The vicissitudes of the Eighty Years' War left their mark on the Netherlandish art of the period, with respect to both art production and the choice of subject matter. [1] The iconoclastic movement of 1566 had precipitated an artistic crisis. [2] In many cities ecclesiastical art had been destroyed, particularly altars, memorial pictures, epitaphs, and the like. In many places works of religious art had been safeguarded in municipal buildings or the houses of patron families, and some city governments were successful in averting the destruction of images altogether. Yet the situation remained unclear for a long time to come. If a city that had been occupied by the rebels or had joined the war for independence was conquered by the Spanish, surviving altarpieces were returned to their former function and plans made to replace the lost ones, at least in the long term. But if, on the other hand, a city that had remained Catholic joined the revolt, its churches were taken over by Calvinists and purged, often for the second time, if damaged altarpieces had been restored or new ones commissioned after the first outbreak of iconoclasm.

However religious art may have fared in this changing political situation, in the provinces allied in the Union of Utrecht in 1579, the area of ecclesiastical art was effectively withdrawn from artists through the strict observance of the Second Commandment in the churches taken over by the Calvinists. Because the Calvinist faith rejected altars and the corresponding practices, the families, guilds, and comparable institutions that had heretofore maintained chapels or altars were now freed from this obligation.

The Spanish Netherlands, on the other hand, were systematically re-Catholicized beginning in 1585. Families, guilds, and other institutions were once again yoked to the church and even required to furnish their chapels with altars to their saints. In Antwerp, art flourished. Even the art export trade remained profitable despite (or perhaps because of) the blockade by the Republic.

The divergent confessional development had far-reaching effects on art. In the Spanish Netherlands, works of art were thematically much more closely associated with the church and the court than in the northern Netherlands. To be sure, genre painting [??? Fachmalerei] developed in the south as well, but due to the sheer quantity of art commissioned for churches, it played a much less significant role than in the Republic, where social institutions became independent of the dominant Calvinist church. The practices formerly associated with church holidays lived on in secular form. The above-named institutions continued or developed secular versions of epitaphs, memorial pictures, etc. Apart from occasional commissions by city governments to decorate organ cases in Calvinist churches or the decoration of Lutheran and clandestine Catholic churches, artists no longer received commissions to furnish churches with images or altarpieces. Thus they had no choice but to specialize in genre painting [??? Fachmalerei] and develop new thematic areas of popular interest. Certainly this is one reason why Netherlandish artists played such a decisive role in shaping the image of the Eighty Years' War (1568-1648) and the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).

In the first phase of the revolt, until around 1583, contemporary events were not shown or commented upon in painting; the art of painting was languishing in general, and the threat of censorship, inquisition, and military danger made the risk much too high. [3] Printmaking, on the other hand, flourished in spite of religious and political uncertainties and provided a living for many artists who had previously supported themselves painting altarpieces. The anonymous prints, published in large editions, played an important role as propaganda. They were used above all by the rebels to win popular support for the struggle for independence. [4]

The events leading to the revolt and finally to the war are represented above all in works of graphic art and coins. Dissatisfaction with the policies of Philip II - who suppressed the Reformation, implicated the Netherlands in military conflicts with the Hapsburgs, and aimed at a centralization of power and administration - had aroused the resistance of the cities and the estates [??? Stände], who feared the loss of long-held privileges. When Philip II ordered the introduction of the Inquisition to the Netherlands as well, distinguished men from among the nobility and bourgeoisie protested before the governess Margaret of Parma on April 5, 1566. Calumniated as "Geuzen" (beggars), they adopted this name for the alliance that they established. In 1566, iconoclastic riots were "staged" by a small group of Calvinists in many cities in the Netherlands. In response, Philip II appointed the duque de Alba as provincial governor, who instituted a special court ("raad van Beroerten"), popularly known as the "Council of Blood." Those prosecuted included not only the Calvinists, but all the nobility who had advocated a compromise as well. During the reign of terror that followed, even the counts of Egmond and Hoorne were executed along with 1100 other victims; the stadholder (governor) William of Orange and ca. 2% of the population fled. Agitational broadsheets from the side of William of Orange and the Calvinists sought to win popular support for the revolt against the Spanish provincial governor Alba. The earliest broadsheets focus on the characterization of Alba's rule; in later ones, Alba and William of Orange are contrasted with each other.

