Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface: Approaches to a Multifaceted Master
- Prolog: Samuel van Hoogstraten and the Golden Age of Dutch Art, Literature, and Science: The Present Book and Future Research
- Chapter 1 Van Hoogstraten's Theory of Theory of Art
- Chapter 2 Paradoxical Passages: The Work of Framing in the Art of Samuel van Hoogstraten
- Chapter 3 The Young Samuel van Hoogstraten, Corrected by Rembrandt
- Chapter 4 “Zwierich van sprong”: Samuel van Hoogstraten's Night Watch
- Chapter 5 Samuel van Hoogstraten's Personal Letter-Rack Paintings: Tributes with a Message
- Chapter 6 A Pledge of Marital Domestic Bliss: Samuel van Hoogstraten's Perspective Box in the National Gallery, London
- Chapter 7 Van Hoogstraten's Success in Britain
- Chapter 8 Samuel van Hoogstraten, the First Dutch Novelist?
- Chapter 9 Great Respect and Complete Bafflement: Arnold Houbraken's Mixed Opinion of Samuel van Hoogstraten
- Appendix: Arnold Houbraken's references to Samuel van Hoogstraten and his ‘Introduction to the Academy of Painting’
- Bibliography
- List of Illustrations
- About the authors
- Index
Chapter 6 - A Pledge of Marital Domestic Bliss: Samuel van Hoogstraten's Perspective Box in the National Gallery, London
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface: Approaches to a Multifaceted Master
- Prolog: Samuel van Hoogstraten and the Golden Age of Dutch Art, Literature, and Science: The Present Book and Future Research
- Chapter 1 Van Hoogstraten's Theory of Theory of Art
- Chapter 2 Paradoxical Passages: The Work of Framing in the Art of Samuel van Hoogstraten
- Chapter 3 The Young Samuel van Hoogstraten, Corrected by Rembrandt
- Chapter 4 “Zwierich van sprong”: Samuel van Hoogstraten's Night Watch
- Chapter 5 Samuel van Hoogstraten's Personal Letter-Rack Paintings: Tributes with a Message
- Chapter 6 A Pledge of Marital Domestic Bliss: Samuel van Hoogstraten's Perspective Box in the National Gallery, London
- Chapter 7 Van Hoogstraten's Success in Britain
- Chapter 8 Samuel van Hoogstraten, the First Dutch Novelist?
- Chapter 9 Great Respect and Complete Bafflement: Arnold Houbraken's Mixed Opinion of Samuel van Hoogstraten
- Appendix: Arnold Houbraken's references to Samuel van Hoogstraten and his ‘Introduction to the Academy of Painting’
- Bibliography
- List of Illustrations
- About the authors
- Index
Summary
This essay explores Samuel van Hoogstraten's reasons for designing his intriguing perspective box in the National Gallery in London [Fig. 45]. Susan Koslow, one of the scholars who dealt in depth with the few extant boxes, presumed that there was a romantic love story behind the London work. More recently, Celeste Brusati did not deny that there was an erotic element to the depictions on the outside of the box, but she was inclined to regard the work as an artful self-portrait and a proud self-reflexive demonstration of the artist's accomplishments in the art of perspective. In what follows, I shall put forward another, more ‘domestic’ suggestion with regard to what may have moved Samuel van Hoogstraten in creating his perspective box.
In his book De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen of 1718-1721, Arnold Houbraken gave a rare insight in the pedagogical gifts of Samuel van Hoogstraten, to whom he was once apprenticed. The following remarkable passage suggests that Van Hoogstraten's works must always have been purposeful and never devoid of meaning:
His lessons or precepts had firm roots, his instructions were always accompanied by examples, he taught with calm and seriousness, his explications were clear, and when his words were not understood at once he patiently explained himself …. Once upon a time I happened to make a sketch of a biblical subject and showed him the work, in which I had added in the background, just for embellishment, some fanciful things, convinced of having made some pleasant invention. … He immediately pointed to these things in the background asking: ‘What do you mean by that?’ I answered: ‘Well, that is my fancy. I made it just for pleasure’. His reply was: ‘You should not make things just as they come to your mind. You have to give reasons for everything you make, or you should not make them at all’.
If we contemplate Van Hoogstraten's perspective box in the National Gallery in London with this last sentence in mind, we may wonder what the artist intended [Figs. 46-48]. The depicted rooms are nearly empty of living beings except a lonely little dog waiting obediently, and, ‘in the background’, a sleeping woman in a bed, another woman reading a book beside a window that opens on the street; a little boy is peeking inside.
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- The Universal Art of Samuel van Hoogstraten (1627-1678)Painter, Writer, and Courtier, pp. 139 - 160Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2013