V

Valentiner, Wilhelm Rheinhold Otto

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Valentiner, Wilhelm Rheinhold Otto

Other Names:

W. R. Valentiner

Gender: male

Date Born: 02 May 1880

Date Died: 06 September 1958

Place Born: Karlsruhe, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: Germany

Subject Area(s): American (North American)

Overview

American Museum director responsible for development of major American collections; founder of the journals Art in America and Art Quarterly. Valentiner’s father, Wilhelm Valentiner (1845-1931) was director of the astronomical observatory and professor of astronomy at the university in Heidelberg and his mother, Anna Lepsius Valentiner (1848-1919) the daughter of Carl Richard Lepsius, (1810-1884) curator of Egyptology at the Berlin Museum. His mother developed mental illness soon after his birth and he and his brother were raised by a Lutheran minister in Strebbach, Baden. He attended the Gymnasium in Eisenberg, before entering the University in Leipzig. Visiting the 1902 Netherlands Exhibition in Brussels, he became interested in the Flemish “primitives.” It was only as a graduate student at Heidelberg, however, that he settled upon art history, after taking courses with Henry Thode. Valentiner’s close friends at Heidelberg who went on to become important art historians included Edwin Redslob and Hermann Voss. While as Thode’s teaching assistant, he met the somewhat older Eberhard Freiherr von Bodenhausen, already a lawyer, who asked Valentiner to tutor him. Valentiner and Bodenhausen both took courses in modern art under Carl Neumann who instilled an appreciation for modern art, i.e., Impressionism and the Jugendstil, which Thode disparaged. Thode intoduced Valentiner to the Rembrandt scholar Cornelis Hofstede de Groot, who was a visiting professor at Heidelberg. Valentiner wrote his dissertation on Rembrandt, spurred by the availability of photographic images in the recently published volume by Wilhelm Bode. The publication of Valentiner’s dissertation, Rembrandt und seine Umgebung (1904), brought him to Bode’s attention. Hofstede commissioned Valentiner to compile catalogue raisonné of the work of Jan Steen. Bode hired Valentiner in 1906 as his personal assistant at the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in Berlin. seeing to it that Valentiner worked in all the departments of the museum and prepared him for art museum administration. When J. P. Morgan, then President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, asked Bode for a recommendation for curator of the newly created position of Decorative Arts, Bode recommended Valentiner. Valentiner joined the Met in 1908 and set about removing plaster casts and rehanging the collection along historic rather than simply aesthetic lines. In 1913 he founded the journal Art in America (remaining its editor until 1931). In 1914 when Germany declared War in Europe, Valentiner returned to Germany, enlisted as a private, and was assigned the Expressionist painter Franz Marc as his sergeant. In 1919, he joined the Novembergruppe advocating the opening art collections to the public, a position that put him at odds with Bode. His participation in the November Group led to his meeting and writing about the German Expressionist artists Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Georg Kolbe. From Germany he advised the Detroit Institute of Arts on acquisitions. He returned to the United States in 1921 to catalog he Widener collection at the Metropolitan. He launched the first American exhibition of German Expressionism at the Anderson Galleries, New York, in 1923. The following year Valentiner was appointed director of the Detroit Institute of Art. Valentiner’s tenure at Detroit included acquisitions of Pre-Columbian and African art, the first American museum to do so. In 1927 a new building was opened. He became a United States citizen in 1930. Valentiner engaged Diego Rivera to paint the murals of the Detroit Institute, the communist artist’s work created a controversy. During the Depression, when the city lacked enough money for his salary, Valentiner returned to Germany for 16 months beginning in 1934. He testified in the 1935 tax case of Andrew Mellon, resulting in the founding of the National Gallery. Valentiner founded the Art Quarterly for the College Art Association in 1937 (and was its editor until 1949). He was Director General for the “Masterpieces of Art” exhibition of the 1939 Chicago World’s Fair. He retired from the Detroit Institute of Art in 1944, moving to New York city. By 1946 Valentiner was Co-Director of the Los Angeles county Museum purchasing art and organizing exhibition for that museum, hiring his colleague Paul Wescher. For the 1949 show on Leonardo da Vinci, Valentiner commissioned models of machinery done from Leonardo drawings. These were subsequently purchased by IBM for a traveling show. In 1951 the North Carolina legislature founded a state art museum, prescribing him as art expert. Valentiner retired from the L. A. County museum in 1953 and the following year was called to develop and direct the J. Paul Getty Museum in Santa Monica. In 1955 he retired a second time, from the Getty, living briefly in Italy. He returned to the United States to become the director of the North Carolina Museum of Art the same year. He hired James B. Byrnes to be his associate director in 1956. In 1958 he organized the seminal E. L. Kirchner show in Raleigh, the first American show devoted to this artist. After a brief trip to Europe, he died in New York. At his death, Valentiner left his personal art collection to the museums he served: Detroit, the North Carolina Museum of Art, and expressionist paintings in Cleveland he had “left in charge” under its director, Sherman E. Lee. Subsequent litagation by his widow forced a number of the donated works to be returned to her, which she sold, and, in the cases of the German Expressionist pieces, returning to museums in Germany that had discarded them under Hitler. Valentiner’s body was cremated and per his will, his ashes, “scattered to the wind.” Valentiner brought German apparatus of art scholarship to American museology in the years before the German diaspora of World War II. Although he anglicized his given name, he insisted on the German pronunciation (Valen•teen•er). The German art historian Elizabeth. Valentiner is no relation.

