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Night Watch , question, hell no, "High Noon"
The Night Watch
(The Company of Captain
Frans Banning Cocq
Preparing to March Out)
1642
trade, sugar, tabacco, coffee,
Pros
Spectacular collection of Golden Age paintings, including the Night
watch, and so much more...
Cons
So many exhibits, so little time
The Bottom Line
Some Night watch background may inspire you to look beyond this
single work, find one of the companion paintings to compare and
see for yourself why it's so great.
Full Review
Rijksmuseum
Many people from all over the world come to the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum
for just one reason: The Night Watch. Never mind all the other great
paintings on permanent display or the ever-changing exhibitions
going on. The Night watch is an icon of Western culture, and none
of the other great cultural treasures exhibited here has that same
magical appeal to millions of people from around the globe. De Nachtwacht
is the pride of the collection.
original title
It is fairly well known that De Nachtwacht (The Night Watch) isn’t
the original name of the painting. Many guides will tell you that
the original title of the work is “De compagnie van Frans
Banning Cocq” (The Company of Frans Banning Cocq), but that
is not true either; “De compagnie van Frans Banning Cocq”
is the subject matter, not the title.
It wasn’t common to title paintings in those days, but if
anything is the original title, it is this description next to a
drawing of the Nachtwacht in the family album of Banning Cocq: “De
jonge heer van Purmerland als Capitein geeft last aan zijnen Lietenant
de heer van Vlaerdingen om sijn compaignie Burgers te doen marcheren”
(literally: The young lord Van Purmerland as Captain gives order
to his Lieutenant the lord Van Vlaerdingen to march his company
Civilians.”).
subjects
That original title is very descriptive. The man in the centre is
Frans Banning Cocq, the young captain of the company. Frans Banning
Cocq was born in 1600, married a rich lady and became Lord of Purmerland.
The man walking on his left side is Willem van Ruijtenburch van
Vlaerding. All around them are the civilians that make up Cocq’s
Company. The group is starting its march on Cocq’s order.
genre
The Night watch is a unique painting, but before you can appreciate
just how unique, you have to know that it was commissioned as a
painting of a genre that was common at the time; a groups portrait
of a shooters company.
Although the genre was common, it was not common everywhere. It
was common locally. Most examples of this genre were made in the
Netherlands, most of these were made in Holland, and in fact, most
of these were made in Amsterdam.
Today, Amsterdam still owns more than fifty of such works, all
of these made between 1529 and 1656. That they were made at all
says something about the importance of the shooting companies. These
companies had an autonomy and identity they were proud of. They
had the means to commission a group portrait and a building to display
such large works in.
static group portraits
If you look at the early paintings in the genre, you see very static
group portraits. The subjects are standing, kneeling, or sitting
in orderly rows. This makes it easy to paint each individual with
just as much attention as any other. In fact, once you had an outline,
the artist could ask every member to come in one day to be painted
as part of the group portrait. Those group portraits do not look
a portrait of a group, but like a group of individual portraits.
Sure, there are differences in clothing and attributes to emphasize
rank and status, but each member had his portrait taken, and the
grouping looked even more artificial than a real and deliberate
groups photo looks today. It’s like photoshopping separate
passport photos together – the result just isn’t a group.
If there is light and shadow, if there is perspective, it’s
different for each group member. Individually, each member is painted
well, with quite recognisable features, and all the use of technique
the artist could master, but even as a group deliberately posing
for a painting, the painting generally just doesn’t seem real
at all.
the commission
The information available on the Nachtwacht is unusually precise.
We know from various documents created in the 1650s that Rembrandt
van Rijn painted it in 1642. We even know that they each paid a
hundred guilders (quite a sum of money in those days) or less, depending
on their placement in the painting.
public display
The painting, and several others were on display in the large room
of the Kloveniersdoelen, today the Doelen Hotel. That was one of
the most public places in the city. The rooms were usually open
to visitors and there were all kinds of social gatherings there.
They were actually even referred to as public paintings. Those paintings
were made to be seen by all.
There have been wars and occupations, but throughout the ages,
with only the exception of a few years during WWII, the paintings
have always remained on display in public buildings – a reflection
of the continuity of Dutch society through those ages, and the pride
that Amsterdammers have in their ancestors.
1642
1642 is the near the end of what’s known as the eighty-year
war against Spanish rule, which ended in 1648 with the Peace Treaty
of Munster. It was a period of war, remembered a generations-long
struggle for independence, yet it was Holland’s Golden Age.
