Between Lely & Kneller
Lely died in 1680 and with his passing something of an
artistic power vacuum ensued: there were no immediately obvious candidates to
succeed him as a painter of fashionable beauties from wealthy social circles. The
first artist to succeed Lely, however, was the Italian decorator Antonio Verrio
who, along with another baroque ceiling painter, Louis Laguerre, was
immortalised in Alexander Pope’s description of their baroque excesses at
Hampton Court and other places.[1] After Verrio, John Riley, along with Kneller
was sworn in jointly as Chief Painter.[2]
Royal painter does not seem a suitable position for Riley as he took for his
inspiration life below stairs: the army of servants, domestics and retainers
who cleaned up after the powerful and prominent. Paintings such as The Scullion (Christchurch, Oxford) and
especially his portrait of Bridget Holmes (Royal Coll) which he imbues with a
gravitas and grandeur that seems slightly incongruous for this servant. In this
picture Riley seems to have effortlessly fused the Van Dyckian model with Dutch
matter-of-factness: the urn with classical relief and the draperies suggest the
grand manner; the broom recalls Dutch domesticity, and the features of the old
retainer herself put one in mind of kitchen maids in paintings like artists such
as Maes. The Dutch link is hardly surprising as Riley was trained by Soest, an
artist from Westphalia with Dutch parentage, the same continental background as
Lely. To complicate matters further, Soest was influenced by Dobson and was
active in England that he might be considered a member of the “English School.”
His portrait of the Bard of Avon which owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
merely underscores his integration into English painting and culture.[3]
In painting the English middle-classes, his pupil, Riley is equally successful;
his intimate, focused portrayal of Elias Ashmole is consummate. And sometimes Riley would collaborate on the
same portrait with John Closterman, a partnership (artistic and financial) that
began when Riley became chief painter. Inevitably,
the two painters quarrelled as this arrangement benefited Riley more than
Closterman who still distinguished himself with fine portraits of luminaries
like Sir Christopher Wren.
 |
| John Riley, Bridget Holmes, 1686, oil on canvas, 224.7 x 149 cm, Royal Collection. |
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| Gerard Soest, William Shakespeare, c. 1667, oil on canvas, 76.5 x 64.5 cm, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-Upon-Avon. |
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| Sir Godfrey Kneller, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 107 x 114 cm, Private Collection. |
 |
|
Ferdinand Bol, Self-Portrait, 1669, oil on
canvas, 127 x 102 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
|
 |
|
Sir Godfrey Kneller, Michael Alphonsus Shen
Fu-Tsung (d. 1691), 'The Chinese Convert', 1687, oil on canvas, 212.2 x 147.6
cm, Royal Collection.
|
Kneller, William III of Orange & the “Glorious
Revolution.”
At first the Catholic Verrio refused to work for the
Protestant William of Orange, but in any case it is Godfrey Kneller who is the
painter most connected with the constitutional monarchy of William and Mary.