The latter pictorial type is exemplified in an anonymous engraving, probably the work of Theodor de Bry (Fig. 1). Alba is accompanied by the personifications of Fallacia (Intrigue) and Invidia (Envy). In his left hand he holds fast the naked, chained personification of the Netherlands (Belgica), and in his right hand, shears, signifying that his taxes plunder the inhabitants of the very shirts on their back. Accordingly, at his feet lies the figure of the people (Pleps), who is forced to beg. Contrasted with him is William of Orange, surrounded by the allegories of wealth, wisdom, and honor, the gifts King Solomon received from God. He is a true prince of peace. Small renderings of Old Testament scenes beneath the main image serve to legitimate the revolt against an unjust ruler (Passover) and prophesy his end (the ruin of Pharaoh).

For fear of the Inquisition, hundreds of such pamphlets with allegorical representations in varying quality were printed anonymously or were produced in other lands.

Only when a number of events from the revolt and the Spanish-Netherlandish war had been engraved as individual images could the latter be compiled into series conveying an overall picture of the epoch. An influential figure in this regard was Frans Hogenberg (before ca. 1540 - ca. 1590), who on account of his Protestant faith had emigrated to Cologne from his home in the Low Countries. From about 1570 on, his workshop engraved and published prints with "reportages" of the revolt, which were combined into ever more extensive series. The events are shown in the traditional panorama view. In addition to the main scene in the foreground, previous and subsequent events are shown in the background. The high placement of the horizon avoids overlapping and renders the image clearly legible. The engravings were supplied with a short text commenting on the event from the Protestant perspective in the German editions and from an anti-Spanish perspective in the Netherlandish editions. Hogenberg depicted many events that even today are recognized as political turning points. In one print, for example, he shows the conquest of the city of Brielle by the "Sea Beggars" on April 1, 1572 (Fig. 2). The left side of the picture shows the fleet landing at shore with the soldiers disembarking and the Sea Beggars taking the city after the bombardment. Having been driven by a storm into the mouth of the Meuse and the Rhine, they took not only Brielle but other cities as well, including Vlissingen, Enkhuizen, and Dordrecht. Thus by chance, a strategically important area had been occupied from which the rebels could block the Scheldt and with it, Antwerp. Approaching from Germany, William of Orange penetrated into the northern Netherlands. In response, Alba successfully put his army into action, with only Holland and Zeeland holding their ground. Haarlem was taken after an eight-month siege. As a deterrent, Alba put hundreds of Calvinist citizens to death. Hogenberg describes this bloodbath as a tightly organized mass execution. [5]

When Alba's troops besieged the city of Leiden shortly thereafter (1573-1574), William of Orange knew that its liberation was of crucial importance. He cut the dikes, forcing the Spanish to flee before the flood of water. Hogenberg described this event as a miracle. The recall of Alba and the death of his successor resulted in a power vacuum; unpaid, mutinous Spanish mercenaries raided and plundered their way through Brabant and Flanders and in 1576 destroyed much of Antwerp in the so-called "Spanish Fury." In response, almost all of the provinces joined the revolt; in 1576, the Pacification of Ghent was concluded, though with no lasting effect. The Antwerp massacre and the Pacification of Ghent are frequently depicted. Here I will focus on only the first of these events: in four prints, Hogenberg presents a picture of the "Spanish Fury." [6] The atrocities and executions are shown in all their horror and constitute an established propagandistic topos in works on the Spanish-Netherlandish war. Despite his party loyalties, Hogenberg, who was also a cartographer, conveyed an impression of journalistic accuracy by using material he had prepared in the form of city views and maps to depict the ambience of the events as precisely as possible. The representations of the revolt in particular manifest a remarkable early tendency toward the realistic rendering of the setting, a development which would occur only later in the context of other themes. In this respect, Hogenberg was extremely progressive. Already early on, individual series were incorporated into books on the history of the Spanish-Netherlandish war. They were frequently reprinted, in pirated editions as well, and served as a model and historical source for painters and later illustrators of books on the Eighty Years' War.

