Music in Dutch Painting

Allusions to Music in 17th Century Paintings

The Low Countries

The Low Countries

The Low Countries include modern-day Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg, aptly named Benelux after the first letters of each country. The Dutch Golden Age spans from the late 1500s to the late 1600s. This was a time period rich with trade, education, and art.


Paintings Come to Life

Music was a large part of society in the Low Countries. Music was played in danscamers (dance halls) and muziekherbergen (music halls). Muziekherbergen even encouraged customers to pick up instruments and contribute to the music-making. These are two scenes of music-making in both public halls and private ensembles and homes.

Music also was performed in ensembles that studied Baroque music from other regions. Wealthy members of society had the privilege of learning Italian madrigals, Latin motets, or French polyphonic compositions (Wieseman 2013). Families often learned multiple instruments to play in private settings.

Left Image: Music in a private home | Right Image: Music in a public hall

Vermeer and the Muselar

Muselar IRL

Muselars and harpsichords are a type of keyboard dating to the Baroque era. Harpsichords from Southern Netherlands were usually made by the renowned Ruckers family of Antwerp. Some could cost a skilled worker one year of their wages (Wieseman 2013). Additionally, many muselars were made with ivory, mother-of-pearl, tortoiseshell, or exotic wood (Wieseman 2013).

The muselar to the left is one such instrument. Many were painted with landscapes by well-known artists or were inscribed with Latin mottos (Wieseman 2013).

Vermeer and the Muselar

Around 30% of Johannes Vermeer's paintings include some reference to music, whether it be a musical instrument or a figure playing an instrument.

Here is a woman playing a muselar. She looks off to the side with an open songbook in front of her. The white wall behind her contrasts with the shadowed muselar. What could she be looking at?

Love Story (Vermeer's Version)

This particular painting features a woman playing the muselar with a man accompanying her in voice. Although we cannot see her face directly, the mirror reflects her giving a small glance to the man. Scenes of men and women engaging in music together in Baroque paintings sometimes allude to a romantic relationship between the two.

The virginal in this painting is described with the Latin motto 'MUSICA LETITIA CO[ME]S MEDICINA DOLOR[IS],' which translates to "Music is the companion of joy, the medicine of sorrow" (Wieseman 2013).

Flemish Muselar

If Vermeer's The Music Lesson were to have a soundtrack, this may be what it sounds like.

The Clavichord and China

The Clavichord's Innerworkings

The clavichord is a small stringed instrument, where sound is produced by a metal blade striking the strings.

Two Dutch artists brought a clavichord to China in 1656 (Lundorff 2014). Prior to this, Italian Jesuits introduced the harpsichord, which is the predecessor of the grand piano.

Clavichordist Menno Van Delft demonstrates how the clavichord works and compares it to today's grand piano.

This is the instrument played by members of the Ming Dynasty court and upperclass individuals.

Bach and the Clavichord

Here is Menno van Delft performing J.S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor. While Bach is not an artist from the Low Countries, his music is widely known today as a representative of Baroque era music. The way it is played on the piano today, however, is not what it sounded like during his time!

Stringed Instruments

Judith Leyster and the Lute

Judith Leyster is one of the only well-known female artists from the Dutch Baroque era. In her work The Concert, a female figure accompanies two men playing stringed instruments. The man on the left is playing a violin of some sort, while the man on the right plays the lute.

Perspective and the Lute

Carel Fabritius paints an interesting scene with a perspective reminiscent of a fish-bowl. The violin in the foreground has a foreshortened fingerboard that seems to point to the lute in the back. What does a lute sound like?

C

Bach and the Lute

Here is a performance of Bach's Lute Suite in E Major. This is may have been what The Concert and Fabritius' paintings sounded like!

Left Image: Music in a private home | Right Image: Music in a public hall