Kneller was born in Lübeck of Dutch parentage; he was trained in Amsterdam by
Ferdinand Bol, one of Rembrandt’s earlier pupils; and then he worked in Italy
before moving onto England in the 1670s.[4]
There are some scholars who insist that Kneller was taught by Rembrandt
directly, but this cannot be substantiated.[5]
With the death of Lely in 1680, Kneller and Riley shared the position of Chief Painter
until the latter’s demise in 1691. Greatly patronised by William and Mary he
mainly painted the sovereigns, though he
also depicted members of the court and middle-classes too. Always with an eye
for the main chance, Kneller did well out of the royal portraits selling copies
in his studio at £50 each, and his portraits were obviously used in the
propaganda coups of the House of Orange. The most conspicuous coup happened on
the 1st November 1688, when Prince William of Orange, elected
Stadholder, embarked on a military invasion of the British Isles with no less than
five hundred ships. As Lisa Jardine points out, this invasion, and by
implication Dutch culture, has been edited out of English history. For those
like Jardine taking the trouble to investigate, there are several paintings
showing this mammoth embarkation which despite its republican and proto-Enlightenment
rationale was merely opportunistic regime change. William III continued to make
use of Kneller who accompanied his monarch to the Low Countries where the peace
treaty of Ryswick was signed. While baroque art was sweeping across Europe and
being imported into England by Rubens, and to a lesser extent Verrio and
Laguerre, the King’s painter tried to respond by producing his own brand of
baroque as in the massive equestrian portrait of William of Orange.[6]
This may function on a number of levels: it may be an allegory of William’s
landing at Torbay in 1688; it may signify the peace of Ryswick in 1697; and
finally, on a more mythological level, the allegorised portrait of William may
conceal poetic (chiefly Virgilian) references to the Golden Age ushered in by the
Stadtholder’s tremendous gamble of invading the British Isles and destabilising
the pro- Catholic/pro French government of James II.[7]
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| Europe after the Glorious Revolution (1688) Peace of Ryswick (1690). |
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| Unknown 17th Century Dutch Artist, Embarkation of William III, Prince of Orange, at Helvoetsluis, c. 1688-99, oil on canvas, Royal Collection. |
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| Sir Godfrey Kneller, William III (on horseback), 1701, oil on canvas, 444 x 428.4 cm, Royal Collection. |
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|
Sir Godfrey Kneller, Three studies for Neptune;
whole-length, seen from behind (?), standing in different positions, and
holding a staff in his left hand Pen and brown ink Verso: A nude male torso and
legs Pen and brown ink, British Museum, London.
|
Style, Class & Poetry in the Portraits of Godfrey
Kneller
Anyone wishing to track the changes in English society
during the late 17th and early 18th centuries could do
worse than studying the transition from Lely to Kneller (1646- 1723) whose
“reign” lasts from the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 to about 1725. Though the
usual caveats about reading social history out of portraits apply, shifts in
taste can be discerned, and taste undoubtedly is a barometer of different social
groups in English society. Lely’s portraits with their languid and sensuous
quality reflect an aristocracy at play, listlessness in Arcadia; Kneller’s
style is less yielding and more austere, perhaps indicating more severity, in
parallel with the classicism found in the literature of the time. [8] The more sombre style may also reflect the
fact that England was a monarchy in name only, unlike say the France of Louis
XIV whose portraits by Rigaud and Largillière are palpably sumptuous, thus conveying
the grandeur and hauteur of the French court although as Sewter notes, “the
close and smooth facture of the Frenchmen is replaced in Kneller by a broad and
free brushwork which visibly owes a debt to the great Dutchman, Frans Hals.[9]
Likening Kneller’s style to the heroic couplet of the Augustan poets, Sewter
claims a structure that is formal and balanced but permits within it variations
of pattern and tone. Wether this cross-pollination of art and letters reflects
the actual cultural situation remains a matter of speculation, but Kneller
painted the pantheon of Augustan poets, men of such impressive literary talent
as Alexander Pope and John Dryden. According
to Sewter, Kneller’s portrait of Dryden (NPG) epitomises the Knellerian
portrait whose aesthetic aims can be summarised as “a pattern of forms and
movements, each reduced to a rectilinear simplicity, each balanced by its
opposite, resulting in a perfect equilibrium.”[10]
The danger is that this could be turned into a formula that could be used to
cope with the rising tide of portrait commissions upon which Kneller’s
livelihood depended given the decline of other genres in this period. As Dryden
(who sat to Kneller twice) sarcastically observed: “You Only Paint to Live, not
Live to Paint.”[11]
 |
| Sir Godfrey Kneller, Alexander Pope crowned with Ivy, c. 1721, oil on canvas, 28.27 x 22.9 in), Yale Centre for British Art. |
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| E. Hanell Dyer, Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), oil on canvas, Royal Military School of Music, London. |
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| Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Dryden, 1693, oil on canvas, 49 in. x 39 3/4 in, National Portrait Gallery, London. |
 |
|
Sir Godfrey Kneller, Jacob Tonson I, 1717, oil
on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London.
|
A Portrait of Science: Newton & Christiaan Huygens.
