Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656)

By Annabel van Grenen

Gerrit van Honthorst, The Matchmaker (or The Procuress), 1625, oil on canvas, 71 x 104cm, Centraal Museum, Utrecht.

Image courtesy of the Centraal Museum.

Born 5 November 1592 in Utrecht, Gerrit van Honthorst was trained by Abraham Bloemaert, a Dutch painter and teacher, and grew to become a well-known Dutch Golden Age painter. Van Honthorst was extremely popular with the aristocracy, painting for the likes of Charles I and Christian VI of Denmark. The artist drew immense inspiration from Caravaggio after travelling to Rome, so much so that his paintings would sometimes be mistaken for the Baroque master’s own artworks. Notably, Bernhard Hofstötter credited van Honthorst with revitalising the art scene in Utrecht upon returning from Rome.

Whilst in Italy, the artist mostly completed religious scenes and after his return to the Netherlands he often painted scenes lit with an artificial source. This allowed him to employ Caravaggio’s virtuosic chiaroscuro through his highly technical command of light and dark. Evidenced by van Honthorst’s The Matchmaker (1625), he created scenes of an intimate and inclusive nature. Though this painting was produced in the seventeenth century, the figures seem to transcend time. They seem like three people having a casual conversation, though it shows the romantic tension between the young couple being set up in the flicker of a barely visible flame. One feels as if they could converse with them, sharing a simple and universal desire of close company. This detail gives the figures verisimilitude, so too does the yellow lute’s warmth and the central figure’s red clothing, all which augments this familiarity by manifesting a friendly atmosphere. As the gentleman raises his hand to the lady, demonstrating his affection towards her, it acts as a welcome for the viewer to do so, too.

Gerrit van Honthorst explored a myriad of subject matters, including musicians, as alluded to in The Matchmaker. Most paintings of musicians throughout the Netherlands showed them from the waist upwards, though it was van Honthorst who began to depict them as jubilant and lively. Mirrored in The Matchmaker’s smiling figure, he consistently exhibited them as jovial characters and titled them as ‘merry’ in a plethora of his works. His talent for human likeness led to a fruitful career as a portraitist, leading to the artist being regarded as the first true portrait painter of Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth century.

Bibliography

Hofstötter, Bernhard. “Gerrit van Honthorst’s guitar: tracing the features of an instrument reappearing in the works of the Utrecht Caravaggist.” Early Music 50, no. 3 (August 2022): 315-228.

Judson, J. Richard, and Rudolf E.O. Ekkart. Gerrit van Honthorst: 1592-1656. Davaco, 1999.

Prodger, Michael. “Villainy and Visionaries: How Caravaggio’s Followers Saw the Light.” The Guardian, October 7, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/07/a-villain-among-visionaries-how-caravaggios-followers-saw-the-light