Weird details in old paintings ..

PhotoComix · **Joined:** Apr 12, 2010 **Posts:** 5870

I was browsing sketch and paintings in the Rijskmuseum site and more and more weird details get my attention...at first where hard to notice as 1 ant moving in a garden, but as for ants at soon you notice one you start to notice that are many more around... and was the same

First were hanging corpses , that may even by a reasonable subject for a dramatic paint, but what i found strange is that were never the subject , never was any emphasis on them , at the contrary were often just a vague detail in the bg , as hanged bodies were a absolutely normal part of the panorama, no more worth of notice then flying birds of trees

humm now i found only 1 example but i saw much more yesterday,
i raised the contrast to make detail more visible but for the rest i didn't make changes

a zoom on the detail

Landlieden met sleden op het ijs, Hendrick Avercamp, 1595 - 1634

see https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/my/collec ... 9-A-4198,5

but was another surprising subject , first i show the original ...

Winter Adriaen Pietersz. van de Venne
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/my/collec ... -A-1774,12

maybe you didn't notice nothing too strange ?

now again i raised the contrast, and i crop a detail of the leftmost side

and you may see starting from the left :
1 a man pissing on a tree
2 a dog shitting
3 just behind the dog, and exactly in the same posture of the dog a man doing the same
4 a children with a old woman both in very ragged cloths , the children seems trying to protect his noise from foul smell,
5 a well dressed man curved to look closely and with luxury the ... behind of a old poor woman that felt on her 4 on the ice :
falling her skirt went up revealing the legs and more and the man is all focused on that

And now looking better even the other half now seems less innocent of what at first glance:
even that couple skate-dancing on the ice, sure she is nice and nicely dressed and the man too wear pricey cloths and seems a expert dancer
but looking better she is so young and nice even innocent , he so older and from his expression may have evil and luxurious intention ,
maybe he is driving his victim in a place behind the corner where to rape her ... who know ?
but even the dancing couple become a bit more weird at a second look , also because the context

IJsvermaak op een stadsgracht, Hendrick Avercamp, ca. 1615 - ca. 1620
https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/my/collec ... K-A-802,10

another large

and again on the left are details as

he4rty · **Joined:** Aug 30, 2012 **Posts:** 2174

Maybe that was just everyday life back then and they just painted what they saw.

gerard82 · **Posted:** Sat Sep 07, 2013 12:59 pm **(#3)**

You didn't give the names of the painters.
Like in all the world in those days hangings were normal punishment.
The "dancing" couples are not dancing but skating.
The Netherlands are still top skaters (as a competitive sport) today.
Like he4rty said they just painted what they saw.

Remember that you are living in the 21st century not the 16th or 17th.
Do you think you could still see scenes like this today in the Netherlands?
Apparently you do by calling us weird.
Gerard.

PhotoComix · **Joined:** Apr 12, 2010 **Posts:** 5870

he4rty wrote:

Maybe that was just everyday life back then and they just painted what they saw.

I believe so but i never noticed similar details in paintings of french, greeks, italian or spanish painters even if public executions and absence of WC were commune in all the known world.

Quote:

Apparently you do by calling us weird.

Gerard.

Oppss Gerard, i should rephrase the title, i did not at first because "Some old Dutch Paint may look weird" would be much more exact and polite but sounded much less effective as title ...but i will found something better now

And btw i lived in Holland for years,5 consecutively, and i loved it,i even miss much and i don't think Dutch are weird as i even clarified in the very first line in the first message (now gone, edited to reduce possible misinterpretations )

I was just surprised by that detail i know well were part of everyday life, still are in many part of the world only are rarely captured in painting
still in Africa and East many are forced to use street as public toilet but seldom painters chose that subject , not saying that should be censured ...

