Nudes in Art: FASHION OR PASSION?

Joachim Wtewael (1566-1638), the subject of the current singular exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, Pleasure and Piety (June 28-October 24, 2015), is likely Spranger’s most devoted follower, having never abandoned his mannerist roots like some of their younger contemporaries.

A far more accomplished draftsman and painter, some of his miniature paintings on copper would have fit in the palm of a patron, while others would have covered a large wall of a palazzo. Spranger’s Wedding of Cupid and Psyche, engraved by Goltzius, a huge composition with more than one hundred nude gods perched on sausage-like clouds was one of the subjects I identified during my generals at Princeton.

In his two adaptations, Wtewael’s Wedding of Peleus and Thetis (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts and Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig) compresses the wedding party onto a significantly smaller format, without reducing the number of figures. Undeniably, it is exceptional among the artist’s large oeuvre. In an age when eyeglasses existed, but were of minimal function, I cannot imagine how tiny the brushes must have been to in-paint the facial features in heads, some of which would barely fit onto the surface of a dime. A superb portraitist as well as author of a few religious compositions, Wtewael, like Spranger, devoted much effort to erotic compositions, some so overtly sexual that these miniscule precious copper tablets were hidden for centuries in leather bags or behind more respectable works of art, and easily removed for the patron’s private devotion.