As Lisa Jardine states, the picture she paints in Going Dutch of the intellectual exchange
of ideas between England and the United Provinces provides a “clear context for
the history of science.”[12]
Where the history of science and visual art overlap, particularly in relation
to the “Age of Kneller” is in the portraits of scientists, natural philosophers
and thinkers that he and others painted. Perhaps the most famous scientific
likeness is that of the greatest English scientist of all time, Sir Isaac
Newton painted by Kneller about four times.[13] Newton emerged from his sheltered academic
life in 1687, the year his Principia
Mathematica was in press, and the year before the embarkation of William
III whose imminent incursion met with the approval of the Protestant scientist of
Cambridge University who was suspicious of James II’s attempts to introduce
people into Cambridge who would not take the oath of the established Church.[14]
Another scientist not as visible to posterity as Newton was the son of Constantine
Huygens, Christiaan. His significance to Newton is that Christiaan was sought
as a person who could advance Newton’s career.[15]
Not enamoured of London, Christiaan
Huygens returned to The Hague at the end of August 1690, but the two scientists
continued to correspond while his brother Constantine Jr stayed in England to serve
William and Mary while Newton became Master of the Royal Mint and one of the
brightest stars in the scientific firmament. Brilliant, but mercurial and prone to
depression, Christiaan eventually took up a salaried position at the Académie
Royale des Sciences in Paris, although when his health finally collapsed, he
was obliged to retire to his father’s estate- “Hofwijk” which means “house with
a garden.”[16] Amongst Christiaan’s many discoveries and
accomplishments in a glittering scientific career was the startling discovery
of Saturn’s rings, laid out in his Systema
Saturnium (1659). His portrait was painted many times by such Anglo-Dutch
artists as Adriaen Hanneman, Caspar Netscher, and Bernard Valliant, though not
by Kneller and co.[17]
Christiaan died at Hofwijk in 1695, eight years after his father.
 |
| Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir Isaac Newton, 1689, oil on canvas, 29 3/4 in. x 24 1/2 in. National Portrait Gallery, London. |
 |
|
Sir James Thornhill, Sir Isaac Newton, 1709-12,
Oil on canvas, Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire.
|
 |
| Caspar Netscher, Christiaan Huygens, 1671, oil on paper mounted on panel, Collection Haags Historisch Museum, The Hague, on loan at the Boerhaave museum, Leiden. |
 |
| Christiaan Huygens, diagram from Systema Saturnium, 1659. |
 |
|
Engraved prospect and plans of Huygen’s Hofwijk
from the published version of the long poem of the same name.
|
Embattled at Sea: Anglo-Dutch Marine Painting.
The word “embattled” here can be taken in a punning sense as
the marine genre has had to fight hard for the attention of contemporary art
historians. However, historians know the value of marine painting, especially
during the period of the Anglo-Dutch wars in which heroes like Michiel
Adriaensz de Ruyter distinguished themselves. In his splendid portrait by
Kneller’s mentor Ferdinand Bol, Ruyter is shown on the deck of one his ships
with the Dutch navy in the harbour behind.[18]
But it is the Van der Velde clan who are most associated with painting the sea
and its ships, Willem van der Velde the Elder (1611- 1693) who was employed
from the time of the first Anglo-Dutch war. For inducements unknown, Willem
changed sides, came to England with his son Willem van der Velde the Younger
(1633-1707); both father and son were given official appointments in 1674 and
were provided with a studio in the Queen’s House at Greenwich. Van der Velde
Senior’s “penpaintings" were neither painting nor drawing, a hybrid form,
usually executed in a combination of pen, ink and brush over a thin layer of
lead white below which a neutral ground covering an oak panel.”[19]
Though Young Van der Velde undoubtedly learnt from his father how to reproduce
ships on the sea with precision, he was also interested in the many moods that
the marine painting could evoke, particularly “tranquil marine painting” of
which he was absolute master.[20]
In the words of Ellis Waterhouse, Van der Velde the Younger had a “landsman’s
sense of the picturesque.”[21]
The influence of the Van der Velde is seen in the pictures of such home-grown
artists as Samuel Scott, though it is optimistic to state that the Van der
Veldes created a “school” of marine painting in England. Scott gradually
relinquished marine painting for views of London, inspired by Canaletto.
