Getty Museum To Open International Exhibition Devoted To Rediscovery Of Dutch Sculptor Adriaen De Vries

October 12 through January 9, 2000; Location: Exhibitions Pavilion

Source: "News From The Getty" Press Release

Los Angeles, CA-The J. Paul Getty Museum this fall will provide the final venue and only showing in the United States of Adriaen de Vries, Imperial Sculptor, the first international touring exhibition devoted to one of the major sculptors in the history of European art. A master of composition and technique, de Vries (Dutch, 1556-1626) created spectacular bronzes. His pioneering approach to sculpture, little studied until now, foreshadowed the emergence of the artistic period that came to be known as the Baroque. The exhibition examines de Vries's evolving style and the powerful sense of movement and complex spatial arrangements that he achieved. It reveals him as an expressive artist of the highest order, a technical virtuoso who emerged as one of the most progressive Northern European sculptors of his era, and a precursor to such modern sculptors as August Rodin.

De Vries produced small-scale and monumental bronzes for the most discerning princely patrons of the period, including the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II of Prague, for whom he became official court sculptor. The exhibition assembles about 40 bronzes as well as prints and drawings from collections in the United States and Europe. Featured are individual figures and dynamic groupings that freshly convey the pathos of tales from ancient mythology and dramatic moments of the Old and New Testaments. Also included are monumental allegories that cast the political contests of his day in a universal light, astonishing equestrian and other statuettes commissioned for the Emperor's personal delight, and de Vries's ambitious interpretations of then newly rediscovered marbles from antiquity. Together, these works demonstrate the artist's remarkable virtuosity, from his treatment of flowing musculature to the lively interplay of light and shadow over tactile surfaces.

It is organized by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; and the 3. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

"This major exhibition examining de Vries's achievement is long overdue," said Peter Fusco, Curator of European Sculpture and Works of Art. "It will demonstrate to our audiences how de Vries accomplished for bronze sculpture what Gianlorenzo Bernini, the greatest sculptor of the Baroque period, would later accomplish for marble. De Vries's achievement is less well known in part because his works are found in cities such as Stockholm and Prague instead of Rome-places that were beyond the traditional paths of artists and scholars on the grand tour of the European art capitals. The exhibition will establish the importance of de Vries's place in the history of art."

"We are particularly pleased to bring this exhibition to Los Angeles as we have two major works by de Vries in the Getty's collection," added Deborah Gribbon, Deputy Director and Chief Curator. "The discovery of de Vries's Rearing Horse and Juggling Man in 1984 and 1989 helped stimulate renewed interest in the artist and added impetus for the exhibition."

Adriaen de Vries was born in the Hague but his art developed mostly outside the Netherlands. After apprenticing in Florence and Milan, he became court sculptor in Turin to the Duke of Savoy by 1588. The turning point in his career occurred when he was called to Prague by Emperor Rudolf II, who in 1601 named de Vries as Sculptor to the Royal Chamber. After the Emperor's death in 1612, de Vries remained in Prague, fulfilling numerous independent commissions; in his last years he produced some of his most expressive work.

Among the early highlights is Psyche Borne Aloft by Putti (1590-92, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), the first large bronze that de Vries made for the Emperor in Prague. It represents a vignette in the myth of Cupid and Psyche in which she is commanded by Venus to fetch a flask of Persephone's beauty from Hades. The female figure seems airborne, each foot set well above the base and her smoothly modeled figure turning gently as winged boys (putti) bear her up to Olympus, flask in hand. In the Bust of Rudolf II (1603, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna), de Vries created an imposing portrait of the bearded Emperor; his armored torso turns to convey a sense of movement, a dramatic quality associated with later Baroque art. Rudolf II placed the bust in his imperial Kunstkammer, a gallery reserved for marvelous curiosities as well as precious works of art. He probably also displayed in the Kunstkammer the Rearing Horse (1605-10,3. Paul Getty Museum), an eloquent statuette of a spirited animal that would have had special appeal for the Emperor, himself a horse lover. Juggling Man (around 1610-15, J. Paul Getty Museum) is an enigmatic figure based on an ancient dancing faun in the Uffizi. De Vries's figure holds a plate in each hand as his muscular body twists to reinforce the whirling movement of his arms. The figure was unknown until it was discovered in Britain in 1989; the Getty Museum acquired it soon thereafter.

The work considered to be de Vries's last is the extraordinary life-size individual statue of Hercules pomarius, (1626-1627, Narodni Galerie v Praze; on loan from the Museum of the Capital, Prague). The statue shows the hero staggering in the aftermath of wresting the golden apples from the Hesperides's garden. The statue's structure is all but blurred into small, velvety surfaces; it eloquently embodies what has come to be known as De Vries's late "painterly" style in which a precise treatment of form gave way to a looser, sketchier surface treatment.

In his day, de Vries was famous enough to be compared to Michelangelo. Within 80 years of his death, however, he was forgotten. His reputation suffered partly because his output was relatively small; he never produced multiple casts of his small-scale bronzes and the wax models from which he worked were lost through the direct casting process. During the Thirty Years War, invading Swedish troops looted Prague in 1648 and Denmark in 1659 and took many of de Vries's sculptures to Sweden, obscuring the original context of many works. Later generations also rejected Mannerism, the style of his age that had immediately followed the high Renaissance. By the late 1800s, with the advent of nationalist ideologies, the international court culture of the 16th and 17th centuries-of which de Vries was a part-suffered further neglect. It wasn't until the 1950s that the tide began to change, leading to the current reappraisal of the artist's achievement.

Adriaen de Vries, Imperial Sculptor was seen first at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, where it was organized by Frits Scholten, Curator of Sculpture. It is on view through August 29, 1999, at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, where it is coordinated by Gorel Cavali-Bjorkman, Curator of Painting and Sculpture; Peter Fusco, Curator of Sculpture and Works of Art at the Getty Museum, is responsible for the exhibition in Los Angeles, which opens on October 12.

A catalog, Adriaen de Vries, Imperial Sculptor, accompanies the exhibition, with entries by Frits Scholten on the individual works and essays by Scholten and other scholars on such topics as the drawings, the technical aspects of casting bronze, and the relationship between de Vries's work and antiquity. The book contains 350 pages; 70 full color illustrations, 400 in duotone. It is published in English, Dutch, and Swedish editions by the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, in association with Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle. The catalogue is available in hardcover ($60). ISBN: 89 236 5536. To order within the U.S., call: 800-223-3431; outside the U.S., call: 310-440-7333.

On view concurrently at the Getty Museum will be Foundry to Finish: In the Studio of Adriaen de Vries (June 29 through January 30, 2000), which examines de Vries's one-of-a-kind casting technique and fascinating patination methods through a close analysis of the Juggling Man. Also on view: Art and Science: Joris Hoefnagel and the Representation of Nature in the Renaissance (October 12 though January 9, 2000). This exhibition surveys the hand-painted imagery of Mira Calligraphiae monumenta, a virtuoso book of calligraphy illuminated by Hoefnagel for Emperor Rudolf II, who was patron to both de Vries and Hoefnagel.

A full range of public lectures and performances will accompany the exhibition. An audioguide, available in the entrance hall for $3.00, will also feature ten stops devoted to objects in the de Vries exhibition.

Also in conjunction with the exhibition, the Museum's Department of European Sculpture and Works of Art will host a scholarly symposium, European Sculpture Around 1600. (For information about the symposium, call 310-440-7196.)