Selected Bibliography

[dissertation:] Rembrandt und seine Umgebung, Heidelberg, 1904; with Hofstede de Groot, Cornelius, and Hirschmann, O., and Stechow, Wolfgang and Bauch, Kurt. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke den hervorragendsten Holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts: nach dem Muster John Smith’s Catalogue Raisonné. 10 vols. Esslingen am Neckar: Paul Neff Verlag: 1907-1928, English, Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch Painters of the Seventeenth Century: Based on the Work of John Smith. 8 vols. (volumes 9 and 10 remained untranslated). Translated and edited by Edward G. Hawkes. London: Macmillan, 1907-27; Aus der niederländischen Kunst. Berlin: B. Cassirer, 1914, English, The Art of the Low Countries. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1914; E. L. Kirchner, German Expressionist: a Loan Exhibition. Raleigh, NC: The North Carolina Museum of Art, 1958.

Sources

Bazin, Germain. Histoire de l’histoire de l’art; de Vasari à nos jours. Paris: Albin Michel, 1986, p. 498; Barnes, James B. “Preface.” Masterpieces of Art: In Memory of W. R. Valentiner, 1880-1958. Raleigh, NC: North Carolina Museum of Art, 1959, pp. xv-xxvi, and “Chronology.” pp. 1-4; Sterne, Margaret Heiden. The Passionate Eye: the Life of William R. Valentiner. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1980; Tomkins, Calvin. Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1970, p. 188.

American Museum director responsible for development of major American collections; founder of the journals Art in America and Art Quarterly. Valentiner’s father, Wilhelm Valentiner (1845-1931) was director of the astronomical ob

van Bercham, Max

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: van Bercham, Max

Gender: male

Date Born: 1863

Date Died: 1921

Home Country/ies: Switzerland

Institution(s): Universität Leipzig

Overview

Selected Bibliography

Van de Waal, Henri

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Van de Waal, Henri

Other Names:

Henri van de Waal

Gender: male

Date Born: 03 March 1910

Date Died: 07 May 1972

Place Born: Rotterdam, South Holland, Netherlands

Place Died: Leiden, South Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): iconography

Overview

Professor of art history; founder of Iconclass. Van de Waal was the son of Elias van de Waal, a goldsmith, and Henriette Seckel. The young Van de Waal attended high school at the Rotterdam Gymnasium Erasmianum. In 1929 he began studying Dutch language and literature at the University of Leiden. From 1932 onwards he in addition studied history of art. After his graduation, in 1934, he was appointed assistant of the Prentenkabinet (print room) at Leiden University. In 1939 he married Liliane Dufresne. He earned his doctor’s degree in 1940, also at Leiden, with a dissertation on seventeenth-century representations in Dutch art of the Batavian revolt against the Romans, Zeventiende-eeuwsche uitbeeldingen van den Bataafschen Opstand. The first three chapters were published in 1940. An expanded version of his dissertation was ready for publication in 1942, but the set type was damaged during the war. In November 1940 Van de Waal, being Jewish, lost his position at the Leiden Prentenkabinet under the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. In 1941 his monograph on Jan van Goyen appeared. From March 1943 until March 1945, he was interned in the camps of Barneveld and Westerbork, along with a great number of Dutch Jews, many of whom were subsequently transferred to the camps in the East. Van de Waal eventually regained his freedom, but his health was badly affected for the rest of his life. During this period he nevertheless was able to translate in Dutch Les maîtres d’autrefois (1876) by Eugène Fromentin, De meesters van weleer (published in 1951). After the war, In June 1945, Van de Waal returned to the Prentenkabinet, now as its director. In December he in addition was appointed professor extraordinarius of Art History at Leiden University, as the successor of Wilhelm Martin. In his 1946 inaugural lecture, Traditie en Bezieling (Tradition and Inspiration) he pleaded for an iconological approach of the history of art. In August of the same year Van de Waal was appointed professor ordinarius, a position he held until the end of his life. Van de Waal also was active in several organizations, such as the association for esthetic education in secondary schools (VÆVO). Between 1947 and 1956 he served as the editor in chief of the Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond. The expanded version of his dissertation eventually was published in 1952: Drie eeuwen vaderlandsche geschied-uitbeelding, 1500-1800. Een iconologische studie. The study and classification of images retained his interest throughout his life. In the early 1950s he designed an iconographic classification system that was first applied in the Decimal Index of the Art of the Low Countries (DIAL), a photo cards publication of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague. The system became known as Iconclass. In his capacity as director of the Prentenkabinet, he re-arranged the print collection. With the acquisition in 1953 of the so-called “Fotografisch Museum” of August Grégoire, he founded in Leiden the department of the history of photography. In 1957 he was elected a member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen. In the same year he purchased 5,800 drawings of the northern and southern Netherlands collected by Dr. A. Welcker. He further broadened the Prentenkabinet collection in 1968 and 1969. An abridged version of the DIAL/Iconclass system was published in 1968. In 1970 M. Muller Massis donated his photographic collection to the department of the history of photography. He died suddenly in 1972. After Van de Waal’s death Iconclass was continued and published by L. D. Couprie, E. Tholen and others (1973-1985). Van de Waal published several articles on Rembrandt, which were bundled posthumously in 1974, Steps towards Rembrandt. Collected articles 1937-1972. Van de Waal was an eloquent teacher, but feared by many of his students. He encouraged them to recognize craftsmanship as the basis of art and expected them to be fully engaged and interested. Van de Waal taught his students to look consciously and attentively at the art work, paying attention to its content, form and function. His Drie eeuwen vaderlandsche geschied-uitbeelding examines Dutch historical iconography of the sixteenth to the eighteenth century in relation to religion, literature, social history, philosophy etc. Essential in his view of visual art was the existence of iconographic groups, constituted by representations thematically related to each other. Jan Białostocki, described Van de Waal in 1971 as “one of the masters of the study of images.” Horst Gerson called van de Waal an “eloquent and brilliant teacher” who encouraged his pupils to recognize workmanship, rather than merely gathering knowledge about works of art.

Selected Bibliography

[complete bibliography:] Tholen, E. “Lijst van publikaties van H. van de Waal (tot 1 januari 1970)”, in L. D. Couprie and others (eds.) Opstellen voor H. van de Waal. Aangeboden door leerlingen en medewerkers 3 maart 1970. Amsterdam: Scheltema & Holkema/Leiden: Universitaire Pers [1970]: 241-243; “Publicaties van H. Van de Waal” in Henri van de Waal. Bundel ter gelegenheid van zijn honderdste geboortedag. Leiden: Coördesign, 2010, p. 61-65; [dissertation:] Zeventiende-eeuwsche uitbeeldingen van den Bataafschen Opstand. Leiden, 1940; Traditie en Bezieling. Rede uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van buitengewoon hoogleraar in de kunstgeschiedenis aan de Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden op 22 maart 1946 door Dr. H. Van de Waal. Rotterdam-Antwerp: Ad. Donker, 1946. Reprint in Henri van de Waal. Bundel ter gelegenheid van zijn honderdste geboortedag. Leiden: Coördesign, 2010; Jan van Goyen. Amsterdam: Becht, 1941; Drie eeuwen vaderlandsche geschied-uitbeelding 1500-1800. Een iconologische studie. 2 vols. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1952; Decimal Index of the Art of the Low Countries D.I.A.L. Abridged edition of the Iconclass System. The Hague: Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, 1968; [posthumous editions:] Iconclass: an iconographic classification system. Completed and edited by L. D. Couprie, E. Tholen et al. 17 vols. Amsterdam: North Holland, 1973-1985; Fuchs, R. H. (ed.) Steps towards Rembrandt: Collected articles 1937-1972. Amsterdam-London: North Holland, 1974.

Sources

[review:] Bialostocky, Jan. “H. van de Waal, Drie eeuwen vaderlandsche geschied-uitbeelding, 1500-1800: een iconologische studie.” The Art Bulletin, 53 (1971): 262-265; Tholen, E. “Beknopte geschiedenis van het Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden”. Oude Tekeningen van het Prentenkabinet der Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, Amsterdam: Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, 1985: 9-14 (mentioned); Ekkart, R. E. O. “Waal, Henri (Hans) van de” Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland, 3, The Hague, 1989, p. 642-644; Beilmann, Mechthild. “Hans van de Waal (1910-1972)” in Dilly, Heinrich (ed.) Altmeister moderner Kunstgeschichte. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1990: 204-219 (see also p.14); Boom, M. “Apologie van de fotografie. Prof. Dr. H. Van de Waals essentiële rol in de vorming van Nederlands eerste publieke foto-collectie in het Prentenkabinet (1953-1972)” in Heijbroek, J.F., Ekkart, R. E. O., and Bolten, J. (eds.) Het Leidse Prentenkabinet. De geschiedenis van de verzamelingen. (Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 9) Baarn: de Prom, 1994: 323-344; Sluijter, Eric Jan. “Traditie en bezieling: Henri van de Waal (1910-1972)” in Hecht, Peter, Hoogenboom, Annemieke, and Stolwijk, Chris (eds.) in Kunstgeschiedenis in Nederland. Negen opstellen. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1998: 145-168; Ekkart, Rudi, and Bavelaar, Hestia, and Couprie, Leendert, and Fuchs, Rudi, and Van de Waal, André. Henri van de Waal. Bundel ter gelegenheid van zijn honderdste geboortedag. Leiden: Coördesign, 2010; [obituaries:] Dresden, S. “Hans van de Waal, Rotterdam 3 maart 1910 – Leiden 7 mei 1972” Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde 1972-1973: 234-243; Fuchs, R.H. “Henri van de Waal, 1910-1972” Simiolus 6, 1 (1972-1973): 4-7; Terwen, J. J. “In Memoriam Prof. Dr. H. van de Waal 3 maart 1910 – 7 mei 1972” Nieuwsbulletin van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 6 (1972): 71-72; Gerson, Horst. “Herdenking van Hans van de Waal (3 maart 1910 – 7 mei 1972)” Jaarboek 1972 Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Amsterdam: B.V. Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1973: 166-180; Lunsingh Scheurleer, Th. H. “In memoriam prof. dr. H. van de Waal” Acta et Agenda. Informatie- en opinieblad van de Leidse Universiteit 4 (1971-1972), nr. 33 (May 11, 1972): 497.

Contributors: Monique Daniels

van der Grinten, Evert F.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: van der Grinten, Evert F.

Gender: male

Date Born: 1920

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period)

Overview

1962 professor of Modern Art at University of Nijmegan.

