Success and chance in Dutch art literature (1604-1752)

Abstract

Success attracts, also in art history. In recent decades it has become, almost imperceptibly, one of the biggest themes in the study of seventeenth-century Dutch art. The socioeconomic success of artists has been examined from a variety of perspectives, with a focus on product and process innovation, networking and mobility. 1 However, little consideration has been given so far to the fact that chance could also be a factor in the achievement or otherwise of success on the art market. Its capricious, contingent and elusive nature sets chance at odds with the scholarly quest to uncover patterns. Nevertheless, the most important texts in early-modern Dutch art literature make remarkably frequent reference to the role played by chance in artists' lives. Chance was evidently something of which artists were supposed to take account. Examining the relationship between chance and success in some of these texts offers an insight, therefore, into a contemporary perspective on this elusive phenomenon, which was held out unambiguously as a powerful existential force, with which artists were obliged to deal.The texts analysed for the purposes of this study are the biographies of antique, Italian and Netherlandish painters by Karel van Mander, published in his Schilder-boeck (1604); Arnold Houbraken's Groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718-1721); and Johan van Gool's Nieuwe schouburg der Nederlantsche kunstschilders en schilderessen (1750-1752). 2 Samuel van Hoogstraten's more theoretical Inleyding tot de hooge schole der schilderkonst (1678) includes a chapter on how painters were advised to deal with chance, and so this publication is also discussed. 3 To highlight the way themes and motifs were repeated and expanded upon, these texts are discussed here in chronological order. The point of departure in each instance is the explicit use by the authors of terms referring to chance.