Abraham Bloemaert - Venus and Adonis [1632]

Abraham Bloemaert - Venus and Adonis [1632], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Bloemaert founded the so-called Utrecht School, a group of young artists from Utretcht who went to Rome in the early part of the 17th century and were inspired by artists such as Caravaggio. This painting is regarded as one of Bloemaert’s masterpieces. The harmony, the intensity of the colours, and the lustre of the classical figures against the contrasting landscape behind it testifies to the quality and longevity that Morell added to the collections with his acquisitions.

The tale of Venus and Adonis is related in the ancient poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Here the goddess Venus tries in vain to persuade her mortal lover Adonis to refrain from taking part in the dangerous hunt, but in the background we see Adonis having been slain during the hunt.

[National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen]

Abraham Bloemaert - Apollo and Diana Punishing Niobe by Killing HerChildren [1591]

Abraham Bloemaert - Apollo and Diana Punishing Niobe by Killing Her Children [1591], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Niobe was the daughter of the proud King Tantalus of Phrygia. She married Amphion, the king of Thebes, and bore him seven sons and seven daughters. She bragged of her many children and chided the goddess Latona, mother of the twins Apollo and Diana, for having only two. In vengeance, Apollo and Diana carried out a massacre. They are shown in the clouds showering arrows down onto Niobe’s children.

Abraham Bloemaert’s style of painting suits the drama of the tale, full of contrasting shifts between colours, light, and shade as well as complicated poses with bodies viewed from extreme angles. Only 24 years old at the time, the painting sees Bloemaert closely approximating his great role model Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem (1562-1638), who in the 1580s joined his friends Karel van Mander (1548-1606) and Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) to make his native town of Haarlem the centre of the special Haarlem Mannerist style.

[National Gallery of Denmark]

Abraham Bloemaert - Parable Of The Wheat And The Tares [1624]

Abraham Bloemaert - Parable Of The Wheat And The Tares [1624], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In this parable from the Gospel of Matthew, the devil, identified by his horns and tail, sows weeds (or tares) in the field where wheat has been planted, while the lazy peasants are sleeping. Christians considered sloth one of the Seven Deadly Sins to which mankind was subject as a result of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, to whom the two naked sleepers allude. The dovecote (a birdhouse to attract doves or pigeons that can be trapped for food without the bother of raising them) was associated with the morally lazy who take the easy way. The goat, known for its lust, alludes to self-indulgence, and the peacock, to pride.

Bloemaert (Dutch, 1566 – 1651) was gifted in depicting natural detail, but he never painted pure landscapes, preferring pictures with a lesson. He was one of the leading artists of Utrecht and trained many major artists of the next generation.

[Oil on canvas, 100.4 x 132.5 cm]