I. Introduction

In the early years of the seventeenth century Southern Netherlandish painters developed a comparatively sudden interest in certain elements of warfare. The works they produced can be divided into five genres: cavalry battles and skirmishes, raids on convoys, attacks on travellers, soldiers resting on the march, and villages being plundered. Their colleagues in the Northern Netherlands showed little interest in these themes before the end of the first quarter of the century, but this changed in about 1625 and Northern Netherlandish artists took over from their Flemish colleagues. In the Republic two new genres came into being: life in camp and interiors with soldiers. Although all these themes appeared in Northern Netherlandish painting, it was the cavalry skirmish and the guardroom scene that achieved particular popularity. Here we shall be examining the origins, development and interpretation of these two genres.



II. The Origin of the Cavalry Skirmish as an Artistic Motif

The genre of the cavalry skirmish in Dutch and Flemish art is characterized by paintings of rural landscapes in which a comparatively small band of horsemen do battle with a group of cavalry or infantry. These paintings are closely bound in with the Eighty Years War: almost without exception, the cavalrymen in paintings of the second quarter of the seventeenth century wear either red or orange sashes, thus identifying themselves as participants in the struggle between Spanish and Dutch or Flemish forces. The scenes they depict are not large battles but engagements on a much smaller scale. This reflects the way cavalry was used in the seventeenth century: cavalry were sent out on reconnaissance, to guard army camps or convoys of supplies, and to carry out surprise raids.

This interest in depicting warfare did not arise purely by coincidence. In both the Holy Roman Empire and Italy a solid tradition of military scenes had become established in the sixteenth century. [1] In about 1600 the Italian engraver Antonio Tempesta (c.1555 - 1630) drew a number of cavalry skirmishes which in many cases were similar in composition to the later Netherlandish genre. [2] Tempesta's prints soon became popular in western Europe, where for many artists they were an important source of inspiration.

Another factor in the awakening of interest in battle scenes among Dutch and Flemish painters was the prints and cavalry instruction manuals that appeared at the beginning of the century. In 1596-9 Jacob de Gheyn (1565 - 1629) produced 117 sketches for the instruction of infantry. These were published in 1607 under the title Wapenhandelinghe van Roers, Musquetten ende Spiessen (The use of firelocks, muskets and lances). At about the same time de Gheyn also designed a series of twenty-two prints for the instruction of cavalry, and there are paintings in which it can be clearly seen that the artists took one or more models from these prints. [3]

Apart from the sixteenth-century Italian and German painters and the series of prints of soldiers that appeared in the early years of the century, another major role in the development of the cavalry skirmish as a genre was played by the these of 'Leckerbeetje's Battle'. The 'battle', which was fought on the heath at Vught on 5 February 1600, was a skirmish between twenty-two horsemen led by Pierre Bréauté, a Frenchman in the service of the States General, and a force of the same size commanded by the Brabander Abraham van Houwelingen, known popularly as Leckerbeetje (the name means 'tasty morsel' or a kind of apple or pear). Leckerbeetje's Battle was painted in many dozens of paintings and the scene was also widely distributed through the medium of prints. [4]



III. Northern Netherlandish Painters

The first Northern Netherlandish painter of a cavalry skirmish was Esaias van de Velde (1587 - 1630), who painted his first works in the genre in about 1621/2. In his artistic development van de Velde was influenced by the work of the Flemish painter Sebastiaen Vrancx (1573 - 1647), who had been painting cavalry scenes for some time before this. [5] In his work too the landscape has a dominant role, the spectator looking down on the scene of battle from a high viewpoint. Gradually van de Velde developed his own concept of the cavalry skirmish which reached its ultimate form in about 1626. [6] By this time there is an essential difference between his work and that of Vrancx: where Vrancx used a high vantage point, van de Velde elected to lower the horizon. This reduced the part played by the landscape in the picture and shifted the emphasis onto the fighting itself, which now took place in the immediate foreground. [7]

Van de Velde's cavalry skirmishes can almost always be divided into three planes which are diagonal extensions of each other. In the foreground we see quite a small number of horsemen engaged in battle. In the middle plane the fighting continues and we see a large number of cavalry engaging one another, while the background is a landscape which is either empty or again populated with fighting cavalrymen.