 |
| Ferdinand Bol, Portrait of Admiral Michiel Adriaansz de Ruyter, 1667, Oil on canvas, 238 x 157 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. |
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| Willem van der Velde the Elder, The Battle of Livorno, c. 1654, pen and ink on white prepared ground, 114 x 160 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. |
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|
|
 |
|
Willem van der Velde the Younger, Ships near the Coast, oil
on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
|
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| Samuel Scott, A Danish Timber Bark Getting Underway, 1736, oil on canvas, 2273 x 2184 mm National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. |
Slides.
1) John Riley, Bridget Holmes, 1686, oil on canvas, 224.7 x 149 cm, Royal Collection
2) Nicolas Maes, The Idle Servant, 1655, Oil on panel, 70 x 53 cm, National Gallery, London
3) John Riley, A Scullion of Oxford, after 1682, oil on canvas, 99. 7 x 60.5 cm, Christchurch, Oxford.
4) John Riley, Elias Ashmole, 1687, oil on canvas, 74 x 60 cm, Ashmoleon Museum, Oxford University.
5) John Riley & John Closterman, Dorothy Mason (1665–1699/1700), Lady Brownlow, 1685, oil on canvas, 250 x 152 cm, National Trust.
6) John Closterman, Sir Christopher Wren, 1690, oil on canvas, 143.3 x 121.4 cm, Royal Society.
7) Gerard Soest, William Shakespeare, c. 1667, oil on canvas, 76.5 x 64.5 cm, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-Upon-Avon.
8) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Self-Portrait, 1685, oil on canvas, 29 3/4 in. x 24 3/4 in feigned oval, National Portrait Gallery, London.
9) Ferdinand Bol, Self-Portrait, 1669, oil on canvas, 127 x 102 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
10) Same in frame in Rijksmuseum.
11) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Self-Portrait, oil on canvas, 107 x 114 cm, Private Collection.
12) Rembrandt, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
13) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir Christopher Wren, 1711, oil on canvas, 124.5 x 100. 3 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London.
14) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Michael Alphonsus Shen Fu-Tsung (d. 1691), 'The Chinese Convert', 1687, oil on canvas, 212.2 x 147.6 cm, Royal Collection.
15) Unknown 17th Century Dutch Artist, Embarkation of William III, Prince of Orange, at Helvoetsluis, c. 1688-99, oil on canvas, Royal Collection.
16) Map of Europe after the Peace of Ryswick, 1700.
17) Sir Godfrey Kneller, William III (on horseback), 1701, oil on canvas, 444 x 428.4 cm, Royal Collection.
18) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Three studies for Neptune; whole-length, seen from behind (?), standing in different positions, and holding a staff in his left hand Pen and brown ink Verso: A nude male torso and legs Pen and brown ink, British Museum, London.
19) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Jacob Tonson I, 1717, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London.
20) Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1706, oil on canvas, 36 1/2 in. x 29 in, National Portrait Gallery, London.
21) E. Hanell Dyer, Sir Godfrey Kneller (1646-1723), oil on canvas, Royal Military School of Music, London.
22) Sir Godfrey Kneller, John Dryden, 1693, oil on canvas, 49 in. x 39 3/4 in, National Portrait Gallery, London.
23) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Alexander Pope crowned with Ivy, c. 1721, oil on canvas, 28.27 x 22.9 in), Yale Centre for British Art.
24) Sir Godfrey Kneller, Sir Isaac Newton, 1689, oil on canvas, 29 3/4 in. x 24 1/2 in. National Portrait Gallery, London.
