Skip to content

Art Historians

Vauxcelles, Louis

Full Name: Vauxcelles, Louis

Other Names:

  • Louis Vauxcelles

Gender: male

Date Born: 01 January 1870

Date Died: 1943

Place Born: Paris, Île-de-France, France

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Cubist, Fauvre, Modern (style or period), and twentieth century (dates CE)

Career(s): art critics


Overview

Art critic of the early 20th-century modernist art movements; coiner of the terms “Fauvism” and “Cubism”. Vauxcelles started writing art criticism in the 1890s, rising to a major figure (and today, documenter) of the art world in Paris. In a 1905 review, Vauxcelles disparagingly described the proto-expressionist French painters around Andre Darin and Henri Matisse, whose work was exhibited among classical sculpture, as “Donatello parmi les fauves” (a Donatello amongst wild beasts). The term “les fauves” (wild beasts) became the epithet for the movement. Likewise in 1908 he described the work of Braque as “bizarre cubiques” (bizarre cubes). Vauxcelles’ description of their work as ‘full of little cubes’, again became the moniker for the style, though neither Braque nor Picasso adopted it. Conscious of his fame in naming French art styles, he mocking ascribed the early work of Ferdinand Léger, who employed a variation of Cubism in his work, as “Tubism” in 1911. His criticism for the journals Excelsior, Gil Blas and Le Carnet de la semaine (under the name Pinturicchio), made him among the most popular critics by 1914. He was appointed to the executive committee of the Salon d’Automne. In 1916 he founded his own review, Le Carnet des artistes, backed by Albert Dubarry, the publisher of Le Carnet de la semaine in which Vauxcelles continued to write. He launched a higher-profile periodical, L’Amour de l’art, editing it between 1920 and 1923. When Braque returned to a style of clearer representation after World War I, one that diverged more from Picasso, Vauxcelles conceded that the artist’s work deserved a place in the tradition of French painting. Despite his derision of Cubism and related avant-garde styles, Vauxcelles stance as an anti-academic painting and sculpture never wavered. Throughout his writing, Vauxcelles valued modern artists who demonstrated individualist, ‘progressivist’ traditions in art, contrasting academic painters with their rules and traditions. He chided the emergence of Cubism as a return to a theoretic, rule-bound art as French academic painting was. He had no appreciation for strongly-abstract art. Among his other truisms, Vauxcelles observed that “art critics age badly.”


Selected Bibliography

and Fontainas, André, and Gromort, Georges, and Mourey, Gabriel. Histoire générale de l’art français de la Révolution à nos jours. 3 vols. Paris: Librairie de France, 1923-25,


Sources

Gee, Malcolm. Dealers, Critics and Collectors of Modern Painting. New York: Garland Pub., 1981, pp. 101-53; Green, Christopher. Cubism and its Enemies: Modern Movements and Reaction in French art, 1916-1928. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987, pp. 121-218



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Vauxcelles, Louis." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/vauxcellesl/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Art critic of the early 20th-century modernist art movements; coiner of the terms “Fauvism” and “Cubism”. Vauxcelles started writing art criticism in the 1890s, rising to a major figure (and today, documenter) of the art world in Paris. In a 1905

Vasconcelos, Joaquim de

Full Name: Vasconcelos, Joaquim de

Gender: male

Date Born: 1849

Date Died: 1936

Home Country/ies: Portugal

Subject Area(s): ceramic ware (visual works), ceramics (object genre), metal, metalwork (visual works), metalworking, Portuguese (culture or style), pottery (visual works), Renaissance, and silverwork


Overview

Historian of Portuguese art; Renaissance; Portuguese silverwork and ceramics.


Selected Bibliography

Historia do Ourivesaria e Joalharia. 2 vols. Porto, 1882.; Toreutica. Porto, 1904.; Ceramica. 1883-1884.


Sources

Bazin 448




Citation

"Vasconcelos, Joaquim de." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/vasconcelosj/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Historian of Portuguese art; Renaissance; Portuguese silverwork and ceramics.