And yes i would search authors names, links, everything...yesterday night i browsed hundreds and hundreds of images from the Rijskmuseum, but the example chosen are bookmarked , so i may retrieve easily

Easily after the dinner ... now i must log out

2-ton · **Posted:** Sat Sep 07, 2013 9:23 pm **(#5)**

Fascinating and yes, everyday life but not sure why they would want to capture this in a work of art. It's not like we go around making art of the goings on in the loos of our time, lol. I am sure someone does, but its not generally done in modern day art.

Rod · **Joined:** May 16, 2010 **Posts:** 14709 **Location:** USA

It's almost like the painter was slapping humanity in the face with a look into what we really are. Depicting humanity as being just like the animals. In the artists eyes "we need and we take what we need if need be".

Because of what we do to each other in the name of progress, and religion alone we could hardly call ourselves an intelligent race.
Sure there are intelligent people and many of them, but as a whole were all just a little bit stupid. I still poop in the woods if i need to just like the bears.

I also feel more at home in the woods or wild.

Were all just beastly animals when you get right down to it really.

gerard82 · **Posted:** Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:50 am **(#7)**

That's a far better title PC.
As far as I'm concerned you could have made it:
"Weird details in old Dutch paintings".

There was a painter in that era by the name of Jan Steen.
He became famous/infamous for his household and party paintings.
To this day there is a Dutch expression for messy households:
A Jan Steen household.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Steen
Gerard.

PhotoComix · **Joined:** Apr 12, 2010 **Posts:** 5870

i added the links for the originals

And found more and more links, watching Jan Steel works just now ..

sallyanne · **Posted:** Sun Sep 08, 2013 5:41 pm **(#9)**

If memory serves. I think in some countries people would have ice most year round in certain places and would skate like we would walk to different areas - just like walking down the street.

PhotoComix · **Joined:** Apr 12, 2010 **Posts:** 5870

Quote:

I think in some countries people would have ice most year round in certain places and would skate like we would walk to different areas - just like walking down the street.

In Holland not most of the year, but there is a period when usually a large part of the water channels network that cross most of the country frozen , that open new ways for ice-skating and is the occasion for some traditional contests

Gerard would know more i just have a vague memory , Amsterdam channels didn't freeze as far i could remember and i seldom got very far from 'Dam

sallyanne · **Posted:** Mon Sep 09, 2013 2:10 am **(#11)**

Anyway thanks for sharing the paintings. they are quite good and very detailed.

AnMal · **Posted:** Mon Sep 09, 2013 8:03 am **(#12)**

wow, i never looked that close at pictures like these before, i don't think i would ever have noticed those details. i've always liked the older dutch painters for their love of detail, though

. and for not being so .... well, polite, about their motives.

gerard82 · **Posted:** Mon Sep 09, 2013 9:16 am **(#13)**

Painters in those days were often the newspaper photographers we have today.
Paintings and drawings were the only way.
Gerard.

PhotoComix · **Joined:** Apr 12, 2010 **Posts:** 5870

True
Were NO photographic emulsion then but weird as may sound no much later landscape painters start to use more and more cameras more exactly "portable darkrooms" or "Camera Obscura" as were often called

No i am not kidding , cameras were invented much before was photographic emulsion and were used by painters , maily landscape painters:
the ... portable camera were big almost as 70 phone box, (but luckily much lighter ), where now is the photographic emulsion or its digital correspondent was a sanded glass, and behind the glass, covered by black curtain was the paper or canvas with the painter

That was doing manually what now is done automatically , and was even more difficult because the landscape projected in the sanded glass was upside down

Those precursor of camera were often used in the 1800 , there are even paintings were are visible painters carrying ,assembling or using that precursors of our camera .

Photography is recent but camera are old, for sure Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci already know and played with similar tools, but were already known even much before in the most simple form:
even if a lens greatly improve usability if the ...Portable camera if is lightproof even a tiny hole works as a lens
and so the old camera could be simple as a big box with a tiny hole in front and a sanded glass covered by a thick black curtain in the opposite site.

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