Everything Else: April 2019

Saturday, April 27, 2019

House of Habsburg: Construction of the 17 Low-Countries Provinces

Mary of Burgundy inherited the possessions (shown in the map below) of Charles the Bold upon his death at the Battle of Nancy in 1477. She married Maximilian of the House of Habsburg shortly thereafter and they ruled those possessions jointly.

Territories inherited by Mary of Burgundy upon
the death of Charles the Bold
(wikipedia, Marco Zanoli)

The House of Habsburg would continue to rule the Low Countries until their split into two zones in the late 16th century and then to rule the Spanish Netherlands thereafter. The scope of this post is the period of Habsburg rule prior to the breakup of the Low Countries.

The House of Habsburg
Louis XI, King of France, was a cousin of Charles the Bold and contested Mary's right to the Burgundian territories. He sought to enforce his claim militarily but was defeated by Maximilian in 1479 at the Battle of Guinegate.

Maximilian I

Mary died an untimely death in 1482 when she was thrown off a horse, which subsequently fell on her, causing massive internal and external injuries. The marriage agreement prevented either of the partners from inheriting the other's holdings upon death, so Mary's lands fell to her minor son Philip.

Maximilian I
In order to preserve his son's holdings, Maximilian entered into the Treaty of Arras with Louis XI. Under the terms of the treaty, Maximilian promised his daughter's hand in marriage to the future Charles VIII and, as a dowry, ceded Burgundy, the County of Artois, and some minor lordships to the French.

Maximilian became Regent but his authority was not uncontested. As shown in the map below, many of the principalities took direct action in resistance to his authority.

Ghent and Bruges were among the most recalcitrant of the areas with Ghent (i) refusing to hand over his son who "was held as a hostage to secure" its citizens "against any infringement of their liberties" and (ii) entering into negotiations with Louis XI. Maximilian launched a campaign against the Flemings in 1985 and defeated them soundly, gaining possession of his son in the process.

Bruges and Ghent rebelled once again in 1988 and captured and inprisioned Maximilian while he was laying siege to Bruges. He was released as his father was approaching with a large army to rescue him. Under the terms of the release he was to:

Surrender his powers as regent to a council of Flemings
Withdraw all foreign troops from the Netherlands
Provide good-faith hostages.

Maximilian returned to Germany and left the pacification of the Netherlands in the hands of Duke Albert of Saxe-Meissen who he designated as both Chief of Forces and Governor. By the summer of 1492, Duke Albert had pacified all of the rebellious territories, with the exception of Gelderland. Maximilian signed the Treaty of Senlis with France in 1493, effecting the changes shown in the map below.

Re-apportionment of territories after 1493 Treaty
of Senlis between Maximilian I of Germany
and Louis XI of France (underlying map wikipedia.
Marco Zanali)

Maximilian returned to his ancestral lands in 1494 (after being crowned Holy Roman Emperor) and turned the reins of governing the Netherlands over to his son Philip. The revolts of the cities between the years 1477 - 1492 had failed but it was a harbinger of things to come.

Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy
Source: wikipedia

The Seventeen Provinces
As stated previously, Duke Albert had been unable to subdue Gelderland prior to Philip's accession to the position of Duke of Burgundy. That situation was corrected, and then some, in a series of battles (The Guelders Wars) beginning in 1502 and ending in 1543.

Guelderland had allied itself with a number of its neighbors and was not only resisting Habsburg efforts at submission, it was itself mounting raids into Holland. One of its allies was Frisia and, in 1522, Habsburg forces under the command of Georg Schenck van Tautenburg pushed Guelder forces out of Frisia. By December of 1524 Frisia was firmly in the hands of the Habsburg forces and was renamed the Lordship of Frisia and governed by a Stadtholder.

The Prince-Bishop of Utrecht found himself in conflict with his citizens who escalated matters by inviting in the Guelders army. The Prince-Bishop was forced to turn to Charles V for assistance. Overijissel was also host to some of the Guelders forces but was ready to rid itself of these now unwelcome "guests" and also sought the assistance of Charles V in this regards. Charles said he was willing to assist under the condition that he be proclaimed lord of those lands if successful. They agreed and van Tautenburg easily defeated the Guelders army. The Bishop handed over power to Charles in October 1528 and he divided the Bishopric of Utrecht into the Lordship of Overijist and the Lordship of Utrecht, each ruled by a Stadtholder.

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Source: wikipedia

Schenck van Tautenburg continued the territorial expansion by defeating a Guelders-and-allied army to gain the territories of Gronigen and Dranthe. These were subsequently renamed the Lordship of Gronigen and the County of Dranthe, each of which would be governed by a Stadtholder.

Charles of Guelders had battled valiantly against the Habsburgs for many years and did not want to see his territory fall into the hands of Charles V on his death (he having no natural-born heirs). He appointed William, Duke of Jülech-Cleves-Berg as his successor. William allied himself with France and attacked Low Countries territory in a war between that area and France. Mary of Hungary, then Governor of the Netherlands, responded by sending and army towards Guelder and Jülich, conquering them both in 1543. In a treaty ending the war, William ceded the Duchy of Guelder and the County of Zutphen to Charles V.