Selected Bibliography

Enqiries into the Historyof Art-Historical Writing. Amsterdam: Municipal University, 1952.Elements of Art Historiography in Medieval Texts: An Analytic Study. Translated by D. Aalders. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969.

Sources

KRG, 89 mentioned

1962 professor of Modern Art at University of Nijmegan.

Van Dyke, John C.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Van Dyke, John C.

Other Names:

John Charles Van Dyke

Gender: male

Date Born: 1856

Date Died: 1932

Place Born: New Brunswick, Middlesex, NJ, USA

Place Died: New York, NY, USA

Home Country/ies: United States

Career(s): art critics and librarians

Overview

Art critic, librarian and first professor of art historian at Rutgers University. Van Dyke’s father, also John van Dyke (1807-1878), was a congressman and supreme court justice of New Jersey, and his mother, Mary Dix Strong, was the daughter of Rutgers mathematician Theodore Strong (1790-1869). His cousin was Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933), the minister, diplomat, and professor at Princeton University. In 1868 the family moved to Minnesota, then just emerging from frontier status. Van Dyke entered Columbia Law School and was admitted to the bar in 1877, although he never practiced. In 1878 he moved back to New Brunswick, first serving as assistant librarian of the Gardner A. Sage Library, New Brunswick Theological Seminary, and in 1886 as librarian. At the library, Van Dyke began research art personally and writing criticism. He was a frequent contributor to the Century Magazine beginning in 1884. He was appointed lecturer of modern art at Rutgers College in 1889, and from 1891 to 1929 the first professor of the history of art there. In 1902 his collected essays on the wood-engraver Timothy Cole (1852-1931), with whom he had worked on other books, were published in Old English Masters. Van Dyke traveled widely in Europe to produce his books of art criticism/travelogue. Because of a chronic breathing ailment, Van Dyke toured the American Southwest, where he wrote the first novel to praise the beauty of America’s arid expanses, The Desert, published in 1901. His literary writing, including The Opal Sea (1906), The Mountain (1916), was appreciated more by English literary critics than the American reading public for their restraint yet evocative images. While traveling in Europe at the outbreak of World War I, he narrowly escaped a German attack by advancing troops. That same year, 1914, twelve volumes by Van Dyke appeared in the New Guides to Old Masters series. Though not an immediate success, they portrayed his strong sensibilities of visual analysis. In 1923, Van Dyke followed this with his most controversial art book, Rembrandt and His School. At a time when Rembrandt’s autograph work had been acclaimed to be over 600 pictures by Rembrandt experts such as Cornelis Hofstede de Groot and Wilhelm Rheinhold Otto Valentiner, Van Dyke used his visual acumen to declare only fifty or so to be by the master. Although his number has proven too low by modern analysis, Van Dyke was among the first to declare the modern conclusion that much of Rembrandt’s traditional body of work was in fact painted by his competent students and followers. Van Dyke remained unmarried but fathered one child, Clare Van Dyke Parr. His caricature as “Ned Van Alstyne” features in the book House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. He was a close friend of Andrew Carnegie, co-authoring Carnegie’s autobiography abdadvising him on art purchases. He died of cancer at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City. His papers are housed at The University of Arizona, Princeton University and the Art Institute of Chicago. Van Dyke’s appeal as an art critic and art historian was his spare prose style and critical analysis free of eccentric rhetoric typical of the American art community of the time. Van Dyke’s keen eye was admired by Princeton art historian Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., who wrote that he, “possessed…an extraordinary acuteness of vision that tended to be microscopic,…[seeing] immediately, in pictures, features that are generally unnoticed, small repaints, subtle differences of style or handling.”

Selected Bibliography

and Tonner, William T. Timothy Cole: Memorial Exhibition. Philadelphia: The Print Club of Philadelphia, 1931; [engravings by Timothy Cole] Old Dutch and Flemish Masters. London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895; [engravings by Timothy Cole] Old English Masters. London: Macmillan, 1902; Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1920; Ramblings Among Art Centres. Philadelphia: The Booklovers Library,1901; American Painting and its Tradition as Represented by Inness, Wyant, Martin, Homer, La Farge, Whistler, Chase, Alexander, Sargent. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1919; How to Judge of a Picture: Familiar Talks in the Gallery with Uncritical Lovers of Art. Cincinnati: Eaton & Mains, 1889; Art for Art’s sake: Seven University Lectures on the Technical Beauties of Painting. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1893.

Sources

Teague, David W. and Wild, Peter. “Introduction.” The Secret Life of John C. Van Dyke: Selected Letters. Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1997, pp. 3-27; Wild, Peter. John C. Van Dyke: An Essay and a Bibliography. The University of Arizona Library Special Collections Mongraphs, 2001, pp. 11-29; Mather, Frank Jewett. “John C. Van Dyke.” Dictionary of American Biography. American Council of Learned Societies, 1928-1936; The Autobiography of John C. Van Dyke: a Personal Narrative of American Life, 1861-1931. Peter Wild, ed. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1993.