It was the age of world trade through the V.O.C., the world’s
first multi-national. It was the age of painters like Jan Vermeer,
Jan Steen and Frans Hals and Rembrandt van Rijn. It was still war,
but the subjects on the painting are Cocq-sure that victory is a
fait accompli.
Kloveniers
The shooter companies were militiamen. They weren’t soldiers,
but free men.
There were multiple shooter companies in the Kloveniers. Each shooter
company had its own captain and could decide to have its group portrait
taken independent of each other. A few years after the completion
of the building in 1630, the Kloveniers decided to commission six
paintings, one for each of the six shooter companies, to decorate
the large room with. They even commissioned a seventh painting showing
the Lords of the Kloveniers.
A really complete picture of all the Kloveniers would have included
more than 200 persons. In actual fact, each of these paintings shows
all the highest ranking officials of a shooter company, most of
the lower ranking ones and some of the common men.
All seven paintings were finished and hung in their places. All
seven painting survive to this day. We know where each one used
to hang. The seven finished paintings of the living members, all
created by contemporary artists, must have given the large room
a very modern touch.
painters
Rembrandt was chosen to do one of the six paintings. So was Govert
Flinck, one of his former students. Govert Flinck also got the commission
for the seventh painting, which suggests that at the time, he was
the more famous or fashionable of the two.
That Rembrandt wasn’t born in Amsterdam did not matter at
all. Amsterdam was a metropole. Only one of the painters was an
Amsterdammer. Two of them, including Govert Flinck were not even
Dutch, but German. All six painters were chosen for the quality
of their work. They represent the best the period had to offer.
And all of them just happened to be connected to a nephew of Rembrandt’s
first wife, Hendrik Uylenburgh, an influential art dealer.
Amsterdammers
All the people in the paintings are Amsterdammers, and one of the
things that makes the collection of group paintings unique is that
we know quite a lot of the people on them. We not only know their
occupation, we often know their names, their income, were they lived
and with whom they were married. We know the full names of all the
shooting company members shown on the Nachtwacht.
captain of the company
The captains of the companies were very public figures. They came
from rich and influential families. They had all already had seat
on the municipal council, and for most of them, their captaincy
was the last career step before becoming major of Amsterdam. Of
the six captains on those six paintings, four eventually became
major. Frans Banning Cocq became major in 1646 and 1650.
family tradition
Rembrandt was well aware of the power and prestige of the captain.
The captain is the centre of the painting, and clearly the one in
command. The painting of the full body, from hat to shoe is in keeping
with a family tradition. There once was a full body painting of
Frans Banning Cocq. That painting has been lost, but his portrayal
on the Nachtwacht fits well with the surviving family portraits.
One of these is the portrait which Rembrandt painted in 1639 of
Andries de Graaff (1611-1678). Andries de Graaff did not like the
result, and refused to pay Rembrandt. Rembrandt had to go court
to make his patron pay. Rembrandt won the case, but he never received
any commission from any Amsterdam magistrate again.
top guilder
It’s a myth that Rembrandt wasn’t paid well. There are
sixteen people portayed in the Nachtwacht, and not only do we have
testimony that each of them paid a hundred guilders, we also have
testimony that the painting had costed the sum sixteen hundred guilders.
That is a lot of money. Rembrandt was a good painter. He was a favourite
and could afford to charge top guilder for his work. At the time,
he usually charged hundred guilders for half a body, and he charged
five hundred guilders for full body portrait like that of Andries
de Graaff. Many people did not make five hundred a year, but at
just hundred guilders a person. Rembrandt surely did not consider
himself paid in full and did the extra work on the Nachtwacht for
the honour of painting it, but sixteen hundreds 16th century guilders
is a small fortune.
Rembrandt’s courtyard
The only reason Rembrandt went bankrupt was his spendthrift. He
wasn’t a poor artist, he was a rich artist who could afford
to buy a brand new house in best new part of town and collect art
himself. The house he bought in 1639 is now the Rembrandt house.
A funny coincidence is that the house was built in 1606, the year
Rembrandt was born. The Nachtwacht was allegedly painted here, but
none of the rooms was big enough to contain it! It seems to have
been created on scaffolding created in the inner yard.
Stradanus’ painting
There is some resemblance between the overall design of the Nachtwacht
and a drawing by Giovanni Stradanus. The placement of two central
figures, the crowd behind it, the drummer on the right and little
children playing amongst it all, it seems too much to be coincidence.