After 1577, portions of the southern provinces made peace with the new Spanish governor Farnese, who won back the entire region south of the Rhine and the Meuse, culminating in the city of Antwerp in 1585. Protestants in Antwerp were given four years to become Catholic or leave the city. Among the artists, there began a wave of emigration to the northern provinces.

In 1579, the northern provinces allied themselves in the Union of Utrecht. After the search for a successor to William of Orange (assassinated in 1584) remained unsuccessful, the seven provinces took the government into their own hands and the United Provinces of the Netherlands (Dutch Republic) was established. In 1588, the Spanish lost over a third of their heretofore victorious fleet (Armada) in the failed attempt to invade England. Now the Dutch Republic was no longer threatened by danger from the sea; shipbuilding, seafaring, and trade flourished.

The generation of Mannerist painters, many of whom had become acquainted with the style of Spranger abroad, provided the impetus for a new artistic beginning, one that had its effect on the education of the young generation as well. The Netherlandish art world was thereby invigorated by the influx of immigrants who had left the Spanish Netherlands on account of their faith.

The changeful events following the establishment of the Union of Utrecht were depicted above all in prints and coins. It was a long time before the individual cities participating in the revolt felt secure enough to allow the events of the war to be immortalized in large-scale paintings and tapestries.

In Holland, this stage appears to have been reached only a number of years after the formation of the Union of Utrecht. It comes to expression perhaps first of all in the militia portraits that began to be produced in Amsterdam in the early 1580s and, in emulation of Amsterdam, in Haarlem as well after 1583.

In the early phases of the revolt, the city government of Amsterdam was still sympathetic to the Spanish. [7] In 1578, however, the captains of the marksmen's guilds, which had been dissolved for political reasons, deposed the Catholic municipal government and sent it summarily into exile. A new, predominantly Protestant city government was elected, along with new mayors, who joined the revolt. In Dutch, this change is known as the Alteratie.

Jan Huydecoper the Elder was one of the first to be depicted with his company in a now-lost group portrait. [8] He considered Amsterdam's participation in the revolt so important and its success so permanent and decisive that he caused himself to be immortalized in a militia portrait at the first watch after the Alteratie. The monumental Amsterdam militia pieces, painted beginning in the mid-1580s primarily by the already aged Dirk Barendsz., show the captains of the first watch with their companies. [9] In their iconography, these pictures differ from the ones painted before the revolt. No longer is it merely the relatively small bands of the marksmen's guilds that are shown, as before the Alteratie, but rather the elite of the citizen companies, represented by their officers and the wealthiest marksmen. The symbolism and the weapons are different as well: the medieval attributes and weapons of the guilds are no longer shown. Rather, after the reform, the new symbols - the flags of the companies - and the new weapons of the militiamen are rendered. These iconographical changes resulted from the reform of William of Orange. [10] In most of the cities of Holland, he had established citizen militias in place of the marksmen's guilds; in Amsterdam, the marksmen's guilds were incorporated into the newly established militia. The able-bodied citizens of a militia district formed companies of ca. 200 men each, under the command of officers from the city aristocracy. They were required to be equipped with the newest weapons and their own flags. Their duties included defending the city and its allies in case of surprise attack by the Spaniards until the stadholder could arrive with his troops to help.

