Gerard ter Borch: Contemplating the Interior
November 7, 2004
East Building Auditorium
Held in conjunction with the exhibition Gerard ter Borch
The elegantly painted world of Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681) has always been considered the pinnacle of seventeenth-century genre painting. His views into the private lives of Dutch burghers, synonymous with the "high-life" genre, were much sought after both during his lifetime and afterward, and would influence several close contemporaries, including Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), Frans van Mieris (1635-1681), and Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667). Even more so than the sophistication of his themes, these peers would emulate his subtle understanding of the inner world of his sitters, as well as his ineffable refinement in the depiction of materials and textures, whether the shimmering satins of a dress or the glimmer of a gem-encrusted sword.
In conjunction with the first monographic exhibition in the United States dedicated to this master, the National Gallery of Art has organized a public symposium in which noted scholars of Dutch art will share their ideas on Ter Borch's rich and varied oeuvre. Several presenters wrote catalogue essays and entries for the exhibition catalogue, the first major English-language publication about Ter Borch and a significant addition to the literature on seventeenth-century Dutch painting. They include Alison McNeil Kettering, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Art History at Carleton College; Arie Wallert, curator/ museum scientist at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator of European painting and sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Museum; and Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque painting at the National Gallery, who selected the works and wrote the lead catalogue essay. These presenters are joined by Nanette Salomon, professor of art history at CUNY College of Staten Island, who has also written extensively on Dutch genre painting.
Each symposium presenter brings a particular perspective on Ter Borch, highlighting different aspects of his often surprisingly complex artistry.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. provides a curator’s perspective on this first ever exhibition of Gerard ter Borch in the United States, and discusses how it enables both scholars and the general public to gain a deeper understanding of the conceptual and stylistic evolution of the artist’s work. He also examines Ter Borch's use of color in his paintings, which he relates to a list of color symbols appearing in a manuscript by Ter Borch’s half-sister Gesina.”
Marjorie E. Wieseman considers two familiar themes in Ter Borch's work–– musical performance and letter writing and reading–– and the manner in which the artist distinguishes himself from the predictably didactic treatments of these themes by many of his contemporaries through his attentiveness to social codes and human emotions.
Arie Wallert examines the types of supports and color pigments used by the artist, as well as his studio practice involving model and pattern books, using both the results of technical analyses and contemporary literature on the painter's craft.
Nanette Salomon analyzes the recurring presence of Ter Borch's half sister Gesina as a model in his work. By looking at pairs of paintings that feature Gesina in two distinct, yet complementary roles, Salomon draws our attention to her as a marker of the dual nature of realism and artifice in pictorial representation.
Alison McNeil Kettering reaches similar conclusions in an analysis of a single painting whose subject, a lowly stone grinder, can be considered an anomaly in Ter Borch's oeuvre. By comparing this work to similar images by Ter Borch's contemporaries, she shows how the artist approaches even this decidedly lowly subject with uncommon social and psychological sensitivity.
Taken together, these five lectures introduce the remarkable qualities that secured Gerard ter Borch high esteem during his lifetime and that continue to draw viewers to the richly nuanced world of his paintings today.
Gerard ter Borch: A Curator's Perspective
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., curator of northern baroque paintings, National Gallery of Art
Monographic exhibitions offer wonderful opportunities to discover the full range of the artistic achievements of masters whose individual works are dispersed in museums and private collections around the world. Even in this show, which focuses on one of the most well-known and beloved seventeenth-century Dutch artists, Gerard ter Borch, surprising revelations are in store.
This presentation will examine some of the questions about Ter Borch and his artistic career that have arisen in creating the exhibition, many of which concern the nature of his training with his father. Gerard's father, for example, clearly taught the young artist methods for replicating pictorial motifs which he later utilized in his paintings. Gerard's interactions with his extended family, in particular his half sister Gesina, also raise many interesting questions. Not only did Gesina serve as a model for many of his genre scenes, her poetry album is filled with sentiments similar to those found in his paintings. Likewise, her observations about color symbolism were certainly known by Gerard and may have influenced his work.Inevitably, when paintings are brought together, new perspectives develop about the relationships between them, ones that enhance our understanding of the painter's artistic intentions. In this instance, not only is much learned about the evolution of Ter Borch's style, as in the character of his brushwork, use of color, and the scale of his images, but also about the types of subjects and range of emotion he included in his works.
A particularly intriguing question faced when considering this exhibition is the apparent difference in Ter Borch's approach to formal portraiture and genre painting in his late works. The varied character of these paintings may have to do with his patrons–– his portraits were painted primarily for conservative Deventer sitters, while his genre scenes were for a more cosmopolitan Amsterdam market.
What's Left Unsaid: Communication and Narrative in Paintings by Gerard ter Borch
Marjorie E. Wieseman, curator of European paintings and sculpture, Cincinnati Art Museum
Gerard ter Borch's paintings are among the most evocative and provocative images produced during the Dutch Golden Age. With the utmost subtlety and calculated restraint, this artist turned his observations of the everyday world into poetic images that continue to beguile viewers today. Representations of people reading and writing letters or engaged in musical performance are among the most eloquent examples of this quality of his work. They also form the core of the present investigation of the pictorial strategies whereby Gerard ter Borch transformed his high-life genre scenes and portraits of solid Dutch citizens into delicately nuanced expressions of social status, behavioral norms, and the complexity of human emotions.
