RKD STUDIES

Artistically, Hamburg was not determined by courtly prejudices and pretentions. It is very characteristic that even here, only that facet of Dutch art, which we have already described at the court in Düsseldorf: Dutch fine painting, lived on for a while. We take the art of Balthasar Denner (1685-1749) [1] as an example. In 1696 he was the apprentice of an unknown Dutchman called Frans Amama. He visited Holland in 1736-1739, where he met with Adriaen van der Werff, who admired his art very much.¹ Denner provided all of Northern Germany, e.g. every important court there, with his works: those of Schleswig-Holstein, Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Brandenburg and even that of Copenhagen.² In 1721 he was, by the way, also in England.

His portraits are notably for an exceptionally detailed way of painting, which brought him the nickname ‘der Porendenner’ (Denner of the Pores) [2-3]. In him the line of Gerard Dou, Godfried Schalcken and Adriaen van der Werff found its continuation. The exaggerated naturalism, the fine painting par excellence, is one aspect which the early 18th century valued in Dutch art -- in complete contrast with the loose technique of the Rococo (Watteau) or the brilliant decorative painting (Boucher, Tiepolo).

1
Balthasar Denner
Self-portrait of Balthasar Denner (1685-1749), dated 1719
Copenhagen, SMK - National Gallery of Denmark

However, Denner started out differently. A still-life of 1698 (now in Hamburg) [4] shows this very clearly in contrast with a late still-life with fruit of 1733 (also in Hamburg) [5]. Though the first is still clumsy and timid in composition, it has a natural boldness and colourfulness, while the second is smooth like his portraits, as if in the style of Abraham Mignon and Jan van Huijsum. In his portraits Denner occasionally tried to hold on to Rembrandt’s chiaroscuro, but it is rather that of Gerard Dou than that of Rembrandt; only in some of his late works (Dresden, Portrait of a Woman, no. 2067) [6] the painting becomes somewhat broader, brown in brown and the brushstrokes more energetic. Or he tried to achieve this with a strong lighting, that, as in his self-portrait of the collection Tronchin in Geneva, leaves the upper part of the face, which is in the shadow of the hat, in the dark [7].³

4
Balthasar Denner
Still-life with apples, walnuts and a glass of wine on a table, dated 1698
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv./cat.nr. 402

His pupil Dominicus van der Smissen (1704-1760) [8] and his son Jacob Denner (1720-1765) [9] stayed true to his style.⁴ With Jacob however there is an unmistakable connection with English portraiture (Joseph Highmore, William Hogarth). Van der Smissen already anticipated the freer style of Anton Graff (1736-1813).⁵

As a landscapist who worked in the Dutch style, we can mention Jacob Stockmann (c. 1680-1743), who had been a pupil of Albert Meyering in Holland [10-11] and who had taken Michiel Carré as his example, although he also painted head studies in the taste of Denner. One of the many representatives of the Claude Lorraine/Jan Both style in 18th-century Germany is Friedrich Rosenberg (1758-1833) [12].⁶

9
Jacob Denner
Portrait of the Denner family, about 1738-1739
Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, inv./cat.nr. 411

Johann Heinrich Menken (1766-1839) from Bremen, who was a pupil of Johann Christian Klengel in Dresden in 1792-1795, already belongs to the time of the revival of Dutch naturalism. He painted landscapes and cattle in the Dutch way [13], but which are also reminiscent though of contemporary English painting (George Morland! Compare Menken’s Gray in Bremen) [14].⁷ Gottlieb Christian Johann Giese (1787-1838) [15-16] from Greifswald already felt the proximity of the great Caspar David Friedrich, but still echoes Herman Saftleven and Jan Griffier in his landscapes (Winter landscape, art dealer, Cologne) [17].⁸

14
Johann Heinrich Menken
Gray
Bremen, Kunsthalle Bremen