Fabritius and the Goldfinch (Kindle Single)

by Deborah Davis

  Fabritius’ term at the workshop coincided with the creation of one of the master’s greatest works, Militia Company of District II Under the Command of Captain Frans Banning Cocq, more commonly known as The Night Watch (a misnomer attached to the painting later because aged varnish made it even darker than it originally was). In the early 1640s, a militia of eighteen men commissioned Rembrandt for one of those standard “corporate portraits,” but what they got was a masterpiece. As directed, Rembrandt painted the men so that each was recognizable, but he placed them in a scene that exploded with energy and movement. Their hands extended, pointed, and reached; their legs strutted, marched, and ran; and their aforementioned faces expressed a wide range of emotions — everything from unbridled excitement to deep contemplation. Instead of a static composition, they were a force unleashed.

  Typically, Rembrandt ignored the rules other artists obeyed. The militia men who paid for the work were identified in an accompanying plaque, yet Rembrandt expanded the painting’s population to include unidentified figures, including a rambunctious young girl and boy in the foreground, and several additional men whom he planted throughout the crowd. One of those extra faces (basically just an eye peering over a soldier’s shoulder), belonged to Rembrandt himself. And, while most artists painting a group positioned the sitters in a sedate, organized line, Rembrandt mixed it up, showing the militia men in different planes, and engaged in a variety of actions. He also overturned conventional handling of light and shadow by placing a dark figure, Captain Cocq dressed in black, in front of the yellow-clad Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch.

  These defiantly original touches made The Night Watch so fresh and exciting that Fabritius and his fellow students were overwhelmed watching Rembrandt execute his magnum opus. Hoogstraten expressed their collective admiration when he wrote that the painting was “so powerful that, according to some people, all the other pieces in the Doelon,” where it was exhibited, “look like playing cards.” To this day, it exudes such vitality that the Rembrandt authority Simon Schama aptly describes it as “a rush of martial adrenaline” and “a movie frame that refuses to freeze.” 7

  Inspired by Rembrandt, Fabritius decided to try his hand at everything, with respect to both subject and style, until he could find his niche. This would involve practicing on what the Dutch called tronies, a face or a figure that might belong to a real person, but, unlike a portrait, which had to be a strong likeness and indicate other biographical information about the sitter, including profession and status, was anonymous. Tronies did not have identities. Some art historians argue that the young woman in Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring — despite the fabulous story novelist Tracy Chevalier built around the fictitious housemaid, Grietje — was a tronie, a kind of face rather than a particular one.

  Painting a tronie was a good way to learn how to capture facial expressions and body language. Rembrandt often stared in a mirror and sketched himself looking happy, sad, shocked, angry, or showing other exaggerated emotions, so he could understand how to recreate the look on another face he would paint subsequently. Fabritius’ collection of tronies included an old man, an old woman, a warrior, and the like. Tronies could be sold as finished paintings, but it was more likely that an artist would mentally stockpile these images and use them in a future work.

  When Fabritius worked on his own in these early days (some of his efforts were doubtless “homework,” assigned by Rembrandt), his goal was to imitate, or pay homage, to his teacher, and he did a very good job. In fact, a 1642 painting called The Slaughtered Ox — a realistic study of a slain animal — was originally thought to have been a Rembrandt, until experts determined the artist’s signature was forged; ultimately some art historians attributed it to Fabritius. That same year, Fabritius painted Unknown Man and Unknown Woman, two Rembrandt-like portraits on panels. Then, he tackled a more ambitious project, a history painting featuring one of Rembrandt’s favorite religious subjects, the raising of Lazarus.

  The ever-opinionated Hoogstraten considered history paintings “the most elevated and distinguished step in the Art of Painting,” because they provided an opportunity for an artist to shine, to demonstrate his knowledge of stories, symbols, and technique, and to provide his viewers with the moral lessons inherent in these classic tales. Fabritius was, after all, the son of a schoolteacher, who had studied the Bible and mythology and could use this wealth of knowledge in his art in his painting. In his version of The Raising of Lazarus, he positioned Christ against a dark background, holding up his arm to summon Lazarus from his tomb, and surrounded him with a crowd of enthralled onlookers. His visualization of the Biblical story was so close to what Rembrandt had done in his own history painting that it was long thought to be the work of the master instead of his pupil. It wasn’t until the canvas was cleaned and restored in 1935 that the signature “Car. Fabr” was found hidden under several layers of old varnish.

  Fabritius was enthusiastically working his way through Rembrandt’s oeuvre, experimenting with technique and gradually developing his own style. Then, in the summer of 1642, each of the two men was tested by a terrible turn of events. Rembrandt’s wife, Saskia, his muse and the love of his life, died that July. Suddenly, he was alone, an inconsolable widower and a mystified single parent with no idea how to raise his young son.

