J. M. Nash (1932–2013)

I was sixteen when I was first exposed to the glories of Dutch seventeenth-century art. Since then, my appreciation for its celebration of the quotidian has only grown. This book is a handy collection of representative examples of this period.
In addition to its 178 illustrations, 48 of them in color, there are just over forty pages of informative introductory text. In them, Nash offers insights into the political and social factors that laid the groundwork for this blossoming. I had never realized, for instance, that political independence from the Habsburgs and the loss of the predominance of a united Catholic church created a lack of traditional patrons for art (nobility, church). This, in turn, gave painters greater freedom in their subject matter and manner of expression.
The patriotic feeling of this new nation carried over to a celebration of their land as well as a depiction of daily life. Landscapes express the dominance of the horizontal: sea, sky, and earth.
Nash offers a description of the characteristic examples of each genre, but the chapter on Vermeer stands out. Nash’s prose goes beyond the descriptive and takes on poetic touches. I see that Nash went on to provide the text for a monograph on that artist, so perhaps Vermeer was already a specialty of his.
As the title indicates, Vermeer is presented alongside Rembrandt as one of the two most celebrated painters in that great age, although Jacob van Ruisdael could be ranked alongside them. Yet Nash also devotes attention to other masters such as Frans Hals, Jan Steen, and Hobbema. I particularly liked Nash’s discussion of how Sanraedam’s paintings of church interiors presented a radical departure from those that came before. In place of their emphasis on ritual and pomp, his interiors reflected the anti-iconographic aesthetic of the Reformed church, replacing it with new, contemplative art.
Nash gathers excerpts from what earlier generations of artists and critics (Reynolds, Constable, Delacroix, and others) have written about Dutch painting. The variety of responses shows how taste and standards change. The most notable outlier was Ruskin, whose underlying complaint was that he couldn’t `’feel” it.
The illustrations themselves are well-chosen, and their juxtaposition well-considered. Some are details only. For instance, one two-paged spread contrasts how different the treatment of hands could be.
The back matter of the book includes short biographies of the artists represented, perhaps less useful now, in the age of Wikipedia, than when the book appeared. Still, it is helpful to have these summaries from the viewpoint of one expert on the period. Handy is the listing of the paintings in the book arranged by museum. Great for checking in preparation for a visit to one of the museums.
Perhaps the final word that needs to be said about this book is that it was a product of Phaidon in the years when they were one of the leading publishers of art books. If you come across a copy in a used bookstore, grab it.… (plus d'informations)