DOI Heft:
Nr.1-2
DOI Artikel:Brusewicz, Lech; Nason, Pieter [Ill.]: The paintings by Pieter Nason in polish collections
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18863#0028
ment of the person finds its expression also in the way the head and hands of the man are painted,
with the remarkable care: the features of his face are modelled with soft, overlapping brush
strokes and even the tiniest light spots are faithfully registered.
As compared with other Nason's portraits this painting differs also by the absence of the
monumentality of the portrayed peison, so typical of this painter. The posturę of the man,
leaning in a relaxed way against the window sili, is very casual and does not appear as "sitting".
Besides, the person must have been well familiar to the artist, sińce he charged it with a certain
psychological significance. It is very seldom in Nason's oeuvre that we can find a face so fuli
of expression and concentration but at the same time reticent and attractive. This observation
narrows down the possible identification of the portrayed man. He must had been ąuite "ex-
ceptional" for the artist: someone very close to him, or simply himself.
In the 17th century Dutch portraiture the appearance of a person portrayed in a window
occured only very rarely, which may seem odd enough considering popularity of this motif
in genre painting102. Rembrandt used this theme in several paintings, for example in the portrait
of Hendrickje Stoffels103. This kind of representation is also found in paintings of G. Dou and
G. Metsu104. This tradition goes back to the 15th century, when the window signified the se-
paration of two worlds: the one, really existing, in which the spectator finds himself and the
other, transcendental one, to which the person portrayed will belong, or, in most cases, belonged
already105. At the end of the 15th and in the 16th centuries, the portraits in the moralizing spirit
of the epoch, usually emphasiżed the idea of the vanity of life and a warning against the abuse
of earthly pleasures. The ideology of those pictures was, doubtlessly, lelated to the religious
painting of that time, in which the picture frame, or a window sometimes indicated by a sili
painted on the canvas, was a symbolic borderline separating the supernatural from the realloc.
The most often used a motif was a sili or a stone balustradę, so well known fiom Venetian pain-
ting. This motif symbolizing the importance of an individual or his work, that is, in other woids,
his or her "exceptionality" owed its popularity to van Eyck's Portrait of Tymotheos107. Later
on the moralizing significance of this kind of framing for the portrayed person was subdued
and while its formal meaning became more important, the exceptionality was reserved mainly
102. Thcy appeard in this genre fairly often in case of Vanilas type paintings or allegories of senses.
103. Cf. a painting from the Staatliche Museen, Berlin-Dahlem, and a portrait dated 1645 from the Dulwich Gallery collec-
tion. In Rembrandt's art we encounter also "windows" of a different type with an ilhisionistically painted Iower batten
of the frame (see: A. Bredius Rembrandt Gemdlde, no. 218, 359, 360). These are iconographically linked with the
window sili motive, the motive of the latter not concerning "exceptional" personages. One of thcm is a well-known
portrait of Rembrandt's son, Titus, in the Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. Apart from Rembrandt,
also bis pupils painted pictures of this kind. One of the most interesting and the most faitbful window representation
is the work by Samuel van Hoogstraten, dated 1653 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum collection in Vienna.
104. Cf. a painting in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, inv. no. 791. G. Metsu's self-portrait is dated 1665 cf. the catalogue
of Buckingham Pałace, 1885, no. 13.
105. Cf. Portrait of Marie Moreel by Hans Memling, reproduced in M.J. Friedliinders, Early Nelherlandish Painting, Via,
plate 123, no. 94; also Portrait of Duke Engelbert Nassau by Master of Dukes' Portraits (cat. Primitifs Flamands
Anonymes, Brugge, 1969, p. 13).
106. The origins of motives of this kind date back to the times of J. van Eyck (e.g., Madonna of the Canon van der Paele,
Saint Barbara) and are linked with the new function of the frame which he had introduced into art. The frame consti-
tuted simultaneously tlie part of the depth of the picture, the place for inscriptions of the informative kind and some-
times a sign and a symbol of a scenę in which gods were participating. This significance found a lasting place in the icono-
graphic repertory of the Nethcrlandish painting not only in the ISth century; cf.: Diptych of Martin tan Nieuwenhov8
by H. Memling, but also in the 16th century (cf. Pieta with the Holy Trinity by Hans B. Grien, the National Gallery
in London). A most instructive example here may also be Madonna and Child by Jan Gossaert which we know from
a copy found in the Ermitage (Leningrad), where Anne de Berghes with her child, represented as Madonna and
Child, are sitted in front of the frame painted in the background of the picture, which indicates the conscious marking
of their "earthly" character, along the glorification. A similar example, much earlicr, though, and coming from Italy,
can be found in the art of Filippo Lippi (Madonna with Angels in the Uffizi collection in Florence).