Vasari, Giorgio

Full Name: Vasari, Giorgio

Other Names:

  • Giorgio Vasari

Gender: male

Date Born: 30 July 1511

Date Died: 27 June 1574

Place Born: Arezzo, Tuscany, Italy

Place Died: Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Home Country/ies: Italy

Subject Area(s): architecture (object genre) and sculpture (visual works)


Overview

Considered the first art historian and often referred to as the “father of art history”; architect and painter. Vasari was the son of Antonio Vasari (d. 1527), a potter [Vasari = “maker of vases”], and Maddelena Tacci (d. 1558). His family stemmed from Cortona where his grandfather, Lazzaro, had been a craftsman of saddles and painted scenes. His great-aunt married the painter Lucca Signorelli, who became Vasari’s first teacher. Vasari himself learned Latin and other humanist disciplines in the 1520’s by Antonio da Saccone and Giovanni Pollastra (1465-1540). Throughout his career, Vasari practiced as an artist. He entered the Arezzo studio of Guillaume de Marcillat, a Frenchman commissioned to make the stained-glass windows for the cathedral in Arezzo. Guillaume’s previous commissions at the Vatican in Rome brought Vasari into conversance with the work of Michelangelo and Raphael. Vasari’s own skills as a painter led the Cardinal of Cortona, Silvio Passerini (1470-1529), tutor of Alessandro and Ippolito de’ Medici, to take Vasari with him to Florence in 1524. There Vasari and the two Medici received further instruction by Pierio Valeriano (1477-1558). He lodged with Niccolo Vespucci beginning studies under Michelangelo, though this may have entailed little more than errands (Sonio). After Michelangelo left for Rome, Vasari trained in the Florentine workshop of Andrea del Sarto and in the sculpture workshop of Baccio Bandinelli, under Francesco Salviati. When the Medici were expelled in 1527, it was Vasari and Salviati who rescued the pieces of the broken “David” statue of Michelangelo for repair. Vasari returned to Arezzo where entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici in January 1532. He studied ancient and modern Roman art and architecture again with Salviati and began collecting drawings which he assembled into a large folio for study purposes. When Alessandro de’ Medici was murdered in 1537, Vasari was once again devoid of a princely patron. From that point on, he decided to exist on his own. He painted several work for the monks at Camaldoli before journeying to Rome in 1538, accompanied by his assistant Giovanni Battista Cungi. Already he was interested in studying ancient with a view of their effect on contemporary art, the core idea later into his masterwork of writing, the Vite. Vasari went to Venice in 1541. Back in Rome, Vasari purportedly got the idea to write a book on the lives of famous artists from the scholar and collector Paolo Giovio (1483-1552) during a dinner party given by Pope Paul III in 1546, although Vasari seems to have been collecting snippets from 1543. In 1548 he built a house in Arezzo (in which he seldom lived) marrying the well-connected Nicolosa Bacci the following year. Documents indicate he had two previous children either by Nicolosa’s sister, Maddalena Bacci (d. 1542) or his housemaid, Isabella Mora (Cheney). He published the first edition of his account of artist’s lives–most famous book–Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori in 1550. The printer was the Florentine humanist Lorenzo Torrentino (d. 1563). The two-volume, octavo work was dedicated to Cosimo de’ Medici. After its appearance several other biographies of artists appeared, most notably the life of Michelangelo by Ascanio Condivi. Vasari settled permanently in Florence in 1554. There he was commissioned to design the offices for the magistrates and civil records in 1560, the Uffizi (today the Uffizi Gallery). Vasari corrected and enlarged the text to the Vite, issuing a second edition in 1568. It is this version that all subsequent editions and translations are based, and for which Vasari owes his fame. For the second edition, Vasari incorporated information from the works of other writers who had taken his biography as a model, in particularly Lodovico Guicciardini (a Florentine living in Antwerp) and his Descrittione di m. Lodouico Guicciardini patritio fiorentino, di tutti i Paesi Bassi, 1567. A second book, somewhat of a supplement to the Lives, entitled Ragionamenti sopra le Invenzioni appeared from Vasari’s hand after his death in 1588. The book is a catalog of the allegorical compositions in the Palazzo Vecchio. He continued as supervisor for the redesign and redecoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence until 1572. While engaged in the frescos for the dome of the Cathedral in Florence, he died. He is interred in the family tomb in Arezzo. At his death his drawing collection was dispersed, much of it still identifiable in major collections today. His Arezzo house is today a museum on the Via XX Settembre 55. Le vite de più eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori – The work is divided into a preface (proemio), a discussion of the various media, and then three sections devoted to artist biographies arranged chronologically. The first section covers Cimabue to Lorenzo di Bicci, section two from Jacopo della Quercia to Pietro Perugino, and the final section, from Leonardo da Vinci to Michelangelo. Michelangelo was the only artist still living when the Vite appeared. Vasari ends with a section to ‘artists and readers’. Several indexes complete the work. Chronological biographies of artists had previously existed. Vasari’s contribution was to create a critical, i.e., evaluative, history of artistic style, although he was far from unbiased. Core to Vasari was the notion of the rebirth of art, a rinascita. Art had a history and by new birth, it reestablished itself as a noble pursuit worthy of study. Vasari’s division of art history into ages took as its paradigm the stages of human development. This, too, was not a novel conception with Vasari, but in his book, it took on a logical sense of order. Art’s early perfection was the antique, but hade then declined under Constantine. This low period of barbaric or Germanic art (“Gothic” Vasari called it) far removed from classical models, was ready for renaissance. Cimabue, Giotto and others formed the nascence of art, inspired by the imitation of nature, a primary stage (primi lumi). A developmental period (augumento) was ultimately succeeded by the age of perfection (perfezione)–coincidentally Vasari’s own time and that of Michelangelo. Vasari’s book created a sensation. Benvenuto Cellini found much fault, but Michelangelo, Gherardi, Salviati and Carlo Fontana praised it.


