Utrecht Caravaggism

Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan by Dirck van Baburen (1623) Oil on canvas, 202 x 184 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Matthias StomerThe Adoration of the Shepherds, ca. 1635-40, Oil on canvas, 44 5/8 x 63 5/8 in. (113.5 x 161.5 cm.), North Carolina Museum of Art

Utrecht Caravaggism refers to those Baroque artists, all distinctly influenced by the art of Caravaggio, who were active mostly in the Dutch city of Utrecht during the first part of the seventeenth century.

Painters such as Dirck van Baburen, Gerrit van Honthorst, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Jan van Bijlert and Matthias Stom were all in Rome in the 1610s, a time when the tenebroso of Caravaggio's later style was very influential. Adam Elsheimer, also in Rome at the same time, was probably also an influence on them. Back in Utrecht, they painted mythological and religious history subjects and genre scenes, such as the card-players and gypsies that Caravaggio himself had abandoned in his later career. Utrecht was the most Catholic city in the United Provinces, still about 40% Catholic in the mid-17th century, and even more among the elite groups, who included many rural nobility and gentry with town houses there.^[1] It had previously been the main centre, after Haarlem, of Northern Mannerist painting in the Netherlands. Abraham Bloemaert, who had been a leading figure in this movement, and taught the Honthursts and many other artists, also was receptive to the influence of his pupils, and changed his style many times before his death in 1651.

The brief flourishing of Utrecht Caravaggism ended around 1630. At that time, major artists had either died, as in the case of Baburen and ter Brugghen, or had changed style, like Honthorst's shift to portraiture and history scenes informed by the Flemish tendencies popularized by Peter Paul Rubens and his followers. They left a legacy, however, through their influence on Rembrandt's use of chiaroscuro and Gerrit Dou's "niche paintings" (a genre popularized by Honthorst).

Along with other Caravaggisti active in Italy and Woerden, they set the stage for later artists who worked in a Caravaggesque-inspired manner such as Georges de La Tour in Lorraine and Jan Janssens in Ghent.

References

• ^ Murray, P. & L. (1996), Dictionary of art and artists. Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-051300-0.
• The Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John by Hendrick ter Brugghen

External links

• Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Utrecht Caravaggism (see index)
• Fifteenth- to eighteenth-century European paintings: France, Central Europe, the Netherlands, Spain, and Great Britain, a collection catalog fully available online as a PDF, which contains material on Utrecht Caravaggism

Caravaggisti Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio Artists in biographies by Giovanni Baglione Baroque Chiaroscuro Tenebrism Paintings attributed to Caravaggio Dutch Caravaggisti Dirck van Baburen Jan van Bijlert Paulus Bor Andries Both Hendrick Bloemaert Jan Gerritsz van Bronckhorst Hendrick ter Brugghen Wouter Crabeth II Gerard van Honthorst Matthias Stom Flemish Caravaggisti Flemish Baroque painting Adam de Coster Nicolas Régnier Theodoor Rombouts Gerard Seghers French Caravaggisti Trophime Bigot Valentin de Boulogne Georges de La Tour Jean LeClerc Nicolas Tournier Claude Vignon Simon Vouet Italian Caravaggisti Giovanni Baglione Orazio Borgianni Battistello Caracciolo Cecco del Caravaggio Bernardo Cavallino Bartolomeo Cavarozzi Domenico Fetti Artemisia Gentileschi Orazio Gentileschi Giovanni Francesco Guerrieri Ottavio Leoni Bartolomeo Manfredi Mario Minniti Mattia Preti Orazio Riminaldi Carlo Saraceni Bartolomeo Schedoni Giovanni Serodine Carlo Sellitto Leonello Spada Massimo Stanzione Giuseppe Vermiglio Spanish Caravaggisti Bartolomé Esteban Murillo Francisco Ribalta Juan Ribalta Jusepe de Ribera Francisco de Zurbarán Related topics Rembrandt Gerrit Dou Peter Paul Rubens Diego Velázquez