There are solid historical facts that suggest that it was not done
on purpose, in commemoration of a visit of Maria de Medici to Amsterdam,
in which this particular shooting company played a major ceremonial
role. It seems to have met with approval of the Medici, the subject
of the original drawing, who bought one of Rembrandt self-portraits
for their gallery and even visited Rembrandt in old age.
A lot of this could be coincidence, but it hard to argue wit the
prominent display of lots of weaponry on the Nachtwacht, which was
very unusual for such a group, but does fit both Stradanus’
original drawing and the descriptions of the ceremonies.
sources
That Rembrandt copied part of the Nachtwacht from various sources
is difficult to contest. The pose of some of the musketeers seems
copied from an illustrated manual. This merely means that Rembrandt
did his research and wanted the result to look right. But that desire
to do right thing actually led to a mistake. The pose of the musketeer
in red in the left side of the painting is wrong. Rembrandt copied
the pose from another shooting company portrait by Jan Tengnagel,
which originated the mistake. The way his right hand holds the butt
of the musket is wrong, and no trained musketeer would do it that
way. There are more military mistakes, but they don’t really
matter in the end. None of these draws immediate attention to itself,
and the composition works beautifully.
Mistakes that were really obvious were corrected by Rembrandt. Many
of the painting in these genre paints weapons sloppily and generally
too small. Röntgen photos show that Rembrandt did draw the
Partizaan in van Ruytenburgh’s hand too small, but enlarged
it twice to get it just right - and the detail with which it has
been painted is exceptional.
confusing
The composition is confusing. There is a sense of chaos coming to
order as everyone starts to take place and role, but for the moment,
there’s chaos. Large parts of the painting are dark and many
details are hard to make out. This is not an easy painting to interpret.
Don’t worry about it – even experts continue to disagree
each other.
No known historical building matches the place of the action exactly,
but the background is just that and not the most interesting part
of the painting.
clear view
To get a clear view of all that’s in the painting, an early
state of etch of the painting, made by Lambertus Claessens in 1797,
is a great help. It looks much like a line drawing, in which none
of the characters is obscured by darkness or shadow. Many people
never notice the barking dog Rembrandt painted until they’ve
seen this drawing.
role of clothing
To those with knowledge of these things, every piece of clothing
on the painting has significance. Even today, a cursory glance suggest
that Frans Banning Cocq is some magistrate and Willem van Ruytenburgh
some military leader. Contemporaries would immediately recognise
their roles from the clothing and attributes alone. They’d
know that the two people carrying a halberd are sergeants.
When you identify the roles of all the subjects, you notice that
the painting is not all that chaotic after all. The members of the
shooting company are grouped by the weapons they bear.
figurants
Rembrandt’s use of figurants is not special. It was usual
to include figurants in those paintings.
Some of those figurants have a more prominent placement than the
actual subjects. You might guess that the drummer is a member of
the company, but he isn’t. He is believed to be the 52-year
old Jacob Jorisz, who is known to have been associated with the
company as a drummer. If you haven’t noticed the barking dog
yet: it is just in front of him.
The man or boy behind Frans Banning Cocq, walking towards the right,
is a figurant. Just behind him is the most striking figurant of
all, a girl in a satin dress carrying a dead white chicken that
almost the pistol she’s carrying too. She attracts your attention
so much, that you hardly notice that there is another girl just
behind her.
The overall function of the figurants is fill spaces in the composition.
They allow the painter to place his subjects in various poses without
creating gaps in the composition. Rembrandt made liberal use of
figurants on the composition. There are almost as many figurants
as there are subjects.
plague: not by Rembrandt
Not everything on the Nachtwacht was painted by Rembrandt. There
is a plague in the background, that list the names of the persons
on the painting - that was added later.
The plaque reads: Frans Banning Cocq, heer van Purmerlant en Ilpendam,
capiteijn, Willem van Ruijtenburch van Vlaerdingen, heer van Vlaerdingen,
sergeant, Barent Harmansen, Jan Adriaensen Keyser, Elbert Willemsen,
Jan Clasen Leydeckers, Jan Ockersen, Jan Pietersen Bronchorst, Harman
Iacobsen Wormskerck, Jacob Dircksen de Roy, Jan vander Heede, Walich
Schellingwou, Jan Brugman, Claes van Cruysbergen, Paulus Schoonhoven.
descendants
There have been many studies of the Nachtwacht, but none with the
mass-appeal of the study that the Centraal Bureau voor Genealogie
started this year.
Rembrandt Hermanszoon van Rijn was born on 1606 July 15 in Leiden.
