Today the phenomenon of battle scene painting enjoys neither the interest of the broad public nor that of the experts. Nonetheless, in the seventeenth century it was a genre of considerable importance. The large number of wars and the development of artists' specialisation in particular picture types are two factors which will have helped battle painting to its widespread popularity. The majority of battle scene specialists emerged from a small number of painting centres, above all in the Netherlands and Italy. Battle scene painting of these regions exerted great influence on the depiction of this subject throughout Europe, especially in view of the fact that many of the military scene painters active in other parts of Europe were born or trained in these centres.

Generally speaking, battle scene painting can be divided into two major categories: depictions of historical events [1] and military genre painting. The former always served propaganda purposes, which had various effects on the representational forms employed, depending on both the patron's intentions and the public to be addressed by the work. One form of historical scene was the pictorial glorification of battle with an emphasis on large-figure compositions, works created above all for a non-military public. In this type of battle scene the painters' particular focus was on the military leader, who might even strike the pose of a hero of classical antiquity. In one of the most extreme forms of the glorifying battle image, the artist relegated the fighting scene to a mere backdrop for the portrait of a general. The triumphal events depicted were often chosen more with a view to the prestige associated with them than on account of their military significance. Every victory represented in a series of battle paintings was meant to communicate a particular message to the public. The patron was thus pursuing the same goals as the propaganda-makers of today: the presentation of the desired party image and the announcement of future goals and intentions. Yet propaganda has always served to distort the facts, a consideration which points to a particular characteristic of many glorifying battle scene paintings: The more questionable a victory was from the military point of view, the more passion went into its propagandistic celebration.

One of the largest series of apotheosising battle pictures of the Baroque was originally displayed in the Salon de los Reynos [2] of Madrid's Buen Retiro palace and can be seen today in the Prado. The palace furnishings, particularly those of the throne room, were obviously intended as an expression of power. The programme of the battle painting series was designed by the Conde Duque de Olivarez with the help of the king's drawing instructor Juan Bautista Maina. Olivarez determined the choice of

battles to be depicted, Maino and Velázquez the choice of artists to be commissioned (fig. ). The twelve pictures are not only a celebration of Spanish martial deeds but a gallery of generals as well. In many cases the commander and his staff dominate the scene to such an extent that the work is more portrait than battle piece; the topographic-tactical element has been forced into the background. The public is certain to have been chiefly interested in the generals, with whom it was to some extent personally acquainted.

To my knowledge the work depicting the encounter between King Ferdinand of Bohemia and Hungary and Cardinal Infante Ferdinand before the battle of Nördlingen (fig. ) by Peter Paul Rubens is the only example of a battle painting without any fighting. The scene shown took place before the actual battle, but an allusion to the approaching victory is found in the presentation of laurel wreaths to the two cousins by an eagle. This image of the encounter near Nördlingen was part of the welcoming stage erected for the Pompa Introitus of the Cardinal Infante in Antwerp. [3] The Nördlingen victory was one of the primary themes for the Infante's festive entry into the city as the new governor. Peter Paul Rubens's Heinrich series [4] is an illustration of the extent to which commissions for battle scene series were influenced by political considerations. Rubens was initially charged with decorating the Heinrich Gallery as a counterpart to the Medici Gallery in the Palais du Luxembourg, but changes in the political circumstances prevented the completion of the series.

Another sub-form of the glorifying battle representation is the battle painting as the illustration of an ideal expressed in a literary text. The martial events are taken either from the bible or texts of classical antiquity. According to the laws of the modi doctrine derived from classical music theory and poetry, the depiction of a subject of such major significance demanded a composition devoted to large figures. Several of Peter Paul Rubens's painted works adhere to these criteria, for example the "Battle of the Amazons" and "The Defeat of Sanherib," both in the Alte Pinakothek of Munich.

In addition to pictures serving to glorify particular battles, there are two further forms of the genre of painting concerned with the historical event: the topographic-analytical depiction and the narrative battle scene. Topographic-analytical battle painting was directed towards a public different from the one intended to view the painted glorifications: Its target was the circle of military experts. [5] In order to comprehend the challenge presented by analytical battle painting, one must be aware that the artist was expected to portray the battle as a unique historical event. [6] The task of describing a singular historical occurrence required a solution entirely different from the genre militaire depiction of war as such. Pictures painted according to the analytical approach reproduced the historical battle in a more or less unadulterated fashion, thus providing a pictorial counterpart to printed accounts of the events. As is true of the written sources, the propagandistic effect was not founded so much in the prettification or distortion of historical facts as in the choice of events described. The same applies to battle victory series such as that of the Piccolomini by Pieter Snayers, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna. While each single painting might depict a tactical situation quite objectively, seen as a whole the series could nevertheless falsify reality, again with a tendency toward glorification. After all, battle paintings were nearly always intended to celebrate the victors.