Although van de Velde had arrived at a basic concept for the Northern Netherlandish cavalry painting by about 1625, in a number of instances he departed from it. He painted several battlegrounds at night, one of the most striking examples being the cavalry attack on an army camp, now in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam (Cat. No. 000; pl. 1). Van de Velde also regularly painted skirmishes in an open landscape, in which plenty of space is given over to trees and woods. Van de Velde used trees both as a repoussoir to provide a natural frame within which the scene was depicted, and as a central feature, towering up high above the horizon and interrupting the broad expanse of the sky.

In the years leading up to his death in 1630 van de Velde retained his interest in the military genre. Apart from his cavalry skirmishes he also painted raids on convoys and army camps and attacks on villages; he also produced a few drawings of guardroom scenes and soldiers plundering an interior.

It was not long before van de Velde's work found imitators. Just as Sebastiaen Vrancx was instrumental in introducing and developing the cavalry skirmish and related genres in Flemish painting, so van de Velde brought these genres to public attention in the Northern Netherlands. Between 1625 and 1630 Pieter de Neyn (1597 - 1639), Palamedes Palamedesz (1607 - 1638) and Jan Martszen the Younger (c.1609 - after 1647) all drew on Esaias van de Velde for inspiration. The style in which the early work of all three was painted may be said to be closely similar to that of their model.

At the beginning of the 1630s Palamedes Palamedesz broke free of van de Velde's influence and developed a style of his own. The taut contours have disappeared and the works are now far lighter in colour, with a yellow-green undertone. The horses are more sophisticated, with broad necks narrowing towards the top, above which a small head is placed. The heavily-built nags have made way for slender, sleek riding-horses.

In 1635-6 Palamedesz's style changed again. Now all the landscape elements disappeared from his paintings and the hostilities themselves received the full focus of attention. Now too he abandoned composition based on a diagonal, preferring instead to build on blocks placed in an imaginary triangle.

Some years after Palamedes Palamedesz, whose earliest cavalry skirmishes date from 1626, Jan Martsen the Younger painted his first such painting. Martsen was a cousin of Esaias van de Velde, who probably also took upon himself the role of teacher. Martsen's earliest battle scenes accordingly show clear signs of van de Velde's influence. In about 1630-1 there was an abrupt change in Martsen's painting manner. Like Palamadesz, after van de Velde's death Martsen abandoned his uncle's style and struck off in a new direction of his own. [8] The skirmishes now became broader in conception, his palette more varied and his figures more sophisticated, while the sharp outlines of his drawing disappeared (pl. 2).

By about 1635 Jan Martsen the Younger's new style had completed its metamorphosis. Now the figures are painted in smooth, thin brush strokes, the landscape is much more open and the artist has started to make use of the possibilities of chiaroscuro - emphasizing particular areas of the painting by contrasting light and dark passages. This was the style that Martsen was to employ for the rest of his life.

But although in his earlier work Martsen owed much to van de Velde, he had also looked at the work of Sebastiaen Vrancx. Between 1630 and 1635 he painted a number of pictures of battlefield scenes after the battle, a recurrent theme in Vrancx's work. Indeed, Jan Martsen the Younger is the only Northern Netherlandish painter to take such scenes as his subject. His battlefields show us the horrors of war in a much more moderate way than those of Vrancx.

By about the middle of the 1630s Esaias van de Velde's direct influence on the cavalry skirmish as a genre was over. The prime exponents of the genre were now Palamedes Palamedesz and Jan Martsen the Younger and it was they who acted as the models for other painters.

This new direction is clearly seen in the work of Jan Asselijn (after 1610 - 1652), who for a short time - 1634-5 - concentrated heavily on the genre. Asselijn's cavalry skirmishes are closely allied to the more smoothly painted works being executed by Jan Martsen in particular at this time. [9]

At the end of the 1630s two new painters started to take an interest in the subject: Abraham van der Hoeff (1611/12 - 1666) and Jan Jacobsz van der Stoffe (1611 - 1682). Both were strongly influenced by the work of Palamedesz and Martszen and, like them, chose to devote themselves entirely to fighting scenes.