In his painting, "The Company of Captain Dirck Jacobsz. Rosencrans and Lieutenant Pauw" of 1588 (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum), Cornelis Ketel was the first to depict the Amsterdam militia in the rank and weaponry specified by the new regulations. [11] In accord with the new orders, the marksmen are all shown with their special weapons: striking weapons, thrusting weapons, and firearms. Ketel's image emphasizes the variety of weapons, making the fighting power of the companies the theme of the painting. The standard-bearer appears in the center of the composition with the flag on his shoulder; Captain Dirck Jacobsz. Rosencrans is characterized in his commanding function by the gesture, [Sponton ???], and sash. Lieutenant Pauw, to the right, holds a partisan, while behind him, partially concealed, stand the two sergeants with their halberds. Ketel arranges the petty officers stepwise behind each other in two groups on either side of the painting, thus spatially isolating the officers and emphasizing their place in the hierarchy of the composition. In its monumentality and splendor, with the over-lifesize figures, this militia portrait is an example of the significance such companies attributed to themselves during the Eighty Years' War. In addition to heroic group portraits such as those by Ketel, there are others in which the marksmen are shown in three-quarter or half-figure, at a banquet or arranged in one or two rows. The political and military situation was apparently considered stable enough that citizen militias in other cities of Holland increasingly followed Amsterdam's example: after Haarlem, group portraits were commissioned by officers from cities including Delft, Alkmaar, Gouda, and Rotterdam, in which the marksmen were shown at a farewell banquet or in half-figure in one or two rows. These pictures embody the "strength and vigilance" of the cities and, together with the marine pictures, perhaps constitute Holland's typical contribution to the art associated with the Eighty Years' War.

The impetus to visually commemorate successful naval battles may have come from England. In 1592, the English admiral Lord Charles Howard, who had defeated the Spanish Armada a few years earlier, approached Carel van Mander with a commission to produce cartoons for a series of ten tapestries depicting the event. Van Mander, however, referred him to a friend and fellow citizen, Hendrick Vroom. [12] Thus was created a series with an unusual theme, which unfortunately was lost when the English Parliament burned in 1834. [13]

Now that the times were more secure, perhaps this series inspired the College of States [??? Staatenkollegium] of Zeeland to immortalize the first phase of their own revolt in a series of tapestries. Hendrick de Maeght received the commission to prepare six tapestries on this theme for the council chamber of the "Edele Mayende Heeren Staaten van Zeeland" in the Prinsenhof in Middelburg. [14] Van Mander created the design for the tapestry with the coats of arms of William of Orange and Zeeland [15], and Vroom the five designs for the naval battles of Rammekens, Lillo, the fortress De Haeck, and Zierikzee. He reconstructed the naval battles on the basis of engravings by Hogenberg, city plans by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg, and old descriptions. For the pictorial structure of the battle of Zierikzee, he used the traditional panorama view familiar from the illustrations of Hogenberg. We have documentary evidence that Vroom himself traveled to Rammekens in order to acquaint himself with the topography. The foreground shows the naval battle on the Gouwe. In the upper third of the image, we see the Spanish palisade isolating the city, and in the background a view of the city itself. The Zeelanders suffered heavy losses in their attempt to penetrate the fortification in 1576, and their admiral Lodewijk Boisot was drowned. In the inscription, however, the tapestry represents the episode as a victory, in which two Spanish ships were captured. [16]

The "naval battle" as a pictorial type gained prestige through these two extraordinary series of tapestries and may also have inspired the battle scenes of marine painting.

In 1607, a fleet of the Republic successfully defeated a Spanish fleet near Gibraltar. This debacle off their own coast increased the Spaniards' willingness to negotiate. Against the wishes of the stadholder Maurice, Oldenbarnevelt, land's advocate of Holland, pushed through the Twelve Years' Truce with Spain. With this step, the Republic achieved de facto recognition by the Spanish king.

During the truce, the Republic nearly broke apart due to internal religious conflicts and the resulting political tensions. The Calvinists prevailed against the Remonstrants, who denied the doctrine of absolute predestination. In this conflict, Maurice took the side of the Calvinists and used the opportunity to rid himself of Oldenbarnevelt as a "traitor" and to dismiss the Remonstrants from their offices.