Many of Ter Borch's contemporaries—Gerard Dou (1613–1675) or Frans van Mieris (1635–1681), to name just two—produced genre paintings packed with symbols whose defined associations can, with varying degrees of success, be strung together to approximate the image's meaning to a seventeenth-century audience. While Ter Borch also incorporated symbolic elements into his compositions, the hermetic world he created favors sensory perception over literal or didactic interpretation. We intuit his figures' actions and reactions from a basic human understanding of gestures and expressions rather than from an intellectual analysis of an interpretive "key" included in the composition for our benefit. The artist's deliberately oblique approach simultaneously elicits and frustrates our attempts (and surely those of his contemporaries as well) to arrive at a precise reading of these images. But that elusive, mercurial character merely adds to the enduring charm of these graceful compositions.
The discussion will center on two recurring themes in the artist's work, letters and musical performance. The significance of these activities in a contemporary context will be briefly addressed, with emphasis on their role in interactions between the sexes. A summary of the evolution of the two themes in the visual arts will create a framework for appreciating Ter Borch's innovative approach. The inherently tantalizing nature of painted representations of musical companies and epistolary exchanges will also be considered: like a book with its pages glued shut, we can never be privy to the words and sounds we imagine to be so precisely noted there. What meaning we can divine from these images is often dependent on minute cues from the protagonists' gazes, gestures, and body language. A close examination of several related works on each of these themes will reveal how the artist directs our understanding of these silenced vignettes by effecting subtle but telling adjustments to a familiar repertoire of figures and attributes.
Ter Borch's Materials and Methods of Painting: How Did He Do It?
Arie Wallert, curator/museum scientist, department of paintings, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
As one of the most influential genre painters in seventeenth-century Holland, Gerard ter Borch has always stood out among his colleagues for his stunning renderings of different materials, from soft shimmering brocades and fluffy velvets to crisp lace, shiny metal, and, especially, lustrous satin. As early as 1721, an art lover praises his astonishing mastery with these words: "With his brush he knew to imitate the facial characteristics and the whole swagger with great liveliness, but also the upholstery and precious textiles according to their nature. Above all he did white satin so naturally and thinly, that it really seemed to be true satin…."
This presentation explores Ter Borch's technical accomplishments on the basis of a scientific study of a small number of his paintings, with a particular focus on the methods and materials used. Wallert also closely examines recurring compositional inventions and individual elements throughout Ter Borch's career, pointing to the manner in which he assembled, varied, combined, and copied motifs with the help of workshop cartoons. Often, compositional elements were mechanically transferred, especially in depictions of ladies dressed in gleaming satin, providing insight into aspects of his studio practice. These physical and technical analyses of his paintings are complemented by contemporary documentary evidence.
In addition to the research finding provided by analytical chemistry, microscopy, spectrometry, and chromatography, this study looks at some of Ter Borch's own paint recipes from a previously unpublished seventeenth-century manuscript (Recepten-boek om allerlei kleuren te verwen , Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, Ms 93-94). Ter Borch's approach to the representation of satin draperies and other materials is compared to relevant descriptions in a little-known handbook written by his native townsman Willem Beurs (W. Beurs, De Groote Waereld in ‘ t kleen geschildert, Amsterdam, 1692).
Double Trouble: Gesina ter Borch and Pendant Painting
Nanette Salomon, professor of art history
at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York
Ter Borch's Woman Drinking and Holding a Letter from Sweden is a consummate example of the high level of mastery found in the mature genre paintings of the artist. Through a close study of this painting, we gain insight into a web of social, cultural, and artistic histories which are revealed when this painting is seen with others created by the master. Moreover, together, they give us valuable insight into the genesis of early modern times.
The painting has long been considered to be a pendant to a work in a private collection in Germany, which represents a seemingly similar scene of a young girl drinking at a table. The painting in Germany, in turn, is a more fully developed image of Ter Borch's earlier Woman with a Sleeping Soldier in the Museum of Fine Arts in Montpellier. The latter was also paired as a pendant — with the Company at Table in the Brooklyn Museum of Fine Arts.
Salomon traces the iconography that gave meaning to these two sets of pendant paintings. By looking at similar images and ideas in earlier paintings and prints, Salomon follows a shift from a discourse rooted in Christian morality, apparent in the earlier pendants, to a decidedly romantic content in the later pendants, inaugurating a modern culture of civility.
Pivotal for this discussion is the female model who dominates all four compositions. She has been identified as the artist's older half sister, Gesina ter Borch, who was an accomplished artist in her own right. Gesina is represented as an unmitigated double–– facing herself with almost mirror-like exactitude. Hence her presence in these paintings draws attention to the artistic challenge of pendants: to produce images in a paradoxical relationship with one another, images that are at once both cohesive and separate, the same and different.
