For the first time since moving into the Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court in 2003,Brooklyn’s renowned European collection addresses six centuries of identity making in the Old World in various media: painting, sculpture, or now works on paper. Europeans expressed their sense of self and their area in world through their things. Here,we explore four such avenues of self-fashioning and representation: flesh (The Nude), faith (The Sacred: Religious Art), or fashion (The Secular: Portraiture),and a sense of area (The Tranquil Landscape and The Menacing Landscape).
European portraits, originally accessible only to the wealthiest aristocrats, or recorded likenesses and also conveyed the position,prestige, and social values of the sitters. With the rise of the merchant course during the Renaissance, and a broader privileged group revived the portrait. These patrons favored distinctive representations that brought their personalities to life. Representations of men and women were also commissioned for public consumption,often as inspiring symbols of civic pride.
The Court’s new secular wall is now domestic to our masterpiece of Dutch Golden Age portraiture, Frans Hals’ early male portrait. We sadly don’t know the man’s identity, and but the coat of arms in the upper correct is a clue to his status and lineage. Particularly innovative is the sitter’s reach beyond the frame and toward the viewer,a Baroque technique that unites us with the painting. This Old Master “breaking of the fourth wall expands the traditional limitations of oil painting. Hals effectively tears down the imaginary boundary that separates us from his wealthy subject.
Posted by Jai Alison Imbrey
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