Despite the internal conflict, the period of the truce was a tremendously fruitful one for the art world of the Republic. Along with the immigrants, a great number of young artists settled in the cities of Holland and Zeeland and began their prolific production, including groups such as the pre-Rembrandtists, many of whom had received their training from the Mannerists and continued their education in Italy. The number of dated paintings from 1621, the last year of the truce, exceeds that of the war year 1574 many times over.

The truce itself, the (sometimes violent) conflict between Calvinists and Remonstrants, the execution of Oldenbarnevelt, and the end of the truce played a central role in printmaking. Unlike previously, however, the domestic political controversies came to expression in painting as well. Adriaen van de Venne painted not only an allegory of the truce, but also represented his view of the proselytizing activities of the different creeds. [17]

During the truce, the legitimacy of the revolt was supported by historical precedent. [18] The rebellion of the Batavians was viewed as exemplary for the modern-day revolt. The States-General acquired a series of twelve paintings on this theme from Rubens' teacher Otto van Veen.

The "traditional" militia portraits and naval battles, however, continued to be commissioned as well. The militia of the cities of Holland, where the tradition of group portraiture had begun, continued the trend, and the militia of Goes followed as well. Over 25 militia portraits have survived from this period, some of them monumental. Internal political conflict, however, left its mark on some of these group portraits: in some cases, the portraits of Remonstrants are effaced. Despite the internal tensions, however, the portraits of the Haarlem militia by Frans Hals, with their breathtaking magnificence of brushwork, coloration, and variation of gesture and physiognomy, succeed in expressing the mood of self-confidence and certainty that prevailed during the truce.

When war broke out again in 1621, the admiralty of Amsterdam decided to honor Prince Maurice with a painting of the naval battle of Gibraltar to adorn the newly-constructed wing of his residence in The Hague. The gift was clearly intended to remind the prince of the outstanding role played by the navy in the success of the war. Naturally the renowned Cornelis Vroom was first offered the commission; his price of 6000 guilders, however, failed to take into account the growth of the art market since the beginning of his career: now, unlike then, he was no longer unrivaled. The admiralty approached two other Haarlem marine painters, Cornelis van Wieringen and Abraham de Verwer, each of whom painted a picture for less than half of Vroom's price. Verwer's painting is lost, but van Wieringen's monumental picture, almost as broad as the Night Watch, has survived and is, as far as we know, the largest sea picture painted in Holland in the 17th century (Fig. 3). In his overall view of the naval battle of Gibraltar, van Wieringen accentuates smaller groups of ships, resulting in a grid-like composition with vistas opening up between the ships. The flagships of both sides are shown in the foreground and middle ground. At the left edge of the picture, several Netherlandish ships are seen surrounding the flagship of the Spanish vice-admiral, while in the middle ground at center, the flagship of the Spanish admiral is boarded by sailors of the admiral van Heemskerck at the bow and by sailors from an additional Netherlandish ship at the stern. Dutch sailors thus succeed in capturing the flags of the Spanish admirals' ships, in this way announcing the hard-won victory.

After the end of the truce, sea battles were among the most important images of the Thirty Years' War in Netherlandish art. Works with the most significant battles of the past, such as the defeats of the Armada off the coast of England (1588) and Gibraltar (1607), seem to have been in the greatest demand. But more recent sea battles as well, such as the battle on the Slaak of 1631, events described extensively in the media of the time, were often painted only a few years after the fact. Even events now considered historically insignificant were represented if they promised a political effect on account of their courtly and ceremonious character (such as the arrival of the elector and count Palatine Frederick V with his spouse Elizabeth, daughter of James I, at Vlissingen in 1613). Once an event had been reconstructed by a painter, it could later be modified by the artist himself or serve other artists as a point of departure for a variation. We know the patrons of only a third of the often monumental marine pictures: the admiralties of Amsterdam and Hoorn, the municipal administration of Haarlem, the Dutch East India Company, the successors of the Admiral M. H. Tromp, and the city orphanage in Amsterdam. But pictures were painted for the open market as well, mostly anonymous skirmishes showing Netherlandish or English ships in combat with Spanish vessels.