Besides the painters already referred to, whose work was based to a greater or lesser extent directly or indirectly on the oeuvre of Esaias van de Velde and who can therefore be regarded as followers of him, in the second quarter and early third quarter of the seventeenth century many other painters were active who occupied themselves to some degree with the painting of cavalry skirmishes but whose source of inspiration is less easy to identify. Chief among these were Gerrit Claesz Bleeker (c.1600 - 1656), Benjamin Gerritsz Cuyp (1612 - 1652), Joost Cornelisz Droochsloot (1586 - 1666), Pauwels van Hillegaert (1595/6 - 1640), Hendrick de Meyer (? - before 1698), Pieter Molyn (1595 - 1661) and Pieter Jansz Post (1608 - 1669). As painters they did not have the same influence and were not as prolific in the genre as the artists already discussed. For most of them, cavalry paintings were no more than a passing interest and the skirmishes they painted can be counted on the fingers of one hand. That does not detract, however, from the fact that they produced some very fine paintings in the genre.

In about 1645 the cavalry skirmish made an abrupt change of course. The Haarlem painter Philips Wouwerman (1619 - 1669) then set the tone for the coming decades. [10] His works are conspicuous for their great dynamic, powerful diagonal rendering of line and sophisticated technique with accents in bright colours. One example of Wouwerman's style in this period is his Cavalry making a Sortie from a Fort on a Hill (pl. 3). Compared with the cavalry pictures of Palamedesz or Martsen, for example, here the painter has fully exploited the power of chiaroscuro to invest the scene with a high sense of the dramatic. The landscape too is quite different. Whereas the cavalry skirmishes described so far all show the fighting as taking place in a flat Dutch landscape, the rocky outcroppings, stone bridge and architecture of the castle in the background of the London painting all point to this conflict being located in more southerly parts. In the second half of the seventeenth century Wouwerman was a powerful influence on the painters of cavalry skirmishes.



IV. The Interpretation of Cavalry Skirmishes

Seventeenth-century sources contain few references to the cavalry skirmish or related genres. However, from the scarce passages that we do find, including one in the writings of Karel van Mander, [11] it is clear that the more realistic and dynamic such a picture was, the more it was appreciated. The same attitude is expressed in the work of other writers. In his panegyric to Palamedes Palamedesz, Cornelis de Bie wrote that the artist 'gave art such power that only life itself is lacking'. [12] In the eighteenth century Houbraken likewise sang the praises of the vitality of the genre, writing of Wouwerman: 'Looking at battle scenes painted by him one sees the fire of passion glittering in the eyes of horse and horseman, the fear of those in flight, the anguish of the wounded, and the tinge of death painted on the lips of those mown down.' [13]

Yet it is not the sole purpose of these paintings to provide enjoyment for the spectator. All this clatter of arms and armour is supposed too to give pause for thought. The text accompanying a print published by Frederick de Wit after a design by Jan Martsen the Younger stresses the senselessness of war, doomed as it is to degenerate into death and despair. [14] And an analysis of the pictures reveals that they themselves carry this same message.

Many of the elements in a cavalry painting are references of one kind or another to death. Of course, given the nature of the subject matter one would hardly expect anything else, but that does not explain everything. In accordance with the prevailing convention of the genre, the dead bodies are always placed in the immediate foreground. This central disposition cannot be coincidental. To put it another way: in their works the seventeenth-century painters of cavalry skirmishes very deliberately gave death a special place. This is reinforced by the dead trees, the horse skulls and the gallows-field, all of which occupy prominent positions in some battle paintings. All these motifs underline the deadly nature of what is depicted. At the same time these pictorial elements, besides having a function within the picture itself, also serve the purpose of making the spectator reflect on the mortality of the soldiers who put up such a fight for their cause. Hardly surprising, then, that in the panegyric to Palamedes Palamedesz quoted above de Bie writes: 'And the shedding of all that sad blood / It never seems to end'. [15]

Finally, alongside the entertaining and moralistic character of the genre there is unquestionably an element of propaganda in these scenes. As we have seen, the insignia worn by the figures in them show that these battle paintings are concerned with the fighting which occurred between Dutch and Spanish forces. Cavalry skirmishes from the second quarter of the century contain explicit references to the struggle against Spanish domination in which the Northern Netherlands were involved at this time. The genre thus provides an artistic impression of a contemporary war.



V. Interiors with Soldiers, c.1625-1660

As already mentioned in the introduction, painting in the Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth century saw not only the flourishing of the cavalry skirmish as a genre, but also the rise in popularity of interiors with scenes of military life. The principal features of this second genre are that the scenes are set indoors and that the chief protagonists are enlisted men and officers. Within the genre it is possible to distinguish three different types.