This last territorial acquisition brought the number of Low Countries Provinces to 17 (see map below) a number that would hold until the separation into the northern and southern provinces 25 years or so later.

The 17 Low Countries Provinces as of 1543
(Source: wikipedia)

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This, then, was the zenith in the expansion of the Hapsburg Low Countries Provinces. In my next post I will cover the forces driving in the opposite direction (deconstruction) and the resulting architecture.

©EverythingElse238

Friday, April 19, 2019

Historical context for Early Netherlandish paintings: Burgundian rule

The art of the Low Countries is having a moment right now: this is the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt and his life and heritage are being celebrated with exhibitions throughout Holland; the Art Institute of Chicago is exhibiting Rembrandt Portraits through June 9; the Metropolitan Museum in New York is showing an exhibition titled In Praise of Painting: Dutch Masterpieces at the Met through the end of the year; and The Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco is exhibiting Early Rubens through September 8th.

In that I will probably be seeing one or more of these exhibitions, I wanted to get ahead of the background material so, in the next few posts, I will summarize the general environment and the painting styles associated with this region and period. The figure below shows the time scale, political conditions, and painting styles that I will be covering.

The Low Countries (modern-day Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg) evolved from components in the Roman Belgica and Germania Inferior Provinces in the 1st century BCE to independent secular and spiritual provinces (see below) in the 10th century.

These principalities were not, at this time, united but "displayed common characteristics in their economics, social structure, and culture." All of the principalities had a feudal relationship with the German king except for Flanders which primarily owed fealty to the French king (the eastern part of the county was vassaled to the German king).

The Dukes of Burgundy -- a cadet line of the Valois kings of France -- began making inroads into the Netherlands beginning with the marriage, in 1369, of Philip the Bold to Margaret, daughter of Louis de Mâle, Count of Flanders. Philip came into possession of all of Louis' territories upon his death in 1384. Upon Philip's death, all of those territories passed on to his firstborn, John, and, eventually, to Philip III the Good, who also secured Brabant (from his Uncle's branch of the family), Hainut-Holland, Namur, and Luxembourg.

The Burgundian Dukes sought to exert centralized control over the Low Country territories but it was a slow go. The chart below shows some of the mechanisms Philip implemented. He elected governors for each region but some of the states were resistant to having foreigners running the administration in their territories. They claimed to be concerned because these administrators were French-speaking while the general populace spoke Dutch. In 1473 Charles the Bold sought to establish a kingdom in the region with him as the Regent but was unsuccessful.

The death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy provided the states with the opportunity retrieve some of the autonomy they had lost at the hands of the Burgundian dukes.

Charles the Bold

First, with his death, all of the territories were inherited by his daughter Mary. The States-General compelled Mary to sign the first constitution (Great Privilege of Ghent) for all the principalities of the Low Countries. It recognized extensive rights for the States-General, prescribed the legal language to be used in courts, and "restored all local and communal rights to the towns and provinces of Flanders, Brabant, Hainat, and Holland which had been abolished by the decree of the Dukes of Burgundy."

Burgundian possessions in the Low Countries at the death of
Charles the Bold. (By Watisfictie - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34051429)

Mary married Archduke Maximilian of Austria of the House of Habsburg in 1477 and bore him a son (Philip) and a daughter (Margaret). She died in a riding accident in 1482 and her minor son succeeded her as Duke of Burgundy under the guardianship of his father.

Mary of Burgundy

The Flemish port city of Bruges was the main northern European center for international banking and trade (Bruges had also been a favorite court location for the dukes of Burgundy.). The population density of the Low Countries, and the relative affluence of its trading and finance industry populace, made it an important market for imports. The Low Countries produced and exported woolen goods and high-quality objects such as fashionable clothing, art, and jewelry.

The Dukes of Burgundy were important patrons of the arts during their reign while newly wealthy private citizens also commissioned art but, in their cases, as part of a growing interest in private meditation and prayer. Portraits were also commissioned in increasing numbers.

The inhabitants of the Low Countries had entered this era as increasingly independent principalities and had withstood the efforts of centralization by the Dukes to exit the era with their independence intact but also with strong cross-state institutional structures that would serve them in good stead in the future.

I will cover the Habsburg rule in my next post.

©EverythingElse238

Friday, April 12, 2019

The art of Jean-Michel Basquiat: Brant Foundation, New York City

I had been sitting tight, looking forward to my Basquiat fix in June with the upcoming Guggenheim exhibition titled Basquiat's "Defacement": The Untold Story when, out of the blue, up popped a Brant Foundation exhibition titled Jean-Michel Basquiat (an exhibition that I had not read about previously and had, therefore, not included in my list of must-see exhibitions for 2019). I did not stay surprised for long. I reached out for tickets but the show was sold out. I placed my name on a waiting list and, lo and behold, I got a ticket for a day I was actually going to be in New York.

Jean-Michel Basquiat
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29602496

The Brant Foundation
The mission of the Brant Foundation is to support contemporary artists and, towards that end, it exhibits their works at two locations. The newest location (Greenwich being the other) is 421 East 6th Street in NYC, a 100-year-old building which was initially built as a Con Edison substation and, subsequently, served as the home and studio of the artist Walter de Maria from the mid-1980s until his death in 2013.

