The De Brays: forgotten for a reason?
By Alastair
Sooke, Telegraph.co.uk 31.08.08
Alastair Sooke reviews an exhibition of paintings by an
artistic Dutch family and asks whether they have rightly been
eclipsed by more famous contemporaries
Artistic talent often runs in the blood.
That was certainly the case with the De Bray family, a clan of
devout Catholic painters active in Haarlem in north Holland during
the heyday of the Dutch Golden Age. In all likelihood, you won’t
have come across the De Brays, who have been eclipsed by their more
famous rivals working in Holland during the 17th century, such as
Vermeer, Rembrandt and Frans Hals. In overviews of Dutch painting,
art historians rarely devote more than a few cursory lines to the
De Brays – if they mention them at all.
Recently, though, there has been a flicker of renewed interest
in their work. Washington’s National Gallery of Art held a small
show devoted to the paintings of Jan de Bray (c.1627-97) in 2005,
while several pictures by Jan, as well as one by his father Salomon
(1597-1664), were included in last year’s blockbuster about Dutch
portraiture in the age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals at the National
Gallery in London.
Following the success of the latter show, Dulwich Picture
Gallery decided to host a more extensive exhibition showcasing the
work of both Salomon and Jan, as well as a smattering of immaculate
still lifes by Jan’s younger brothers, Joseph and Dirck. When
plague rampaged through Haarlem in the spring of 1664, it decimated
the De Brays, killing off most of the family apart from Jan and
Dirck.
The first room is devoted to the versatile paterfamilias
Salomon, a talented jack-of-all-trades who was born in Amsterdam
but had moved to Haarlem by 1616, where he made his name as an
accomplished history painter, poet, architect and silversmith.
There is a fine pair of his paintings depicting murderous Old
Testament heroines: Judith, who decapitated the lecherous Assyrian
commander Holofernes after infiltrating his camp; and Jael, who
hammered a tent peg through the head of the Canaanite commander
Sisera to help liberate the the Israelites.
In both works, the half-length figures are dramatically lit
against a dark background in the manner of Caravaggio, suggesting
that Salomon was stylistically indebted to those artists working in
the Dutch city of Utrecht who were in thrall to the punchy
chiaroscuro of the Italian master. Jael’s creamy young flesh is
deliberately contrasted with the furrowed skin of an aged
prophetess praying behind her: the old woman is so wrinkled that
her face appears to be covered with a pelt of yellow hair.
The rest of the show is mostly devoted to the portraits and history
paintings of Salomon’s gifted son Jan, whose creativity was clearly
stifled by his successful father during the 1650s. A large canvas
from 1652 depicts the famous banquet of Mark Antony and Cleopatra,
during which the Egyptian queen won a bet with her lover that she
could spend a fortune of 10 million sesterces during a single
feast. She won the wager by dissolving one of her priceless pearl
earrings in a glass of vinegar and drinking it.
To make the picture, Jan used members of his family as models.
Dominating the middle of the composition is Salomon as the Roman
general, crowned with a laurel wreath (the mark of honour for
artists and poets as well as warlords). There is no record of what
Jan’s mother made of being asked to dress up as an infamous ruler
with a somewhat sluttish reputation. No matter: Charles II liked
the painting, and it was in the possession of the English king by
1688. By the early 1660s, Jan started to come into his own – but he
still had another domineering alpha male to contend with: the
redoubtable Haarlem-based artist Frans Hals, one of the most
stylish portrait painters the world had ever seen. While Hals was
famous for the flaunting, flickering swagger of his brushwork, Jan
favoured a smoother, more restrained and highly classical
technique.
As a result, his group portraits of Holland’s wealthy burghers
suffer horribly when compared to those by Hals: Jan’s feel clumpy
and static, while Hals’s are spontaneous, mischievous and light.
Tellingly, Jan produced his best work when he allowed himself to
loosen up a little, in the mode of his Haarlem rival: his breezy
1663 portrait of the printer and newspaper publisher Abraham
Casteleijn and his young wife is indebted to Hals’s vigorous and
sexy double portrait of the newly married Isaac Massa and Beatrix
van der Laen, painted nearly 40 years earlier.
The dates are revealing: while the De Brays are touted as
accomplished exponents of Dutch classicism, they were not artistic
innovators. The Dulwich exhibition will intrigue anyone with an
interest in 17th-century Dutch art, but do not expect revelations.
Vermeer may have been forgotten about until he was rediscovered in
1866, but the De Brays have been forgotten for a reason. Holland
was dripping with artists during the Golden Age, but not all of
them were blessed with the spark of genius.
• Until October 5