Chapter One

On the function of early Netherlandish art

AN UNLIT CHANDELIER

A chandelier in a museum gallery no longer needs to light the room. It has lost its function as a domestic object. The museum's task is to explain the significance of a late-medieval chandelier to the modern museum visitor. One can choose to present it by focusing on its beauty, documenting the history of the craft in question, illustrating the history of domestic lighting, giving an example of a particular idea of style, or inspiring modern designers. Each new investment of meaning demands a different arrangement within a different context. Today the chandelier hangs in the second gallery of the Rijksmuseum's Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department as a fascinating example of late Gothic art, with the lavish ornamentation typical of the period.

    The carefully arranged collection of objects in a museum gallery makes it easy to forget the setting in which they originally served a purpose. Sometimes paintings supply some information, in this particular case an Annunciation by Joos van Cleve from the early years of the 16th century ( fig. 21. The angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she is to be the mother of the Messiah takes place in a fully furnished, 16th-century bedchamber. There is a bed, a priedieu ( fig. 5), a chair, a dresser [ cf. 22], a sconce ( figs. 3,4), a pewter dish and jug, a stone vase, a cloth, and exactly the same kind of chandelier as the one in the museum ( fig. 21, but now in its original setting.

FROM ABBEY CHURCH TO MUSEUM

The first object that one comes across in the first gallery of the Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department is one of the earliest works in the Rijksmuseum ( fig. 6). It is a sandstone relief. Three half-length figures are set within a flat, arch-shaped frame with a plinth. In the middle is St Peter with a huge key and the crosier identifying him as the Bishop of Rome. His head is flanked by the Greek words [GREEK TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], or St Peter. On the plinth are the names of the two people venerating him. The one on the left reads: `HIC THID(E)RIC ORAT' (Here prayeth Dirk), and on the right: `OPUS H(O)C PET(R(ONILLA DEC(O)RAT' (Petronella adorns this work). The individuals are Petronella, Countess of Holland, and her son, the later Count Dirk VI, for whom she acted as regent after the death of Count Floris II in 1121. The sandstone relief must have been made during her regency.

    It is known that the tympanum came from the Benedictine abbey of Sts Peter and Adalbert at Egmond-Binnen, where it served as a relief over the main portal of the former church. This explains the text on the arch: `IANTOR O CELI TIBI P(RO(MV(M) MENTE FIDELI + INTROMIT(T)E GREGEM SV(PER)VM PLACANS SIBI REGEM' (O door-keeper of Heaven, with a faithful heart allow the flock kneeling before you to enter, and reconcile them with the king of the celestial beings). Petronella and her son were the intercessors for all entering the church, asking Peter if he, in his turn, would intercede with the Almighty on their behalf.

    The combination of text and image reveals the original function of this relief. But a look at the back shows that this piece of sandstone had already had a much older purpose. It was once the trapeziform lid of a sarcophagus that a stonemason refashioned into a tympanum ( fig. 7). The grooves in the stone indicate that this is a gravestone. It is perfectly conceivable that Petronella encountered a Benedictine in the monastery who had some knowledge of stonemasonry. She wanted herself and her son immortalised above the main entrance to the prestigious abbey's new church. But where to get the stone for a tympanum? Fortunately, there were graves in the monastery churchyard that were covered with sandstone from northern Germany. Thus it was that an old gravestone underwent a radical change of function at a very early date.

    The scene of Peter, Petronella and Dirk in that location was a very effective declaration of the countess's political ambitions. She was, to use a later term, an ultramontane--a north European Christian who had made herself totally subservient to the ecclesiastical authority of Rome, far away on the other side of the Alps. At the time, Pope Innocent II was continuing Gregory VII's work of pushing through reforms designed to tighten the reins of ecclesiastical and doctrinal authority. The countess actually changed her name from Geertruid to Petronella in order to proclaim her allegiance to the pope in Rome. Her new patron saint was a Roman martyr who was believed to be St Peter's daughter. The saint is depicted on the tympanum not as an apostle but most emphatically as pope. Petronella had a clear intention with this unequivocal proclamation of her submission to papal authority. The object of what is known as the Gregorian reforms was to place all abbeys under the pope's authority. If that could be done in Egmond, the countess could prevent the powerful prince-bishop of Utrecht from controlling the abbey. She could not have made her and her son's position clearer than it is on the relief. Here, then we have a piece of sandstone changing function from gravestone to religious scene with political implications. The tympanum continued to be a very effective adornment of the entrance to the abbey church, even after the deaths of both mother and son.