van Eynden, Roeland

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: van Eynden, Roeland

Gender: male

Date Born: 1747

Date Died: 1819

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Overview

Coauthor of lexicon of artists, Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw. Van Eynden was trained as a painter, but never worked professionally. He published a treatise on drawing and painting of the Dutch school, the Nationalen smaak der Hollandsche school in de teken- en schilderkunst in 1787. He was a member of Pictura, a drawing society based in Dordrecht. He met Adriaan van der Willigen (1766-1841) in 1814 when the latter published a request in the Algemeene konst- en letterbode for research assistance in a major project: a history of artists living in the Netherlands from the middle of the eighteenth century to his time. Van Eynden was among those who reponded and subsequently became the coauthor of the project. Both Van Eynden and Van der Willigen were involved in Dutch cultural life, and were members of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Instituut. Their work, the Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw, a four-volume history with engraved illustrations, is conceived as a sequel to earlier artists’ biographies such as those written by Karel Van Mander, Arnold Houbraken and Johan Van Gool. The Geschiedenis goes back to the sixteenth century and includes sculptors, engravers, and architects as well as painters. Van Eynden provided most of the content of the first volume, which appeared in 1816, setting in chronological order artists not mentioned in previous artists’ biographies. The second volume, 1817, addressed the lives of painters already mentioned in Van Gool’s 1750-51 Nieuwe Schouburg, continuing with artists born after that date. Volume two was largely written by Van der Willigen as Van Eynden was already in poor health. He died in 1819. Van der Willigen went on to complete a third volume (1820) of biographies of contemporary artists, and information on art collections, cabinets, art schools, academies, exhibitions etc., and a fourth, 1840, as an appendix. The Geschiedenis provides information on more than 1500 artists and art collectors. The authors deliberately refrained from writing slanderous anecdotes, characteristic of earlier artists’ biographies. Van Eynden and Van der Willigen had access to excellent libraries; they searched archives and gathered information firsthand. They primarily focused on the Dutch school, but, when, in 1815, the southern Netherlands were united with the northern Netherlands under King Willem I, Flemish artists were also added. A 1997 index (Register) by Ton Geerts was added, making the book still a useful reference work on the history of Netherlandish art.

Selected Bibliography

and Van der Willigen, Adriaan. Geschiedenis der vaderlandse schilderkunst, sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw. 4 vols. Haarlem: A. Loosjes Pz., 1816-1840.

Sources

Geerts, Ton. Register op Roeland van Eynden en Adriaan van der Willigen – Geschiedenis der vaderlandsche schilderkunst sedert de helft der XVIII eeuw . Leiden: Primavera pers, 1997; Hoogenboom, Annemieke. De stand des kunstenaars. De positie van kunstschilders in Nederland in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw. Leiden: Primavera Pers, 1993, pp. 51-72.

Contributors: Monique Daniels

Van Gelder, H. E.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Van Gelder, H. E.

Other Names:

Hendrik Enno Van Gelder

Gender: male

Date Born: 1876

Date Died: 1960

Place Born: Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands

Place Died: The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Career(s): archivists and researchers

Overview

Archivist and Museum Director. Van Gelder attended the Gymnasium at Amsterdam. Between 1895 and 1899, he studied Law and Political Science at the University of Amsterdam, obtaining his doctorate in 1899. As a young socialist he admired William Morris (1834-1896) whose arts-and-crafts movement fought the tide of mass production. Between 1900 and 1906 van Gelder worked as archivist in Alkmaar, and the same position between 1906 and 1923 in The Hague, where he reorganized the municipal archives. In 1912 he became the director of the Municipal Museum of The Hague where he reorganized and modernized the installations, reducing the number of objects in order to highlight the objects with an esthetical value. Van Gelder joined the association concerned with the condition of museums and their reform, Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond, acting as its secretary between 1908 and 1913. In 1918 the association published the report Over hervorming en beheer onzer musea (On the Reform and Management of Our Museums). This discussion continued in the Rapport der Rijkscommissie van advies inzake reorganisatie van het museumwezen hier te lande (Report of the State Advisory Commission on the Reorganization of Museum Affairs in this Country), which appeared in 1921. Van Gelder was also a member of this Commission, along with the art historian F. Schmidt-Degener and twenty other specialists. In The Hague Van Gelder also headed, from 1918 onwards, the new Municipal Service for Arts and Sciences. Inspired by Benjamin Ives Gilman‘s book Museum Ideals of Purpose and Method (1918, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston), van Gelder launched an initiative to build a new cultural center and museum in the Hague in 1919. He selected the eminent Dutch architect H.P. Berlage (1856-1934) who designed it in collaboration with van Gelder. Though financial constraints forced Berlage to submit a more modest plan, the new museum was completed between 1931 and 1935. Van Gelder used the new museum to implement his views of museology, based on the Advisory Commission’s reorganization recommendations. Chief among them was the heightened aesthetic education of the visitors. Van Gelder held that the museum should be a place where the public–including young people–could behold beauty and develop aesthetic sensibilities. Borrowing the progressive policies of Hamburg Kunsthalle director Alfred Lichtwark, Van Gelder appointed museum guides (docents) to educate high school students in the museum’s art. In 1950, he became the chair of a commission for the promotion of museum visits by young people and the broader public. Besides his work as a museum director, van Gelder did historical and art historical research. Between 1913 and 1960 he was a member of the editorial board of Oud Holland, in which periodical he regularly published, as well as in the Bulletin van de Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond and Jaarboek Die Haghe. His breadth of research interests was great, publishing particularly in the areas of painting and crafts, including old silver, glassware and pottery. He wrote a monograph on Rembrandt that appeared in six installments in the Palet series, later appearing as a book in 1956. Van Gelder also collaborated on surveys on Netherlandish art with other authors. He was the editor of Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden, first published in 1936, followed by several revised editions. The first edition of his Guide to Dutch Art appeared in 1952, and the Dutch version was published in 1955: Gids voor Beeldende Kunst en Bouwkunst. Van Gelder’s realization of the Municipal Museum of The Hague is considered as his most important contribution to art history and to the development of museum policy. His son also became an art historian, J. G. van Gelder.