One of these types of military interior consists of scenes of somewhat gloomy, exceedingly sparsely furnished rooms often having the appearance of farm outbuildings. In these places soldiers pass the time in gambling, playing cards, smoking, sleeping and, very occasionally, drinking. There is also a considerable abundance of women of easy virtue, having a good time and abandoning themselves, with the soldiers, to the sensual pleasures of life. On the walls there is usually a wooden rack for the men's pikes or muskets. Clearly, then, we are dealing with a military guardroom rather than a tavern or whorehouse. Scenes of this kind have been known since the seventeenth century as kortegaardjes, from the French corps de garde. [16]

In the second type we see a similar kind of interior, but here the officers and men are engaged in the process of examining and dividing up the spoils of war. The booty consists of silver and gold tableware, coins, jewellery and costly items of clothing. A recurrent motif is the officer listening to the pleading of a person on his knees before him, doubtless a prisoner or hostage. [17] The pathos of the poor wretch begging for mercy and the return of his possessions, contrasted with the officer with his haughty, grim or sometimes wholly uninterested look, is often very moving. There is no historical name for scenes of this kind. [18]

Finally there are paintings of a more military character in which soldiers can be seen at work cleaning and repairing their arms and kit, or otherwise preparing for inspection under the watchful eye of an officer. This was a particularly popular type of work during the 1630s and 1640s, though such scenes remain less numerous than guardrooms and looting.

The first interiors with soldiers were painted in the latter half of the 1620s and the genre reached its greatest popularity in the 1630s and 1640s. The principal artists to engage in the genre were Pieter Codde (1599-1678), Willem Duyster (1598/99-1635), Simon Kick (1603-1652), Jacob Duck (c.1600-1667), Anthonie Palamedesz (1601-1673), Jan Olis (c.1610?-1676), Pieter Quast (1606-1647), Benjamin Cuyp (1612-1652), Maerten Stoop (1618?-1647), Pieter Potter, Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681), Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684) and Ludolf de Jongh (1616-1679). There are also guardroom scenes by Jan van Velsen (active 1625-1656), Cornelis Verspronck (1606/9-1662), Thomas de Keijser (c.1597-1667) and Daniel Cletcher (d. 1632). The interiors with soldiers that these artists painted in the second quarter of the century are all in horizontal format. In terms of composition there are several basic types with groups of soldiers and officers. The relationship between these groups is often obscure, and sometimes it appears as if several unrelated scenes are taking place in the room at the same time.

In the early 1650s the genre underwent a change not only of style but also of theme. Now the painters prefer compositions with only a few figures shown in the foreground, the structure of the group and the gestures of the figures in it endowing the picture with relief and depth. This effect is heightened by the chiaroscuro. New subjects and motifs make their appearance, too, such as soldiers writing letters. Another popular theme was the amorous conversation between a richly dressed officer - often middle-aged - and a young, elegant woman. Such scenes are found in the work of Gerard ter Borch, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout (1621-1674), Jacob van Loo (1614-1670), Pieter de Hooch and even Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).



VI. The Origins of the Interior with Soldiers

The popularity of paintings of military life off the battlefield was undoubtedly influenced by the resumption of the Republic's struggle against Spain following the end of the Twelve Years Truce in 1621. When towns were retaken by the army of the States General, sometimes after long and costly sieges, there was a need for a garrison of soldiers to provide permanent protection. Guarding these frontier towns was not, however, a particularly onerous task and it was probably carried out by both officers and men mainly in guardrooms and barrack-rooms. Thus guard duty and hanging around in guardrooms were part of the day-to-day reality of life for the soldiers in the States army in most of the strategic towns of the Republic.

