KOMMENTAR ZU

Cyriel Stroo: Rezension von: Till-Holger Borchert: The Age of Van Eyck. The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting 1430-1530. Ausstellungskatalog Groeningemuseum, Brügge 2002, London: Thames & Hudson 2002, in: sehepunkte 2 (2002), Nr. 9 [15.09.2002], URL: http://www.sehepunkte.de/2002/09/3204.html

Von Till-Holger Borchert
Curator of the exhibition
Curator Groeningemuseum, Bruges

Manfred Sellink
Director of the exhibition
Artistic Director Municipal Museum of Bruges

Cyriel Stroo, attaché of the Royal Institute for the Study and Conservation of Belgium's Artistic Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Brussels and recently focusing on fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting, published a review of the exhibition "Jan van Eyck, the Flemish Primitives and the South" and its accompanying catalogue in "sehepunkte 2 (2002), Nr. 9". As members of the scholarly community, we are naturally open to constructive criticism, even if it takes the form of a negative review. We believe, however, that Stroo's arguments are unfounded in several respects and that they misjudge our intentions. Therefore, not the least out of fairness to our esteemed collaborators and lenders, we gratefully take the opportunity, offered to us by the editors of 'sehepunkte', to react.

In his text, Stroo does not clearly distinguish between critical remarks aiming at the exhibition, and those referring to the catalogue. While he is apparently upset by what he, strangely enough, seems to have perceived in the catalogue as a lack of scholarly intentions both - book and exhibition - in the end become mingled into one. This, however, does not contribute to a clear understanding of the points Stroo actually wanted to express his discomfort about. It was obviously due to certain statements in the short preface of our exhibition catalogue (7) that the reviewer got strongly irritated which influenced his perception of the entire publication. It was our intention to underline the fact that certain [sic] exhibition catalogues are, in our opinion, overloaded with scholarly 'pyrotechnics'. Our catalogue was primarily (thus not exclusively) intended for the general reader - aiming not only at the visitor of the exhibition but also at fellow art-historians who are not specialists in the field, as well as at an interested public. Stroo apparently thought he had to read this statement as a sign that the catalogue itself had no scholarly bearing (or ambitions) at all. This is, of course, not only refuted by the wording of the preface, but, at least in our opinion, also by the choice of authors, and the subjects and quality of their essays.

Alas, Cyriel Stroo does not specify in which respect he thinks the publication lacks scientific merits, but he only summarises its contents and overlooks the fact that exhibition and catalogue are not primarily dealing with Early Netherlandish Art but also with its dissemination. And are we - focusing on one of the few specific remarks Stroo makes - really to believe that when Borchert writes that virtually no pre-Eyckian panel paintings have survived, this is at odds with Stroo's assertion that he knows of "at least" two dozen of such panels? That is to say 24 panels from the whole period up to and including the early decades of the fifteenth century of which in most cases it is entirely unknown where precisely these works have been produced: in Flanders, or in France. In general terms, one must ask the question what could possibly be wrong with assuming an unpretentious attitude in order to inform a larger audience in a readable manner about the state of research on Flemish Primitives and again, more precisely, on the patterns of the European impact of Early Netherlandish Painting. And, yes indeed, as Stroo rightly blames us, we really do believe that too often exhibitions are considered as the final culmination of individual studies. Strangely enough, the importance of scholars as well as of the general public having the opportunity for being confronted with a specific combination of a number of original works in a clearly defined, unique and temporary context, is today, contrary to the past, rather underrated - unfortunately, because such an occasion potentially provides an outstanding chance and a source of inspiration for new research. One only has to recall the famous exhibition of Flemish Primitives in Bruges in 1902 - rightly hailed by Stroo as "indeed a landmark in the reassessment of Early Netherlandish Painting" - which had precisely that effect. This was entirely due to the impact of the works themselves, and not because of its scholarly concept (which it lacked) or its catalogues (which were entirely descriptive). It was only the reaction by critics and art-historians on seeing the stunning choice of many hitherto unknown works that inspired the research in decades to come.

It came as no little surprise to us that Stroo, who himself bases his own study usually on the close examination of the original objects, found it unnecessary to address in his review the objects on view, the choice of the loans, the presentation or the confrontation of the panels in the exhibition. One would think that there would have been more to say, and possibly also to criticise, than the fact that the two known versions of the Eyckian "Madonna at the Fountain" were hanging too far away from each other to allow good comparisons. It was, of course, precisely this generous arrangement that was needed to grant comfort to the large number of visitors. And while, we presume, Stroo is well aware of the fact that there is by no means a consensus concerning the dating and the authorship of the two versions of the Eyckian "St. Francis" in Philadelphia and Turin, even he must have realised that the confrontation of the Turin version with Mediterranean copies of this Eyckian composition (including a spectacular, recently rediscovered copy from the Colantonio workshop in Naples from c. 1450/60, hitherto believed to have been made in Brussels) does bear witness to a remarkable presence of the Eyckian model, much earlier, in fact, than hitherto realised. In this respect there is also much more to say than just the comment that "weaknesses in the compositions (i.e. in a number of Eyckian inventions) and execution are visible to the naked eye".

Indeed, given the fact that so many fifteenth-century panels closely related to Netherlandish painters were on display in one exhibition, we feel that Stroo too easily gives way to his anger about a one-page preface while avoiding even a basic acknowledgement of the exhibition as a serious endeavour. We definitively fail to understand the humour in his awkwardly half-joking insinuation that exhibits "were chosen at random [...] without justification based on research, learning and expertise". Amongst the many comments expressing a view quite different from Stroo's rather subjective position, we would like to point out to Lorne Campbell's review in "The Burlington Magazine 1191 (2002), 367-371" which in our, obviously strongly biased opinion, balances serious criticism with the appreciation of the importance of assembling an outstanding choice of paintings in one show.