Van Dyck and Britain

VAN DYCK AND BRITAIN

VAN DYCK AND BRITAIN

VAN DYCK AND BRITAIN 18 February – 17 May 2009 Supported by

with thanks to Wallis Annenberg and the American Patrons of Tate

TATE MEMBERS Media partner

Exhibition curated by Karen Hearn Assisted by Tim Batchelor Interpretation by Jennifer Batchelor Historical Consultant Professor Kevin Sharpe Front cover: Van Dyck Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle (detail) 1637 First published 2009 by order of the Tate Trustees by Tate Media, a division of Tate Enterprises Ltd, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG © Tate 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-85437-878-1 Book design by why not associates Printed by Beacon Press Published to accompany the Van Dyck and Britain exhibition at Tate Britain, London, 18 February – 17 May 2009

GALLERY PLAN

Room 8 Van Dyck’s Continuing Influence

Room 7 Van Dyck’s Impact during the Seventeenth Century

Room 6 Studies by van Dyck

Room 1 Painting in England before van Dyck, and van Dyck’s First Visit to England 1620-21

The 1620s

Room 5 Room 2

Other Patrons and Sitters, with Family Groups

Van Dyck’s Return to England: Royal Portraits

Room 3

Room 4

Van Dyck’s Main Patrons and Sitters

Van Dyck in London

Introduction Van Dyck’s influence over British portraiture has been immense – not only during his lifetime, but right up until World War I. Although he spent, in all, fewer than eight years in Britain, many later commentators regarded van Dyck as a ‘British’ painter. The portraits that he painted there – and indeed his lifestyle and status – were seen as models to which later painters aspired. Moreover, latter-day British clients and patrons wished to see van Dyck’s portraits emulated and re-created in the terms of their own time. This exhibition explores both van Dyck’s British works, and his impact on, and legacy within, British art and culture.

Karen Hearn, Curator, Van Dyck and Britain Van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599 –1641) was the greatest painter in seventeenth-century Britain. Though trained in Flanders, he had a huge impact on British cultural life as the principal painter at King Charles I’s ostentatiously elegant court.

Van Dyck was born and trained in the great art centre of Antwerp. He made a brief visit to London in 1620 –21, and returned in 1632, spending most of the following decade there. Intensely ambitious and hugely productive, he reinvented portrait painting in Britain, retaining his pre-eminence until his premature death at the age of 42. Working in a period of political ferment during the run-up to the British Civil War, van Dyck portrayed many of the leading figures of the period. His iconic portraits of Charles I have shaped our view of the Stuart monarchy, while his compositions were to influence many later generations of British painters.

Opposite: Van Dyck Self-portrait with Endymion Porter (detail) about 1633

Room 1 Painting in England before van Dyck, and van Dyck’s First Visit to England 1620 –21 Anthony van Dyck (1599 –1641), an assistant to the great Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, spent a few months in London in 1620-21, where he performed some ‘speciall service’ for the king before returning to Flanders. The Scottish king James VI had become James I of England after Elizabeth I died in 1603, uneasily uniting the two nations.

Little is known about the lives and careers of painters in Britain in the early seventeenth century.

Artists here were often Netherlandish incomers.

The leading English-born artists, such as Robert Peake, painted in a comparatively linear, nonnaturalistic style.

From about 1616 onwards, further migrant artists from the northern Netherlands had come over to work for the royal family and leading courtiers.

They produced sober, serious images of their aristocratic clients.

Van Dyck’s first visit to London was short, but the profound changes he would later bring to British painting would soon become apparent.

Van Dyck Self-portrait (detail) about 1620

The 1620s

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Daniel Mytens was the main royal painter of the 1620s – his portrait of Charles I is in this room.

Cornelius Johnson was another artist active in London. Although van Dyck’s first visit to England had been brief, his influence was immediate.

Echoes in the pose of Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke by Mytens of van Dyck’s earlier portrait of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel are clear to see.

Van Dyck came back to England in 1632 at the invitation of James’s son Charles I, and was court painter until his death at the age of 42. Although he spent fewer than eight years in England (with a number of sojourns back on the Continent during that time) he revolutionised British painting, leaving a stylistic legacy that would dominate portraiture for 250 years.

