Adapted and translated from Bouterse, M.C.J. (2001). Nederlandse houtblaasinstrumenten en hun bouwers 1660-1760. [Dutch Woodwind Instruments and their Makers 1660-1760.] Dissertation, University of Utrecht. Appendix C.1 De iconografie van de Nedelrandse houtblaasinstrumenten. [The Iconography of Dutch Wind-Instruments.] Compact Disc. ISBN: 90-9014365-8.
This appendix is included in the thesis (without extensive illustration) in order to facilitate reference to published sources of information on iconographical associations of Dutch wind instruments and to images not yet noted in the literature. It is decidedly not my purpose to review all that has been written about iconography. Rather, the intention is to provide a summary. In this appendix I have resisted the temptation to tabulate paintings by Dutch artists in which wind instruments are depicted. My own efforts to compile such a tabulation pale against those of Eve Legêne, who is currently engaged in a such a survey, the results of which we await with interest. In recent years, considerable research on the iconography of the recorder has been undertaken by Anthony Rowland-Jones. A bibliography of his publications (including some in press) is available in the Recorder Iconography section of the Recorder Home Page (Lander, 2003).
The five or six surviving early baroque recorders from the Netherlands prevent us from gaining an adequate picture of the type and its playing characteristics in the 17th century. Thus it is necessary to examine carefully the iconographic evidence concerning wind-instruments of this period. A brief survey of the catalogue of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD) in the Hague will soon show that the topic is vast and that there is hardly one Dutch painter during this period who has not depicted musical instruments, including recorders. Thus I have not written extensively on this topic myself but stayed within the limits of my thesis by summarising the conclusions of a number of publications and presenting only a few observations of my own.
Previous authors have remarked on how often the recorder is depicted by 17th century Dutch artists. Griffioen (1995) lists 100 artworks depicting 103 recorders by a large number (ca 56) Dutch masters. She gives the following classification and numbers:
Many authors note the pastoral associations of the recorder, part and parcel of its representation of male sexuality. On the other hand, Griffioen (1991) notes that this symbolism is lacking in vanitas paintings where recorders (and other musical instruments) symbolise life's transience. Kyrova (1994) exhaustively chronicles the obects and activities found in paintings. Emblem books were very popular in the 17th century (eg those produced from 1618 by Jaob Cats) in which the true meanings of symbols were explained. In paintings replete with moralistic allusions virtue and temperance were of the utmost importance, represented by family music-making in which the unity of the family and its status are seen to be the result of a happy marriage. A fine example of this is described by Laarmann (1998), namely a Portrait of the Van der Dussen Family (1640) painted by Hendrick Cornelisz van Vliet.
Both Rasmussen & von Huene (1982) and Legêne (1995) empahsize that the most realistic images of musical instruments are to be found in still-life and trompe l'oeil paintings. In genre works and pastoral scenes images of musical instruments are often less accurately depicted, but see Griffioen (1991), for practical hints on how the size of recorders can often be recognized by comparing them with the length of body parts. Legêne (1995) emphasizes the unreliability of images in some books. Legêne also argues that the recorder depicted in the Foreward to van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof (1644/1646) is not by Paulus Mathijsz, nor would it work with the fingerings given. Rather it is adapted from an older publication, namely a copy of that seen in Musica getutscht by Sebastian Virdung (Basel 1511).
Koldeweij (1982) argues that in 17th century painting it is possible to trace the development of the recorder: at first instruments were more or less cylindrically bored (sometimes expanding downwards); later recorders tapered towards the bottom fingerholes. In Legêne (1994) the design of the foot is given special attention: recorders ending in an unornamented flared foot become more common around 1640, whereas recorders ending in decorative rings are seen more frequently from around 1667. Several authors indicate that a number of recorders are depicted with a metal (probably silver) sleeve to the beak. Griffioen (1995) claims that in Dutch art of the 17th century there are no recorders to be seen with a wide bore at the foot (even though the latter might be flared).