Selected Bibliography

Le vite de’più eccellenti pittori, scuttori e architetti. Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, 1550. Enlarged ed., Florence: T. Giunti, 1568. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptures and Architects. Translated by Gaston du C. de Vere. 10 vols. London: Macmillan and the Medici Society, 1912-15; Ragionamenti del Sig. cavaliere Giorgio Vasari, pittore et architetto aretino, sopra le inuentioni da lui dipinte in Firenze nel palazzo di Loro Altezze Serenissime. Florence: F. Giunti, 1588.


Sources

Blunt, Anthony. Artistic Theory in Italy: 1450-1600. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962, pp. 86-102; Rud, Einar. Vasari’s Life and Lives: The First Art Historian. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand Company, 1963; Kleinbauer, W. Eugene. Modern Perspectives in Western Art History: An Anthology of 20th-Century Writings on the Visual Arts. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971, pp. 68-9; Kultermann, Udo. Geschichte der Kunstgeschichte: Der Weg einer Wissenschaft. 2nd ed. Frankfurt am Main and Vienna: Ullstein, 1981, p. 438 n. 9; Sonio, Michael. “Giorgio Vasari and his Lives.” introduction to, Vasari, Giorgio. The Great Masters. New York: Park Lane, 1988, pp. 7-12; Rubin, Patricia Lee. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995; Cheney, Liana. The Homes of Giorgio Vasari. New York: P. Lang, 2006, esp. p. 173, n. 140, 141; Cast, David. The Delight of Art: Giorgio Vasari and the Traditions of Humanist Discourse. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009.



Contributors: Lee Sorensen


Citation

Lee Sorensen. "Vasari, Giorgio." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/vasarig/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Considered the first art historian and often referred to as the “father of art history”; architect and painter. Vasari was the son of Antonio Vasari (d. 1527), a potter [Vasari = “maker of vases”], and Maddelena Tacci (d. 1558). His family stemmed

Varnedoe, Kirk

Full Name: Varnedoe, Kirk

Other Names:

  • John Kirk Train Varnedoe

Gender: male

Date Born: 1946

Date Died: 2003

Place Born: Savannah, Chatham, GA, USA

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period) and painting (visual works)

