1.4 Visualisation of Artists from the Low Countries in Italy
Most of the Dutch and Flemish artists who travelled abroad, visited Italy, France, Germany and England. Comparing the data in RKDartist& from February 2019 with today's numbers, it becomes clear that the distribution of the presence of Netherlandish artists in these countries has shifted [9-10].1
9
Bar chart of the mobility of Northern (blue) and Southern (red) Netherlandish artists to Italy, France, Germany and England (reference date: 2019-02-01)
10
Bar chart of the mobility of Northern (blue) and Southern (red) Netherlandish artists to Italy, France, Germany and England (reference date: 2023-03-22)
This shift is primarily a consequence of the significantly increased number of Southern Netherlandish artists in the database, but is also due to the additions for the Gerson projects on Italy and Britain. What has not changed in the data compared to those of 2019, is that Southern Netherlandish artists were significantly more mobile than their counterparts from the Dutch Republic.2 Furthermore, when comparing the Northern and Southern Netherlandish artists, we see that the latter travelled mostly to Catholic countries and the former travelled somewhat more to Protestant countries.3 Italy was by far the most popular among Southern Netherlandish artists, while their Northern Netherlandish colleagues preferred Germany about as much as Italy.
No attempt has been made here to use the data to examine the artists' length of stay in Italy. What is certain, however, is that of the group of 1,604 artists, 308 also died in Italy, i.e. 19.2 % of the travellers stayed for good. Some of them died young, but many built a career and integrated into Italian society, whether this was a preconceived plan or not. As might be expected, most of these 308 artists were of Southern Netherlandish origin.4
The visualisation of the presence of artists from the Low Countries in Italy [11] indicates that the dominance of the Southern Netherlandish artists over their colleagues from the Dutch Republic was constant throughout the whole period. This differs considerably from the presence of Netherlandish artists in the German lands [12], where the Southern Netherlandish artists constituted the largest group until about the mid-1630s, while from the Peace of Munster in 1648 onwards the Northern Netherlandish artists resided there in greater numbers. The peaks in the graph of Southern Netherlandish artists in the German lands also reflect historical events, such as the fall of Antwerp and the expulsion of Protestants and the beginning of the Twelve Years’ Truce in 1609.5
Political conditions in the country of origin are likely to have been a factor in the decision to undertake a trip to Italy; for instance, the peaks in 1674 in the graphs of both the Dutch and the Flemish artists might have had to do with the French occupation in and shortly before that period. However, the correlation is significantly weaker than, say, for the German countries. Also notable is the greater presence of artists from both the Northern and the Southern Netherlands in the years between 1620 and 1626, shortly after the Bentvueghels emerged. Italy's appeal to artists from the Low Countries will have had to do with a combination of factors, such as the opportunities to learn and work in a social environment of compatriots who helped each other, in which the Catholic Southern Netherlandish artists felt even more at home than their colleagues from the Dutch Republic.
What exactly explains the steep decline in the number of artists from the Low Countries in Italy from 1690 onwards is not yet entirely clear. A partial explanation lies in the fact that the number of artists from the Low Countries in the 17th century and especially between c. 1640 and 1660 was unprecedentedly high, and therefore the number of travelling artists was also highest during that period.6 Another explanation may be that the biographical data of artists from the 18th century have not yet been sufficiently incorporated into RKDartists, both in quantitative and qualitative terms. So there is still plenty of work to be done, and time will tell.
11
Presence of artists from the Low Countries in Italy 1550-1750
The red line represents the Southern Netherlandish artists, the blue line the Northern Netherlandish artists
Source: RKDartists (reference date: 2023-03-22)
12
Presence of artists from the Low Countries in the Germany 1550-1750
The red line represents the Southern Netherlandish artists, the blue line the Northern Netherlandish artists
Source: RKDartists (reference date: 2023-03-22)
Notes
1 CompareVan Leeuwen 2022, p. 1.3, fig. 11-12.
2 Compare Van Leeuwen 2022, p. 1.2, fig. 7.
3 I am currently working on an article comparing the mobility of artists from the Low Countries to Britain, Germany and Italy, to appear in the conference volume Mobilités artistiques à l’époque moderne : XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles following the conference of the same name at the Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte in Paris, 27-28 October 2022.
4 Of the group of 308 artists, 221 were Southern Neherlandish and 100 Northern Netherlandish; for 13 of them, both 'nationalities' were assigned.
5 I thank my colleagues Jos Beerens (Curator) and Reinier van 't Zelfde (Information Architect) for their cooperation in visualising the data.
6 On this phenomenon, see especially Bakker 2011 and Li 2019.