by Werner Sumowski

Jan van Noordt's artistic caliber has hitherto been underrated. There are two reasons for this. In the first place there is no complete survey of his oeuvre — many documented pictures have been lost, his unsigned works are often erroneously attributed to other artists, and as yet there is no firm idea of his style and productivity. Secondly, the essence of his painting, its high standard of coloring and presentation, is still not appreciated, even in our own century with its cult of formal autonomy. A monograph on Jan van Noordt is one of the most urgent desiderata of art scholarship. Research for this project is still only in the preliminary stages, and my article represents no more than a contribution towards the collation of material.

Jan van Noordt produced history paintings, portraits and the occasional genre scene (presumably with an allegorical content). Hofstede de Groot wrote the first study on the artist in 1892,[1] and it has never been surpassed as regards the archivalia. All subsequent authors refer to the documents he published; only the list of works has been extended.[2]

Jan van Noordt is known to have been active in Amsterdam. He must have been born around 1620, and he died after 1676. The earliest works are from the 1640s, when he made etchings after Pieter van Laer and Pieter Lastman. The first is dated 1644, the second 1645.[3] There are also paintings from the latter year — a Mary with the Infant Jesus and the Young John the Baptist, formerly on the American art market4] and a Girl with a Dog, last mentioned in the Stillwell Collection in New York.[5] The dates of later paintings range from 1653[6] to 1676.[7] Houbraken states that Johannes Voorhout (Uithoorn 1647-1723 Amsterdam) studied with Jan van Noordt for four years.[8] On 30 April 1675 the artist vanished from his house on Egelantiersgracht, and it is believed that he left Amsterdam to escape his creditors.[9] The inventory of his estate, drawn up two days later, is the last document on Jan van Noordt.

In the face of such sparse biographical data it is not surprising that we know so little about Van Noordt's training as an artist. Judging by previous misattributions of his paintings he is considered to belong to Rembrandt's circle, for his paintings have been variously ascribed to Jacob Adriaensz. Backer, Ferdinand Bol, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Govaert Flinck, Barent Fabritius, Nicolaes Maes and Jürgen Ovens. Links have been established in the literature with Backer and Eeckhout, and Jordaens has also been identified as an influence.

The Backer connection is the most pronounced, and this was stressed as early as 1926 by Kurt Bauch,[10] according to whom Van Noordt continues Backer's late style, elaborating on models such as The Crowning of Mirtillo,[11] and Venus and Adonis.[12] It is true that the formalism achieved by Backer in his final phase is developed aesthetically in Van Noordt's work, but growing understanding of the latter's oeuvre reveals that he was already involved with the early Backer. Of particular importance for the assessment of his artistic antecedents are his drawings,[13] the style of which he apparently derived from Backer. Another interesting piece of information is that Van Noordt witnessed Abraham van den Tempel's will in Leiden on 22 November 1648.[14] The stylistic resemblance between the history paintings and allegories of the two artists might point to a common schooling. Van den Tempel was a follower of Backer's,[15] and the two painters could have met through their mentor, the witnessing of the will being perhaps an act of friendship.
 



Some of Jan van Noordt's paintings are reminiscent of Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, and a few even bear false Eeckhout signatures.[16] Research should be addressed in particular to the works which this Rembrandt pupil painted during the latter half of the 1640s.[17] Although Van Noordt was very probably influenced by Eeckhout the debt was secondary, with none of the decisive intensity of Backer's impact.[18] Jan van Noordt, linked as he was to the Pre-Rembrandtist tradition through Backer, a pupil of Lambert Jacobsz., might have deemed Gerbrand van den Eeckhout's indebtedness to Lastman both remarkable and stimulating. The later work betrays the influence of Jordaens, but it is not very likely that he had the direct contact with the Flemish painter, as was the case with Johann Ulrich Mayr, for instance,[19] who went on to continue his studies in Antwerp after completing his apprenticeship with Rembrandt.[20] Like Bol,[21] Van Noordt may have become involved with Jordaens in the wake of the vogue which the star from Flanders launched with his work on the scenes from the Batavian revolt for Amsterdam's new Town Hall.




More of Jan van Noordt's painting have come to my knowledge since my earlier reference to him.[22] Esther's Toilet, formerly in the Hallsborough Gallery in London (fig. 1),[23] is stylistically quite close to paintings by Backer from the early 1640s, calling to mind the Bacchus and Ariadne of 1643, and Vertumnus and Pomona of the same period.[24] Yet it displays definite links with Jan van Noordt, and must be one of his very early works. The Rest on the Flight in Leningrad (fig. 2), and the Bacchus and Ariadne in Warsaw will suffice as examples.[25] However, the broad, virtuoso technique and the splendid treatment of the brighter areas and lights elevate Esther's Toilet above either of them. The painter had already achieved what I would call his artistry. The decorum of a perfect composition and the elegant conflux of painterly beauty convey purely aesthetic values. The biblical subject might be said to serve as the pretext for their development. Every part of the picture is formally exquisite, and the still life with its virtuoso depiction of the Vianen goblet is particularly brilliant.[26]