Career(s): curators


Overview

Curator of Painting, Museum of Modern Art, 1988-2001, and Professor of the History of Art, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N. J. Varnedoe was the youngest of four children of wealthy Savannah stockbroker Samuel Lamartine Varnedoe and Lilla Train (Varnedoe). His grandfather, Gordon Saussy, had been mayor of Savannah during the depression. Varnedoe used his wealth to attend St. Andrews in Middletown, Delaware, and Williams College where in 1967, he received his A.B. His M.A. and Ph. D. were from Stanford University in 1970 and 1972. His dissertation, written under Albert E. Elsen focused on the drawings of Auguste Rodin. While researching the unpublished Rodin drawings at the Musée Rodin, Varnedoe’s work caught the interest of J. Carter Brown, Director of the National Gallery of Art. In 1971 Varnedoe launched the exhibition “Rodin Drawings True and False” (together with Elsen) at the Nation Gallery of Art at Brown’s invitation. Varnedoe taught History of Art as an assistant professor at Stanford University, 1973-74 and Columbia University, 1974-80. While teaching at Columbia, he curated the major Gustave Caillebotte retrospective at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts in 1976. In 1980 he was appointed associate professor at The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. During this time, Varnedoe inaugurated an exhibition of early modern Scandinavian art at the request of the Scandinavia Today committee. The show toured through the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery and the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts. Varnedoe advanced to full professor at NYU in 1984, a position he would hold until 1988. In 1983 he married the environmental artist Elyn Zimmerman (b. 1945). Varnedoe co-curated the problematic “Primitivism and Modern Art” blockbuster at the Museum of Modern Art with the museum’s Painting and Sculpture Director, William S. Rubin in 1984. Despite the show’s uneven reception, Rubin hired Varnedoe to be adjunct curator of the Department of Painting and Sculpture in 1985. Though Varnedoe’s shows, which included “Vienna 1900” (1986) were a success, Rubin’s choice of him as his successor as Director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture in 1989 caused a furor. Varnedoe had little experience in museum operations and a flamboyant public profile which worried museum staff that he was more showman than director. Perhaps because of the constraints on Varnedoe’s time at MoMA, his book production during these year was limited largely to reworking of the catalogs for his earlier shows. Gustave Caillebotte (1987), a critical catalog and biography, mirrored the 1976 Houston show. Northern Light: Nordic Art at the Turn of the Century, was a clear reworking of the 1982 Brooklyn exhibition. In 1984 Varnedoe was awarded a five-year MacArthur Fellowship, the result of which was a 1990 book of essays titled A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. The same year, Varnedoe launched his most unusual MoMA show together with former his former student (and now New York Times art critic) Adam Gopnik. High and Low: Modern Art and Popular Culture, a mixing of common objects with the art they inspired, once again met with mixed reception. In 1992, he was the Slade Professor at Oxford University, and the following year, as Mellon Professor at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. At MoMA, Varnedoe returned to the retrospective shows which both he and the museum did best. “Jasper Johns: A Retrospective” in 1996 and “Jackson Pollack,” 1998, provided the material for aesthetic and intellectual tour-de-force. In 2002,Varnedoe stepped down at MoMA (replaced by John Elderfield) to be the fourth professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 1996 Varnedoe was diagnosed with colon cancer, which he succumbed to seven years later. His students include Adam Gopnik.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Chronology and Authenticity in the Drawings of Auguste Rodin. Stanford University, 1972; and Elsen, Albert. The Drawings of Rodin. New York: Praeger Publishers 1971; Gustave Caillebotte: a Retrospective Exhibition, 1976-1977. Houston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1976; Jackson Pollock: New Approaches. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1999; Modern Art and Popular Culture: Readings in High & Low. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1990; Rodin: a Magnificent Obsession. New York: Rizzoli, 2001; Cy Twombly: a Retospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1994; A Fine Disregard: What Makes Modern Art Modern. New York: Abrams, 1990; Gustave Caillebotte. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987; Jasper Johns: a Retrospective. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1996; Northern Light: Realism and Symbolism in Scandinavian Painting, 1880-1910. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum, 1982; Northern Light: Nordic Art at the Turn of the Century. New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 1988; Vienna 1900: Art, Architecture & Design. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1986.


Sources

“Hooligan and a Gentleman.” Rugby Magazine February 2002, online archive http://www.rugbymag.com/archive/2002/february/kirk_varnedoe.htm; http://www.thirteen.org/bigideas/varnedoe; Kimmelman, Micheal. ‘Matisse Picasso’ Curator is Named to Major Post. New York Times Mar 14, 2003; sect E2, p.37; [obituaries:] Gopnik, Blake. “Kurt Varnedoe, Modern Art’s Athletic Mind.” The Washington Post, August 15, 2003, Section C, p.1; Kimmelman, Michael. “Kirk Varnedoe, 57, Curator Who Changed the Modern’s Collection and Thinking, Dies.” The New York Times, August 15, 2003, Section C p. 10.




Citation

"Varnedoe, Kirk." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/varnedoek/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Curator of Painting, Museum of Modern Art, 1988-2001, and Professor of the History of Art, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N. J. Varnedoe was the youngest of four children of wealthy Savannah stockbroker Samuel Lamartine Varnedoe and Li

Varchi, Benedotto

Full Name: Varchi, Benedotto

Gender: male

Date Born: 1503

Date Died: 1565

Home Country/ies: Italy


Overview

Storia fiorentina (1527-38) contains an art history.



Sources

KGK, 23




Citation

"Varchi, Benedotto." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/varchib/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Storia fiorentina (1527-38) contains an art history.

Vanuxem, Jacques

Full Name: Vanuxem, Jacques

Gender: male

Date Born: unknown

Date Died: unknown

Home Country/ies: France

Subject Area(s): Gothic (Medieval), painting (visual works), and portraits


Overview

Vanuxem was the first to investigate the history of the often-repeated theory that the kinds and queens on early gothic portals represent the rulers of France. His essay, Theories of Mabillon and Montfaucon, 1957, was a milestone in the study of the meaning of the statue-column (Branner).



Sources

“Alan Priest.” Chartres Cathedral: Norton Critical Studies in Art History.New York: W. W. Norton, 1969, p. 168.