In 1621, van Dyck left England (via Flanders) for Italy.

There he studied earlier Italian artists, particularly Titian, and took occasional commissions for portraits of British travellers, including Sir Robert and Lady Shirley whom he painted while in Rome. He then returned to his native Flanders where he painted a portrait of Endymion Porter, who was to remain a close friend and whom he painted several times.

Van Dyck Teresa, Lady Shirley (detail) 1622

Room 2 Van Dyck’s Return to England: Royal Portraits By the time van Dyck returned to London in 1632 as painter to Charles I, he had gained an international reputation. His association with Rubens and study of earlier Italian artists such as Titian had given van Dyck a unique mastery of both northern and southern European artistic traditions.

These royal portraits show van Dyck’s ability to mix fantasy and reality in the representation of kingship. Charles I relied upon van Dyck to provide the idealising portraits that would bolster his public image, and embody the views he held both of the divine right of kings and of Neoplatonic ideas about the self-regulation of the passions. The portraits suggest a happy, settled ruling family at the head of a nation at ease with itself and with its king.

It was all an illusion. ‘Loving rule’ may have been implied by the portraits of the king and queen, the image of Cupid and Psyche, or the masques in which the royal couple participated at court. In fact, Charles’s relationship with Parliament had broken down, leaving him increasingly isolated. There was fear of Catholic conspiracies and discontent that the Protestant king had taken a Catholic wife.

Van Dyck Charles II as Prince of Wales in Armour (detail) about 1637– 8

Room 3 Van Dyck’s Main Patrons and Sitters Charles I had used van Dyck to project an image of majesty. In the same way, van Dyck’s other courtly patrons commissioned him to create portraits that would display their power, wealth and social standing and, in the case of women, also their beauty and virtue. Thomas Wentworth, for example, a politician and among the most powerful men in the land, is shown as both a man of action, subduing a massive hound with the mere touch of his hand, and a serious politician in the service of king and country.

As well as being members of Charles I’s court, many of these patrons were from the great land-owning aristocratic families. The power of family dynasties is suggested in portraits such as that of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel and his grandson, with the symbols of power that would be passed down from one generation to the next.

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Both men and women are richly attired in the latest fashion. Their confident pose, as they steadily meet the viewer’s gaze, implies their elevated place in the social order. All look like stereotypical Cavaliers but, when civil war broke out, several of them would side with Parliament against the king.

Van Dyck Katherine, Lady Stanhope (detail) about 1635 – 6

Room 4 Van Dyck in London This room focuses on van Dyck’s private life during his stay in London in the 1630s. There are portraits of his mistress, of his friends, and of the wife (a minor Scottish aristocrat) whom he married the year before he died. In a display case are documents from the period including his last will and testament.

Van Dyck’s career as Charles I’s court painter is proof of his unique status as an artist in Britain at this time. Unlike his less well-known predecessors and contemporaries, van Dyck was treated as a courtier, and awarded a knighthood by the king.

He was given a residence on the Thames at Blackfriars. Blackfriars was outside the jurisdiction of the London painters’ guild – which sought to enforce protectionist measures against nonmembers – and was thus home to a number of artists and craftspeople born and trained

overseas. It was a mark of van Dyck’s prestige that Charles would sometimes travel down river from Whitehall to visit him at his Blackfriars house and studio.

Van Dyck Mary Ruthven, Lady van Dyck (detail) about 1640

Room 5 Other Patrons and Sitters, with Family Groups Van Dyck introduced a sense of spontaneity and liveliness into portraits where previously there had been dignified repose. His male sitters were all politically active to some degree, but were sometimes depicted in private or imaginary roles – as poet or soldier, or representing a religious, mythological or literary subject – often in appropriate fantasy costume.

Portraits placed sitters within a dynasty, emphasising social position. This room brings together portraits of four members of the Killigrew family, one of which is also a double friendship portrait in the manner van Dyck had derived from Italian portraiture, but then made his own.

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Comparison with the period clothes on display reveals the subtle ways in which van Dyck might paint loosened bodices and billowing sleeves or drapery, to give his patrons a radical new air of informality. Sometimes van Dyck removed fashionable elements like lace collars and cuffs that, in real life, signalled the sitter’s wealth and status. This simplification of dress also helped to speed up his studio’s prolific rate of production.

The ultimate status symbol was not to be portrayed in the height of fashion, but to be painted by the most fashionable artist of the day – Sir Anthony van Dyck.

Van Dyck Sir William Killigrew (detail) 1638

Room 6 Studies by van Dyck Van Dyck is best-known as a portrait painter, but he also made studies of the natural world. These included the landscape in loose wash that he may have made in the open air, studies of plants, trees and the human figure, as well as animal studies such as the horse for the equestrian portrait of Charles I or the dog in the portrait of the Duke of Lennox, both displayed in Room 2.

Just as van Dyck drew inspiration for his own work from nature and the Old Masters, so other artists copied him – either directly in engravings that were widely distributed, or indirectly by painting images that echoed van Dyck’s compositions and poses.

This created a style of portraiture that would continue to flourish long after van Dyck’s death.

Van Dyck Studies of a Horse (detail) 1633

Room 7 Van Dyck’s Impact during the Seventeenth Century Van Dyck died in 1641. The political situation was deteriorating, and the following year Charles I was forced to escape from Parliamentarian-controlled London and set up a court in exile in Oxford. After years of civil wars, Charles I was executed in 1649, and England was later ruled by the Protector, Oliver Cromwell. After his death the Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660 under Charles’s son, Charles II. The visual language established by van Dyck for Charles I was adopted by future leaders and artists – as in Robert Walker’s portrait of Cromwell, painted in the manner of van Dyck’s portrait of Wentworth, Charles I’s leading minister.

Dutch artist Peter Lely, who worked for Parliamentarians during the 1650s, was appointed official painter to Charles II, and was commissioned

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by many of van Dyck’s aristocratic patrons or their heirs. His female portraits convey a deeper sensuality that reflects the laxity of Charles II’s court after the morality of Charles I or the Puritanism of Cromwell. Lely aspired to van Dyck’s status of artist as courtier and, like him, was granted a knighthood.

The revolution in politics did not lead to a revolution in portrait-painting. To a large degree, that painterly revolution had preceded it in the work of van Dyck.

Pierre Lombart Oliver Cromwell on Horseback (detail) about 1655

Room 8 Van Dyck’s Continuing Influence In the mid-eighteenth century, there was a fashion for so-called ‘Vandyke’ costumes, worn by both sexes at masquerades, and often chosen to be worn in portraits. They derived from the portraits of van Dyck’s period. Patrons and artists continued to look back to van Dyck’s language of power and authority.

van Dyck were another way of acquiring the attributes of status and prestige. Artists such as Sargent and De László echoed van Dyck to flatter their ‘new money’ sitters by depicting them like the ‘old money’ aristocrats into whose grand houses they had moved.

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a revival of interest in van Dyck, with a major van Dyck exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1900.

Impoverished aristocrats were being forced to put their van Dycks on the market where they were purchased by the new industrial class.

This last throw-back to van Dyck captured the glamour, wealth, power and social position of an earlier age before the Great War swept it away.

Van Dyck remained a byword for tradition, class and status. When wealth moved from the old land-owning families to those in industry and trade, contemporary portraits in the style of

Sargent The Earl of Dalhousie (detail) 1900 Opposite: Van Dyck Thomas Wentworth, later 1st Earl of Strafford with a Dog about 1635–6

RULERS Tudor Henry VIII (1509–47) Edward VI (1547–53) Jane (1553) Mary I (1553–58) Elizabeth I (1558–1603) Stuart James VI of Scotland & I of England (1603–1625) Charles I (1625–49)

Commonwealth (1649–53) Protectorate Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector (1653–58) Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector (1658–9) Stuart Restoration Charles II (1660 –85) James II (1685–88)

‘Glorious Revolution’ William III (1688 –1702) and Mary II (1688 –94) Anne (1702–14) 1707 Act of Union unites England and Scotland as the United Kingdom of Great Britain Hanover George I (1714 –27)

ROYAL FAMILY TREE JAMES VI of Scotland & I of England (1566 –1625) m.1589 Anne (1574 –1619) d. of Fredrick II, King of Denmark

Elizabeth (1596 –1662)

Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales (1594 –1612)

m.1613

CHARLES I (1600 –49) m. 1613

Frederick V, King of Bohemia (1596 –1632)

Henrietta Maria (1609–69), d. of Henry IV, King of France

Sophia of Hanover (1630 –1714) m.

Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick, Lüneburg, Elector of Hanover (1596 –1632) GEORGE I (1660 –1727), from whom descends the present Royal Family

CHARLES II (1630 –1685) m.

Catherine of Braganza (1638 –1705), d. of John IV of Portugal

Mary, Princess Royal (1631–1660)

JAMES II (1633–1701) m.

m.

William II, Prince of Orange (1626–50)

WILLIAM III (1650 –1702)

Elizabeth (1635–50)

m.

(1) Anne Hyde (1637–71) (2) Mary of Modena (1658–1718)

MARY II (1662–94)

Henrietta Anne (1644 –70) m.

Anne (1637– 40) Henry (1640–60)

ANNE (1665 –1714)

Philippe, Duke of Orléans (1640 –1701) s. of Louis XIII of France

Hollar View of Lambeth, the River Thames and Westminster (detail) 1647 Bishopsgate

Covent Garden Strand

Somerset House

Blackfriars

St Paul’s Cathedral The Tower of London

RIVER THAMES London Bridge

Whitehall Palace

Westminster Abbey

Parliament House

Early 17th-century London comprised the mercantile City of London to the east, and the City of Westminster with Whitehall Palace to the west.

In between ran the Strand, where some of the nobility – including many of van Dyck’s principal patrons – were

located. Various artists lived in the newly-developed areas of St Martin’s Lane and Covent Garden, but Charles I gave van Dyck a property on the Thames at Blackfriars, easily reached by boat.

EVENTS Talks and discussions Van Dyck and Britain: Curator’s Talk Friday 27 February 13.00 –14.00 £4, booking recommended. Auditorium Tate curator Karen Hearn gives a talk on van Dyck’s legacy and influence.

Adam Nicolson on van Dyck Wednesday 18 March 13.00 –14.00 £4, booking recommended. Auditorium Author Adam Nicolson talks about van Dyck’s relationship with one special patron family: the Pembrokes of Wilton House.

In collaboration with TATE ETC. ‘A Carelesse Romance’: Fashion and Fantasy in van Dyck’s Portraits of the English Court Thursday 30 April 13.00 –14.00 £4, booking recommended. Auditorium Professor Aileen Ribeiro from the Courtauld Institute of Art discusses the ways in which van Dyck used fashion and fantasy to create a lost romantic world.

scholars and curators present new thinking and research on van Dyck’s work.

Supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art Families Walkthrough Wardrobe Sunday 5 – Sunday 19 April 10.00 –17.40 Free, for all ages. Room 9 Explore this eight metre-long passage of collars, sleeves, hems and seams to get a sense of the luscious fabrics you can see in van Dyck’s art.

Time to Sew! Wednesday 15 April 11.00 –12.30 or 14.00 –15.30 For ages 5 –12 £6, booking recommended. Price is per session Duffield Room Take a look at the costumes in van Dyck’s paintings with their billowing fabrics and frilly cuffs and have a go at making your own outfit.

What Makes an Aristocrat?

Friday 8 May 13.00 –14.00 £4, booking recommended. Auditorium

Dress Up! Thursday 16 April 11.00 –12.30 or 14.00-15.30 For under 5 years £6, booking recommended. Price is per session Duffield Room

An examination of how van Dyck’s portraits responded to contemporary debates on whether the aristocracy were ‘naturally’ superior.

Want to make your own dress, skirt, trousers or hat?

Sew, stitch, weave and bind to make your own van Dyck-inspired costume.

Symposia

Education Open Evening Van Dyck and Britain and Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009 Thursday 26 February 18.30 –21.00 Free, throughout the galleries. Booking required.

A special evening for teachers and gallery educators. The event includes gallery-based talks from artists and curators exploring cross-cultural exchange in contemporary and historical art, with free entry to Van Dyck and Britain and Altermodern: Tate Triennial 2009.