25) Double shot showing the image flipped horizontally.[22]
26) Sir James Thornhill, Sir Isaac Newton, 1709-12, Oil on canvas, Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire.
27) Caspar Netscher, Christiaan Huygens, 1671, oil on paper mounted on panel, Collection Haags Historisch Museum, The Hague, on loan at the Boerhaave museum, Leiden.
28) Christiaan Huygens, diagram from Systema Saturnum, 1659.
29) Engraved prospect and plans of Huygen’s Hofwijk from the published version of the long poem of the same name.
30) Ferdinand Bol, Portrait of Admiral Michiel Adriaansz de Ruyter, 1667, Oil on canvas, 238 x 157 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
31) Jan Abrahamsz. Beerstraten, The Battle of Terheide, 1653-166, oil on canvas, 176cm × w 281.5cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
32) Jan van Leyden, The Dutch burn English Ships during the Chatham Expedition, 20th June, 1667, (Raid on the Medway), 1667-69, oil on canvas, 93 x 156.5 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
33) Willem van der Velde, The Battle of Livorno, c. 1654, pen and ink on white prepared ground, 114 x 160 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
34) Willem van der Velde the Younger, The Cannon Shot, c. 1670, Oil on canvas, 78,5 x 67 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
35) Willem van der Velde, Ships near the Coast, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
36) Willem van der Velde, The Taking of the English Flagship the Royal Prince, 1666, Oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
37) Unknown Artist, Portrait of Samuel Scott, 1725, oil on canvas, 61.2 x 50.8 cm, National Portrait Gallery, London.
38) Samuel Scott, A Danish Timber Bark Getting Underway, 1736, oil on canvas, 2273 x 2184 mm National Maritime Museum, Greenwich.[23]
[1] Moral Essays, Epistle IV: “On painted
ceilings you devoutly stare/where sprawl the Saints of Verrio and Laguerre/On
gilded clouds in fair expansion lie/ and bring all Paradise before your eye.”
[2]
Verrio heralds the “Italian invasion” of artists like Ricci and Pellegrini in
Britain which is outlined in Ellis Waterhouse’s Painting and Britain, 129-133.
[4] On
Rembrandt and Bol, Rembrandt: The Master
and his Workshop, 322- 332.
[5] James
A. Winn sees the influence of Rembrandt’s Aristotle
contemplating the Bust of Homer in one of Kneller’s early self-portraits: “Creativity
on Several Ocassions” in Concepts of Creativity in Seventeenth-Century England
[6]
Kneller had more chances to paint history subjects during the Glorious
Revolution though most of them came to nothing like a projected cycle for the
Long Gallery at Blenheim, James A. Winn, “Creativity on Several Ocassions” in
Concepts of Creativity in Seventeenth-Century England
[7]
For a discussion of the equestrian portrait and its allegories, J. D. Stewart,
“William III and Sir Godfrey Kneller” in JWCI, Vol. 33 (1970), 330-336. A
drawing in the British Museum associated with this composition has been seen by
Stewart as evidence of Kneller’s knowledge of Rembrandt’s graphic style, though
wether Kneller was actually taught by Rembrandt has not been verified, 333. For
drawing, link;
and for painting, link.
[8] On
style, taste and social structure – as mediated through portraiture- see A. C.
Sewter, “Kneller and the English Augustan Portrait,” Burlington Magazine, Vol. 77, No. 451 (Oct. 1940), 106-115, 106.
[9] Sewter,
“Kneller,” 109.
[10] Sewter,
“Kneller,” 109.
[11] “To
Sir Godfrey Kneller”. Cited in Winn, “Creativity on Several Ocassions” in
Concepts of Creativity in Seventeenth-Century England
[12]
Jardine, Going Dutch, 264.
[13]
According to A. Rupert Hall, Newton was painted about seventeen times by famous
artists. Kneller painted Newton four times: 1689, 1702, 1720, 1722. Other
artists included Sir James Thornhill (once) and John Vanderbank twice. Then
there were various engravings, Isaac Newton:
Adventurer in Thought, (Cambridge University Press), 387f.