The exact appearance of the analytically descriptive battle scene was often decided upon by the military leaders themselves. These high officers expected the painters to provide them with documents of their most brilliant military achievements. The depiction of the historical events therefore had to satisfy the demands of an expert, and the precise reproduction of the military situation became a necessity. At the same time, the viewer interested in tactical aspects of war wanted an overview of the entire military setting, not merely a detail. The demand for an overall view of the tactical stages of a battle led to the unfolding of the painted landscape, even to the extent of making itresemble a cartographic depiction. The painter required to produce a historically correct impression of the battle years (if not decades) after its actual occurrence was faced with a nearly impossible task. He nevertheless attempted to fulfil the expectations of his patron, turning to written reports as well as engravings produced by military engineers. Pieter Snayers, for example, commissioned in 1644 by Octavio Piccolomini to paint "The Siege of the City of Einbeck" (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) — a military action led by Piccolomini and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in October, 1641 — availed himself of an engraving by the imperial military engineer Carlo Cappi. [7] Another engraving aided him in the painting of "The Encirclement of the City of Neunburg vorm Walde" (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), part of the same series. A large number of these military engravings found entrance into the "Theatrum Europaeum."

The appearance of cavalrymen's portraits in the tactically precise battle pictures proves that the analytical genre did not entirely dispense with the glorification of heroes. Yet in contrast to the glorifying style, the battle — and not the portrait — dominates the composition. Nevertheless, small elevations in the foreground serve not only as stages for the apotheosising presentation of the military leader. Through the necessity of disguising the transition from the foreground to the map-like background, space was created for the insertion of various everyday war scenes into the composition. After all, the viewer's emotions were hardly stirred by the depiction of marching troop formations alone. The genre scenes in the foreground were an opportunity for portraying the everyday life of the soldier as well as the confusion and destruction brought about by war, providing the observer with access to the painting as a whole. More emphasis is placed on large-figure compositions in the narrative battle scene.

Pieter Snayers was also the battle painter for the House of Hapsburg and depicted the triumphs of the imperial and Spanish armies without ever having witnessed a battle in person. His analytical-topographic battle scenes display landscapes with highly placed horizons and a bird's-eye view of the military formations. A characteristic trait of these works is the precision with which the tactical movements of the individual branches of service — the pike troops, the musketeers, the cavalry — are described. The pictures are divided into three zones. The foreground is usually devoted to genre figures and the commanding officer; in the centre the tactical manoeuvres of the various military departments are recorded, and in the background bluish stripes describe the transition from landscape to peaceful sky.

Pieter Snayers adhered to this three-part scheme in nearly all of his battle paintings. Considerable variations are to be found in the size of the foreground groups, which depends on the proportions of the battle situation to be depicted. The possibilities range from very small groups, as in the "Defeat at Grancourt" (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), to foreground figures occupying more than a third of the picture, as in the "Affair of Munich" (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Indeed, the latter work differs from other pictures in that, from the point of view of content, the foreground scene is the most significant incident of the various goings-on described.

Snayers also widely varies his use of the bird's-eye perspective from picture to picture. Here the spectrum ranges from close-range views to extreme top views, seen for example in the "Relief of St. Omer" (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum), in which the middle section is strongly reminiscent of a cartographic depiction. It can be ascertained that in general, the smaller the foreground scene, the greater the space required for the representation of the main scene in the middleground. What is more, the larger the battlefield, the more closely the central scene resembles a map.

In his foreground groups, Pieter Snayers portrays nearly all aspects of the military life of his time. The soldier bandaging his sore feet is just as welcome to these scenes as the victorious commander; sutlers, tussling soldiers, all of the figures of the genre militaire receive equal attention. The charm of these groupings lies in their precisely observed details. We gain insight into camp life, complete with saloon tents, and into the horrors of war, complete with death on the battlefield: A few individual figures represent the whole tragedy of defeat.

In the picture of the Battle at Weißer Berg (fig. ), now in Schleißheim near Munich, Snayers seems to have depicted several phases of the battle simultaneously. Accompanied by three monks, the leagued and imperial armies parade in the foreground; in the centreground the opposing armies clash, while in the background the Bohemians have already taken to their heels. The method of joining several successive events in one picture was frequently employed in the analytic-topographical style.

In the context of battle paintings, we are repeatedly confronted with the question as to the painter's physical presence at the scene of a military expedition. The inclusion of a cityscape, for example, more strongly implies the artist's dependence on cartographic engravings than his first-hand description of the circumstances. This problem is well illustrated by Snayer's painting of the "Siege of the City of Horn" (part of the Bucquoy series in the Harrachsche Gallery of Rohrau): Contemporary engravings prove that the city depicted cannot possibly be Horn. Thus Snayers must have confused the city he labelled "Horn in Austriche" with another.