If the painters of cavalry skirmishes could draw on something of an iconographical tradition, the guardroom piece with soldiers was a new type in Dutch genre painting, though there is a thematic similarity to the way in which the Calling of Matthew and the Denial of Peter were painted in the first decades of the seventeenth century by Caravaggio (1573-1610) and his followers, [19] as both scenes contain soldiers sleeping, playing cards or gambling. Moreover in the 1620s northern European Caravaggists such as Hendrick Terbrugghen (1588-1629), Dirck van Baburen (c.1595-1624) and Johann Liss (1595-1629) painted a number of interiors showing soldiers playing trictrac (a form of backgammon) in poorly-lit rooms. [20]

In the Republic of the 1620s the structure of the composition and the motifs to be seen in the kortegaardjes - smoking, gambling, playing trictrac and drinking - also appear in pictures of people enjoying themselves, many of them painted in Haarlem or Amsterdam by Willem Buytewech (1591/2-1624), Dirk Hals (1591-1656), Esaias van de Velde (1587-1630), or by Pieter Codde or Willem Duyster. These paintings show us luxuriously appointed apartments in which richly dressed young people make music, dance, sing, smoke and engage in amorous dalliance. Such scenes appear to be inspired by illustrations of the prodigal son feasting with harlots - a theme which in the sixteenth century, due only in part to its moralistic import, had been extraordinary popular.

These scenes in which soldiers appear and in which drink, women and gambling feature as agreeable ways of passing the time are common in European painting of the early seventeenth century. There is no evidence that the painters of the kortegaardjes borrowed directly from these themes, nor indeed that they were even inspired by them, but they do show that there was broad interest among painters in subjects concerning military life.

The robbery scene or roverijtje has a longer tradition. Paintings of this type are in many ways similar to a genre that had become established in northern Europe in the sixteenth century. They were inspired by the misery suffered by peasants at the hands of mutinying and looting soldiers: the so-called boerenverdriet (peasant's misfortune). The most famous example of this is probably the pair of paintings by David Vinckboons (1576-c.1632) known as The Peasant's Misfortune and The Peasant's Pleasure (cf. Cat. No. 000). [21] Many guardroom paintings from the Northern Netherlands show signs of the influence of representations of this kind.



VII. The Stylistic Development of the Kortegaardje: Some Examples

The first painters of guardroom scenes were Pieter Codde and Willem Duyster, whose earliest kortegaardjes date from the second half of the 1620s. Codde's first dated interiors with soldiers were painted in 1628. The rooms in which the scenes are set are brightly lit and well defined, [22] thus focusing attention on the human activity. It looks as if the figures have been disposed more or less arbitrarily in the pictorial space, as a result of which the representation breaks down into several different parts. [23] By the 1630s Codde had achieved a greater compositional unity, a good example of which is provided by a guardroom painting now in Göttingen (pl. 4). With the diagonal structure of the figure group the picture no longer seems to be composed of a collection of separate motifs. The extrovert vivacity and the wealth of activity in this scene with its courting couples and the smoking and sleeping men is characteristic of Codde's work. Besides kortegaardjes like this one, in the early 1630s Codde also painted a succession of scenes of soldiers preparing to move off under the watchful eye of an officer. [24]

The vivacity of Codde's guardroom scenes is also seen in the paintings of Willem Duyster from the 1620s. In the following decade Duyster moved on to other subjects and the focus of his pictures becomes closer. In contrast to Codde's lively and exuberant compositions, those of Duyster are more restrained, in addition to which Duyster prefers to have fewer separate activities going on in the scene. As a result, the gaze and attitude of many of his figures have a certain air of contemplation, as in the painting in Haarlem (pl. 5). The concentration on a few figures and the accentuation of the principal motif by the lighting distinguish Duyster's work from Codde's evenly illuminated, monochromatic compositions with their numerous figures. [25] Like Codde, however, Duyster too painted not only guardroom pictures but also roverijtjes and scenes of prisoners pleading with a standing officer.

The themes developed by Codde and Duyster at the end of the 1620s were soon taken up by other painters. The best known of these are Jacob Duck, Simon Kick, Benjamin Cuyp and Anthonie Palamedesz.

Jacob Duck was born in Utrecht. He painted more interiors with soldiers, and over a longer period, than any other painter. His early work is closely similar to that of Codde, [26] but the later guardroom scenes display an unmistakably individual approach. The scenes are set in brightly and evenly lighted, monumental rooms reminiscent of ruined churches. Here Duck shows us a multifarious assemblage of soldiers and strumpets. The figures are full length but quite small. Some of the men greedily unpack chests of plundered valuables, others play cards and smoke, yet others attempt to purchase the favours of a strumpet with a string of pearls. In almost all Duck's paintings there is at least one figure turning to the spectator to draw him into the picture to share a joke with him, point out a detail or simply invite his views on the scene before him. Duck paints with a fine touch and the tone is silvery with bright highlights of colour. The whole scene is minutely painted down to the finest detail.

