Buchumschlag
Success and chance in Dutch art literature (1604-1752):
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Beteilige Person: Kolfin, Elmer 1969- (VerfasserIn)
Format: Paper
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: 2022
Schlagwörter:
Mander, Karel van > 1548-1606
Hoogstraten, Samuel van > 1627-1678
Gool, Jan van > 1685-1763
Houbraken, Arnold > 1660-1719
Geschichte 1600-1760
Maler
Erfolg
Mobilität
Zufall
Mäzenatentum
Netzwerk
Niederlande
Abstract:The idea that chance plays a role in a person’s life seems trivial nowadays. Yet early-modern Dutch writers on the lives of painters did not see it this way at all. Despite all the attention that recent socioeconomic art historiography has paid to routes to success, the structural focus of early-modern writers on the role played by chance in the pursuit of painterly success has not previously been noted. The painter-authors Karel van Mander, Samuel van Hoogstraten, Arnold Houbraken and Johan van Gool, whose texts are analysed in this article, reveal that chance was perceived as a dominant force that artists had either to exploit or to resist. This article discusses which instruments these practical men believed were available to artists. It shows how and why faith in the efficacy of these instruments gradually eroded and how the writers went about supporting their arguments. As the seventeenth century progressed, chance and patronage were mentioned in the same breath. Securing a patron was viewed as the best guarantee against the vagaries of fate, which ruled an open art market that had been in decline since the third quarter of the century. Achieving success was thus considered to be primarily a social matter too, a conclusion consistent with recent theoretical formation in sociology and network science on the subject of artistic success.
Finding patrons required a special set of social skills, a willingness to travel and a readiness to change painting styles. Whether or not this social talent was available, however, was itself regarded as a matter of chance, while patronage was seen as fickle. To mitigate this, the painter-authors sought to instruct artists on how to become adept networkers, and patrons on how to be reliable and knowledgeable partners. In this way, they and their books did their bit for the greater glory of art within the never-ending struggle to ward off misfortune and to attract good fortune. A struggle which, in their view, constituted the life of artists.
Umfang:Illustrationen
ISSN:0030-672X

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