Baroque Analysis, Sebastiaen Vrancx

War Scene By Sebastiaen Vrancx

 

 

 

 

The 30 years’ war lasted from 1680 to 1648 which has been started by the Catholic church, as an attempt to renew the Catholic faith by using art as propaganda, to fight the Reformation. During these years, the struggle and horrendous times helped people create those most dramatic art pieces which resulted in the start a new art period, the Baroque.  

"The Thirty Years War turned into a power conflict between Empires when France entered it on the Protestant side. The solidifying of Protestant and Catholic areas created a divide in Artistic Styles." (aielliot Oct 29, 2017)

For my analysis I have chosen a painting from Sebastiaen Vrancx, a Flemish Baroque painter, who was mainly known for his battle scenes and portraits. The chosen art piece is simply called "war scene" and shows a large army train with camp followers at the very end. Most of the followers were women and children who took care of the solders, and from carrying their equipment, to taking care of food, their health and housing, they did it all.

Vrancx was from the Flemish region of Belgium and lived from 1573 to 1647 in the North of the country. The painting was most likely created in Antwerp, but it is unknown where and when exactly. He also created landscapes with mythological and allegorical scenes, scenes with robbers, village scenes and celebrations in cities. He was a gifted figure painter who was regularly invited to paint the staffage in compositions of fellow painters.

I like this painting, because of the simplicity to it and the beautiful colors. Some other Baroque paintings are a little too dramatic for me, but this one tells an important part of history and how things really have been handled, which I honestly did not know before researching this topic. I especially like how real it is and the part where the mom cleans the child's buttocks. I do know this struggle very well and it seems like this mother was way more prepared for this situation than I ever was.

Another scene shows a lady carrying lunch on her belt. It could be not fresher than that and I am sure that she just scooped it up from the side of the path. The overall atmosphere seems to be remarkably busy, and everyone is doing something and carrying items and it seems a little bit chaotic, compared to the solder formation in the front and the background of the picture.  

I would definitely purchase this piece of art and hang it up in our house without the fear of scaring the living daylights out of our children.

Another interesting part are the clouds with the rain in the background and the shading and detail is definitely typical for the Baroque era. The color choice and technique reminds of a Dutch Baroque painting.

 

 I hope you all like this as much as I do and please feel free to leave me comments. I am really interested in what everyone else is thinking about the painting. 

 

Thanks, 

Sylvia

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works cited:

    Dudink, Stefan, and Karen Hagemann. “War and Gender.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 19 Nov. 2020, www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199948710.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199948710-e-37.

    “How Was the Baroque Era Affected by the Thirty Years' War?: Socratic.” Socratic.org, 29 Oct. 2017, socratic.org/questions/how-was-the-baroque-era-affected-by-the-thirty-years-war.

    Korsten, Frans-Willem. A Dutch Republican Baroque, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048532056

 

    Parker, Geoffrey. The Thirty Years War. Routledge, 2006.

 

    Ruby, Louisa Wood. “Sebastiaen Vrancx as Illustrator of Virgil's ‘Aeneid.’” Master Drawings, vol. 28, no. 1, 1990, pp. 54–73. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1553955. Accessed 22 June 2021.