Although artists such as Anthonie Palamedesz, Simon Kick, Benjamin Cuyp and Marten Stoop, continued, in the wake of Codde, Duyster and Duck, to paint kortegaardjes until well into the 1650s, in the early part of the decade the genre underwent a major stylistic shift. The transformation first becomes apparent in the work of Jacob van Loo and Gerbrand van den Eeckhout. They concentrated on smaller groups, sometimes no more than a few figures in all, and placed them in the foreground. Although the room in which they are set is often poorly lit, the light falls on the principal figures so that they stand out sharply against the dark background. The result is a sort of three-dimensionality which endows the scene with an unprecedentedly realistic sense of depth. In addition to this, the subtle chiaroscuro produces an effect of great coherence in the composition. Whereas the early guardroom paintings were set in interiors of the utmost simplicity, the rooms are now sumptuously decorated and the protagonists are equally prosperously attired.

This stylistic renewal of the genre also affected the work of Gerard ter Borch. Born in Deventer, ter Borch had been painting kortegaardjes since the 1630s: scenes which display a strong thematic and compositional affinity with the work of Willem Duyster. [27] The finest example of this is his Soldiers playing Trictrac of about 1640 (pl. 6), now in Bremen. Unlike many painters, ter Borch avoided dramatic action and the gestures that are so typical of the many boisterous guardroom scenes that had been painted before then, and the effect is that his work makes a hushed impression. The Bremen painting carries amazing conviction with its fine detail and the phenomenal technique with which the artist has managed to capture the atmospheric effects and colourful dress of the figures.

In the early 1650s ter Borch, following in the footsteps of van Loo and van den Eeckhout, painted a new type of interior with soldiers. Now the pictures are generally in a vertical format with a few figures painted at either half or full length. These, by their disposition and gestures, define the pictorial space. Apart from this stylistic innovation, there are now also new themes and subjects, such as the courier giving a message to an officer, or an officer writing a letter - usually somewhat contemplative or hushed moments during a lull in the action. With his virtuoso brushwork ter Borch manages to catch both the gleam of a cuirass and the texture of clothing with an accuracy that is amazingly true to life.

In the early 1650s other artists too, including Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Ludolf de Jongh, were producing conventional guardroom paintings in the tradition of Duyster and Codde. But they too followed the example set by the new interiors by van den Eeckhout, ter Borch and van Loo, shifting their style and composition and painting countless interiors of the same kind.



VII. The Demise of the Cavalry Skirmish and Kortegaardje

The great flourishing of the cavalry skirmish and guardroom painting lay in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, the period between the end of the Twelve Years Truce in 1621 and the conclusion of the Treaty of Münster in 1648. The popularity of both genres coincided with the second phase of the Eighty Years War. This was a time of high output of paintings, prints, medallions and tiles all taking the war as their subject and thus indirectly associated with the struggle. In both Holland and Flanders the war created a climate in which eagerness to visualize the conflict was able to come to fruition. Seen in this light, it is hardly surprising that with the cessation of hostilities not only the immediate source of material but also the appetite for the genre fell away.

In the case of the cavalry skirmish this new development coincided with the changes introduced by Philips Wouwerman in the classical concept of the genre as it had been developed by Esaias van de Velde. The combination of these two developments, the one on the historical, the other on the art historical level, led to a completely new interpretation of the cavalry skirmish in which rocky outcroppings and other exotic elements came to define the picture. The soldiers themselves changed too. No longer did they wear red or orange sashes by which they might be identified as Spanish or States cavalrymen, and with the setting aside of their colours so too the immediacy disappeared from the paintings.

Although there are exceptions, it is legitimate to say that the guardroom had largely vanished as a theme by the end of the 1660s. Indeed, it is difficult after that time to find any kind of painting in which the protagonists are clearly identifiable as soldiers at all. Evidently the military genres had lost their attraction and had been thorughly subsumed into the bourgeois, elegant conversation piece. Two decades after the signing of the Treaty of Münster that ended the Eighty Years War, the themes engendered by the war had, like the war itself, burnt themselves out.

FOOTNOTES