107. In Giorgione's works, for instance, in "Col Tempo", the sili played also a different function, cf. J. Białostocki, "Puer
sufflans ignes" Arte in Europa..., Milano, 1966, p. 591.
22
with the remarkable care: the features of his face are modelled with soft, overlapping brush
strokes and even the tiniest light spots are faithfully registered.
As compared with other Nason's portraits this painting differs also by the absence of the
monumentality of the portrayed peison, so typical of this painter. The posturę of the man,
leaning in a relaxed way against the window sili, is very casual and does not appear as "sitting".
Besides, the person must have been well familiar to the artist, sińce he charged it with a certain
psychological significance. It is very seldom in Nason's oeuvre that we can find a face so fuli
of expression and concentration but at the same time reticent and attractive. This observation
narrows down the possible identification of the portrayed man. He must had been ąuite "ex-
ceptional" for the artist: someone very close to him, or simply himself.
In the 17th century Dutch portraiture the appearance of a person portrayed in a window
occured only very rarely, which may seem odd enough considering popularity of this motif
in genre painting102. Rembrandt used this theme in several paintings, for example in the portrait
of Hendrickje Stoffels103. This kind of representation is also found in paintings of G. Dou and
G. Metsu104. This tradition goes back to the 15th century, when the window signified the se-
paration of two worlds: the one, really existing, in which the spectator finds himself and the
other, transcendental one, to which the person portrayed will belong, or, in most cases, belonged
already105. At the end of the 15th and in the 16th centuries, the portraits in the moralizing spirit
of the epoch, usually emphasiżed the idea of the vanity of life and a warning against the abuse
of earthly pleasures. The ideology of those pictures was, doubtlessly, lelated to the religious
painting of that time, in which the picture frame, or a window sometimes indicated by a sili
painted on the canvas, was a symbolic borderline separating the supernatural from the realloc.
The most often used a motif was a sili or a stone balustradę, so well known fiom Venetian pain-
ting. This motif symbolizing the importance of an individual or his work, that is, in other woids,
his or her "exceptionality" owed its popularity to van Eyck's Portrait of Tymotheos107. Later
on the moralizing significance of this kind of framing for the portrayed person was subdued
and while its formal meaning became more important, the exceptionality was reserved mainly
102. Thcy appeard in this genre fairly often in case of Vanilas type paintings or allegories of senses.
103. Cf. a painting from the Staatliche Museen, Berlin-Dahlem, and a portrait dated 1645 from the Dulwich Gallery collec-
tion. In Rembrandt's art we encounter also "windows" of a different type with an ilhisionistically painted Iower batten
of the frame (see: A. Bredius Rembrandt Gemdlde, no. 218, 359, 360). These are iconographically linked with the
window sili motive, the motive of the latter not concerning "exceptional" personages. One of thcm is a well-known
portrait of Rembrandt's son, Titus, in the Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. Apart from Rembrandt,
also bis pupils painted pictures of this kind. One of the most interesting and the most faitbful window representation
is the work by Samuel van Hoogstraten, dated 1653 in the Kunsthistorisches Museum collection in Vienna.
104. Cf. a painting in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, inv. no. 791. G. Metsu's self-portrait is dated 1665 cf. the catalogue
of Buckingham Pałace, 1885, no. 13.
105. Cf. Portrait of Marie Moreel by Hans Memling, reproduced in M.J. Friedliinders, Early Nelherlandish Painting, Via,
plate 123, no. 94; also Portrait of Duke Engelbert Nassau by Master of Dukes' Portraits (cat. Primitifs Flamands
Anonymes, Brugge, 1969, p. 13).
106. The origins of motives of this kind date back to the times of J. van Eyck (e.g., Madonna of the Canon van der Paele,
Saint Barbara) and are linked with the new function of the frame which he had introduced into art. The frame consti-
tuted simultaneously tlie part of the depth of the picture, the place for inscriptions of the informative kind and some-
times a sign and a symbol of a scenę in which gods were participating. This significance found a lasting place in the icono-
graphic repertory of the Nethcrlandish painting not only in the ISth century; cf.: Diptych of Martin tan Nieuwenhov8
by H. Memling, but also in the 16th century (cf. Pieta with the Holy Trinity by Hans B. Grien, the National Gallery
in London). A most instructive example here may also be Madonna and Child by Jan Gossaert which we know from
a copy found in the Ermitage (Leningrad), where Anne de Berghes with her child, represented as Madonna and
Child, are sitted in front of the frame painted in the background of the picture, which indicates the conscious marking
of their "earthly" character, along the glorification. A similar example, much earlicr, though, and coming from Italy,
can be found in the art of Filippo Lippi (Madonna with Angels in the Uffizi collection in Florence).
107. In Giorgione's works, for instance, in "Col Tempo", the sili played also a different function, cf. J. Białostocki, "Puer
sufflans ignes" Arte in Europa..., Milano, 1966, p. 591.
22