Human Warmth

Jan Michalski

Collecting paintings by Quiringh van Brekelenkam, a Golden Age painter from Leiden, for the Zderzak Gallery Collection in Kraków was marked by two key moments.

The first was the acquisition in Cologne of Portrait of a Lady Reading at a Table with a Skull, in which a rosary plays an important role. This rosary, hanging in the shadows at the edge of the painting, features a crucifix that catches a few specks of light from an unseen window above. Who is the woman depicted? What did she mean to the Catholic community in Leiden? What were the living conditions of the members of the secret Church? The subtly painted portrait invited contemplation and reflection. The painter, who put a lot of love into his work, seemed to press a finger to his lips, adding an allure to the theme of Catholic life in Protestant Leiden. Yet, it turned out that the links between van Brekelenkam’s art and the life of his religious community were not addressed in contemporary art history. With the subject remaining unexplored, no spiritual profile of the artist has been sketched. The author of the only existing monograph concludes that he was merely an artisan. The meta-language of Quiringh’s art has been ignored.

The second important moment for me was encountering A Young Woman Selling Vegetables Warming Her Hands on a Brazier. Throughout January, when I was ill, I thought about this painting every day. At that time, it was still in New York. Looking at the reproduction and reflecting upon it, I realized that the essence of Quiringh’s art was human warmth. The girl’s hands, warming over a brazier on a rainy and cold day, fully embodied that essence. They acted with the power of a symbol. I was curious about the place itself, and after conducting a topographical study, I realized that the stall had been located in the ruins of the former Hieronymite monastery, which had been incorporated into the city walls of Leiden decades earlier. It was only later that I noticed a ring on the girl’s little finger, likely a rosary ring. Visible just above the brazier, it might have been a memento of her First Holy Communion. Thus, the human warmth in Quiringh’s paintings was intertwined with faith and prayer.

The essence of Quiringh’s art, human warmth, was recognized and appreciated in the 19th century, yet it seemingly became forgotten afterwards. What caused this characteristic of his work to lose the interest of scholars? Why did it become obscure? These questions deserved consideration.

Fortunately, hermeneutics is a conversation. We ask artworks questions, and in turn, they respond and converse within themselves when our inquiries are aptly framed. Having been dedicated to this activity for thirty years, striving to imbue the Zderzak Gallery collections with comprehensive meaning, it was no surprise to me that Quiringh finally spoke. This happened last summer after we acquired a portrait titled An Old Man Gutting a Fish, signed and dated 1669 by the artist, at a small Parisian auction house. I noticed a strange mark before Brekelenkam’s signature, which meant nothing to me until Katarzyna Wołczyńska, our conservator, and I examined the panel in the daylight. When we realized what it was, I was deeply moved.

On the edge of the table lay a fishing reel, with the remnants of a line barely visible. At the end of this line dangled a hook – right next to the signature! – painted with the same fine strokes and colour as the letters of the name. It was as if the painter was saying, “I’m on the hook. I’m done. Adieu,” while looking directly into the viewer’s eyes. It resembled a farewell self-portrait. The author sought understanding.

I was moved, as I always am when I discover that the shadows of the past regain their human form. They speak to us and respond to our questions, a process that unfolds as we start to understand the meaning of their actions. “I painted until the very end, and I taught until the very end,” confessed the 91-year-old Florentine Baroque painter Francesco Curradi on his deathbed, and he meant more than just painting techniques. It is like a conversation with God, who constantly talks to us, but we fail to listen. When we do start to listen, time shrinks, and we find ourselves standing in the brilliance of creation. Quiringh probably died during the plague of 1669, and the painting with the reel and hook was his final message. The recurring motif in his work – the gutting of caught fish – must have had a deeper meaning than previously thought. It was undoubtedly connected to the figure of a young man who, one morning one and a half thousand years earlier on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, had baked fish and bread over the embers of a small fire and greeted the weary fisherman with the words, “‘Children, do you have any fish?’ They answered him, ‘No’”. (John 21)

If this interpretation holds, it must be acknowledged that Quiringh’s final painting embodies the courage, balance, and serenity traditionally ascribed to him. When he was caught on the hook of death and became a fish himself, he did not hesitate to tell his story. To whom? To us, who ask questions to read and understand not only the conventional symbolism, but also the discreet, subtler signs. Quiringh’s art is highly communicative; however, it does not belong to the sphere of splendour that attracts the attention of contemporary Golden Age scholars.

***

“Children, come and eat.” What do we know about this? One must be hungry to crave. Two small portraits of the painter’s children that were presented at Christie’s auctions twenty years ago speak volumes of his good heart. The girl, about three years old, is dishevelled, her eyes laughing as she eats porridge. The boy, roughly seven, sets off for school, his face beginning to show the early signs of self-esteem and masculine pride.

