Spaightwood Galleries

After the Spanish victory in the southern provinces of what used to be Burgundy during the civil wars / rebellion of the late 16th century and the early 17th century, the Jesuits began building churches and commissioning art in an attempt to confirm the faith of Catholics living in what would later become Belgium and to overwhelm the senses of Protestants so that they might be the more easily converted to Catholicism. But unlike the Catholic south, the Protestant north seems to have been more tolerant of what and how their artists made. By the beginning of the 17th century, Bloemaert was the leading master in Utrecht. He was a prolific draftsman who executed over 1500 drawings, many of which served as models for prints. A recent 2-volume study of Bloemaert by Marcel Georges Roethlisberger, Abraham Bloemaert and His Sons (Doornspiijk: Davaco Publisher, 1993), argues that we should try to see him as his contemporaries saw him: as the foremost master of Utrecht, his stature comparable to that of his contemporaries Hendrick Goltzius and Cornelis van Haarlem. Bloemaert painted at least 200 paintings and designed over 625 prints that were engraved by such masters as Jacon Matham, Jan Saenredam, Schelte a Bolswert, and his sons Cornelis and Frederick Bloemaert. During his career of over 60 years, he moved from mannerist works in the style of Spranger and the school of Haarlem to a realist approach, a Caravaggesque interlude, a stint at court art, and a final classicizing style. He treated a multitude of themes from the Old and New Testament, altarpieces, mythological works, landscapes, and genre pieces, with important contributions in each field. A fervent Catholic with Jesuit ties, he is the chief representative of Dutch Catholic art. For a brief and more accessible introduction, also see Marcel G. Roethlisberger and Sally Metzler, Abraham Bloemaert (1566-1651) and his Time (St Petersburg, Florida: Museum of Fine Arts, 2001).