Flower vase in a window niche
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| Flower vase in a window niche |
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| Ambrosius Bosschaert , 1620 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 64 × 46 cm |
| Mauritshuis, The Hague |
A flower vase in a window niche is the title of an oil painting on wood by the Flemish painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder , which was created around 1620 and is assigned to the Baroque . The 64 cm high and 46 cm wide portrait of a rich bouquet is exhibited in The Hague's Mauritshuis . In terms of art history, it is a botanical flower piece , a still life that shows a multitude of flowers with scientific attention to detail, but also offers a number of symbolic motifs and possible interpretations.
description
The painting shows a bouquet of flowers in a glass vase in a brick window niche. The viewer's gaze falls outside from an imaginary interior, where the distant landscape is indistinct.
vase
The vase, which is in the middle of the picture on a window niche, is made of brown-green glass, the stems of the individual flowers can be seen through the glass. The basic shape of the vase is a circle, its diameter widens towards the top. In the lower third it is richly decorated, blue gemstones, as well as partially gilded faces and ornaments adorn the axially symmetrical vase.
bouquet
The bouquet is presented very lavishly. Dominant types of flowers are tulips and roses , but next to it are also Tagetes , white and blue columbines , blue and white irises , two Adonis , forget-me-nots , daffodils , cyclamen , grape hyacinths , yellow Fritillaria , horned violets , lily of the valley , a red-white striped anemone , a Squill , a marigold and a chess flower . The foliage of the flowers is quite dark in contrast to the bright, bright flower colors, the flowers are arranged in between so that almost all of them are fully visible, hardly any part of the flower is covered. A viewer looking at the bouquet from the opposite side would hardly be able to see the flowers and would only see leaves. The flower colors are yellow, white, red and blue. Two caterpillars , a fly and a dragonfly populate the ostrich, two round water droplets shine on a leaf in the lower left area, while caterpillars have eaten several holes in two leaves on the lower right.
Window niche
The window niche is an open arched window , just big enough to accommodate the bouquet. The left side of the very smooth masonry is completely, the right partially in the shadow. The profile edge of the window stands out slightly from the surrounding masonry. Next to the vase on the window sill on the left there is a carnation flower and a bud that is still closed , next to it are two drops of water. A fly sits on the windowsill to the right of the vase, next to it are two snail shells . The items on the windowsill are arranged so that they grow larger from the inside out. The artist's monogram can be found almost on the left edge of the profile edge of the window sill .
landscape
The background landscape can be divided into the areas above and below the horizon. The lower part is divided in two by the vase. The sky is blue, fading into a diffuse, hazy white in the distance, isolated small, white clouds in the sky. The landscape in the lower area is green, wooded and traversed by water. The left-hand part appears closer to the viewer, hilly and higher up than the right-hand part. A church building can be seen on both sides of the vase, the right one is significantly further away than the left.
Design means
With various creative means, Bosschaert has created a strong illusion of depth and spatial effect in this painting .
Spatial effect
The spatial effect of the window niche is achieved through a central perspective representation, as well as through incidence of light and shadows. The arrangement of the hilly landscape in the lowest area of the open window creates the impression that one is looking out of a very tall building, possibly a castle tower. In the bouquet of flowers, the spatiality is mainly achieved through contrasts and overlays. Leaves, flowers and stems often overlap and create the effect of one behind the other. The colorful blossoms come to the fore against the relatively dark green of the foliage.
plasticity
The three-dimensional effect of the individual objects in the painting is less pronounced in comparison to the spatial effect and is mainly achieved through the very detailed design of the vase, bouquet and the objects on the windowsill, as well as through fine shadows. The shadow zones always remain bright enough that you can still see all the fine details. Exceptions to this are the dark green of the foliage and the shady part of the masonry, which is completely smooth and painted without any details. The plasticity of the vase and especially the water droplets is created by gloss effects and reflections; in the case of the water droplets, these result in a strong trompe l'oeil effect, which means that the viewer does not perceive the water droplets as part of the picture but as real .
Incidence of light
The window niche faces outside, the landscape outside the imaginary interior is in bright light. Nevertheless, it is not the expected incidence of light from the outside that can be seen in the window niche, but rather lighting from the interior, from the left as the observer's perspective. The incidence of light is so strong that the left side of the window niche is completely in the shade, the right side to a large extent. The incidence of light from the inside is particularly evident in the bright colors of the flowers; it looks as if the bouquet is deliberately illuminated.