    The next alteration in the function of the tympanum was the result of the radical religious changes that took place in the 16th century. With the arrival of the Reformation, monks were publicly exposed as spiritual frauds. Monasteries were closed and churches plundered. The abbey at Egmond was burned down by the dissidents who sparked off the Dutch Revolt, and the tympanum gradually became nothing more than a piece of decoration in a gateway ( fig. 8). In the course of the 17th century, however, it took on a new significance. When the Netherlands became the Netherlands, people naturally wanted to learn about the earliest works of art of their new country, if only to provide themselves with an origin in art. This is why, from the beginning of the 18th century, the relief was described, discussed and depicted as one of the earliest creations of Dutch art.

    Many works that had not been destroyed or removed in the name of Protestantism were savaged in the name of reason at the time of the French Revolution. The motives, though, were rather different. It is true that a great deal of art was destroyed or damaged, but the fury was directed not so much at the art as at its owners. Tombstone reliefs were stripped of the portraits and coats of arms of noble gentlemen and ladies, of abbots and bishops. Relatively speaking, however, people now had more respect for art; it was just that it belonged to the wrong people. Sweep them aside, they no longer had a right to all these beautiful objects. Art belonged to the nation. Works lost their original functions on a grand scale. The first public museums opened their doors.

    The tympanum was removed from Egmond shortly after 1801. By 1842 it was in the Rijksmuseum, which was then housed in the Trippenhuis on Kloveniersburgwal in Amsterdam ( fig. 9). Visitors wandering in the leafy garden of this 17th-century canalside mansion suddenly came face to face with a remnant of a far distant past. They could sink into romantic reveries about nature, art and the brief span of man's life on earth. The tree-shaded sandstone relief could also lend wings to historical fantasies. No other 19th-century artist put his imagination so much at the service of Dutch history as Charles Rochussen, one of whose watercolours centres around the Egmond tympanum ( fig. 10). The abbot is seen receiving the countess and her son in the masons' workshop in order to show them the finished tympanum. Two chairs await the distinguished guests, and a massive easel supports the relief(without its crack, of course). In the left background is the church portal on which the tympanum will be installed. Rochussen opened a gateway onto a far-off, fanciful past.

    The tympanum was given a fresh chance to take on yet another meaning when Pierre Cuypers built the new Rijksmuseum. This was an initiative launched by Roman Catholics, who had been openly professing their faith again since the middle of the 19th century. The church hierarchy was restored thanks to the leader of the Dutch Liberal Party, Johan Thorbecke, and Catholics set to work rescuing the nation's badly neglected cultural heritage in order to demonstrate that they were true and loyal Dutchmen. Cultural policy provided them with an opportunity to make a vital contribution to the Dutch nation, which had finally accepted them. Victor de Stuers, one of the leaders of the Catholic revival, wrote a passionate article titled `Holland op zijn smalst' (Holland at its meanest), in which he called for the preservation of the nation's historic monuments.

    De Stuers, the most senior civil servant at the Ministry of Culture, awarded the commission for the Rijksmuseum to Pierre Cuypers, the architect of the new Neo-Gothic Catholic churches springing up in the Netherlands. It was thanks to Cuypers that the Rijksmuseum got a Gallery of Honour that has the aura of a cathedral. He also turned Rembrandt's Nightwatch into the nation's high altarpiece. The Rijksmuseum was felt to be such a Roman Catholic edifice when it was completed in 1885 that King Willem III actually refused to carry out the official opening of the `papist palace'. The Catholic builders of the Rijksmuseum regarded the Egmond relief as a cornerstone of their temple. It was artificially rehabilitated in its original function in what was known as the Gothic Gallery ( fig. 11). It was even given a new portal, which in a symbolic sense was the gateway to the nation's cultural history. According to the founders, the cultural identity of the Dutch did not develop during the Reformation or the war against Spain, but with the foundation of the monasteries. This view is reflected in the tile picture on the facade of the museum, which shows the foundation of the Cistercian abbey at Aduard.