Citation

"Vanuxem, Jacques." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/vanuxemj/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Vanuxem was the first to investigate the history of the often-repeated theory that the kinds and queens on early gothic portals represent the rulers of France. His essay, Theories of Mabillon and Montfaucon, 1957, was a milestone in the study of t

Vanbeselaere, Walther Jan Clemens

Full Name: Vanbeselaere, Walther Jan Clemens

Gender: male

Date Born: 1908

Date Died: 1988

Place Born: Zevekote, West Flanders, Flanders, Belgium

Place Died: Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium

Home Country/ies: Belgium

Career(s): art critics and curators


Overview

Chief curator Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten at Antwerp; art writer. Vanbeselaere grew up in Zevekote and Poperinge, and, from 1920, in Bruges, where he attended high school. He had a special interest in the drawing classes with Leon Lanckneus (1889-1968). Between 1926 and 1929 he studied art history and archaeology at Ghent University under August Vermeylen (1872-1945). Inspired and mentored by the latter, Vanbeselaere choose to specialize in art history instead of becoming a painter. During six months (1929-1930) he studied at the Kunsthistorisch Instituut of Utrecht University with a grant from the Vlaamse Wetenschappelijke Stichting (Flemish Scientific Foundation). In The Hague he met Van Gogh expert H. P. Bremmer. In 1934 he earned his doctoral degree at Ghent University with a dissertation on Vincent van Gogh’s Dutch period, De Hollandsche periode (1880-1885) in het werk van Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). The published version of his dissertation in 1937 criticized the 1928 catalog on Van Gogh by J.-B. de la Faille for its alleged lack of a scientific basis, and offered his book as a critical revision of De la Faille’s shortcomings. In 1934 he married Camilla van Hecke. He became a tutor in Ghent Koninklijk Atheneum (high school), a position which he held until 1941, although he spent considerable time abroad during that period. In 1936/1937, with a grant from the Belgian Research Council (Nationaal Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, NFWO), Vanbeselaere traveled in Italy, Germany and Austria for six months and another half year in Paris studying at the Sorbonne under Henri Focillon. In 1938, his former adviser, Vermeylen, gave him the opportunity to teach a class on nineteenth-century and contemporary art at the Hoger Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis en Oudheidkunde (Higher Institute for art history and archaeology) at his Alma Mater. A grant from the Foundation Prinses Marie-José brought him for another three-month stay to Italy. During the war mobilization in 1939 he was employed by the Belgian Army as a censor. In 1941, when the low countries were under Nazi control, Vermeylen lost his post at Ghent University to Vanbeselaere. As his successor, Vanbeselaere taught the history of European sculpture and painting from the Middle Ages up to the present. In 1944 he published his lectures on Bruegel, Pieter Bruegel en het Nederlandsche maniërisme. When Belgium was liberated in 1945, the university declared Vanbeselaere unworthy for his position, because of his conservative Flemish nationalistic sympathies and apparent Nazi complicity. In 1948, following an official rehabilitation, the Minister of Education appointed him curator and soon chief curator of the Antwerp Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, a position he held until his retirement in 1973. He broadened the collection with works of Belgian and Flemish artists, including James Ensor, Henri de Braekeleer, Jakob Smits and Constant Permeke. About 60 exhibitions were organized under his direction. In 1961 he published a survey on the history of Flemish painting, from realism to expressionism, De Vlaamse Schilderkunst van 1850 tot 1950, van Leys tot Permeke. After his retirement, Vanbeselaere continued publishing articles, essays, and books, including studies on Jakob Smits (1975) and Albert Servaes (1976 and 1979). With Christiane Buysse-Dhondt and Hans Redeker he coauthored, in 1979, De generatie van 1900 in Nederland en België.


Selected Bibliography

Gepts, G. “Walther Vanbeselaere: 25 jaar hoofdconservator” Jaarboek 1973 van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1973): 9-16; Fontier, F. “Walther Vanbeselaere: ‘De mensen leren zien en genieten'” VWS-Cahiers 24/4, 137 (1989): 14-16; De Hollandsche periode (1880-1885) in het werk van Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890). Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1937; Pieter Bruegel en het Nederlandsche maniërisme. Tielt: J. Lannoo, 1944; De Vlaamse Schilderkunst van 1850 tot 1950, van Leys tot Permeke. Brussels: De Arcade, 1961; and Buysse-Dhondt, Christiane and Redeker, Hans. De generatie van 1900 in Nederland en België. Venlo: Van Spijk, 1979.