[14] For
Newton’s religious beliefs, personality quirks and a psychological portrait, Anthony
Storr, “Isaac Newton,” British Medical
Journal, Vol. 129, No. 6511, (Dec 21-28), (1985), 1779-1784
[15] Jardine,
Going Dutch, 312.
[16] Jardine,
Going Dutch, 213.
[18]
From the Rijksmuseum website: “The 17th-century naval hero Michiel Adriaensz de
Ruyter, born in Vlissingen, came from a modest background. He went to sea at
the age of eleven, and quickly worked his way up to skipper. While still a
seaman, in 1622 De Ruyter escaped from Spanish captivity. In these years he not
only served the war fleet, but also captained merchant ships.De Ruyter took
part as commander in the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1652. Both countries were
fighting for dominion over the sea. De Ruyter booked many great successes, was
appointed vice-admiral and remained active in the struggle against England.
Under his command, in 1667 a spectacular raid was launched against the ships,
docks and warehouses in Chatham, east of London on the Medway River. The pride
of the English fleet, HMS Royal Charles, was also captured. The famous admiral suffered
serious injuries during a naval encounter with the French off the coast of
Sicily in 1676 and succumbed to his wounds one week later. A tomb in the Nieuwe
Kerk in Amsterdam marks the place where De Ruyter is buried.
[19]
Thanks to Maaike Dirkx for this information. She goes on to say: “According to
a contemporary special care was required with the preparations of the panel
because of Van de Velde’s unusual technique: it was necessary to allow the
ground to dry for a longer than normal: two to three months, “since otherwise
the ground would not have hardened sufficiently to withstand the sharpness of
the quill.”
[20]
Elis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain,
152.
[21] Elis
Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 152.
[22]
The portrait painter, Gareth Hawker makes this interesting comment. “I think
Kneller has added to any haughtiness in his subject by getting him to turn away
from the viewer and then swivel his eyes back to check the viewer knows he has
been spurned. A common pose with Kneller for some reason. In the attached I
flipped the body horizontally, so making the pose a bit more like what one
might expect from, say, Sir Joshua Reynolds.”
[23]
From NMM website: “A ship-rigged cat-bark is shown on the right, with her
anchors raised and making sail in very calm conditions. She is a Danish trading
vessel flying their flag from the stern. Such ships were immensely strong and
used to carry large tonnages such as wood. She is distinguishable by the lack
of a figurehead at a time when even humble craft carried some form of
decoration on the bow. The men on the deck appear very small in scale to
emphasise the dimensions of the ship. The crew of the small boat are either
hauling up the bark's anchor with the aid of a davit in the stern, or possibly
shifting it in order to kedge her forward given the lack of wind. The deck of
the bark is crowded with men heaving on halyards and making ropes fast, while
high above them half a dozen sailors are perched on the yards loosening the
sails. Piles of timber unloaded from the bark are shown on a barge to the left
with its identifying number '472' clearly visible. Such details assert the
concern of the painting to demonstrate the importance of trade and this is
underscored by the inclusion of the other shipping, such as the craft on the
right, which is flying the Dutch flag. The action takes place near the mouth of
a river and is probably set in the Thames near Gravesend. Although the painting
is believed to be one of a pair with BHC1039 and intended to be positioned over
a door, no evidence exists to support this other than the fact that both
canvases are the same size and were acquired together. Scott belonged to the
first generation of British marine painters, who worked in the tradition of the
van de Veldes and the other Dutch artists who came to practice in London from
the 1670s. His reputation chiefly rests on his topographical views of London
but he was a very good marine painter, who accepted commissions like this and
whose artistic and social skills eclipsed - at least in business terms- those
of his slightly earlier contemporary Peter Monamy. He was notably averse to
travelling by sea himself but produced many small drawings and watercolours to
be incorporated later as details into his oils, such as men rowing and
unloading boats, and often drew his ships from models.” Link
