Lairesses’s Night

Lairesse stands in his large studio on the Oudezijds Achterburgwal. He is alone. He takes a deep breath and he listens. As night falls, scents intensify and it becomes quieter outside. The city turns in on itself. Silently he names what he smells: linseed oil, terebinth, peat fire, dung, sawdust, and vaguely the water of the moat. While sniffing, he imagines he can distinguish the pigments, with white lead predominating, followed by ochre and vermillion. But no, he cannot, his nose is not that sensitive. He wants to be able to, he wants to be able to smell everything like a dog. He hears a cart going, the cry of a beggar, a crying child, the singing strokes of a hammer on iron, the short bright laugh of Marie, his housewife, talking in the parlour with their son Abraham, his low voice coming to him like soft murmurs. Here he can also hear the bells of the Oude Kerk, the Zuiderkerk, the Nieuwe Kerk and further away the Wester. He can estimate the distance by the power of the sound, the Wester the furthest away. He loves that beautiful bright church the most. He is proud of the organ shutters he painted for it. Angel wings they are, mighty angel wings.

He stands very still, holding his canvas in his hand and rubbing the oil- and paint-saturated fabric between his fingers. He turns his face to the window, where the sky above the houses will have slowly turned a deep translucent dark blue, of a colour he never saw approached on canvas or panel, a colour a painter pursues but does not catch, a longing that remains unfulfilled. He almost succeeded once, he still feels the trembling tension as he carefully applied the layers to the base: first death paint of indigo and lead white, then a mixture of lead white and ultramarine and then a glacis of the precious pure ultramarine, yes indeed, almost it really was an early night in May, a rich background for Selene and Endymion, for which, on reflection, he had nevertheless made the moon too yellow, so that the power of the night blue was lost. He was his own fiercest critic, though he never said it out loud.

Standing for long periods of time tires him out. Pain in hips and knees and back has grown worse with age. His short, crooked legs can hardly support his weight. He takes a step towards the armchair and bumps into the edge of the table on which Abraham has arranged the materials for use the next day, the chalk, prepared paper, ink and brushes. They have designed large pieces for the new town hall, which has been in use for years now but not quite finished. It is great and honourable work and it will confirm and perpetuate his reputation. He has to cross over from the sketches to the real draft, to the canvas…. It is impossible. Impossible!

A sudden cry of rage escapes him. With one arm, he wipes the table clean, items falling to the floor, breaking or rolling away. And once more he sweeps the table top with a curse. Nom de Dieu! He sits down and puts his head in his hands. When Marie comes to light the candles later or when it becomes day tomorrow, he will hardly notice the difference. If only he were deaf and dumb like Avercamp, which might be an advantage for a painter, but no, he is going blind. Precisely he is going blind. I AM blind, he corrects himself. Because even though he can still see contours and sense the difference between sunshine and darkness, for a painter the inability to see colour and line equals eyelessness. They might as well stick out those useless marbles and put them on a platter like Saint Lucia’s, they were no longer of any use to him.

Abraham helps him with the designs, but both father and son know he lacks the true talent. A chandelier for the theatre even had to be drawn to him by touch with his almost blind eyes. Meritoriously, that is Bram. It has led to helpless arguments. The boy can’t help but think he hasn’t inherited his father’s talent, but the father thinks he doesn’t work hard enough. He is lazy like so many other young painters, who very soon think they have mastered the craft and start acting the roast rooster. But you never master this trade!

Marie says that he has ruined his eyes by working on etchings for evenings on end in poor light. She means it’s his own fault. Be that as it may, his body is letting him down on all sides. There’s nothing lost in that, in itself. It’s an ugly body.

On the street, the glances of passers-by never let him forget his appearance. Had he himself grown accustomed to it, and had his attention to fine clothing as compensation for his head become second nature, when people stopped and looked at him with disgust in their eyes, it still stung like a bee’s sting. Now there were numerous misshapen individuals in Amsterdam, beggars covered in sores held out their hands before the hospital gates, lepers showed their twisted claws to the city on Koppermaandag, all manner of beings assembled by nature with devilish fantasy could be viewed for four stuivers at Blauw-Jan’s tavern, but he too inspired fear. Perhaps precisely because he dressed well and wore an expensive wig. Something wasn’t right. Ugliness should accompany poverty. He was a prosperous man who lived lavishly.