Sources

[interview broadcasted January 15, 1970:] Florquin, Joos. “Ten Huize van Walther Vanbeselaere” Ten Huize van… 18. Leuven: Davidsfonds, 1982, pp. 295-342; Baudouin, F. “Dr. Walther Vanbeselaere (1908-1988): Een levensschets” Vlaanderen 37/4 (1988): 270-272; Fontier, F. “Walther Vanbeselaere: ‘De mensen leren zien en genieten'” VWS-Cahiers 24/4, 137 (1989): 1-16; idem “Vanbeselaere, Walther Jan Clemens, kunsthistoricus, hoofdconservator, schrijver” Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek 17 (2005) Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, pp. 646-650.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Vanbeselaere, Walther Jan Clemens." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/vanbeselaerew/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Chief curator Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten at Antwerp; art writer. Vanbeselaere grew up in Zevekote and Poperinge, and, from 1920, in Bruges, where he attended high school. He had a special interest in the drawing classes with Leon Lanckn

van Thiel, Pieter J. J.

Full Name: van Thiel, Pieter J. J.

Other Names:

  • Pieter J. J. van Thiel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1928

Date Died: 01 August 2012

Place Born: Haarlem, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): Dutch (culture or style) and painting (visual works)


Overview

Rembrandt Research Project co-founder. Van Thiel attended high school in Bloemendaal at the Jac. P. Thijsse Montessori-Lyceum. He graduated in 1950. Between 1952 and 1961 he studied art history at Amsterdam University under I. Q van Regteren Altena. He in addition headed the Amsterdam Lichtbeelden Instituut (Slides Institute), and subsequently, from 1961 to 1963, the department of photo documentation of the Institute of Art history of Utrecht University, where he held a research position. In 1964 his career as the head of the Department of Paintings at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum began. In 1975 he was appointed director, a position he held until 1991. Van Thiel also directed the restoration studio of the department. Between 1966 and 1991 Van Thiel was the editor of the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. In 1968 he co-founded the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP), together with Bob Haak, J. G. van Gelder, J. A. Emmens, Simon H. Levie, and Josua Bruyn. The project’s aim was a comprehensive study of all of Rembrandt’s paintings and resolving the uncertainties surrounding the authenticity of many paintings, to which several scholars had turned their attention. In 1969 he organized the Rembrandt commemoration exhibition in the Rijksmuseum. In that year, Van Thiel earned his doctoral degree from Utrecht University with a dissertation on painting and drawing in Haarlem, Vijf studies over Haarlemse schilder- en tekenkunst (Five studies in Haarlem Painting and Drawing). His advisor was E. K. J. Reznicek. His dissertation includes a study on Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem (1562-1638) as a draughtsman, and a provisional catalog of the drawings. The five studies were already separately published in various periodicals. Van Thiel joined the board of the periodical Oud Holland in 1971 (to 2002). In the Rijksmuseum his involvement with the collection and the study of the paintings resulted in a complete catalog, All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: a completely illustrated catalogue by the Department of Paintings of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. It was edited and published, in 1976, by Gary Schwartz. It includes an introductory essay on the history of the collection. More articles on the original history of the museum appeared in the early 1980s in the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. In 1984 he organized an exhibition on seventeenth-century picture frames in collaboration with C. J. de Bruyn Kops and others, Prijs de lijst: de Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw. In 1995, a further publication in English on this topic appeared, Framing in the Golden Age. His monograph on Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem appeared in 1999. The three volume A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, published in 1982, 1986, and 1989, provoked much debate and controversies in the art world. In 1993, the four senior members of the Rembrandt Research Project team, including Van Thiel, announced their withdrawal. They left the further organization of the project to Ernst van de Wetering (b. 1938), who was a participant in the project since its first research trips abroad. Van de Wetering advocated a different approach. In his view the system of rigorous classification of the paintings into three categories following the grades of approval, or disapproval, of their authenticity should be abandoned, and he intended to collaborate with a broader range of specialists.


Selected Bibliography

“Bibliografie dr. P. J. J. van Thiel” in Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39, 4 (1991): 350-354; [dissertation Utrecht University:] Vijf studies over Haarlemse schilder- en tekenkunst (Five studies in Haarlem Painting and Drawing). Rotterdam: Drukkerij Bronder-Offset, 1969; and others. All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: a completely illustrated catalogue by the Department of Paintings of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, Maarssen: G. Schwartz, 1976; and C. J. de Bruyn Kops. Prijs de lijst: de Hollandse schilderijlijst in de zeventiende eeuw. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1984; Bruyn, J. [et al.] A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings. 3 vols The Hague, Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982-1989; All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam First Supplement, 1976-91. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum, The Hague: SDU, 1992; Framing the Golden Age: Picture and Frame in 17th-century Holland. Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum/Zwolle: Waanders, 1995; Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, 1562-1638: a Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné. Doornspijk: Davaco Publishers, 1999; “De bijzondere iconografie van Rembrandts Bileam” Oud Holland 121, no 4 (2008): 197-214.


