Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 4. The Spread of Calvinism
Sequence 14b. Calvin and the Visual Arts At this point, there are two main objections one might raise, and we'll examine each of them now. The first is iconoclasm. As you know, the early 16th century saw several bursts of iconoclasm shake Europe. In 1522, thousands of statues were ripped out or destroyed in churches in southern Germany. The same thing happened in Geneva in 1535, as well as in Bern around the same time, as depicted in this painting. In 1562, in the midst of the first war of religion, similar events transpired in France; in 1566, it was Holland's turn. Yet iconoclasm cannot be reduced to a simple response to Calvinist tradition and ideas. We know, first of all, that the main reasons for these crises were social and political. People attacked objects as a substitute for, or in addition to, attacking individuals and institutions. For the icon destroyers, it was a way to express hostility towards a world they could no longer accept. Furthermore, numerous Protestant pastors and ministers opposed the destruction of these images -- for two reasons. One, because they wanted to avoid for Calvin's theology to be erroneously portrayed and perceived as iconophobic, which it wasn't, as we learned earlier; and two, because it is a paradoxical response. After all, if you believe that images are devoid of magical or intrinsic powers, then why attack them? In a way, iconoclasm reveals a sort of superstition toward images whose power needs to be nullified. We also know, thanks to a wealth of historical documents, both textual and visual -- such as the paintings of Pieter Saenredam, one of which you are seeing now --, that Protestant churches, many of which were converted Catholic churches, contained fragments or traces of the old Catholic artwork, as if Protestants, by displaying the remnants of the religion theirs came to replace, were symbolically celebrating the victory of the Reformation. The second objection might be stated as follows: if Calvin was not after all a resolute and systematic opponent of visual representation, how can we explain the existence of an authentically Protestant art? Can the idea be refuted that in northern Europe in particular, and in the United Provinces -- predominantly Reformed areas --, there arose a specifically Reformed, Protestant form of art, characterized in particular by an ever-increasing number of landscapes, portraits and scenes from everyday life? My answer is: yes, this notion can be refuted -- for several reasons. First of all, this trend toward specialization of subject, rather than genre, greatly predates the Reformation. In this respect, the Reformation was merely paralleling an earlier movement. Furthermore, the 17th century continued to produce a wealth of overtly religious paintings. Emblematic of this is Rembrandt, most of whose works found their subject in the Old and New Testaments. We also need to understand that choosing these subjects often represented a way for the artist to free himself from the yoke of Calvinist doctrine -- more on that in a moment. Granted, many of these artists were inspired by some of Calvin's precepts and guidelines, particularly as relates to his criticism of idolatry -- this was the case of many Dutch artists of the 17th century, like Salomon Koninck. These artists were interested in exploring subjects relating to preaching and parables -- as expressed in countless paintings of the time. That being said, I believe it would be excessive to claim the existence of a uniformly and absolutely Protestant art, a claim that amounts to over-interpreting these works and systematically seeking out traces of Calvinist precepts and tradition. When Jacob van Ruisdael painted this landscape, placing a large windmill on a hill, was his intent to represent the cross of Christ and call to mind to the presence of sin in the world, as a certain number of art historians have argued, or was he trying, more straightforwardly, to glorify the national territory by representing one of its most powerful symbols? In fact, there is a widespread tendency to over-interpret the paintings of this time and to see any representation of nature as a representation of God himself. When you look more closely at how artists viewed the relationship between their faith and their profession, it is clear that there is no such mechanistic connection. Sébastien Bourdon was a Protestant, but that didn't stop him from making his career in Rome or Paris -- he even painted St Peter the Martyr for Notre Dame cathedral in Paris. On the other hand, the painter Jacob Jordaens, who was born and lived in Antwerp, a Catholic area, converted late in life to Protestantism, thus opening up a new market for himself: the wealthy United Provinces, where artwork was in high demand. Finally, it is important to highlight that Calvin was not the spiritual mentor of 17th century Dutch painting. Very often, these artists contravened his guidelines. I'll give two examples. Calvin said that no representations should be made of the sacred mysteries of religion, yet some Protestants artists did it anyway. The most significant example is the pilgrims of Emmaus -- a subject presumably impossible to represent, since Christ disappeared from sight as soon as the disciples recognized him -- a miraculous event. Yet some artists tried to represent this scene, like Rembrandt, whose Pilgrims of Emmaus represents Christ as a shadow, as if to place him somehow between the visible and the invisible; or Jan Steen, whose Christ is depicted as a sort of mist or vapor rising from the table at which he was sitting. Calvin also called on painters not to glorify or idolize pastors and theologians themselves. Yet there is an abundance of 17th Dutch paintings portraying preachers and pastors. One famous example is Rembrandt's depiction of Cornelis Anslo interpreting a biblical passage for his wife and moving her to tears. In many Protestant churches, you'll also see paintings of ministers surrounded by their flock, which always seems, it must be said, more engrossed in the pastor's words than in the image he procures and produces of the Reformed church. André Gide, a Protestant writer, once said that art is born of constraint, thrives on struggle, and dies from freedom. The Calvinist tradition could very well be viewed as one of the constraints imposed on 17th century artists -- a constraint that proved difficult to bear, that limited the scope of their work and subjects, but that also led to reflection on the limits artists might place on their representations. In a way, then, it encouraged them to develop new formal and iconographic solutions. From this standpoint, Calvinism, rather than an absolute prohibition, can be seen as a new form of freedom for artists, allowing them to develop art in new directions. We've reached the end of today's sequence. Thank you.