The Levite and His Concubine in Gibea in a private Belgian collection might well be another early Jan van Noordt (fig. 3). The Budapest Museum has a variant of this composition (fig. 4), with right and left reversed, which is stylistically similar but displays less freedom and ease.[27] In addition to pictures dominated by large figures and influenced by the early works of Backer and Eeckhout, and perhaps by Rembrandt's Sermon of John the Baptist, Van Noordt painted scenes with small figures as well as others in which the human figure and the landscape are held in balance, as it were.[28] The Belgian painting should be grouped with these works. The laborer offering shelter to the Levite and his concubine (Judges 19:15-20) was an uncommon theme, perhaps because of the horrific brutality of this biblical crime story. The only other artists who seem to have dealt with it were Rembrandt and his circle after the mid-1640s,[29] and this is where Jan van Noordt received his inspiration, possibly by way of Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. As always, though, the paramount considerations for Van Noordt were the painterly and coloristic possibilities offered by the theme. An oriental, outdoor scene prompted his use of exquisite, luminous colors. The landscape is rendered in numerous gradations of gray-brown tones (with sprinklings of red, blue, pink, green and yellow), which contrast with the solid, dense local color of the figures, where yellow and blue, red and green, enter the lists. White, with the occasional pearly tint, enhances the effect of the complementaries, both neutrally and with extreme brightness. The principal colors are either shades of the same tone, or individually assume alien identities — yellow becomes gold, red becomes terracotta, green becomes near black. Technique is refined into the art of a painterly performance of variations which combine to enliven and enrich the entire color structure. The figures are given a glossy, sparkling finish, carefully, but without lapsing into Dou-like minutiae. The buildings in the left background, however, are broadly sketched without forfeiting any of their dominant impact. In the tree a vibrant structure of blobs and specks suggests luxuriant foliage in an interplay of light and dark.




A St John the Evangelist in a private Dutch collection (fig. 5), featuring the same Vianen goblet as Esther's Toilet (fig. 1), has already been attributed to Jan van Noordt by Albert Blankert. This picture, in which a triangular shape en¬closes curved outlines and planes (in diagonals and parallel lines), accords well with the relatively plain, "classicistic"
half-lengths and portraits from the early 1650s onwards.[30] One work which is analogous in every sense is the Portrait of a Boy in Johannesburg (fig. 6).[31] Incidentally, the form of the hand almost always identifies a Jan van Noordt, as in St John the Evangelist, and it occurs in most of his paintings and drawings. The colors have the exquisiteness one has come to expect of the artist. The flesh tones, set against a gray backdrop, harmonize with the light red, dull purple and differentiated white. This color structure allows the solitary gold of the goblet to come into its own, or to put it another way, the gold of the significant attribute balances an entire scale of colors, thus enhancing its meaning. A second remarkable display of painterly mastery is the way in which the entire picture space in bathed in colored, reflected light. The effect of the red, in particular, is seen in reflections or in the warmth of the shadows — in the goblet, on the hands, on the shadowed cheek.

A virtually unknown work is the Woman with a Basket of Grapes (most probably an allegorical depiction of a month) in the Gösta Serlachius Museum at Mänttä (fig. 7).[32] Van Noordt painted a half-length version of the same subject which is currently with the Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst in The Hague.[33] The latter picture, with its solid bulks, must be one of Van Noordt's early works, and it is understandable that it was formerly attributed to Backer and Flinck. In the Mänttä painting the modeling is subordinated to the linking of the planes. At the same time Van Noordt develops an elegant ornamentality. The paint is even and moderately dense; there are no areas of impasto. Stylistically the picture resembles The Satyr and the Peasant recently acquired by the Bader Collection in Milwaukee (fig. 8).[34] This work, long regarded as a Barent Fabritius but already suspected by Pont of being by Jan van Noordt, should be classified as an example of the artist's later period, being executed in or after the 1660s, when he was under the influence of Jordaens.

 

 


Another picture which I regard as a late work is the most important Van Noordt discovery. It is a Granida and Daifilo with the Hoogsteder-Naumann Gallery in New York (fig. 9) — a masterpiece of museum quality. The subject is taken from Act 1, Scene 3 of Granida, a pastoral play written by P.C. Hooft in 1605. The shepherd Daifilo comes across the daughter of the King of Persia, who has lost her way during the hunt, and he offers the thirsty princess a shell filled with water. This marks the start of a love story which goes through various twists and turns but eventually ends happily ever after. It proved a popular subject among Dutch artists,[35] and two versions by Jan van Noordt were already known: one in the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney (fig. 10),[36] which is probably an early work, and the second, dated 1663, from the former Tatarsky Collection (fig. 11).[37] The new discovery was first thought to be by either Backer or Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. Both painters favored the subject. There are three extant versions by Backer: in the Hermitage in Leningrad, the Hannemahuis in Harlingen, and the Kolman Collection in Chicago,[38] and two by Eeckhout: the first, painted in 1650, is in the Museo d'Arte Antica in Milan, while the second, painted in 1669, used to be in the Neumann Collection in Brussels (fig. 12).[39]