Selected Bibliography

and Schmidt-Degener, F. Quarante chefs-d’oeuvre de Jan Steen. Paris: G. Crès, [1929]; and Berlage, H.P. Le nouveau Museé de la Haye Mouseion 13-14 (1931): 104-109; Le nouveau museé municipal de la Haye Mouseion 33-34 (1936): 145-160; Hoe kunnen onze musea beter dienstbaar worden gemaakt aan de opvoeding van het publiek? (Rede op de Museumdag, 27 oktober 1951) Bulletin van de Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond (1951): kol. 133-148; Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden; samenvattende kunstgeschiedenis van Nederland en Vlaanderen van begin tot heden Utrecht: W. de Haan, 1936; and Duverger, Jozef Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden van de Middeleeuwen tot onze tijd. Utrecht: W. de Haan, 1954-56; and Stubbe, Achilles Kunstgeschiedenis der Nederlanden, VI. Zeventiende-eeuwse schilderkunst, Zeist-Antwerpen: W. de Haan – Standaard Boekhandel, 1964. For a complete list, see: Feestbundel van Oud-Holland: 4-34, mentioned above; Oud Holland 70 (1955) appendix: 1-8; Alkmaarse opstellen [Alkmaar, 1961].

Sources

Albarda, J.W. . van Gelder vijf en zeventig jaar Het Vrije Volk, 14-2-1951; Mededelingen Gemeentemuseum Den Haag 11, 1 (1956); Van Eeghen, Chr. P. H.E. van Gelder Economische-Historisch Jaarboek 28 (1958-1960): 292-297; Byvanck, A.W. In Memoriam Dr. H.E. van Gelder. 13 februari 1876 – 24 juni 1960 Nieuws-Bulletin Koninklijke Nederlandse Oudheidkundige Bond 13 (1960): kol. 157-164; Mol, W. Die Haghe (1960): XI-XVI; Van Regteren Altena, J.Q. In Memoriam Dr. H.E. van Gelder Oud Holland 75 (1960): 2-4; Wijsenbeek, L.J.F. Jaarboek van de Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde te Leiden 1963-1964. Levensberichten: 42-46; Singelenberg, P. Het Haags Gemeentemuseum Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 25 (1974): 1-89 [with English summary]; Meijers, Debora, J. De democratisering van schoonheid. Plannen voor museumvernieuwingen in Nederland 1918-1921 Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 28 (1977): 55-104 [with English summary]; De Jong, A.A.M. in Charité J. (ed.) Biografisch woordenboek van Nederland 1. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1979: 193-194; Kultermann, Udo, The History of Art History. New York: Abaris, 1993, p. 194. Feestbundel van Oud-Holland Aangeboden aan Dr. H.E. van Gelder (Amsterdam, 1946)

Contributors: Monique Daniels

van Gelder, J. G.

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: van Gelder, J. G.

Other Names:

Jan Gerrit van Gelder

Gender: male

Date Born: 1903

Date Died: 1980

Place Born: Alkmaar, North Holland, Netherlands

Place Died: Utrecht, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Overview