My own observations can be added to those of the authors noted above. The first such observation concerns the subject of the larger recorders (tenor and longer) found in Dutch art. The most remarkable example is that although Griffioen (1995) describes a family portrait by van Vliet in which two people (father and son) hold recorders of different sizes no mention is made of the fact that a number of large recorders can also be seen.<1> Amongst these are a possible tenor recorder with a silver beak, and a bass with a fontanel and key. The shorter recorder held by the father is striking, not only because this, too, has a silver-sheathed beak, but because the instrument is cylindrical to the end without widening or thickening, just like the early flute. Furthermore, the lowermost fingerhole is very low down, at about 90% of the sounding length. I know no instruments of this type and wonder if this pattern marks the difference between the early baroque recorder with its slightly narrowly conical bore and that playable with van Eyck fingerings. Moreover, this painting by van Vliet illustrates the people (especially their clothing) in such great detail that we may suppose that the recorders are also accurately depicted. Another picture, which depicts a short, possibly alto recorder next to a basset recorder (with a nicely peforated metal fontanelle and a butterfly key), is a vanitas still-life from 1662 by Evert Collier (or Edwaerdus Kollier, as he signed this painting) which can be seen in the Minneapolis Institute of Art.<2>
Further representations of larger recorders can be seen on the shutters of the transept organ of the Oude Kirk, Amsterdam painted by Cornelis Brizé in 1658.<3> These represent a high point in the representation of musical instruments during the Dutch Golden Age. Brizé also painted stringed instruments such as the violin and guitar, and several types of wind instruments: dulcian, cornett, tumpet, transverse flute and recorders of several sizes, amongst them at least one basset with a fontanelle and key. Wind instruments are hung with ribbons similar to those depicted in a Trompe l'oeil with Musical Instruments (1672) by Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts [Gysbrechts] in Copenhagen (see articles and images in Kyrova 1994) that are very realistically painted.
The authors whose works has been discussed in this Appendix give no attention to the remarkable fact that on some of the recorders depicted one can clearly see an indication of a maker's mark immediately beneath the labium on the front surface of the head. Three paintings will be considered here: a Vanitas Still-life with Flowers (1668) by Maria van Oosterwijck, which can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.<4> A painting from 1653 by Pieter van Steenwyck entitled Allegory on the Death of Admiral Tromp, in the Lakenhal, Leiden; and finally a vanitas still-life from the last quarter of the the 17th century by Edward Collier in the same museum.<5> One of the recorders painted by Brizé on the shutters of the transept organ of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, might also have the outlines of a maker's mark. Although the marks on the instruments mentioned above do not reveal the names or initials of a maker, the decorative scrolls closely resemble those found on recorders by Haka and 'IVH'. This type of scroll, curled towards the upper left and lower right side, could be seen as a Dutch characteristic; I have not found them for non-Dutch woodwind makers of the 17th century. The presence of these stamped instruments in art works of the mid-17th century can be taken as evidence that professional flute makers were active in Holland at this time and that Richard Haka and Jan Jurriaensz. van Heerde had begun to flourish. Moreover, I have encountered no names or maker's marks on other wind instruments depicted in Dutch art.
The most important variable in recorder design is the cross section of the bore, the form of voicing, the length of the windway, the shape of the windway floor and the chamfers at its exit. Recorders are depicted (by Collier, amongst others) with an external profile that is almost cylindrical, in which the diameter between the labium and the lowermost fingerhole hardly decreases. This suggests that the internal bore of such recorders could be cylindrical, although this is counter-indicated by the fact that surviving instruments of this kind are lacking. The same applies to those instruments that become wider downward. Recorders in which the body narrows from the labium to the lowermost fingerhole seem almost universal.