Comparison of detail and composition unequivocally establishes the picture with Hoogsteder-Naumann as a Jan van Noordt. To start with the details, Daifilo is depicted along formal lines similar to those of the shepherd in the Sydney painting, (fig. 10), although he is less bulky. An entirely analogous figure, on the other hand, is the female nude in a drawing at the De Boer Foundation in Amsterdam (fig. 13).[40] This is a study for a painting of Susanna Bathing, such as the one auctioned at Hoech's in Munich, which formerly bore a signature and the date 1673.[41] The glossy structure of the drapery, in Granida's skirt and elsewhere, is typical of Jan van Noordt.[42] A comparable detail can be seen in Joseph Selling Corn in the Bader Collection (fig. 14),[43] which is purportedly a late work.

 

Other works displaying similarities to the new picture are Juno, Io and Argus in the Louvre,[44] and a little known painting in the Sinebrychoff Museum in Helsinki of Jupiter and Mercury with Philemon and Baucis (fig. 15),[45] which has amusing details such as Jupiter's apron of sun, moon and stars, and the heavenly messenger's dandified winged bootees. Taking all the above factors into consideration, the Jordaens touch included, the Granida and Daifilo with Hoogsteder-Naumann can be dated to the painter's late period. The similar composition painted by Gerbrand van den Eeckhout in 1669 (fig. 12) might have prompted Jan van Noordt to make a variant.




The painterly qualities of the new canvas cannot be praised too highly. The beauty of the color and the brilliant rendering form a perfect match. Jan van Noordt's colors are full of surprises. He will have nothing to with commonplace coloring, but is out to create painterly bons mots. His witty technique betrays a mobile pictorial intelligence. He deploys boundless virtuosity to solve the problem which Backer had already tackled, namely to combine an adequate depiction of voluminous forms with sophisticated surface painting. He contrives a stark color contrast to depict the theme of the encounter between the unequal couple of the princess and the shepherd. The courtly (and for Daifilo, the fairy-tale) aspect is superbly displayed in the silken sheen of the reds, in pale gold, green and brocaded blue. The various colors in the details of Granida's costume are vibrant, and yet even this riot of shades does not satisfy the artist. He adds silver and gold embroidered borders studded with precious stones, subtly introduces blue into the strap of the quiver, adorns the dark hair with bird of paradise plumage, places softly gleaming pearls at the ears and forehead to set off the delicate complexion, and trims with gold a leather shoe of dull purple. A dashing greyhound, which also serves as a repoussoir, adds costly black to the color scheme, and it is this black that brings out the full impact of Granida's splendor. (Incidentally, the dog provided Van Noordt with the opportunity for a painter's aperçu, for the reddish and greenish tints in the white areas of the dog's coat are cast up from the ground by the reflection of the red skirt on the grass.) A small, whitish gray Bologna dog is on the princess's left in shadows saturated with reflections. Like Daifilo, the animal is looking up at Granida — a humorous touch, a wink like the one in the Jupiter and Mercury in Helsinki (fig. 15). The motif of the shaggy little dog was also chosen to contrast with the sleek black coat of the other dog, and it serves to detach the figure of the princess from the background.

Jan van Noordt offsets the royal riot of color with 'the rustic simplicity of Daifilo and his companion Dorilea, and with the tonality of plaited straw, brass, leather, brown-spotted hide and rudely healthy complexions. And yet there is a discreet beauty in this simplicity, which is displayed in the subtlest gradations of subdued color and in the contrasting materials. The rendering of the shepherds is without coloratura, as it were. Nevertheless, Van Noordt has wrought a miracle with Daifilo's cloak and straw hat. The red trousers with their green turn-ups and buckle are not really in keeping with the simple attire of a shepherd, and it is here that the artist gives rein to his wit once more. Daifilo is not just another country lad, but the future consort of a princess; his destiny is indicated in particularities. Moreover, a motif was needed to carry red and green as color echoes from the left to the righthand side of the painting.

The picture comes to life in the contrast between the courtly and the rural color scheme, the composition being constructed as a clear, meaningful organization of the color. Separation and connection are presented as a whole. The figures are seemingly situated on little islands some distance apart. The center is empty. And yet the division of the surface into three is crossed by diagonals, thus causing the sides of the picture to merge in the imagination across the empty central area. Moreover, the differences in rank and color are re-unified by the monochrome of the background with its wealth of tones in the dark wood. The arrangement of the figures is a formalization of the same ideas as are found in the colors. Granida's lofty position is expressed by her stance. Kneeling, humble life gazes up at dignity; the light and colorful figure of the princess contrasts with the heavy, diagonal volumes of the shepherds.
These comments on the formal aspects of the new painting hardly do justice to a work which is not only genuinely worth seeing but which also conveys to the beholder a powerful idea of Jan van Noordt's talent and accomplishment.

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COPYRIGHT 1986 Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder, Werner Sumowski. All rights reserved.
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