    Today, the tympanum has again been deprived of the ecclesiastical setting that Cuypers wanted to reinstate ( fig. 12). It now gives little cause for romantic reveries. What remains of its significance is that it stands at the beginning of a chronological development. The viewer is invited to make comparisons, for example with the two other monumental sculptures on the same wall: pilasters with apostles of circa 1200 from the portal of the church at Odiliënberg. The comparison reveals just how primitive the Egmond relief is. The figures were simply cut out of the sandstone, without any attempt at modelling.

    The Egmond relief takes us back to the beginning of the history of art in the Netherlands. All the other connotations attached to the tympanum down the years have become invisible. We could perhaps enumerate them with the aid of wall captions, and audio and conducted tours. That would enable us to explain that this erstwhile gravestone from Egmond is one of the most interesting objects for cataloguing the constant change of function of a work of art over the course of time. Every object in a museum has its own history, but few have such a fascinating and well-documented one.

CHURCHES WITHOUT ART, ART WITHOUT RELIGION

The full width of the long wall in the second gallery of the Paintings Department is taken up by a polyptych illustrating The seven works of mercy ( fig. 13) [19]. The hungry are being fed, the thirsty given drink, the naked clothed. Travellers are being provided with shelter, the sick are visited and prisoners are freed from their misery. These are the good works listed by St Matthew (25:31-46). A further scene was added in the middle: burying the dead, which was also regarded as a work of mercy in the middle ages. At the top, Christ appears on Judgement Day.

    The two inscriptions state that the painting was executed in 1504, and until 1918 it hung in the Great Church in Alkmaar. Water damage resulted in major paint losses, mainly around the edges of the scenes. In the course of a restoration campaign carried out between 1971 and 1975 it was decided to allow the lost areas to remain bare rather than camouflage them. Such areas of damage are not uncommon in old paintings. What is unusual about this polyptych are the traces of deliberate mutilation. Those carrying out the charitable deeds were the main targets ( fig. 14). Someone viciously hacked at the face of the man clothing one unfortunate, and deep cuts make a group who want to help a traveller largely unrecognisable ( fig. 15).

    It is only when one looks at photographs taken during the restoration, of the central scene in particular, that one realises how viciously the panels were attacked ( fig. 16). The painting was severely gashed with a sharp implement--a knife or chisel. In some places the panels were gouged so savagely that the wood splintered, leaving gaping holes. When the painting was cleaned, a piece of iron was found that had undoubtedly broken off the implement and become embedded in the wood. Research has shown that the damage must have been done before 1582. In all likelihood, it was not due, or not solely at any rate, to the pathological frenzy of any one individual, but to an outburst of popular fury about the religious function of art that came to a head with the Iconoclasm of 1566. It was because of the restoration team's decision that traces have been preserved of this widespread vandalism that had such dramatic consequences for Netherlandish art. The images suddenly confront us with a violent protest against art that took place more than four centuries ago.

    Equally if not more shocking is the damage done to the Ros family memorial, which was made for the Great Church in Wageningen around 1550 by the sculptor Arnt van Tricht ( fig. 17). It shows God the Father presenting his suffering Son to the faithful, with the dove of the Holy Ghost above his head--a form of the threefold godhead known as the Mercy-Seat Trinity. Those pleading for mercy are members of the Ros family. As was so often the case, the iconoclasts vented their rage on all the heads in the composition, which are either severely damaged or smashed off One wonders, since this is a memorial honouring a prominent family, whether social factors were also at work here.

A great deal of thought has been given to the causes and effects of the Iconoclasm. One author may stress the social background, another the theological motivation, while yet others believe that late-medieval developments in art and the practice of devotion ultimately provoked the iconoclasts to embark on their mass destruction of art. Whatever else, though, the Iconoclasm had everything to do with the religious function of art. We have seen that the function of a work can alter, but the approaches mentioned above really do seem rather mechanistic to those who know something about the Iconoclasm. It is a way of smoothing out awkward blips of the past in order to present it as a process of historical evolution. The aim of the Iconoclasm was to force a break with the past. Art was not permitted in churches. It led to idolatry. Rabble-rousing hedge preachers incited the mobs to destroy all the art in their churches, and that they did with a vengeance, sometimes singing their own version of the Old Testament commandment: `Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image of anything whatsoever; any who honour or cleave to it make God jealous'. Most reformers believed that too much money was being invested in art, money that could be far better spent on good works. The irony of history is that traces of that furious reaction against art are now visible on a painting lauding acts of charity.

(Continues...)

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