Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, 1600, oil on canvas, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Purchase, Nelson Gallery Foundation, F84-71 / Jamison Miller
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, The Apulian Shepherd, c. 1600–1605, oil on copper, Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan, 1604–1608, oil on copper, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, Kitchen Scene with the Parable of the Great Supper, 1605, oil on canvas, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Bpk, Berlin / Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen / Jörg P. Anders / Art Resource, NY
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, Mars, Venus, and Cupid, c. 1610, oil on copper, P. & N. de Boer Foundation, Amsterdam
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, Moses Striking the Rock, 1624, oil on panel, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, Venus and Amor, c. 1610s?, pen and brown ink, brush and gray ink, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Studio Buitenhof, The Hague
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, Allegory of the Dutch Revolt, The Dutch Maiden Assisted by Prince Maurits of Orange, c. 1612, pen and black ink and gray wash, white gouache, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
Joachim Wtewael, The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis, 1622, pen and brown and black inks, brush and gray ink, white gouache, Teylers Museum, Haarlem
This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery.
Overview: A masterful storyteller, Joachim Wtewael (1566 – 1638) (pronunciation) depicted risqué mythological scenes and moralizing biblical stories with equal ease. He was a virtuoso draftsman and a brilliant colorist, adept at working on both monumental canvases and small copperplates. He could paint from the imagination and from life, creating striking portraits of family members and introducing naturalistic still lifes into many of his narrative compositions.
Born and raised in Utrecht, one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, Wtewael spent four years in Italy and France early in his career. During these study years he embraced the popular international style known as mannerism, characterized by extreme refinement, artifice, and elegant distortion. Throughout his career, Wtewael remained one of the leading proponents of this style, even as most early seventeenth-century Dutch artists shifted to a more naturalistic manner of painting. Wtewael’s inventive compositions, teeming with twisting, choreographed figures and saturated with pastels and acidic colors, retained their appeal for his patrons. Yet his strong adherence to a mannerist style would also lead to the eventual decline of his reputation. This exhibition, which features 37 paintings and 11 drawings, sheds light on Wtewael’s artistic excellence, allowing him to reclaim his rightful place among the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age.
Organization:The exhibition is organized by the Centraal Museum Utrecht; the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation.
Sponsor:This exhibition is made possible by The Exhibition Circle of the National Gallery of Art. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