The building has been renovated by Gluckman Tang Architects, at the behest of the Brant Foundation, wherein 7,000 of its 16,000 square feet is dedicated to exhibition space distributed over four floors.

Brant Foundation NYC location

The Artist
Brant Foundation describes Basquiat on a wall panel on the ground floor of the exhibit:

At the onset of the 1980s, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 - 1988) took the art world by storm, with his powerful and highly complex works captivating, first Downtown New York, and then Europe and the rest of the world. Radical in both his artistic practice and life, Basquiat made the streets of Lower Manhattan his studio, joining the creative outpour that was emerging in the late 1970s and 80s in New York City. ... In the space of less than a decade, he achieved a comprehensive oeuvre -- consisting of more than 1,000 paintings and over 2,000 drawings -- marked by rapid and thunderous success virtually unknown by any other artist. A success which continues to grow, exponentially, to this day and solidifies him as one of the greatest artists of our time.

What had brought this son of a Haitian father and Puerto Rican mother, this drug-using, high-school dropout, from the streets of the Lower East Side to the upper echelons of the art world?

Basquiat was born in Brooklyn in 1960. One of the seminal events in his youth was being hit by a car in the street of his residence, necessitating a lengthy rehabilitation. During his rehab, his mother gave him a copy of the Book Gray's Anatomy which he studied assiduously. The influence of that book is apparent in much of his art.

Jean-Michel dropped out of school prior to graduation and fell into the graffiti culture which was then taking off in Brooklyn and the Bronx. He tagged with a fellow artist under the moniker Samo© but when they fell out, he killed off the designation.

New York City was falling apart at this time. It was deep in debt and awash in deserted and abandoned buildings. The cheap rent attracted artists to the Lower East Side and this mish mosh of practitioners from all branches of the arts yielded a unique, gritty culture. Basquiat fell right into this, steering away from graffiti and wanting to be considered an artist.

During this time he could not afford art supplies so he painted on anything that was available -- scraps of paper, doors from abandoned buildings, etc. His artistic skills began to be noticed but his sprint to the top really began with his participation in the January 1981 art show at PS1 in Queens that was organized by Diego Cortez. Basquiat's path to stardom post that meeting is shown in the chart below.

Cathleen McGuigan (New York Times, 2/10/85) provides a comprehensive description of Basquiat's paintings:

His color-drenched canvasses are peopled with primitive figures wearing menacing, masklike faces, painted against fields jammed with arrows, grids, crowns, skyscrapers, rockets and words ... His drawings and paintings are edgy and raw, yet they resonate with the knowledge of such modern masters as Dubuffet, Cy Twombly or even Jasper Johns.

Table 1. Characterizing Basquiat's talent

Name	Profession	Assessment
Sandro Chia (after the PS1 show)	Painter (Italian)	“Basquiat’s paintings captured the spontaneity of the City” “The paintings were full of disparate elements that somehow worked together though there was no apparent system linking them”
John Russell	Chief art critic, New York Times	“Basquiat proceeds by disjunction — that is by making marks that seem quite unrelated, but that turn out to get on very well together”
Vivian Raynor	New York Times Writer	“The educated quality of Basquiat’s line and the stateliness of his compositions both of which bespeak a formal training that, in fact, he never had.”

Data Source: Cathleen McGuigan, New Art, New Money, NYT, 2/10/85

Jean-Michel Basquiat died of an overdose in 1988. He was 28 years old.

The Exhibition
As I mentioned previously, through perseverance, I was able to obtain a ticket to the sold-out exhibition. My entry time was 12:45 but, as I was driving into the City, I got there well before my appointed time. The person monitoring the entry was sympathetic and allowed me in.

I stepped into the ground floor of the building and my ticket was scanned by one of the two or three interns who were assigned this task. I was then directed on to an elevator which would take me to the fourth floor as the exhibition was spread over four floors and was routed from the topmost to the lowest floor. I am still not clear why individual paintings were placed on specific floors.

The paintings on the 4th and 3rd floors had wall cards which indicated the name of the painting (or untitled) and the year of its creation. This practice was abandoned for the final two floors. On each floor there was an i-pad like device which had additional information on the paintings in that area but it was inconvenient because it could only serve one reader at a time.

In that I got there before the official museum opening time, I was able to step right in and view the paintings with relative ease. By the time I concluded my walk-through, there was a lengthy line outside the building waiting for entrance.The look of reverence on the faces of the viewers spoke to the standing that Basquiat has attained in the art-loving community.

The art work of Jean-Michel is captivating. It pulls you in, taking you ever deeper into its essence. The figures are child-like and primitive but there is a depth and complexity that defies your brain as you attempt to compartmentalize and allocate. The works are electric and vibrant, thanks to his use of color. The masters of surrealism sought to paint images derived from their dream states on canvas; one wonders from whence did these images emanate.

I captured most of the pieces in the exhibition on my iPhone and I reproduce them below. I am still continuously scrolling through them, captivated by the unknown, by the emotions that these almost cave-art-like paintings evoke.