Virtually all the pictures of naval battles are reconstructions rather than reportage. Through their meticulous rendering of ships of different types and epochs, their evocation of the restless sea, and their artistic ability to transform the movements of the fleet into dramatic events, the marine painters lend their pictures a sense of authenticity that causes the viewer to forget that these images were seen only in imagination. Not until the end of the war did painters take part in battles in order to be able to represent them in a historically accurate fashion.

Without a doubt, the majority of the most important militia portraits were painted between the end of the truce in 1621 and the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The great works by Frans Hals, Rembrandt, and Bartholomeus van der Helst stand out as illustrious examples. Compared to the paintings from the period before 1621 and the militia portraits of other cities, many militia pieces from Amsterdam are notable for the strong emphasis placed on the military function of the group and the handling of the weapons, as for example in the group portrait by Jacob Lyon. This may have to do with the fact that the Amsterdam militia were soon called to arms. In 1622, over 200 members of the Amsterdam marksmen's guilds were ordered to Zwolle to aid in the defense of the city. The military reforms instituted by Prince Maurice in the state army [??? staatliches Heer] were adopted in the citizen militias as well. Maurice had introduced systematic drills among his mercenary troops; the exercises were made public by Jacob de Gheyn in the engravings of his famous book Wapenhandelinghe ("Weapon Handling"). Here the handling of rifle, musket, and lance is illustrated in detail in the engravings and described in short annotations. This development was of great significance for the history of the group portrait. The first Amsterdam militia painting after 1621, begun by Claes Lastman and completed by Adriaen van Nieulandt after his death, shows Captain Abraham Boom and Lieutenant Anthonie Oetgens van Waveren with seven marksmen who had marched off to Zwolle in 1622; some of them are depicted in military positions introduced by Maurice. In a small simultaneous representation in the background, we see the entire company preparing to drill or decamp.

A painting by Werner van den Valckert likewise reflects Maurice's military reforms in a striking manner. One of the marksmen holds de Gheyn's Wapenhandelinghe in his hand. Of the weapon holds described and illustrated there, the first exercise of the lance-bearers is shown. An open book showing the construction of a fortification lies on the table around which the militiamen are assembled. The presence of modern military literature from the circle around Prince Maurice, as well as a plan of the part of the city the militia were responsible to protect, evidence the familiarity of the marksmen's guilds with Prince Maurice's theories of modern warfare. Both books allude to the latter's military theory, according to which well-trained citizen militias and modern fortifications are essential to the defense of the city.

The image propagated by stadholders of their contribution to the Eighty Years' War likewise echoes this emphasis on military reforms. [19] The princes of Orange are presented as triumphant military commanders; their modern methods of warfare are documented and immortalized in paintings such as those showing the siege and capture of cities. At the same time, in many of these pictures, the stadholders themselves are shown as generals, in the manner befitting princes. Important battles are glorified in paintings; Frederick Henry has himself depicted as the subduer of cities. [20]

The iconography of the princes of Orange is no longer defined by the contrast between the diabolical Spanish governor and the deliverer sent by God. Rather, their propaganda emphasizes the claim to hereditary succession. Like the portraits of rulers, those of the stadholders were hung in city halls by aldermen who owed their security to Maurice's intervention. [21]

The Republic, however, was unusual precisely in the fact that the actual sovereign was not the stadholder, but the States-General. This was to manifest itself, as well, in the domestic political conflicts in the Netherlands that led to the Peace of Westphalia.