Ter Borch's pendant paintings distinguish themselves precisely by Gesina's two-fold aspect–– by the "realism" she lends the compositions as an identifiable individual and the "unrealism" that results from her facing herself as a double. Salomon demonstrates the remarkable ingenuity of Ter Borch's constructions by viewing them through the lens of various new methodological perspectives such as visual rhetoric, comic conventions, visual language, and psychoanalysis.
Ter Borch's "Grinder's Family" and
Its Questions
Alison McNeil Kettering, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Art History, Carleton College
From an artist who made his name painting high-life interiors, this depiction of a working class subject comes as a surprise: in the back of a courtyard, an artisan watches a man sharpening a scythe, while a mother tends to a child in the foreground. In only one respect is The Grinder's Family typical of Ter Borch's usual approach: he refuses to hand viewers an unequivocal meaning. Instead, they must puzzle through various possible interpretations. The narrative ambiguities of the painting are many. Why does the supposed main event take place in the background rather than foreground? Why does this artisan do his job in a setting of relative poverty? Why are a woman and child present in the work yard? Each of these features contrasts with other artisan depictions of the time. This lecture explores the oddities of Ter Borch's painting in light of various themes important to seventeenth-century Dutch society: traditional craft culture and the challenges of proto-industrialization, labor's relation to virtue in tension with its link to productivity, physical versus mental work, male versus female occupations, and Dutch economic growth in relation to the artisan sector.
The Grinder's Family dates from about 1653-1654, as do many other painted representations of artisan crafts by Ter Borch's contemporaries. Forerunners, however, can be traced back many centuries. Print series provide obvious precedents, the most important of which was Jost Amman's Book of Trades of 1568. A number of seventeenth-century print series followed, almost invariably presenting an idealized, orderly world of professionally dedicated, industrious figures. By contrast, broadsheets featured hawkers, lower on the social scale, plying their wares in public arenas. The itinerant grinder held a prominent place in these prints.
In the medium of painting, seventeenth-century Dutch artists preferred to render workers in their shops, in formulaic depictions meant to convey the most positive ideals of traditional artisan life. Indications of economic insecurity and signs of technological change do not typically appear in these images. But Ter Borch's canvas is not typical. On the one hand, he includes an animal-driven mechanism – a labor-saving device – just visible in the shed. On the other, he shows a rather impoverished work yard that contrasts with the well-maintained regent's house in the distance. What is Ter Borch up to? Is there a moral here, is this a slice of life, or is it something else, something new?
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. is curator of northern baroque painting at the National Gallery of Art and professor of art history at the University of Maryland. He came to the National Gallery in 1973 as the David E. Finley Fellow, after which he was named research curator. At the same time, he began his teaching career at the University of Maryland. He was appointed curator of Dutch and Flemish painting at the National Gallery in 1975. Wheelock has lectured widely on Dutch and Flemish art and has written a number of books, including Vermeer and the Art of Painting (1995) and the catalogue of the Dutch collection at the National Gallery, Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century (1995).
Marjorie E. Wieseman is curator of European painting and sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Museum. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1991 with a dissertation on the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Caspar Netscher; her book on this artist (including a catalogue of his paintings) was published in 2002. Much of her research has been focused on late seventeenth-century painting in the Netherlands, particularly portraiture and issues of patronage. Most recently, she co-organized the exhibition Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens, which opened at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, in October 2004. Her next project is an exhibition of British and European portrait miniatures, which will open at the Cincinnati Art Museum in spring 2006.
Arie Wallert holds degrees in painting, analytical chemistry, and art history, from the Universities of Utrecht and Groningen. Following a lecturing appointment at the Institute for Medieval Studies in Groningen, he was a museum scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute, the J. Paul Getty Museum (1991-1996). During this time, he worked on paintings in the museum collection, as well as on a number of related programs of the institute involving the preservation of mosaics in St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, ethnographic textiles in Oaxaca, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and prehistoric rock art in Baja California, Mexico. Since September 1996, he has held the position of a curator/museum scientist at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Nanette Salomon is a professor of art history in the Performing and Creative Arts Department at CUNY College of Staten Island. She is also the curator of the college’s art gallery. While she has published articles in a wide range of fields from ancient art to the nineteenth century, her primary interests have been Dutch genre painting and the history of the history of art, examined principally from a feminist perspective. Her most recent book, Shifting Priorities; Gender and Genre in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting, was published by Stanford University Press this year.
Alison McNeil Kettering is the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Art History at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota. Educated at Oberlin College and at the University of California, Berkeley, she has also taught at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Swarthmore College, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her books include The Dutch Arcadia, Pastoral Art and its Audience in the Golden Age (1983) and Drawings from the Ter Borch Studio Estate in the Rijksmuseum (1988). She has written numerous articles on Ter Borch as well as on Rembrandt. Her recent research focuses on Dutch depictions of occupations and their ideological messages. She is the current president of the Historians of Netherlandish Art.