He avoided mirrors, only for the sake of a self-portrait had he occasionally mustered the courage to examine himself clinically. From a dark background – the shadow from which he observed the world – he had highlighted his head in earth tones, his eyes slightly closed, his flat nose inconspicuous, his ape-like jaw more unyielding and robust than pronounced. A fragmented head with strange planes and curves. And they hadn’t even seen his teeth yet. He knew his appearance suggested backwardness, as if he were a drooling idiot who would emit animal sounds. Great was the surprise when he spoke perfect and florid French in a melodious voice. Not only that: he excelled in knowledge beyond his colleagues. A trained monkey, people thought. But no, he was a human like all others, more mindful of resistance because of his appearance and therefore compelled to fight for his place. He had to be cleverer, more well-read, more knowledgeable, the most charming and articulate in company. Thank God he was blessed with a quick mind.

The portrait Rembrandt had made of him he no longer wanted to see. He had been placed by the painter on the same line as his eccentrics and marginal figures, blotches of paint and colour, which from a distance aroused curiosity, suggested movement and lifelikeness, but up close were merely wild painting technique. He had met the old man back then at Uylenburgh and had been proud as a newcomer to Amsterdam by the interest of the great painter, who on his part saw him exclusively as a remarkable object, a quirk of nature. On the sombre canvas, his loyal brown eyes begged for a caress. As if he were so timid! And yet, and yet it had been a good time, that beginning. He could not have calculated his arrival in Amsterdam as a young man of 25 better. Well, calculated! Not much calculation had preceded the flight from Liège. He smiled at the memory of the broken marriage promise affair. The sister of the abandoned lover had stabbed him, leaving a scar still visible. She herself had not emerged unscathed from the conflict either.

‘Why are you sitting in the dark… It’s getting late. Come to bed,’ Marie places her hand on his arm. She has a candle holder in her other hand, whose glow he vaguely sees moving.

‘No, leave me. I want to think a bit.’

‘What happened? The floor is full of mess.’

‘Nothing. Abraham will tidy up tomorrow. Bring some more wine.’

He feels her hand on his forehead.

‘You’re not sick, are you?’

‘No,’ he says irritably and pushes her hand away. ‘Just leave me.’

He hears her move away; moments later her footsteps return. Silently, she sets a glass before him.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’

She walks away without a word. She is still beautiful, he knows, though time is beginning to mark her skin. Her body is fuller than before, but still arouses his desire. In recent months, that desire had gained a hint of tearfulness, which irritates him. That he seeks comfort in the warmth of her arms makes him vulnerable. He does not allow himself that. He presses his lips together, reaches for the glass and drinks.

This is an excerpt from a story written by Nelleke Noordervliet in connection with the exhibition Eindelijk! De Lairesse at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe.

The Constructible Beauty of Gerard de Lairesse

‘Gerard de Lairesse was the greatest painter of our Golden Age, not after Rembrandt, but alongside Rembrandt,’ says Gregor Weber, Head of Fine Arts at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and curator of the successful exhibition The Late Rembrandt.

Gerard de Lairesse (1640-1711), a small, French-speaking man with a face disfigured by syphilis, arrives in Amsterdam from his birthplace Luik in 1665. Shortly after his arrival in the city, he visits his famous colleague Rembrandt van Rijn in his studio. Rembrandt paints his portrait in bold brushstrokes, not making De Lairesse’s damaged face any more beautiful than it is.

Between 1665 and 1690, de Lairesse paints hundreds of history paintings, portraits, wall decorations, ceiling pieces, and theatrical sets for Dutch regents. The subjects de Lairesse depicts are almost always drawn from ancient mythology and history.

At the height of his fame, de Lairesse is struck by fate: in 1689, he suddenly goes blind as a result of syphilis. He begins to write and proclaims the ideal of classical beauty. Thus, in the last twenty years of his life, he develops into an influential art pedagogue.