Passionate Artists in Rome

At the top of the sheet, in elegant handwriting, are the words Bent. Vueghels. This inscription marks the first appearance of the group’s name in art. Four young men are gathered outdoors in a landscape. One of them sits behind his easel, looking up at the subject of his work, which is just outside the frame of the drawing. On the right, one of the young men sits on a small hill, drawing with the sheet resting on his knees. Two men look on. Asselijn conveys that the group is in an Italian landscape with minimal yet striking means. The figures cast long shadows on the ground. The soft lines of the warm brown chalk contrast with the carefully applied grey wash. In this way, Asselijn captures the Italian landscape solely through a thoughtful rendering of the warm southern light on a late summer afternoon.

By the 17th century, the Rome of Classical Antiquity had more or less become an overgrown open-air museum. Centuries of building and demolition had raised the city's street level by several metres, leaving the classical monuments in some places only partially visible above ground. Cattle now grazed in the Roman Forum, once the city's political and commercial centre. Yet the city continued to exert an undiminished appeal on artists, for whom the remains of Classical Antiquity were a source of inspiration.

In 1622, Cornelis van Poelenburch sketched the ruins of the so-called Palazzo Maggiore on the Palatine Hill. This was one of the seven hills of Rome, where the imperial palace once stood. The sheet is inscribed at the lower right, ‘in roomen 1622’. Van Poelenburch’s rapid pen strokes vividly capture the irregular shapes of the stone and the grass overgrowing the structure.

Herman van Swanevelt, in turn, drew the Porta Pinciana. This city gate in the Aurelian Wall was built in the third century. The heat of the bright sunlight on the stone walls is almost palpable against the deep shadows cast by the foliage of the trees. Using fine brushstrokes in brown ink, Swanevelt sketched the structure on paper, then used a fully loaded brush to add the areas of shadow and lush vegetation. Judging by his vantage point, he himself must have been sitting in the cool shade in the foreground.

The artists’ biographer Arnold Houbraken described in 1653 how a group of Dutch artists in Rome set out to sketch near the Colosseum. Their compatriot Philipp Peter Roos spontaneously joined them and chatted about ‘this or that picturesque ruin’. When he spotted an interesting fragment but had no pen and paper to hand, he asked one of the youngest members of the group for some. The drawing was finished within half an hour. A passing Roman was so impressed that he immediately offered his pistol for it. Roos, however, had already given the drawing to the boy who had lent him his drawing materials. The boy was keen to keep the sheet as a memento and as ‘a specimen of [Roos’s] swift hand’. A drawing by Adriaen van der Kabel likewise shows a passer-by watching as the artist sketches a ruin.

The Bentvueghels did not only draw the ruins of ancient Rome. The rugged landscape outside the city was also a frequent subject of their studies. Arnold Houbraken wrote that every autumn, the Antwerp painter Abraham Genoels would leave the city for two or three months to ‘paint or draw fine views of landscapes from life’. The members of the Bentvueghels often travelled together on horseback to Tivoli, thirty kilometres east of Rome. Thanks to its relatively cool climate, it had been a popular summer retreat since Roman times, where wealthy Romans had villas built. The River Aniene flowed through the picturesque landscape, cascading into waterfalls among the rocky hills.

The French artist Claude Lorrain was a highly successful and influential landscape painter whose work conveys a great sense of vastness. Together with Pieter van Laer and Nicolas Poussin, Lorrain regularly travelled on horseback to Tivoli to sketch the natural surroundings. The drawing he made of one of his friends in front of the Grotto of Neptune attests to his immense talent. Using broad brushstrokes in brown ink alone, Lorrain depicted an imposing rock formation. This snapshot of the interplay of light and shadow brings the rugged landscape to life. With a few swift pen strokes, the artist placed his companion in the almost abstract landscape. The drawing’s modern character makes it one of the highlights of the exhibition The Bentvueghels.

The drawings of the Bentvueghels bring us remarkably close to the individual members. They bear witness both to their social lives and to their dedication to their studies in Rome. Drawings were often intended for personal use, as study material or as mementos of the many impressions gathered far from home. In the painter’s studio, the artist combined various sketches to create a perfect imaginary landscape.

Jan Both, for example, painted an Italian landscape featuring the Ponte Lucano over the River Aniene in Tivoli. However, the bridge is not depicted accurately: in the 17th century, the gate was in ruins, but Both portrayed it as restored in his painting. The landscape itself is also imaginary. The countless drawings Both made in Italy enabled him to depict the surroundings—with their foliage, rocks and warm Italian light—in a natural way.

It is clear that seventeenth-century Rome had more to offer than good wine and splendid festivities. The magnificent landscape, the southern light, and above all the omnipresence of the remnants of Rome’s rich history were a great source of inspiration and creativity for this ambitious group of artists.