Michiel Sweerts
Encyclopedia
Michiel Sweerts also known as Michael Sweerts, was a Flemish
painter of the Baroque
period, active in Rome
(1645–1656) in the style of the Bamboccianti
. The Bamboccianti were known for depicting genre scenes of daily life, but Sweerts's contributions to this genre display greater stylistic mastery and social-philosophical sensitivity than many of his colleagues in this "school." Highly successful in Rome during his years there, Sweerts's reputation suffered a severe collapse not long after his death, lasting centuries; but thanks especially to the 2002 international monographic exhibition devoted entirely to him, Michael Sweerts: 1618-1664, he has begun once again to enjoy the esteem his work clearly merits.
, he arrived in Rome in 1646, and rapidly moved into the circle of Flemish painters associated with Pieter van Laer
(leader of the so-called Bamboccianti painters) and that resided near Santa Maria del Popolo
. In 1647, he attended meetings of the Accademia di San Luca
, although not as a member. Despite the fragmentary nature of evidence pertaining to his career in Rome and the post-mortem eclipse of his reputation, we know that Sweerts succeeded in creating for himself a sufficiently exalted reputation in the city so as to enter into the service of the ruling papal family itself, the Pamphilj, more specifically, Camillo Pamphilj, nephew of reigning Pope Innocent X who, at the encouragement of Camillo, bestowed upon Sweerts the papal title of Cavaliere di Cristo, the same honor enjoyed by the likes of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. Despite working in the highest echelons of papal patronage in Rome, sometime between 1652 and 1654, for reasons unknown Sweerts left the Eternal City and returned to the North, and by 1656, he had returned to Brussels
, where he joined the painter's guild. He joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society
as a lay brother and became a devout Christian. In 1658 he made the guild a self portrait as a farewell gift and moved to Amsterdam, where he would oversee the building of a ship for travel with the aforementioned Missions Étrangères to Palestine.
(Syria), and from there to Isfahan via Tabriz
(both in Persia), he was dismissed by the Society after causing too much trouble to those around him at the end of May 1662. He died two years later in Goa
(India).
In a class entirely by itself is Sweerts's monumental masterpiece of ca. 1652-54, Plague in An Ancient City, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Although not without its flaws, it is generally recognized as Sweerts's greatest work in terms not only of size, compositional complexity, and technical achievement, but also historical-archeological erudition. Hence Pierre Rosenberg (former director of the Louvre Museum of Paris) included it in his 2006 catalogue, Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. A haunting, dramatic vision of the ravages of the bubonic plague, Sweerts's Plague in an Ancient City is clearly an attempt by the artist at proving his talent both in the depiction of a historical scene of epic proportions that encompasses a broad range of emotional-psychological states (the so-called affetti) and in imitation of the grand classicizing style of his older French contemporary and fellow-resident in Rome, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), one of the greatest masters of Baroque art. The precise subject and meaning of the work have long eluded art historians and other scholars, the general consensus being that the work was simply a generic depiction of the effects of the plague with no specific historical or moral or narrative meaning. That view has been overturned recently by the detailed visual and historical analysis of scholar Franco Mormando who has succeeded in deciphering the meaning of the canvas, both in terms of the specific historical plague therein represented and the probable intent (political-religious message) of the artist in recalling such a scene in mid-century Baroque Rome.
-influenced full bodied figures. His portrait of a young girl hangs near the girl with a pearl earring by Vermeer in the Mauritshuis
.
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
painter of the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
period, active in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
(1645–1656) in the style of the Bamboccianti
Bamboccianti
The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small...
. The Bamboccianti were known for depicting genre scenes of daily life, but Sweerts's contributions to this genre display greater stylistic mastery and social-philosophical sensitivity than many of his colleagues in this "school." Highly successful in Rome during his years there, Sweerts's reputation suffered a severe collapse not long after his death, lasting centuries; but thanks especially to the 2002 international monographic exhibition devoted entirely to him, Michael Sweerts: 1618-1664, he has begun once again to enjoy the esteem his work clearly merits.
Biography
Born in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, he arrived in Rome in 1646, and rapidly moved into the circle of Flemish painters associated with Pieter van Laer
Pieter van Laer
Pieter van Laer was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre scenes, active for over a decade in Rome, where his nickname was Il Bamboccio...
(leader of the so-called Bamboccianti painters) and that resided near Santa Maria del Popolo
Santa Maria del Popolo
Santa Maria del Popolo is an Augustinian church located in Rome, Italy.It stands to the north side of the Piazza del Popolo, one of the most famous squares in the city. The Piazza is situated between the ancient Porta Flaminia and the park of the Pincio...
. In 1647, he attended meetings of the Accademia di San Luca
Accademia di San Luca
The Accademia di San Luca, was founded in 1577 as an association of artists in Rome, under the directorship of Federico Zuccari, with the purpose of elevating the work of "artists", which included painters, sculptors and architects, above that of mere craftsmen. Other founders included Girolamo...