Since about 1639, Holland, above all Amsterdam, had grown weary of Frederick Henry's conquests in the border areas, requiring substantial financial contributions that the cities would rather have invested in the improvement of the fleet. Accordingly, the states of Holland began to withdraw their troops. In this regard, the Dutch cities stood in clear opposition to the stadholder. Rembrandt gave expression to the conflict between stadholder and merchant patricians in his picture The Concord of the Land. While Frederick Henry wants to go to battle, the knight representing Amsterdam dismounts. [22]

Frederick Henry was a political realist who could accurately assess his situation. He caused the result of his life's work to be programmatically portrayed in the new gallery of his palace in Buren. [23] His most important sieges were immortalized in paintings by the relatively unknown artists Gerrit van Santen and Jan Breker. Between the siege pictures, which hung on the long sides of the room, an allegorical representation of the Republic by Jacob Backer appeared on the frontal wall (fig. 5). [24]

If Frederick Henry places not himself, but the Republic in the center, his intent is nonetheless to make clear that the political recognition achieved in the Peace of Westphalia is owed to his military successes. In this way, the representation already alludes to the peace treaty that by this time was within reach and was finally realized in 1648. The use of this kind of flashback to simultaneously allude to the impending peace is also seen in Rembrandt's Night Watch. [25] In his group portrait of the citizen militia company of the captain Frans Banning Cocq, Rembrandt shows individual marksmen with weapons and uniforms from different periods of the revolt and thus, in a period of imminent peace, makes reference to the long war that lay behind.

In the preliminary negotiations to the Peace of Westphalia, the question of whether the Netherlandish representatives could hold the status of ambassadors was the subject of much controversy, for to agree to this point would constitute de jure recognition of the Netherlands as an independent state. [26] Adriaen Pauw, the pensionary (legal counselor) [??? Ratspensionär] of Holland and the actual head of the delegation, commissioned TerBorch to portray his arrival in Münster in a six-horse carriage, along with his second wife Anna van Ruytenburgh and his granddaughter, painted over an older view of the city of Münster. Protocol specified that six-horse carriages were reserved for ambassadors, and it for this reason Pauw, who for reasons of constitutional law paid close attention to protocol, caused his entry into Münster to be represented in this imposing way. The pictorial formula employed by TerBorch had traditionally been used for the triumphal entries of rulers; yet the image serves to document not only Pauw's distinction as ambassador, but also the preeminence of the powerful states of Holland, whom Pauw represented, in the internal power struggle between stadholder, States-General, and provinces. Finally, the picture upholds the claims of the Pauw family, members of the new Protestant urban aristocracy. Adriaen Pauw had himself and his wife painted in two miniature portraits as well, which were engraved by Pieter Holsteyn II. As mentioned earlier, the recognition of the Netherlandish representative as ambassador constituted de jure recognition of the sovereignty of the States-General. Accordingly, it is not surprising that, despite his long resistance to a peace treaty, Frederick Henry sent his court painter Anselmus von Hulle (actually Ans Hebbelijnck, born in Flanders) to Münster in 1647 in order to make portraits of the delegates. [27]

The congress at Münster differed from earlier peace congresses in that it was the first in which a European war was ended by the negotiation of ambassadors rather than the heads of state themselves. But it was also the first in which the delegates of all the countries involved were repeatedly painted and the portraits copied again and again. (Hulle, too, painted a portrait of Adriaen Pauw, which was engraved by Paulus Pontius.) As far as we know, moreover, it was also the first European peace congress in which the negotiating rooms, in this case the town halls of Münster and Osnabrück, were adorned as halls of peace with portraits of the ambassadors. Even the decoration of a palace was influenced by this pictorial program: in the castle Läcko in Sweden, a hall of peace was hung with portraits of 29 delegates (painted copies after Hulle). The ambassadors, as well, commissioned their own portraits in order to be able to include the commemoration of this event in their own galleries of ancestor portraits; in addition, they also took home portraits of befriended diplomats as souvenirs. In the long run, however, the graphic reproductions of portraits were even more media-effective than the paintings and their copies. On March 9, 1648, Hulle received the rights ("octroi") to such reproduction [28], thereby empowering him to publish the portraits both as separate prints and in books individually assembled by the buyers at the congress. Bound into book form, the portrait engravings thus achieved an intensified status as documentation of the ambassadors to the peace congress. Significantly, in later editions the prints were preceded by portraits of the rulers whom the ambassadors represented, thus creating a gallery of the actors and sub-actors in the peace process. The addition of the sovereigns, moreover, made clear how unusual it was for a peace to be negotiated by ambassadors alone.

