RKD STUDIES

This article explored the questions of whether Lievens was right to state that even without going south, there were ample sources of Italian art for him to study and implement into his own work. His ambitions took him to the art capitals of London, Antwerp and Amsterdam, which housed many collections with high quality Italian paintings. On the evidence presented herewith, it would seem that Rembrandt and Lievens were indeed correct that many good paintings were present north of the Alps. Even if their answer predated the completion or arrival of collections in Amsterdam, it indicates a growing presence of Italian paintings in the Netherlands in particular, and Europe in general.¹ Apart from job prospects, the promise of what these grand collections could mean for Lievens’ development as an artist could have been part of Lievens’ decision to follow Huygens’ advice to move abroad, albeit not southwards. Emulating Italian art was standard practice in the work of Lievens’ direct competition. Lievens, like other artists in the 17th century, adapted easily to different markets as he did in the Five Muses on Mount Parnassus. Huygens and Jacob van Campen selected Lievens because he could easily conform to the international/Flemish style of Venetianesque painters so well-loved by Amalia and the late Frederik Hendrik. Lievens’ painting was the colorito counterpart to the disegno work by van Everdingen and the contrast between both styles enticed the spectator intellectually, a case in point best made by the colorito female nude, made famous by Titian and disseminated by Rubens throughout the Netherlands. In this particular painting, it seems that Lievens attempted to emulate the vleesachtiche and poeseliche nudes of Titian’s emblematic Poesie series by painting convex parts of the body in thicker paint, using ‘broken’ paint application and broad areas of transition, as well as applying different textures of paint and varying techniques for painting shadows. In doing so, Lievens referenced the Venetian tradition of the tactility of the nude to create his own, making the viewer want to touch his poeseliche nudes.

The allusion to the Venetian colorito way of painting demonstrated in this particular piece is something that an artist could only achieve if they had seen reference works in person. The inspiration gained from the Venetians in composition, style and colour contributed to Lievens’ eclectic style but it did not dominate, rather he switched between different styles according to whom he was catering. Lievens used Venetian pictorial language where he found it the most fitting and when he did this was mainly out of ambition to further his career; by emulating the Venetian painters especially in large-scale commissions, Lievens was able to conform to the taste of his patrons and compete with the biggest names in his contemporary circle.