Singerie
Singerie is the French word for "monkey trick". It is a genre of painting that depicts monkeys mimicking human behavior. The monkeys are often fashionably dressed and intended as an entertaining distraction that is often slightly satirical . Singeries are an old idea. Cyril Alfred discovered that they are characteristic of the late eighteenth dynasty in Egypt .
background
The comical scenes with monkeys in human clothing and surroundings emerged as a genre of painting in Flemish painting of the 16th century. It was further developed in the 17th century. The Flemish artist Pieter van der Borcht introduced the genre around 1575 in a series of prints that are strongly in the tradition of Pieter Bruegel the Elder . These prints have been described many times and the subject was taken up by other Flemish artists such as Frans Francken the Younger , Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Brueghel the Younger , Sebastian Vrancx and Jan van Kessel the Elder , especially in Antwerp . David Teniers the Younger became one of the main proponents of this topic and developed it further with his younger brother Abraham Teniers . The two brothers knew how to work for the prevailing taste in art and were therefore important for the spread of the genre beyond Flanders. In the 17th century it was Nicolaes van Verendael , best known as a painter of still lifes with flowers, who began to paint monkey scenes.
Singeries became popular with French artists of the early 18th century. But the motif is particularly common in French Rococo painting . The theme was taken up by the French decorator Jean Berain the Elder , who included large numbers of clad monkeys in his wall decorations, just as the cabinet maker André-Charles Boulle did. In the 19th century, Emmanuel Noterman and his younger brother Zacharie Noterman dealt with the singeries.
A whole monkey orchestra was made from Meissen porcelain . Jean-Baptiste Huets Grande Singerie and Petite Singerie at Château de Chantilly are very well known in France; in England the French painter Andieu de Clermont is known for his singeries. The most famous of his paintings is the "Monkey Room" (Eng. "Ape Room") in the Monkey Island Hotel on Monkey Island near Bray , England. The building was constructed by Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough .
Individual evidence
- ^ Cyril Alfred: New Kingdom Art in Ancient Egypt. Fig. 64.
- ^ Bert Schepers: Monkey Madness in Seventeenth Century Antwerp. In: The Rubenianum Quarterly. 2/2012, p. 5.
- ↑ RH Randall Jr .: Templates for Boulle Singerie. In: The Burlington Magazine. 111 No. 798 (September 1969), pp. 549-553, JSTOR 876112