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Question
#57746. lanfranco
asks:
Sometime in the first century, a certain group of provincials, led by a one-eyed commander, revolted against the Roman Empire. Almost 1600 years later, a great old master commemorated this event in a painting that was ultimately rejected but originally intended for a public building in a European city with reason to care about the subject. Who were the rebels, who was the artist, and what is the painting? (Extra credit if you can explain why the painting was rejected.)
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lanfranco
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Well, you get half a yay, gtho4. "Batavians" is correct (they revolted after the death of Nero in 68 B.C.E.), and their leader was Julius Civilis. However, the painting I have in mind is not van Veen's. I'm thinking about a far more well known artist and his work for a public building.
Jun 15 05, 7:25 AM
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gtho4
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wag #2
The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn
Rembrandt’s Conspiracy was originally commissioned by the governors of Amsterdam to form part of the decorative cycle of their new town hall (Stadhuis). In 1659 it had been decided that this civic building should be adorned with scenes illustrating the history, recorded by Tacitus, of the revolt of the Batavians (supposed ancestors of the Dutch) against Roman rule in the first century AD. For his contribution, Rembrandt produced a monumental canvas (ca 550 x 550 cm) which depicted the Batavian leader (Julius Civilis, known also as Gaius or Claudius) in a nocturnal scene, binding his confederates to an oath of resistance. But this enormous work was only displayed in the Stadhuis for a couple of months before it was taken down in 1662 and returned to Rembrandt’s workshop, where it was considerably truncated and heavily reworked, but never restored to its original location ...
What led Aby Warburg to commission an exact copy of Rembrandt’s Conspiracy? The answer lies partly in his interest in the survival of classical forms, but more specifically in his observation of a striking similarity between the content of Rembrandt’s invention (as well as of the other paintings for the Stadhuis) and that of some engravings by the Italian artist, Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630). Tempesta’s engravings, after the models of Otto Van Veen, had been used to illustrate an edition of the Batavorum cum Romanis Bellum of 1612, which documented the history of the Batavian resistance as described in books 4 and 5 of Tacitus’s Historiae ...
[ continued ]
Jun 15 05, 3:55 PM
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gtho4
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[continued]
Although Warburg realized soon after embarking on this research that the similarities which he had spotted were not unknown, he continued to develop his ideas about the painting in a vivid exchange with Fritz Saxl, who was a Rembrandt specialist. The two scholars discussed, for example, specific phenomena in the Conspiracy such as the pathos of light and the influence of Leonardo’s Last Supper. Warburg’s research on the heritage of classical antiquity in Rembrandt and stylistic development in Dutch painting from the Golden Age culminated in a lecture which was delivered on 29 May 1926, shortly after his trip to Stockholm, in his new library building in Hamburg. In this unpublished (and unpolished) lecture he drew attention to what he believed to be the roots of Rembrandt’s style: the pathos of classical pagan mythology and history which was transmitted through contemporary Dutch drama. According to Warburg, however, Rembrandt was selective in his adoption of classical forms and gave to the Amsterdam commission a very personal touch by focusing upon the darker side of classical antiquity. Warburg refers to the ‘harsh and manly sobriety’ of the Conspiracy and interprets it as an expression of high moral standards as opposed to the empty ‘romanizing rhetoric or theatrical posturing’ represented by the other paintings of the Stadhuis cycle which follow Tempesta’s models. In Warburg’s view, it was the demonic character of Rembrandt’s invention which led to its rejection by ‘nationalist’ patrons, who were the representatives, as Warburg puts it, of ‘official’ baroque taste.
 http://www.sas.ac.uk/warburg/newsletter/currentnl.htm
Jun 15 05, 3:55 PM
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gtho4
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According to this page, the reasons for the rejection seem to be unknown (the above are Warburg's personal opinion/beliefs):
The above Two great commissions come his way during these last years: for the Clothmakers' Guild he paints a group portrait of their governing board, famous as The Syndics or Staalmeesters, and for a wall of the new City Hall, the pride of wealthy Amsterdam, now in the heyday of its prosperity after the close of the Thirty Years' War, he paints a huge canvas representing a legendary event in the ancient history of Holland, the Conspiracy of the Batavians. This painting was installed in 1661, but for unknown reasons it was returned to Rembrandt in the following year and replaced by the thoroughly insignificant work of a second-rate artist. We can only guess how deeply Rembrandt must have felt this humiliation after all his previous trials and disappointments.
http://colveyco.com/gallery-annex/reading/artists/rembrandt.html
http://www.nationalmuseum.se/NMTemplates/NMSingle____2644.aspx">The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis
Jun 15 05, 4:09 PM
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lanfranco
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Well, you didn't have to go THAT far, gtho4, but I'm an Aby Warburg (and Saxl) fan from way back, so I appreciate the effort. And Warburg's views on the reason for the rejection are shared by others.
A well-deserved yay!
Jun 15 05, 4:23 PM
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