Van Dyck and Seventeenth-century Britain Queen Mary, University of London Friday 6 March 10.00 –18.00 £30, booking required. Includes entry to exhibition.

Book at www.qmul.ac.uk/events or 020 7882 5147 Professor Kevin Sharpe of Queen Mary is historical consultant to Van Dyck and Britain, and joins other speakers to share research on van Dyck.

Anthony van Dyck: The Image of the Aristocrat Thursday 26 March 10.00 –20.00 and Friday 27 March 10.00 –18.00 £30 (£25 concessions), booking required. Includes entry to exhibition (excludes lunch). Auditorium Tate curator Karen Hearn plus world-renowned

GENERAL INFORMATION Photography and mobile phones are not allowed in the exhibition Exhibition hours 18 February – 17 May Daily 10.00 –17.40, last admission 17.00 First Friday of every month, last admission 20.30 Exhibition shop Open daily 10.00 –17.40 Café and Espresso Bar Open daily 10.00 –17.30 Tate Britain Restaurant Lunch 11.30 –15.00 Afternoon tea 15.15 –17.00 Reservations 020 7887 8888 or email britain.restaurant@tate.org.uk Large print guide This guide is available in large print at the Information Desk in the Manton Entrance.

Large print captions are available in each room of the exhibition Audioguide £3.50 (£3 concessions) Exhibition catalogue RRP £29.99 paperback/£40 hardback Be a part of Tate Members enjoy  Free, fast-track entry to exhibitions at all four Tate galleries  Special access to Members Rooms  TATE ETC. magazine plus regular what’s on guide sent direct Join today from only £50 and see Rodchenko & Popova, Futurism, Turner and the Masters, and Sold Out free in the coming year.

For an extra £24 a year you can bring a guest with you, then relax in the Members Room.

Join today at the Members desk, online www.tate.org.uk/members or call 020 7887 8888.

Tate Online Visit www.tate.org.uk for more information on the exhibition Bringing Innovation & Technology Together

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Coming soon to Tate Britain Richard Long: Heaven and Earth 3 June – 6 September Turner and the Masters 23 September 2009 – 31 January 2010 Visit www.tate.org.uk or call 020 7887 8888 for more information and to book.

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Opposite: Van Dyck Charles I on Horseback 1633

Front cover Van Dyck Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle (detail) 1637 © The Trustees of the Rt Hon. Olive Countess of Fitzwilliam’s Chattels settlement by permission of Lady Juliet Tadgell Page 5: Van Dyck Self-portrait: Van Dyck with Endymion Porter (detail) about 1633 © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid Page 6: Van Dyck Self-portrait (detail) about 1620 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Jules Bache Collection, 1949 Page 7: Van Dyck Teresa, Lady Shirley (detail) 1622 © Petworth House, The Egremont Collection (The National Trust) Page 8: Van Dyck Charles II as Prince of Wales, in Armour (detail) about 1637– 8 © Private collection Page 9: Van Dyck Katherine, Lady Stanhope, later Countess of Chesterfield (detail) about 1635-6 © Private collection Page 10: Van Dyck Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, Mary Ruthven, Lady van Dyck (detail) about 1640 © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid Page 11: Van Dyck Sir William Killigrew (detail) 1638 © Tate Page 12: Van Dyck Studies of a Horse (detail) 1633 © The British Museum, London Page 13: Pierre Lombart after van Dyck, Oliver Cromwell on Horseback with a Page Engraving 1st state (detail) about 1655 © Nicholas Stogdon Page 14: John Singer Sargent The Earl of Dalhousie (detail) 1900 © The Earl of Dalhousie Page 15: Van Dyck Thomas, Viscount Wentworth, later 1st Earl of Strafford, with a Dog about 1635-6 © The Trustees of the Rt Hon. Olive Countess of Fitzwilliam’s Chattels settlement by permission of Lady Juliet Tadgell Page 17: Wenceslaus Hollar View of Lambeth, the River Thames and Westminster Etching (detail) 1647 © Guildhall Library, City of London Page 20: Van Dyck Charles I on Horseback with M de St Antoine 1633 © Her Majesty the Queen (The Royal Collection Trust)