The narrative battle scene can be defined as a battle painting based on a real historical situation but, as opposed to the topographic-analytical depiction, not providing an exact account of the military activities: The viewer of such a work is unable to discern the precise tactical circumstances of the respective battle. Because the military action was of only minor interest to the painter of such a work, he could do without the high horizon characterising the topographic-analytical battle piece. Unlike the glorifying depiction, narrative battle painting places no particular emphasis on the figure of the commanding officer. It aims to tell a concrete story, a story based on historical fact, and not merely record the general appearance of the fight. Within this category of work two sub-categories can be discerned, corresponding to two related picture types — the glorifying battle depiction and the decorative battle scene. The first sub-category resembles the glorifying battle painting but without a focus on the military leader, the second adhered stylistically to the decorative battle work but referred to concrete events, whereas the decorative works were concerned with general representation and purely aesthetic issues, as will be seen below.

Jan Asselyn's painting "The Death of Gustav Adolf in the Battle at Lützen" provides an appropriate illustration of narrative battle painting. The painter embedded the essentially authentic scene depicted on the work's left wing — the death of the commander — in a cavalry tumult in exactly the same manner found in numerous ornamental and wholly unhistorical battle paintings. The death of Gustav Adolf was one of the major motifs of the narrative battle style. Not only are there two works by Jan Asselyn focusing on this event (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum and Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst), but also paintings by Jan Maertsen de Jonge (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum) and Pieter Meulener.

A special form of narrative battle painting developed in the northern Netherlands. The Netherlandish painters Pieter de Neyn and Hendrick de Meijer produced works closely associated with the Dutch tradition of landscape painting. To a great extent the actual military event is reduced to the topographic characteristics of its historical site. Yet the depiction does not adhere to the analytic-topographic style, more or less cartographic in appearance, but maintains the low horizon of Netherlandish landscape pieces. This concept was practised most radically by Pieter de Neyn, a pupil of Esaias van de Velde. In his description of the siege of 's-Herzogenbusch the gun batteries are reduced to entrenchments on a dune. In Hendrick de Meijer's siege of Hulst (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) on the other hand, the besiegers' camp dominates the scene and troop movements are hardly discernible. As opposed to the genre work, the narrative scene does not concretise the historic event solely by means of genre figures, but often includes the silhouette of the besieged city as well.

The most significant battle painter of the narrative and decorative types was probably the Italianised Frenchman Jacques Courtois. [8] For Prince Matthias de Medici, Courtois painted a series of large battle scenes depicting episodes from the War of Castro. [9] Courtois' narrative battle paintings differ from his purely decorative ones above all in size. The narrative Castro works employ small figures to record the successive stages of a cavalry battle which defies analysis from a military point of view. The painter had large surfaces to fill and apparently found it difficult to set dramatic priorities; his narrative paintings thus do not possess the same painterly intensity as his decorative works.

Whereas historical works of art theory provide little insight into the development of the historical scene, the same fortunately does not apply to the military genre. Literature on art contains several references to the so-called decorative battle depiction. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, discussed this problem in his treatise on painting. Several of Leonardo's statements are of major significance for the practice of decorative battle painting, one of the painter's chief concerns being the depiction of movement. Leonardo also exhibited his interest in the representation of movement in his "Battle of Anghiari." But how the theoretical advice for painting battle scenes found in the chapter of the Trattato della pittura entitled "Come si debbe figurar una bataglia" (How to depict a battle) was meant to be put into practice has remained a mystery, for not one of Leonardo's battle paintings has been preserved. In his writings he concentrated primarily on atmospheric issues, the depiction of smoke and dust, light and air:

Above all you make the smoke of the guns, which mixes in the air with the dust whirled up by the fighters' horses. You go about making this mixture as follows. Once it has raised to a certain height, the smoke which mixes with dusty air looks like dark clouds; thus at that height one sees the vapour more clearly than the dust. On the side from which the light comes, this mixture of air, smoke and dust will look much brighter than on the other side. The deeper they are immersed in this turbidity, the less visible the fighters will be and the less contrast they will display in their lights and shadows. [10]

If you make horses running outside of the turmoil, make clouds of dust behind them, the intervals between them equalling the distance of a horse's leap. The cloud farthest away from said horse is the least visible; it is already high up in the air, dispersed and thin, while the nearest cloud is the most visible, smallest and densest.

One must always take the type of person into consideration, to no less degree the nations, the garments, the places and the time, in such a manner that when one paints a war deed by Caesar or Alexander the Great one should avoid painting the weapons and clothing in the manner of the present, and one must make the Macedonian armour different, the Roman different, and when one is commissioned with the depiction of a modern battle, one should look for what distinguishes it from a classical battle. If one wants to depict Caesar it would be ridiculous to put a Turkish turban on his head, or one of our toques, or a Venetian-style cap. [11]

The fourth preliminary remark is about the weapons used by the various nations, for the Turk uses the bow, arrow, quiver, long rifle, falchion and short lance; the Italians use arbalests, short rifles, long swords, pikes and rod weapons of equal length and in this respect the painter should by no means err, for his carelessness would be noticed. In the same manner does one paint the defence weapons in the form in which they are used and no other.

FOOTNOTES