There is a distinction between the diet of ordinary people and that of the upper classes. While this difference is evident in Quiringh’s paintings, it has never been explored. The old woman in the painting at the Dulwich Picture Gallery eats her porridge with great concentration before the fireplace, as if with her whole being. She eats like one who hasn’t always had something for the pot and understands hunger and the caprices of fate. Firewood costs money, wood is precious, and even kindling must be used with respect when poverty lurks at the doorstep. In other paintings, a family says a prayer of thanks before a meal. These are important moments that we can share, thanks to the painter, where the blessing carries the weight of a sacrament. It connects us with people.

The portrayals of the upper classes are marked by a greater distance, sometimes observational humour, like in the striking scene in the painting at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Here, an old vegetable seller with glasses is absorbed in counting coins, while a young, elegant maid turns her head and smells a carnation. Her mind is elsewhere, certainly not at the market, amid the smells of cabbage, pickles, and dog poo. In other paintings, maids present the ducks or fish they have bought at the market to their mistresses, who then express either approval or disapproval regarding the quality and class of the purchase.

I explained this in my letter to Tim Warner-Johnson a few months ago:

However, in order to avoid any schemes, I must add this – to the subject of „motivations” – that I myself come from a Catholic family and from the Silesian working class, my parents were coal mine workers. And that’s why I understand Brekelenkam perfectly well, at least I think so. QvB speaks to my heart and opens it with his sorcery. The dignity and sanctity of work and workshop. Deep reflection on the meaning of life devoted to everyday work.

And since hermeneutics is a conversation – I open the old Dutch painter, whose paintings I have looked for all over the world, to the image of one hundred thousand men-workers in white shirts, going through meadows and fields, under a clear sky, across the horizon, for the May feast of Our Lady of Piekary Śląskie, as I remember from my childhood. A huge crowd in front of the Basilica and my father leaning towards me: “Look, Cardinal Karol Wojtyła from Kraków is giving the sermon. Silesian workers respect him very much.”

A single glance suffices to grasp the contrast between the rough naturalistic workshops depicted by Oudenrogge or the glossy idealistic ones by Metsu and the domestic workshops in Brekelenkam’s paintings, which we often enter guided by a young married woman.

This is a completely different insight! An interpersonal situation unfolds – dialogues, reflections, concentration, requests, exchanges of views and glances. This is exemplified by the somewhat sceptical negotiation of the price of repairing a leather garment in the renowned painting of a tailor’s workshop at the Rijksmuseum. In the painting at the Zderzak Gallery, we see the same woman at the smithy. Her daughter asks the blacksmith to repair her broken toy, perhaps a wheel from a doll’s pram. The mother weighs a penny in her hand as the old blacksmith, intent on forging a red-hot rod, contemplates whether to charge his neighbours. After all, everyone can hardly make ends meet.

Let us observe the light sources in the dim workshop and the meticulously rendered tools that linger in the semi-darkness, barely discernible. A faint stream of daylight filters through the slightly open front door on the left. Beneath the hood of the tin-clad chimney, a small fire is visible. The glowing rod is about to be dipped into a tub of water. Two tiny embers flicker in the pipe of an “uncle” who has come to sit and chat, observing the whole scene with a smile on his face. Is it one of trustfulness? Confusion? The adults’ silence, the clink of iron, the voice of a child?

The subtleness and complexity of this depiction offer insight into the artist’s soul and the reasons he was loved and respected. Quiringh was a natural poet, though his only poetic legacy is an initial marked on the painting, next to the date 1654, resembling a visual puzzle.

Conveying the complexity of emotions in painting is an extremely difficult art. This is true not only for gestures, which are somewhat easier to depict, but especially for facial expressions. The weariness, disappointment, sadness, and growing helplessness evident in the old man looking into an empty jug upon returning from fishing are testament to Quiringh’s psychological mastery (Der Kannekijker, 1664). Compassion for human weakness, an evangelical virtue, precedes the creative intention and guides the hand of the virtuoso artist. In the painting of a grey-haired pipe-smoker in a white ruff, falling asleep at a table, the lightness of painterly modelling is indeed admirable. Here is a man besieged by troubles, his head resting heavily on his hand. The burdens of life have overwhelmed him. There is no way out.

This image, rendered with modesty and beauty, is not a conventional moral lesson, but a quiet plea for brotherly support. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” (Galatians 6).

***

The respect and trust from the community – evidenced by his role as a notary witness to the will of Gerard Dou’s parents at a relatively young age – may have also come from his voluntary and selfless service to the Catholic community in Leiden. What this role entailed remains unknown. It is conjectured that in the exquisite painting known as Interior with Fisherman and Man beside a Bobbin and Spool (Rijksmuseum, 1663), the fisherman’s visit may conceal a religious dimension related to the activities of the secret Church. This might be a representation of a Jesuit sent to North Holland with an apostolic mission.

“And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, ‘Have ye here any meat?’ And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish and an honeycomb.” (Luke 24) Quiringh van Brekelenkam’s art is such a honeycomb – not solely for our Leiden brothers and sisters, not only for his contemporaries.