Apparently the Netherlandish desire for recognition and their policy goal of consensus among different groups was so great that TerBorch, a Netherlandish artist, painted a picture commemorating the Netherlandish-Spanish peace treaty. For this purpose the artist combined elements of the group portrait and the event picture, a form already previously used in the Netherlands for the representation of political events. The depiction of the peace oath at Münster is constructed almost symmetrically with 77 persons shown in a number of rows. The figures in the background stand on benches, thus towering above those in front. Even in the depiction of so many heads, the artist cleverly avoids a rigid isocephalic composition. Many witnesses appear in the background as extras; partially covered by the figures in the foreground, only details of their heads are visible. Through this device, employed in militia portraits as well, TerBorch achieves depth and variety and approximates his representation to the historical event in the number of persons shown as well. The attention of almost all participants is directed to the main action, the swearing of the oath. Diverging from historical fact, the event is represented as if the Spanish and Netherlandish delegations had simultaneously sworn the oath in a manner visible to the observer, rather than one after the other, grouped around the negotiation table. This departure from historical reality makes visible the unanimity of the two parties: both desire peace and endorse this event.

The oath of peace at Münster is not the only group portrait commemorating this occasion. The hard-won peace was extolled in two monumental militia portraits, one by Bartholomeus van der Helst (fig. 6) [29], the other by Govaert Flinck. [30] Both pictures, as well as the poems composed on them, emphasize the significance of the peace valued so highly by the merchant city of Amsterdam, for economic reasons alone. Van der Helst's picture shows the company of Captain Cornelisz. Jansz. Witsen and Lieutenant Johan Oetgens van Waveren at the festival banquet in the arbalesters' hall (Voetboogdoelen) [???]. The meal is not shown realistically; rather, the company is depicted at a banquet of peace in which Amsterdam politics is symbolically represented: Captain Witsen extends his hand to his lieutenant, thereby alluding to the peace treaty. This gesture (dextrarum iunctio) is included in the image as a symbol of the eternal bond of peace. This interpretation is confirmed by a poem on the painting, in which the drinking horn is described as a horn of peace. For the citizen militias, the legal successors of the arbalesters, the drinking horn decorated with the figure of St. George, who vanquished the dragon, is an appropriate symbol for the victory over Spain and the unity thus attained. In this banquet, weapons play no role.

Captain Joan Huydecoper commissioned Govaert Flinck to paint a portrait of his militia company as the first to march on the day of peace. As mentioned above, Huydecoper's father had played a decisive role in the carrying out of the Alteratie in Amsterdam in 1578. For this reason, in the Old Hall (Oude Zaal) of the arbalesters' hall [???], Huydecoper hung a militia portrait of his father's company keeping watch as the first after the Alteratie and, for the place next to it, commissioned a monumental picture of his own company as the first to enter the peace. The two pictures thus served as propaganda for the Huydecoper family.

The portraits and group portraits constitute a high point in the representation of the Eighty Years' War. For the first time, hundreds of paintings with portraits of the persons involved were created contemporaneously with the events depicted. Despite the use of rhetorical formulas and familiar conventions, these pictures are based on reality, on the physiognomy of the models and their claims. Almost all the portraits are painted by Netherlandish artists.

In this way, the art production of the years of peace differs from that of previous periods, which had been dominated by propagandistic battle pictures (allegories of oppression and revolt), glorifying reconstructions of sieges and battles on land and sea, the use of biblical and antique stories to legitimize through analogy, and portraits of the heroes. The above-mentioned predominance of Netherlandish artists in the production of works of art bears witness to more than just the need for legitimation of the young Republic. It is also grounded in the fact that around 1648, the painting of the Republic assumed a leading position in Europe. In comparison to the year 1621, art production had increased considerably. In the year 1648, the Dutch Republic constituted a world power not only economically and militarily, but also artistically.

FOOTNOTES