Professor of Art History at Utrecht University. Jan Gerrit van Gelder was the son of H. E. Van Gelder, archivist of The Hague. He attended the Hague Gymnasium and between 1923 and 1927 he studied art history at the University of Utrecht. Early in 1924 he was appointed to Rotterdam’s Boymans Museum. As keeper in the Print Room he acquired a great acumen for drawings and prints. In 1933 he received his doctorate with a dissertation on Jan van de Velde: Jan van de Velde, 1593-1641, teekenaar-schilder. His adviser was the eminent Willem Vogelsang, the first full professor of Art History in the Netherlands. In 1936 he became a privaatdocent at Art History at Leiden University, and, in 1940, director of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague. Immediately after the War (1945-1946) he served briefly as director of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, succeeding Wilhelm Martin. At the Mauritshuis he organized the first post-war exhibitions: Nederlandsche kunst van de XVde en XVIde eeuw and Herwonnen Kunstbezit (Recovered Art from the War). He then succeeded Vogelsang as Professor of Art History at Utrecht University. Under his direction, the Institute of Art History expanded to become an internationally known institution. New professorships were created in architecture (Murk Daniël Ozinga) and Iconography and Early Christian Art (G. J. Hoogewerff) At the invitation of Erwin Panofsky van Gelder spent the 1953-1954 academic year at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. When Hoogewerff departed the Utrecht Institute, van Gelder replaced him with William S. Heckscher, naming the latter Professor in Iconography and Early Medieval Art. Others he appointed during this time included Henk Schulte Nordholt. In 1959 van Gelder and Heckscher obtained a copy of the prestigious Index of Christian Art for Utrecht. A devoted and inspiring teacher van Gelder attracted numerous students, supervising dissertations topics ranging from renaissance to contemporary art. Under van Gelder, the Institute became a visiting place for scholars from abroad, particularly the United States. Between 1946 and 1976 Van Gelder was an active member of the editorial board of Oud Holland and was instrumental in establishing the Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek (1947) and Simiolus (1966). That same year, van Gelder left the Institute to become the Director of the Centrum voor Voortgezet Kunsthistorisch Onderzoek (Center for advanced art historical research). Van Gelder had made a plea in 1970 for a more scholarly reconstruction of Rembrandt’s patrons. This was largely ignored in the art history community in favor of connoisseurship and attribution models, except for his most famous pupil, Gary Schwartz, who based his career on a study of Rembrandt’s patronage. Van Gelder remained Center until his retirement in 1973, when the Center itself was closed. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, his friends in art history dedicated to him an Album Amicorum. Van Gelder continued to do art historical research. For six years he also took part in the discussions of the team of the Rembrandt Research Project, which was launched in the late sixties. Van Gelder is known for employing a social history approach in his research. Although he studied already well-researched artists such as Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dyck, Adam Elsheimer, Aelbert Cuyp and Jan van Scorel, he eschewed the “attribution, style and iconographic analysis” prevalently applied to them for a more rigorous understanding of their social context. His wife, Ingrid Jost, assisted him in many of his publications. They jointly studied the work and life of amateur draftsman and engraver Jan de Bisschop (1628-1671). Jan de Bisschop copied numerous series of antiquities and drawings, and published his etchings in two series: Icones and Paradigmata. Van Gelder’s first publication on this artist dates back to 1955. In 1969, van Gelder decided to publish a new edition with help from his wife. However, the work was still unfinished at the time of their deaths in 1980 and 1981 and the manuscript was completed by Keith Andrews. Van Gelder’s approach, mainly in the field of sixteenth- and seventeenth- century Dutch drawing and painting, is often innovative and revisionist of traditional views. As early as 1946, in his inaugural lecture, he criticized Panofsky’s method of the use of iconology, which van Gelder considered put too much emphasis on the symbolic content of the work of art, neglecting its formal aspects. He argued that the work of art needed to be studied in its own right, as a unity of form and content.

Selected Bibliography

[For complete bibliographies, see Verwey E. in Album Discipulorum, 187-205; Album Amicorum, p. 361-364; In Memoriam J.G. van Gelder (1903-1980), p. 69-76.] Jan van de Velde, 1593-1641, teekenaar-schilder. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1933; “De verhouding van de kunstgeschiedenis tot de andere wetenschappen” Oudheidkundig Jaarboek, 1941: 53-58; Kunstgeschiedenis en Kunst, The Hague, 1946; Van Gelder, Jan G. and Jost, Ingrid Jan de Bisschop and his Icones & Paradigmata. Classical Antiquities and Italian Drawings for Artistic Instruction in Seventeenth Century Holland. Edited by Keith Andrews. Doornspijk: Davaco, 1985; Dutch Drawings and Prints. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1959; and Emmens, J. A. De schilderkunst van Jan Vermeer : een voordracht. Utrecht: Kunsthistorisch Instituut, 1958; Vincent Van Gogh: the Potato Eaters, in the Collection of V. W. Van Gogh, Amsterdam. London: P. Lund, Humphries, 1947.

Sources

Bruyn, J and De Jongh, E. (eds.) In Memoriam J.G. van Gelder 1903-1980. Utrecht: Uitgegeven door de stichting Vrienden van het Kunsthistorisch Instituut in samenwerking met de Vakgroep Kunstgeschiedenis van de Rikjsuniversiteit Utrecht, 1982; Ekkart, R.E.O. “Jan Gerrit van Gelder” in J. Charité (ed.) Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland 3 (1989): 187-188; Stolwijk, Chris ‘Die wetenschap noemen Gij en ik kunstgeschiedenis ‘ Denken over kunstgeschiedenis in Nederland: J.G. van Gelder (1903-1980). Steenwijk: Van Kerkvoorde & Hollander, 1991; Stolwijk, Chris “J.G.van Gelder (1903-1980)” in Hecht, Peter; Hoogenboom, Annemieke; Stolwijk, Chris (eds.) Kunstgeschiedenis in Nederland. Negen opstellen. Amsterdam: Prometheus, 1998: 127-143; [Van Gelder is also mentioned in Blotkamp, Carel “Kunstgeschiedenis en moderne kunst: een lange aanloop” ibidem: 89-104, 99-100.]; Album Discipulorum, aangeboden aan Professor Dr. J.G. van Gelder, ter gelegenheid van zijn zestigste verjaardag, 27 Februari 1963. Utrecht: Dekker & Gumbert, 1963; Album Amicorum J.G. van Gelder. Edited by Bruyn, J; Emmens, J.A.; De Jongh, E; Snoep, D.P. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973; Stolwijk, Chris. “J.G. van Gelder en de plaats van de kunstgeschiedenis” Kunstlicht 14, 1 (1993): 15-18; Snyder, James. “Above All, He Pleased his Patrons.” [Review of Gary Schwartz’s Rembrandt]. New York Times Book Review March 9, 1986, Section 7: 9, 11.