, although not as a member. Despite the fragmentary nature of evidence pertaining to his career in Rome and the post-mortem eclipse of his reputation, we know that Sweerts succeeded in creating for himself a sufficiently exalted reputation in the city so as to enter into the service of the ruling papal family itself, the Pamphilj, more specifically, Camillo Pamphilj, nephew of reigning Pope Innocent X who, at the encouragement of Camillo, bestowed upon Sweerts the papal title of Cavaliere di Cristo, the same honor enjoyed by the likes of Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. Despite working in the highest echelons of papal patronage in Rome, sometime between 1652 and 1654, for reasons unknown Sweerts left the Eternal City and returned to the North, and by 1656, he had returned to Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, where he joined the painter's guild. He joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society
Paris Foreign Missions Society
The Society of Foreign Missions of Paris is a Roman Catholic missionary organization. It is not a religious order, but an organization of secular priests and lay persons dedicated to missionary work in foreign lands....
as a lay brother and became a devout Christian. In 1658 he made the guild a self portrait as a farewell gift and moved to Amsterdam, where he would oversee the building of a ship for travel with the aforementioned Missions Étrangères to Palestine.
Travel to Palestine
As a member of the Foreign Missions Society, he sailed east in 1661 from Marseille to Palestine with bishop Francois Pallu, 7 priests and another lay brother. Travelling to AleppoAleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
(Syria), and from there to Isfahan via Tabriz
Tabriz
Tabriz is the fourth largest city and one of the historical capitals of Iran and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. Situated at an altitude of 1,350 meters at the junction of the Quri River and Aji River, it was the second largest city in Iran until the late 1960s, one of its former...
(both in Persia), he was dismissed by the Society after causing too much trouble to those around him at the end of May 1662. He died two years later in Goa
Goa
Goa , a former Portuguese colony, is India's smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population. Located in South West India in the region known as the Konkan, it is bounded by the state of Maharashtra to the north, and by Karnataka to the east and south, while the Arabian Sea forms its...
(India).
Extant Works
The surviving works by Sweerts, most of them dating to his residence in Rome, amount to about forty canvases. They can be broadly divided into two categories, scenes of the everyday, humble life of ordinary people (so-called "genre painting") and portraits of both known and unknown persons. Sweerts's genre scenes include several depicting artists at work in their studios or elsewhere and are thus valuable visual evidence for the work habits of seventeenth-century Roman artists. His pious series, The Seven Works of Mercy, also serves in effect as genre scenes, while illustrating for moral-didactic purposes the Christian corporal works of charity. In his portraits Sweerts proves himself a master as good as any of his best contemporaries in the field: his exquisite Head of a Woman of ca. 1654, now at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, is a noteworthy example of his ability to capture the lively and distinctive humanity of even his most humble, anonymous subjects.In a class entirely by itself is Sweerts's monumental masterpiece of ca. 1652-54, Plague in An Ancient City, now in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Although not without its flaws, it is generally recognized as Sweerts's greatest work in terms not only of size, compositional complexity, and technical achievement, but also historical-archeological erudition. Hence Pierre Rosenberg (former director of the Louvre Museum of Paris) included it in his 2006 catalogue, Only in America: One Hundred Paintings in American Museums Unmatched in European Collections. A haunting, dramatic vision of the ravages of the bubonic plague, Sweerts's Plague in an Ancient City is clearly an attempt by the artist at proving his talent both in the depiction of a historical scene of epic proportions that encompasses a broad range of emotional-psychological states (the so-called affetti) and in imitation of the grand classicizing style of his older French contemporary and fellow-resident in Rome, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), one of the greatest masters of Baroque art. The precise subject and meaning of the work have long eluded art historians and other scholars, the general consensus being that the work was simply a generic depiction of the effects of the plague with no specific historical or moral or narrative meaning. That view has been overturned recently by the detailed visual and historical analysis of scholar Franco Mormando who has succeeded in deciphering the meaning of the canvas, both in terms of the specific historical plague therein represented and the probable intent (political-religious message) of the artist in recalling such a scene in mid-century Baroque Rome.
Legacy
Sweerts is an enigmatic and difficult artist to categorize, since he seems to have absorbed a variety of influences to create an eclectic hybrid that can be described as a Netherlandish genre adaptation of an early tenebrist styles: a blend of Vermeer's genre of painting and CaravaggioCaravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
-influenced full bodied figures. His portrait of a young girl hangs near the girl with a pearl earring by Vermeer in the Mauritshuis
Mauritshuis
The Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis is an art museum in The Hague, the Netherlands. Previously the residence of count John Maurice of Nassau, it now has a large art collection, including paintings by Dutch painters such as Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jan Steen, Paulus Potter and Frans...
.