Sources

Van Os, H. W. “Bij het afscheid van dr. P. J. J. van Thiel” in Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39, 4 (1991): 347-349; “The Rembrandt Research project” The Burlington Magazine 135 (1993): 279, 764-765; Grasman, Edward. “The Rembrandt Research Project: reculer pour mieux sauter” Oud Holland 113 (1999, 3):153-160; “Dr. P. J. J. van Thiel, former director of paintings in the Rijksmuseum and member of the Rembrandt Research Project passes away” http://www.codart.nl/news/855/



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "van Thiel, Pieter J. J.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/thielp/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Rembrandt Research Project co-founder. Van Thiel attended high school in Bloemendaal at the Jac. P. Thijsse Montessori-Lyceum. He graduated in 1950. Between 1952 and 1961 he studied art history at Amsterdam University under

Van Schendel, Arthur F. É.

Full Name: Van Schendel, Arthur F. É.

Other Names:

  • Arthur François Émile Van Schendel

Gender: male

Date Born: 1910

Date Died: 1979

Place Born: Ede, Gelderland, Netherlands

Place Died: Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): museums (institutions)

Career(s): directors (administrators) and museum directors


Overview

Director-in-chief of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum (1959-1975). Van Schendel was named after his father, the Dutch novelist Arthur Van Schendel (1874-1946). At the age of ten, van Schendel moved with his parents to Italy. He attended the Gymnasium in Florence, and, in 1930, he went to Paris, to study art history at the Sorbonne. In 1933, he returned to the Netherlands, where he became a volunteer at the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, in the department of paintings. In 1936, he was appointed there as an assistant. At the same time, he worked on his doctoral dissertation. With a study on early Lombard drawings, Le dessin en Lombardie jusqu’à la fin du XVe siècle, he obtained, in 1938, his degree at the Sorbonne, under the supervision of Henri Focillon. He kept his post at the department of paintings in the Rijksmuseum, where he was active, just before and during the war, in evacuating and hiding away the works of art into various shelters. After the war, Van Schendel was appointed curator of the department of paintings. His appointment as director of the department followed in 1950. The preservation of works of art was among his main concerns. Various paintings were cleaned, restored and examined under his supervision, including Rembrandt’s Night Watch. Scientific research with X-rays and infrared photography of this painting were carried out in collaboration with the Belgian expert Paul Coremans. This study led to a publication in Oud Holland (1947), co-authored by van Schendel and the restorer, H. H. Mertens. The X-ray examination of another masterpiece, Rembrandt’s Governors of the Cloth Guild, also led to new insights in Rembrandt’s painting technique. In 1963, Van Schendel took the initiative to set up an independent laboratory in Amsterdam: Centraal Laboratorium voor Onderzoek van Voorwerpen van Kunst en Wetenschap. At the same time, he played a major role in international organizations in the fields of the conservation and restoration of works of art. Along with Coremans and others, he was active in the foundation, in 1950, of the London based International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (IIC). In 1959, he participated in the creation of the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, in Rome. During several years, between 1965 and 1971, he was the president of the International Council of Museums (ICOM). In his own museum, he obtained, in 1959, the position of director- in- chief, succeeding David Cornelis Röell. As director, he rarely found the time to do art historical research. One of his tasks was the completion of the renovation of the Rijksmuseum, began under Röell. The two inner courts of the museum were rebuilt with a view to providing accommodation for the departments of sculpture and applied arts, and of Dutch history. The rooms were designed by Dick Elffers (1910-1990). Van Schendel always argued for a sober, but attractive presentation of the works of art, in a quiet atmosphere. Under his directorship, the museum acquired a number of paintings by major Dutch artists, including a triptych by Lucas van Leyden, and landscapes by Aelbert Cuyp, and Philips Koninck. Another important purchase, in 1965, was The Holy Family by Night, at that time attributed to Rembrandt. A number of important exhibitions were organized. The 1968-1969 show on Italian frescos, first held in the Metropolitan Museum in New York and subsequently in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, included a number of frescos rescued after the 1966 flood in Florence. The 1969 exhibition commemorating Rembrandt’s death in 1669 attracted a record number of 460,000 visitors. Van Schendel retired in 1975. On this occasion, his colleagues offered him a special issue (23, 2 (1975) of the Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. Van Schendel was still active in various organizations, when he suddenly died at the age of 68.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation Paris:] Le dessin en Lombardie jusqu’à la fin du XVe siècle. Brussels, 1938; Breitner. Amsterdam, 1939; and Mertens, H.H. “De restauraties van Rembrandt’s Nachtwacht.” Oud Holland. 62 (1947): 1-52; “De schimmen van De Staalmeesters.” Oud Holland. 71 (1956): 1-23.