Background and levels of interpretation
The bouquet is to be understood both as a scientific representation and as a symbol of great wealth: Almost all the flowers depicted were rarities and rare cultivars at the time. This is particularly true of the tulips, which were hardly widespread at the time and around which a highly speculative market developed, which culminated in the so-called great tulip mania around 1635 .
Scientific and meticulous presentation
Apparently Bosschaert wanted to make flower portraits on purpose. The individual flowers are painted with great scientific meticulousness. The arrangement was made in such a way that as many flowers as possible can be fully seen, but this was not about a realistic arrangement of the entire bouquet. Individual flowers in the upper part of the bouquet could not even reach the water in the vase due to their stem length, the overall bouquet is so lush that in reality the vase would become overweight and tip over. The individual flowers, on the other hand, correspond to reality down to the smallest detail.
Religious interpretations
In addition to the scientific representation and the socio-political significance as a status symbol, the painting contains other, primarily religious, messages. On the one hand, colorful flowers in such a splendid arrangement are symbols of the perfection and beauty of creation ; the painting could thus be understood as a song of praise to creation. In particular, the assignment of lily, iris, rose, columbine, lily of the valley and violet to the mariological symbolism allows interpretations with regard to purity, immaculate conception, but also the pain and humility of Our Lady .
On the other hand, however, the bouquet is also a reminder not to forget the transience of external beauty out of sheer vanity. This so-called vanitas motif (Latin: vanitas = vanity) is expressed in the rose petals that have already been eaten, the caterpillars crawling in the bouquet, as well as in the dragonfly and the flies. Caterpillars are a symbol of change and transience, the flies, to whose family the dragonfly was still counted at that time, symbolize doom and rot, and ultimately the devil . Bosschaert also hides a reference to hope, to redemption from damnation in his painting: the carnation blossom is a symbol for Jesus Christ , the bud a sign of new life.
In Holland at that time, moral-religious messages of this kind were not uncommon and they were recognized and understood by the population. Bosschaert and his contemporaries hid their messages in still lifes, as the prevailing Calvinist faith forbade the figurative representation of religious themes, but people were looking for ways to express their faith in pictures.
The wealth of Holland
The presentation of such exquisite flowers in a visibly expensive vase illustrates the wealth of Holland at that time. This wealth had its origin in trade, which also appears in the picture as a reference to the distance: The snail shells on the windowsill come from the waters around India . The motif of the distance also becomes clear again in the seemingly endless expanse of the landscape in the background.
Origin and special features
Bosschaert certainly had no real role model for his bouquet in a window niche. The flowers shown have different blooming times, so in the present combination such a bouquet could not even exist.
“But the artist presents more than a mere copy of a model given by nature. His flower ensemble embodies an ideal state that nature cannot produce in this form: no rose blooms when the tulips open their cups. "
It is assumed that he had developed a wide range of depictions of individual flowers from which he composed his pictures. This is not only supported by the fact that the proportions of the individual blossoms are partly incorrect, but also the occurrence of almost identical blossoms in various of his pictures, for example the bouquet exhibited in the Louvre in Paris . Bosschaert is considered to be one of the founders of a Flemish painter dynasty that dealt almost exclusively with flower and fruit still lifes. A special feature of the flower vase in a window niche is that it was probably the first, but in any case one of the first flower still lifes, that was painted against an open background. Previously, such pictures had always been taken against a solid, closed background.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The description of the painting is based on: Gerhard Lautenschläger: Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573-1621) Flower vase in a window niche, around 1620 in: State Institute for Education and Teaching Stuttgart: Masterpieces of Art. Issue 47/1999. Neckar Verlag, Villingen-Schwenningen and the consideration of the painting after The Yorck Project: 10,000 masterpieces of painting. DVD-ROM, 2002. ISBN 3936122202
- ↑ a b c d e f g Gerhard Lautenschläger: Ambrosius Bosschaert (1573-1621) Flower vase in a window niche, around 1620 in: State Institute for Education and Teaching Stuttgart: Masterpieces of Art. Issue 47/1999. Neckar Verlag, Villingen-Schwenningen
- ↑ a b c d e f Kulturstiftung Ruhr Essen: Accompanying material for the exhibition Sense and Sensibility - The Flemish Still Life 1550 - 1680 ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 989 kB)
- ↑ The Tulip Mania ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Gernot Figlhuber, Wilhelm Darbringer (Ed.), Kunst I, Vienna 1997, p. 128 ff. ISBN 978-3700316206
- ↑ a b The painting on the pages of the Mauritshuis ( Memento of the original from March 15, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ For the symbolism see also Wikipedia article on symbols in baroque still lifes
- ^ Web Gallery of Art