I have not encountered representations in art of recorders in which the body narrows markedly over a short distance in the region of the labium, as on some surviving ivory recorders. Also of interest is that there is more variation in the form of the foot depicted in paintings than is found on surviving instruments. The slightly tapered foot of the recorders in the painting by van Vliet has already been noted. A very widely expanding foot is found on one of the recorders on another pair of organ shutters, namely those of the large Duyschot organ in the Westerkerk, Amsterdam, painted in 1685 by Gerard de Lairesse.<6> The internal bore of this recorder widens markedly, as on a shawm. Ruth van Baak-Griffoen seems to have been unaware of this, since she comments that none of the recorders depicted by Dutch artists have the wide bore of the renaissance recorder or that of the Ganassi type. Furthermore, the windway of the recorder painted by Lairesse is strikingly short and the labium is long and steeply slanted – in short, a remarkable combination of characteristics that we find in no surviving recorder. The other recorder on this organ is of more traditional form, but rather sketchily painted and scarcely true to nature (Rasmussen & von Huene, 1982).
A detailed depiction of a recorder with a smoothly convex foot can be seen in the painting The Young Flautist by Judith Leyster, completed before 1636, the year of her marriage to Jan Miense Molenaer.<7> The recorder (which hangs on the wall) is about the same length as the violin hanging nearby. This indicates that the recorder is probably an alto in f' or g'. Striking features of the instrument are the long windway, small window and very short, steeply angled labium. The first fingerhole is quite near to the blockline. Such a long windway, which takes up some 16% of the total length of the recorder, is not found in any surviving instrument.
A number of well-known works by three 17th-century painters depict recorders or other wind instruments in the then newly emerging [baroque] style, amongst them those noted by Rasmussen & von Huene (1982): the 1672 painting by Gijsbrechts, that from a private collection by Cornelis Brizé (probably also from ca 1670) and, in particular, the still-lifes of Evert Collier.<8> It is well known that Collier worked in London, as did Gijsbrechts in Copenhagen. Was this style of instrument in vogue in England and Denmark sooner than in the Netherlands?
Do works of art tell us anything about the use of the recorder in the 17th century? The above-named authors give little attention to this question, albeit the most important issue concerning the early baroque recorder: Who played what kinds of music on it? Not one of the above-named authors involved in iconographic research has drawn attention to the fact that very few paintings depict more than one recorder at the same time, the implication being that instruments intended for solo use predominated over those designed for consort playing. The major exception already noted in this chapter and recognizable by its form are those depicted in the large (1.5 x 2 meters), highly detailed and exceptional family portrait by Hendrik van Vliet, by which time the music on the lectern was probably already out of date: the evidence is uninformative before the publication in 1599 of the Cantiones sacrae de praecipuis festis by Hieronumys Praetorius. From the painting it would seem that the male members of the household play music only because the two sons are older than the three daughters (Tates 1997).
In almost all Dutch paintings in which it appears we see the recorder as a solo instrument amongst various other objects (as in still-lifes), or in combination with different kinds of instrument (violin, lute, rommelpot, and the like); for example in The Duet (ca 1629) by Jan Miense Molenaer (Art Museum, Seatle), in which the little girl holds the instrument quite amateurishly and a young man stands with a lute in his hands.<9> Images of recorder players with the instrument actually in their mouth and in the act of making music seem far less common: amongst the best-known examples is the portrait of a recorder-playing man by Gabriel Metsu entitled Inspiration.<10> From its appearance in shepherd portraits, genre works and such it sometimes seems that in the Netherlands the recorder was no more than a decorative attribute, easily depicted, and played in domestic contexts and the shabbier context of the tavern or open air. Contrariwise, we see in the organ shutters painted by Brizé and de Lairesse that the recorder occupied a prominent place amongst other instruments. In the seventeenth century the recorder was more than a mere attribute or child's plaything: it was but one musical instrument amongst others, sometimes improved by the work of professional instrument-makers, heard by a varied audience, and played by both dedicated amateurs and professional musicians such as Jacob van Eyck.
© Copyright 2001-2003, M.C. Jan Bouterse
Webmaster: Nicholas S.
Lander
