5.5 cm Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Figure 11 Peter Paul Rubens The Artist and His First Wife Isabella Brant in the Honeysuckle Bower, 1609–1610 Oil on canvas 178 cm × 136.5 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 21
Figure 13 Judith Leyster The Proposition (or, Man Offering Money to a Young Woman), 1631 Oil on panel 30.9 x 24.2 cm Royal Picture Gallery, Mauritshuis, The Hague
Figure 14 Andrea Alciato Book of Emblems: The Impossible, 1531
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 22
Figure 15 Anthony van Dyck Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Cattaneo, 1623 Oil on canvas 242.9 x 138.5 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Figure 16 Anthony van Dyck Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page, 1634 Oil on canvas 214 x 129 cm Kenwood House, English Heritage
Figure 20 Frans Hals Banquet of the Officers of the St George Civic Guard, 1616 Oil on canvas 175 x 324 cm Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem
Figure 18 Johannes Vermeer Officer and Laughing Girl, c. 1657 Oil on canvas (lined) 50.5 x 46 cm The Frick Collection, New York
Figure 19 Rembrandt van Rijn Portrait of a Couple, 1633 Oil on canvas 132 x 109 cm Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Eckles Prize 2013: 22 24
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