Contributors: Lee Sorensen and Monique Daniels

Van Gool, Johan

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Van Gool, Johan

Gender: male

Date Born: 1685

Date Died: 1763

Place Born: The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Place Died: The Hague, South Holland, Netherlands

Home Country/ies: Netherlands

Subject Area(s): biography (general genre) and painting (visual works)

Overview

Artists’ biographer; painter. Van Gool was a minor painter of landscapes with cattle. He was trained as a painter with Simon van der Does (1653-1718). At the age of eighteen, he joined the Academy in The Hague where he took life drawing classes. At this institution, he served as a regent for many years. In his sixties, he wrote a collection of artists’ biographies, meant as an improvement on and a sequel to De Groote Schouburgh by Arnold Houbraken, who, in his turn, was inspired by the Schilder-boeck of Karel Van Mander. Unlike these biographers who were both writer and painter, Van Gool had little formal education. The two-volume Nieuwe Schouburg, his only important publication, appeared in 1750-1751. The biographies are interrupted with verses written by himself and others, and illustrated with engraved portraits of various painters. The book gives factual information on the lives, education, and the works of Netherlandish painters born between 1630 and 1725. It also includes the history of the Academy of The Hague. Van Gool was concerned with the level of training of young artists. Like Houbraken, he regretted the decline of contemporary Dutch art. By immortalizing successful painters, particularly those of the seventeenth century, he wanted to encourage young artists to emulate them and, in doing so, to restore the glory of Dutch art. In a moralizing way, he saw the success of an artist as directly linked to his training and life style. His observations as an art critic, however, were forthright and independent. He regularly visited auction sales and art collections and acted as intermediary in the art market. At the same time, however, he complained that many art dealers specializing in high prized old art instead of contemporary art were unreliable. In his eyes the art market did not offer young artists sufficient opportunities to earn their livelihood and to build up a career. This was the main reason for what he saw as the decline of the art of his time. His criticism caused a conflict, expressed in a number of bitter pamphlets, between himself and art dealer Gerard Hoet, jr. (d. 1760).

Selected Bibliography

Van Gool, Johan. De Nieuwe Schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen: Waer in de Levens- en Kunstbedryven der tans levende en reets overleedene Schilders, die van Houbraken, noch eenig ander schryver, zyn aengeteekend, verhaelt worden. The Hague: privately printed, 1750-1751; Antwoordt op den zoo genaemden brief aan een vrient. (Reply to the so-called letter to a friend) The Hague, 1752/3. [Pamphlets by] Hoet, Gerard. Brief aan een’ vrient. (Letter to a friend) The Hague, 1751; Catalogus of naamlijst van schilderyen. The Hague, 1752, i, pp. vii-xii; Aanmerkingen op het eerste en tweede deel des ‘Nieuwen schouburgs’. (Comments on the first and second volumes of the ‘Nieuwe schouburg’) The Hague, 1753?

Sources

Van der AA, A. J. Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden 3. Haarlem: J.J. van Brederode, 1852, p. 88; K. L. Gool, Jan van. Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler 14 (1921): 392; De Vries, Lyckle. Diamante gedenkzuilen en leerzaeme voorbeelden: een bespreking van Johan van Gool’s Nieuwe Schouburg. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1990 [incl. facs. of pamphlets exchanged between Hoet and Gool]; De Vries, Lyckle. Gool, Jan [Johan] van. Dictionary of Art 13 (1996): 2-3.

Contributors: Monique Daniels

Vaernewyck, Marc van

November 8, 2023March 29, 2024

Full Name: Vaernewyck, Marc van

Other Names:

Marc van Vaernewyck

Gender: male

Date Born: 1518

Date Died: 1569

Place Born: Ghent, East Flanders, Flanders, Belgium

Place Died: Ghent, East Flanders, Flanders, Belgium

Home Country/ies: Belgium

Subject Area(s): biography (general genre), Flemish (culture or style), historiographers, historiography, painting (visual works), religious history, and sixteenth century (dates CE)

Overview

Painter; early diarist and chronicler of Flemish artistic life. Vaernewyck was raised a Catholic and remained one his life. He was placed in charged of the guard investigating religious beliefs of expatriates and the Ghent citizenry alike. In 1560 he published Vlaemsche audvremdigheyt, a Flemish history written as poetry. He further held various government positions, including administrator of the charity house (1563), city councilman (1564), and controller for the grain exchange (depot) in 1566. In 1568, he published Den spieghel der Nederlandscher audtheyt (The Mirror of Netherlandish Antiquity) a work mixing fantasy and Flemish history together. It remained continually in print until 1829. Vaernewyck also left a diary, written between 1566 and 1568, which mentions the iconoclasm fervor and the destruction of works of art in Ghent and the of the Flemish people by the Duke of Alba and the Spanish after the abortive attack on Spanish forces by Prince William I of Orange-Nassau in 1568. Although historically inaccurate in a myriad of ways, the concluding chapters of Den spieghel der Nederlandscher audtheyt discuss Ghent and its art. This and his diary provide primary source documentation for an understanding of Flemish culture in Ghent during the religious rebellions.

Selected Bibliography

Den spieghel der Nederlandscher audtheyt. Ghent, 1568; [subsequent editions appear as:] Die historie van Belgis, diemen anders namen mach, den spieghel der Nederlantscher audtheyt: waer inne men zien mach als in eenen clare[m] spieghel, [etc.] Ghent: By de weduwe van Gheeraert van Salenson, 1574.

Sources

van Miegroet, Hans. Vaernewijck, Marcus van” Dictionary of Art; Ridderbos, Bernhard. “From Waagen to Friedländer.” in, Early Netherlandish Paintings: Rediscovery, Reception, Research. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005, p. 218; Thieme-Becker

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