Preparations for his 400th birthday are already underway. Rembrandt’s
own genealogy is well-documented, but what about the subjects of
his most famous painting? Who are their descendants? Are you perhaps
a descendant of a Bronkhorst, Brugman, Keizer, Hermansen or Schoonhoven
from Amsterdam? If so, the CBG would like to hear from you.
virtuosity
Rembrandt’s painting show a virtuosity. The play of light
and shadow is so true to life that it make the painting seem real.
Cocq’s hand almost seems to stick out of the painting. He
also manages to convey action through a static picture. The figures
seem to be moving and talking. You can almost hear them talk and
see them move on. The Nachtwacht is full of such examples of dramatic
captures of motion in a frozen image. What sets the Nachtwacht even
further apart is that you can not just image the action of the individual,
but get a real sense of a group of people setting out on their business.
hidden meanings
There are many questions that will never get an definitive answer.
Why is Frans Banning Cocq holding that glove so prominently? Is
the placement of the Partizan that Van Ruytenburgh is wearing an
example of phallic symbolism? And what about the shadow of Van Banning’s
outstretched hand?
We know why there is an “Gijsb.” description on Van
Ruytenburgh’s collar; the shooters considered themselves to
be descendants of the famous Gijsbreght van Aemstel.
We also know why the girl is carrying a chicken. The chicken is
hanging from her girdle by its claws and the claw was the emblem
of the Kloveniers, whose name derives from the Dutch word klauw.
The dead chicken has also been explained as the defeated enemy.
There are a myriad of explanations and theories for every little
detail. Some may be true, but many seem far-fetched. There is no
doubt some symbolism in there, but it isn't a allegory, it is a
group portrait.
De Nachtwacht
De Nachtwacht is a nickname, but with a real name that’s long
and boring, it’s no wonder that the nickname has practically
replaced the original name of the painting. There were both day
and night watches, and the overall darkness of the painting led
to the mistaken believe that this group must be a night watch, but
what we actually see is a group of people in strong sunlight.
The painting owes part of its darkness to the many layers of varnish
that have been added later. Varnish becomes somewhat yellow and
opaque with age. It is not uncommon for people to notice, especially
after restorations, that it isn’t a night watch at all…
but the name stuck.
size
The Night watch is a large painting, it is some and 4 and half meter
wide and more than 3 and half meters high. It used to be even larger
than it is today. The Night watch hasn’t moved much in all
those centuries. When it was first moved, in 1715, from the Kloveniersdoelen
to the town hall on the Dam, its designated place between two door
proved to small. This was solved by removing parts from all four
sides, but especially the left side. This has been regretted ever
since.
When Napoleon occupied the Netherlands, the town hall became the
Palace on the Dam. The magistrates moved the Nachtwacht to the Trippenhuis
of the family Trip. Napoleon ordered it back, but after the occupation
the painting was moved to the Trippenhuis again, which has now become
the Rijksmuseum, and was moved to new Rijksmuseum building when
it was finished in 1885.
Coming to more recent times, every little move of the painting has
been documented, and it’s carefully prepared and rehearsed
move to the Philips wing for ongoing renovation (2003-2008) of the
Rijksmuseum was televised live.
damage
A painting displayed in a public place will get damaged. The worst
damage ever was done by the owners themselves, when they moved the
painting to the Dam, and cut of portions of it to make it fit its
new spot. The most notorious damage was done in 1975 when someone
decided to take a kitchen knife to the work. An 1990 attempt to
damage the painting with acid was unsuccessful. The ever-present
attendant immediately grabbed the bucket water that stood at the
ready for just this kind of thing and threw it at the painting to
– damage remained limited to the varnish.
Even the well-meant restorations and maintenance, in the past done
without all the detailed knowledge of materials we have now, have
taken its toll. If you compare the Nachtwacht to another relatively
untouched Rembrandt painting, you will notice that the untouched
one retains much more of the subtle detail Rembrandt used to paint
with.
persistent myth
Of all the myths about the Nachtwacht, the most persistent one seems
that the shooter company rejected the painting. They did not. They
paid for it, and they hung the painting in its place - and it was
there that its fame began.
Samuel van Hoogstraten, a contemporary and student of Rembrandt
already remarked that it showed the hand of the master, that it
was not just a row of portraits, as was so often done. He finds
the painting to show Rembrandt observation of life, a special image
that made more work of the whole than the individual images. He
predicted that it would outshine the others, which seemed carte
blanches in comparison. He only wished that Rembrandt had put more
light into it.
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