Sources

Boon, K.G. “Arthur van Schendel en zijn Rijksmuseum.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. 23, 2 (1975): 52-55; De Varine-Bohan, Hugues. “Le rayonnement international d’Arthur van Schendel.”/ “De internationale betekenis van Arthur van Schendel.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. 23, 2 (1975): 56-59; Elffers, Dick. “Van Schendel als bouwheer.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. 23, 2 (1975): 60-62; “Nieuws uit het Rijksmuseum.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. 23, 3 (1975): 195-196; Pieter J.J. van Thiel a.o. (eds.) All the Paintings of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: a completely illustrated catalogue, by the department of Paintings of the Rijksmuseum. Maarssen: G. Schwartz, 1976, pp. 41-47; Levie, S.H. “Ter nagedachtenis aan dr. A.F.E. van Schendel.” Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum. 27, 1 (1979): 3-6; Agnew, Geoffrey and Kingzett, Richard. “Obituary Arthur Van Schendel.” Apollo. 110 (July 1979): 86; De Vries, A.B. “Arthur van Schendel (1910-1979).” The Burlington Magazine. 121 (June 1979): 379-380; De Jong, A.A.M. in J. Charité (ed.) Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland. 2. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1985, pp. 496-498; Van der Ham, Gijs. 200 jaar Rijksmuseum. Geschiedenis van een nationaal symbool. Zwolle: Waanders, 2000, pp. 330-369.



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Van Schendel, Arthur F. É.." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/vanschendela/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Director-in-chief of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum (1959-1975). Van Schendel was named after his father, the Dutch novelist Arthur Van Schendel (1874-1946). At the age of ten, van Schendel moved with his parents to Italy. He attended the Gymnasium in

Van Os, Henk

Full Name: Van Os, Henk

Other Names:

  • Henk Van Os

Gender: male

Date Born: 28 February 1938

Place Born: Harderwijk, North Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Career(s): educators


Overview

Professor; museum director. Van Os studied history and art history at Groningen University between 1957 and 1964. From this university he received his doctor’s degree in 1969. His dissertation dealt with iconological problems in Sienese painting between 1300 and 1450. In 1974 he obtained the position of professor of the history of art and culture at Groningen University. From 1984 until 1989 he served as the Dean of the faculty of Letters. In 1989 he was appointed general director of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, a position he held until 1996. In that period he acted as host for his TV-program, Museumschatten (Museum Treasures). In 1994-1995 he organized the acclaimed exhibition “Gebed in schoonheid”, displaying art works of private devotion from 1300 to 1500. In 1996 he became professor at Amsterdam University, occupying the chair “Kunst en Samenleving” (Art and Society). He still holds this position today. Between 1996 and 2006 he hosted his weekly TV-program, Beeldenstorm.


Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Groningen, 1969, published in German as, Marias Demut und Verherrlichung in der sienesischen Malerei 1300-1450. The Hague: Staatsuitgeverij, 1969; The Early Venetian Paintings in Holland. Maarssen: G. Schwartz, 1978; and Bisanz-Prakken, Marian. The Florentine Paintings in Holland 1300-1500. Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers/Netherlands Institute for Art History, 1974; Sienese Paintings in Holland. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff, 1969; Vecchietta and the Sacristy of the Siena Hospital Church: a Study in Renaissance Religious Symbolism. New York: A. Schram, 1974; “Reassembling a Giovanni di Paolo triptych.” The Burlington Magazine 119 (1977): 191-192; “From Rome to Siena: the Altarpiece of San Stefano alle Lizza.” Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome 43, no. 8, (1981): 119 – 202; Studies in early Tuscan painting. London: Pindar, 1992; and Honée, Eugène, and Nieuwdorp, Hans, and Ridderbos, Bernhard. Gebed in schoonheid. Schatten van privé-devotie in Europa, 1300-1500. Zwolle: Waanders, 1994, English: The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, 1300-1500. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994; Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum, 1400-1600. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.


Sources

Redactie UvAweb, Universiteit van Amsterdam



Contributors: Monique Daniels


Citation

Monique Daniels. "Van Os, Henk." Dictionary of Art Historians (website). https://arthistorians.info/osh/.


More Resources

Search for materials by & about this art historian:

Professor; museum director. Van Os studied history and art history at Groningen University between 1957 and 1964. From this university he received his doctor’s degree in 1969. His dissertation dealt with iconological problems in Sienese painting b