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43
The opposite of De Hooch's religious order is the disorder of Jan Steen (1625/26-79), who
revived the humour of the Late Gothic burlesque. To this day a "Jan Steen household" is the Dutch
expression for a house in which nothing goes right. Everything goes wrong in The World Upside
Down, which is a parody on De Hooch's Linen Cupboard. It was also intended as a moralizing
picture. Jan Steen, who kept a tavern, was never tired of representing the effects of visits to him.
Here the scene shifts to the kitchen; the same lady of the house in the same costume as in De
Hooch's Linen Cupboard has fallen asleep; beer runs from the keg over a floor strewn with garbage,
a pipe and a hat; children, a pig, a dog, a duck, and a monkey are where they ought not to be and are
doing what they ought not to do. The housemaid hands a glass of wine to her sweetheart, nobody
pays any attention to an elderly man reading from a book or to an old woman trying to bring some
order into the situation. To intensify the effect, Steen is treating his figures with conviction and
vigour.
Dutch still lifes were often intended to appeal to the eye and the palate at once. Some are
crowded with an unappetizing profusion of fruit or game, but the most tasteful and tasty are those
restricted to the makings of between-meals snacks (they are traditionally referred to as 'breakfast
pieces'). White wine, a bit of seafood or ham, lemon, pepper, and salt are the subjects, along with
polished silver, crystal goblets and a rumpled tablecloth. The spectator is tantalized not only by the
delicacy with which the carefully selected objects arc painted, but also by the expensive
carelessness with which a lemon has been left partly peeled and a silver cup overturned.
Willem Heda (1599-1680/82) was the master of still life. In his Still Life, despite limitations of
subject matter, he demonstrates an unexpected eloquence in the rendering of golden light, as well as
sensitivity in establishing the precise relationships between transparent, translucent, reflecting, and
mat surfaces - a silent drama of pure sense presented in the style of a Caravaggio religious scene
against the typical background of nowhere, fluctuating between shadow and light.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Hobbema [
]; Hals [
]; Cuyp [
]; Ruisdael [
l]; Haarlem
[
]; genre [
]; burlesque [
]; fluctuate [
]; eloquence
[
]; palate [
]; horizon [
]; tantalise [
]; monochrome
[
]
TASKS
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Jan van Goyen placed figures to a dominant position.
2. Heda's still-lifes are referred to as "breakfast pieces".
3. De Hooch represented genre scenes of the lower classes life.
4. Jacob van Ruisdael was the best Dutch landscape painter.
5. To this day a "Jan Steen household" is the Dutch expression for the harmony of the perfect
bourgeois household.
6. One of the greatest Dutch landscapes is the Avenue at Middelbarnis by Meyndert Hobbema.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. What system produced the "little masters"? In what did they specialize? Were all the "little
masters" of high quality?
2. What was Jan van Goyen famous for? What did he like to paint? What is Van Goyen's
masterpiece? What is depicted in this picture?
3. What did Jacob van Ruisdael paint in 1670? What is this landscape noted for? How is the
immensity of the space increased?
4. What did Albert Cuyp paint in 1650? How did he intensify the space?
5. What is represented in the Linen Cupboard? How did De Hooch render the religious order of
the bourgeois life? What did the painter show by means of pictures on the wall?
6. What kind of picture is the World Upside Down? What does it demonstrate?
7. What do Dutch still lifes depict? Who was one of the chief practitioners of Dutch still lifes ?
What did he demonstrate in his paintings? What did he establish?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases: