The Leyden School, 1500 - 1535: The second phase of the flowering of Dutch art

The first phase of the flowering of Dutch art occurred during the last third of the 15th century, was centered in the city of Haarlem, and was evidenced by the work of artists such as Dirk Bouts, Albert van Ouwater, and Geertgen tot Sint Jans, among others. This school was somewhat disaggregated, with the links between participants difficult to establish. Not so for the Leyden School.

The Leyden School refers to artists who painted in that town during the first third of the 16th-century and included such luminaries as Cornelis Engelbrechts and Lucas van Leyden. Unlike the situation with the Haarlem School, we know that Engelbrechts established a workshop in the city and trained a number of students -- including the aforementioned Lucas van Leyden. We can also identify the work of the school based on similarity of technique in the works of a number of its members.

Abbie Vandivere (Energetic and Skillful Techniques of the Sixteenth-Century Leiden School, Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 4:1 (Winter 2012)) observes that "if several painters work in the same milieu, have access to a similar range of material, and are taught within the same workshop, they will logically share certain techniques." The techniques of the artists of the Leyden School, she said, "have many similarities but diverge in individual ways."

Abbie was able to arrive at these conclusions because the Stedelijk Museum de Lakenhal in Leyden and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, between them, have enough paintings from the region to provide an overview of the Leyden artistic production between 1500 and 1535. Detailed studies of a subset of the Leyden School paintings allowed conservators to arrive at the techniques-conclusions included herein.

The father of the school appears to be Cornelis Engebrechtsz (1465 - 1527), the first important painter from Leyden and master of a large, prolific workshop. He trained many important painters, to include Lucas van Leyden (1494 - 1533), Aertgen van Leyden (1488 - 1564) and his son Peter Cornelisz Kunst (Lucas van Leyden went on to become better known for his prints and engravings, in addition to being a well-regarded painter. Peter Connelisz founded a workshop that eventually surpassed his father's in size.).

When the Mannerist style made its way to Leyden from Antwerp, he incorporated some elements of this school into his own style: "Exaggerated emotionalism and monumental compositions populated by small, slender figures in pronounced contrapposto poses characterized Engebrechtsz's mature Mannerist style" (gettymuseum.org).

Two of his most significant works are altarpieces: The Lamentation (c. 1508) and Crucifixion (c. 1515 - 1518)

The Lamentation, c. 1508
Cornelis Engelbrechtsz

The Crucifixion, c. 1515 - 1518

Cornelisz Engebrechtsz

Source: settemuse.it

Technique
The traditional technique of early Netherlandish painters revolved around superimposed layers and transparent glazes applied directly over the primer or on top of opaque, light-colored underlayers (Vandivere). The painting technique of the Leyden School is comparable to this approach in many ways but, in many cases, they seem to have modified this technique. And the innovations were passed from master to student in a workshop and on to other painters in the area.

School-unique features emerge upon closer inspection: "Sixteenth-century Leiden School painters exploited the properties of the traditional medium. The transparency, fluidity, ease of handling, and slow drying of linseed oil allowed them to" (Vandivere):

• have the underdrawing show through glazes -- all of the artists laid out the painting's composition with underdrawing (included contour lines as well as areas of shadow indicated by hatching or cross-hatching) and then applied the desired color in a single layer over the underdrawing. The underdrawing thus replaces the function of dark paint.
• apply a thin translucent layer between the primer and paint layers -- used either to (i) seal the underdrawing to prevent smearing during painting or (ii) isolate the primer such that it is prevented from absorbing oil medium from the paint layers.
• layer opaque paint and glazes -- expanded the range of tones that the painter could achieve.
• use blotting as a means of providing surface effects -- organic glazes can be viscous and difficult to handle with a brush. Painters could use fingers, blotting, etc., to move this glaze around. In the case of the Leyden School, no attempt is made to conceal these blotting efforts, raising the question as to whether they sought to exploit the tippled surface texture.

Other Schools
The Haarlem School continued into this period with painters such as Jan Mostaert and Jan Joest plying their trade in the city. Mostaert is generally associated with Romanist work during the Northern Renaissance so it will be interesting to determine the depth of that school's penetration in Dutch painting when I examine Romanists and Mannerists.

Wilhelm Valentiner posits that the Amsterdam and Utrecht Schools are direct outgrowths of the Haarlem School.


©EverythingElse238

Children's Book Review: Little Frida by Anthony Browne

I am currently taking a class on Frida Kahlo so I could not resist when I saw this book.

Frida Kahlo has been "a thing" in the art and marketing environments for a number of years now and it seems as though the powers that be have determined that our kids should be included in this phenomenon. Mattel has offered a Frida Kahlo Barbie Doll to market and now Walker Books is introducing a Children's Picture Book titled Little Frida which was authored and illustrated by Anthony Browne.

Anthony Browne is a British writer and illustrator of children's books with fifty books to his credit. He won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2000 for his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator and two Kate Greenaway Medals from the Library Association recognizing the year's best children's book illustrator.

Anthony grounded this effort in  Frida's lived experience as a child. According to the book's inside back cover:

Around the time she had polio, when she was about 6 years old, Frida invented an imaginary friend who could dance without limping. In her diary, she described her first meeting with this companion, from flying through a door she drew on her window, and descending into the earth under the dairy, to sharing secrets with a friend who danced and laughed without making a sound.

The book opens with a poignant first page which describes Frida contracting polio, the physical pain in the aftermath, and the emotional pain from the other kids calling her "peg leg." She was the other. The associated illustration is very Frida with animated cacti dancing with up-thrust arms on an earth whose surface is rent with deep gashes. And there is Frida in her Mexican outfit, flowers in her hair, and one leg markedly different from the other. The sun is low in the sky and casts a long shadow. The houses of the village are in the background.

The illustrations in this book are magnificent, either hewing to a Frida painting or looking like something that Frida would have done. One of his illustrations is of Frida dreaming of piloting a plane: her fuselage is a pear; the nose cone is one-third of an orange; the wings are the bottom halves of two bananas with each end pointing in opposite directions; the front landing gear is represented by two cherries while the rear is represented by a single grape; strawberries and a water melon make up the tail assembly. A parrot is the co-pilot. This is not surreal; it is sur-fruity.

Another two-page illustration shows the gashed earth with mountains in the background. The sun (early Diego) is bright orange on the right page with a shimmering silver moon on the left. Way in the distance, as Frida runs across the rent earth, is a dairy. Frida crawls through a door into the dairy and falls down a pink tunnel which has either two red ribbons, or two blood tracks, along the side; again, evocative of the adult Frida.

And then she meets this girl -- the imaginary friend -- who is wearing clothing that tags the illustration as a precursor of the Frida Kahlo painting titled The Two Fridas. And then they sit and it is a "mini-me" version of The Two Fridas as they join one set of hands and, in the other, hold opposite ends of a string which is colored 1/2 red and 1/2 white.

Frida flies back home to a blue house whose courtyard is bedecked with flowers of all types and colors.

The final illustration has Frida drawing an eye on a notepad. The background is filled with all kind of trees and leaves upon which the Frida Kahlo menagerie roams.

This is a great book. It has a storyline that will appeal to the kids but also has a sophisticated Kahlo presentation which will appeal to the parent who will be reading the book to the child.

@EverythingElse238