“Despite the presence of a relatively broad affluent and literate middle class, power was concentrated in the hands of a small, and very rich, elite of bourgeois origin.”
No, that’s not a passage lifted from a contemporary commentary on U.S. income inequality. It is a quote from the catalogue of a major exhibit about 17th-century Dutch society, opening Feb. 20 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.
The opportunity to see original paintings by Rembrandt and Vermeer is the obvious draw of the museum’s spring blockbuster, “Reflecting Class in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer.”
But with its focus on depictions of class in a society not so different from our own—the new Dutch republic valued democracy, had a vigorous consumer culture, and was economically stratified with limited chances for upward mobility—the exhibit resonates with our own democracy’s increasingly heated national conversation about money, power and fairness.
“Reflecting Class” was organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where it ends its run in mid-January. The Nelson’s showing will be overseen by the museum’s new associate curator of European painting and sculpture, Rima Girnius. A Rembrandt scholar with an upbringing in Europe, Girnius came to the museum from the Figge Art Museum in Davenport, Iowa, and holds a Ph.D. in art history from Bryn Mawr.
Featuring more than 70 Dutch masterworks from American and European collections, the exhibit “walks through the hierarchy of Dutch society,” Girnius said, and “explores how class was conveyed, not just through fashion, but by how people held themselves. There were etiquette books that told people how to behave, how to hold a glass of wine.”
The exhibit is organized in four sections: depictions of the upper class, middle class and lower class and a grouping of works capturing their interactions. It would be a mistake to see these images as records of the real appearance of the people portrayed. In fact, the paintings showcase “the ways these groups wanted to be depicted, were perceived by those depicting them, or were imagined to be by those buying such depictions,” according to a Nelson press release.
That meant plenty of room for stereotypes, exaggeration and self-aggrandizement. “You have to look carefully and pick up on these things,” Girnius said.
The catalogue contains a fascinating essay about “Smelling Rank and Status,” by Herman Roodenburg, who notes that “Bathing as a means of cleansing the body had…all but disappeared by the sixteenth century.” One reason for this was a fear of opening the pores to the plague. Instead, Roodenburg explains, “the elite kept their skin clean… through frequent changes of underwear”—linen underwear, that is. It had to be washed in buttermilk and clean water, which was only to be found outside the city. Jacob Van Ruisdael’s View of the Plain of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, an aerial view of a landscape overlaid with a tidy patchwork of drying laundry, documents part of the process.
The importance of linen also is apparent in the exhibit’s many portraits. “Wearing linen was a way of demonstrating wealth and status,” Girnius said. “White linen ruffs and collars signified that the sitter could afford the expense, not only of purchasing the linen but of caring for and laundering it.”
“Reflecting Class” marks a curatorial homecoming of sorts for Ian Kennedy, who left his post as the Nelson’s curator of European art in 2013. But before he departed, Kennedy had already helped set the wheels in motion for this show.
As Ronni Baer, the MFA Boston’s senior curator of paintings, art of Europe, writes in the exhibition catalogue, “My first debt of gratitude is to Ian Kennedy, who, in 2009, suggested to me the idea of mounting an exhibition of Dutch paintings seen through the lens of the social classes.”
Now an independent scholar, Kennedy also assisted Baer in selecting the artworks for “Reflecting Class” And it’s quite a list. Viewers will enjoy a Who’s Who of 17th Dutch painting, including works by Anthony van Dyck, Frans Hals, Gerrit Dou, Pieter de Hooch and Jan Steen, in addition to portraits by Rembrandt and Vermeer’s exquisite A Lady Writing.
“Reflecting Class in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer” opens Feb. 24 and continues through May 29 at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 4525 Oak St. Hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday, Saturday Sunday; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday and Friday. For more information, 816-751-1278 or www.nelson-atkins.org. Tickets cost $12 for adults, $10 for seniors over 55, $6 for students with ID. Free to members and children under 12.