  At this very moment, Fabritius and Aeltje were nervously anticipating their first child — nervous, because every seventeenth-century pregnancy was high-risk — when they discovered the further complication that they were expecting twins. Under the circumstances, it made sense for Aeltje to go to Middenbeemster, where she could place herself in the capable hands of her midwife mother-in-law, Barbertje, who had handled every kind of delivery during her years of service. In spite of the extra care taken, when the time came for Aeltje to give birth, only one of the twins survived. As church sexton, Pieter Carelsz had the sad task of noting his grandchild’s death in the burial register of the Reformed Church. “The 10th of August, my son’s young child buried in the churchyard …,” he wrote movingly. It was a comfort that the baby’s grave was right next to the house where Fabritius grew up, so close to the family. Thankfully, the second twin, a daughter and Aeltje’s namesake, lived. When mother and baby were ready, the family returned to Amsterdam.

  Fabritius resumed painting and, for his next subject, he decided upon Hagar and the Angel, the Biblical story of Abraham’s concubine who bore him a son, Ishmael, when his wife, Sarah, could not. Later, when Sarah gives birth to Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael are banished to the desert, where an angel of God saves them by leading them to water. Fabritius convincingly depicts Hagar’s perilous situation as a moment of both despair and hope. Hagar and her angel are bathed in soft, pure light, suggesting that deliverance is imminent. Yet Fabritius’ masterful use of browns and reds adds earthiness and a sense of physicality to this otherworldly encounter. The painting is real — and spiritual — at the same time.

  History paintings such as Hagar and the Angel were complex undertakings because they incorporated so many elements. The artist had to tell the story, establish the characters, lay in the necessary symbolism, select a color palette, and use the appropriate brush work. One of Fabritius’ signature touches, something that he learned from Rembrandt, was to create texture by scratching parts of his canvas with the hard end of his paintbrush.

  Fabritius had come to the point where he could turn any canvas into a reasonable Rembrandt facsimile, something several of the best pupils could do, much to the consternation of the Rembrandt Research Project several centuries later. For Fabritius, the real challenge was to find his own style, and he was finally becoming more confident about his choices. In a burst of energy, he planned a series of history paintings based on Greek and Roman myths, more tronies and portraits, and even a genre piece, using Rembrandt’s young maid as a model.

  But first … since Aeltje was expecting another baby, Fabritius’ attention was focused on a successful birth. This time the child — Catrin
a — survived and was baptized in Amsterdam on March 29, 1643. Sadly, Aeltje herself experienced complications and died shortly thereafter. Then, before Fabritius could come to terms with the shock of her death, little Catrina perished and was buried in Middenbeemster on August 27. Once again, Pieter Carelsz had the unhappy task of documenting the passing of “mijns soons kint,” “my son’s child.”

  Fabritius was only 21 years old, yet had already lost his wife, two children, and his dream of building a family. Tragedy linked him to Rembrandt in ways he never imagined and, suddenly, both of them were single parents with young children to raise. Rembrandt’s preferred cure for feelings of loss and depression was to bury himself in his work, and he doubtless advised his grief-stricken acolyte to do the same. The only way for Fabritius to recover was to keep moving — to paint as if his life, or at least the life of his young daughter, Aeltje, depended upon it.

  Chapter Three

  The weeks following the death of a loved one should be about grieving, mourning, even imagining what might have been had fate been kind instead of cruel. But Fabritius was forced to turn his attention to the highly complicated matter of settling Aeltje’s estate. The gems and trinkets that once adorned her body were now bones of contention for notaries and relatives. He watched as his beloved wife was reduced to a twenty-two page inventory of possessions, a process so painful that he asked his father to represent him in these matters. Not that Aeltje’s siblings were callous about their sister’s passing. But they were practical men who wanted to plan a solid future for their young niece. It was also likely that Fabritius owed them money for the tuition he paid Rembrandt and, if this were the case, they had to factor the debt into their disbursement of Aeltje’s estate.

  Aeltje owned gold chains, bracelets, and diamond rings, but it was a simple double ring worth only 20 guilders that had been her most treasured piece of jewelry because Fabritius gave it to her for their engagement. The rest of Aeltje’s inventory was predictable, but the folio also listed a number of paintings. The notary walked through the house, jotting down quick descriptions of the canvases hanging on the walls and lying stacked on the floors. If he failed to write the artist’s name next to each piece, it was almost certainly because they were the work of Carel Fabritius, Aeltje’s schilder husband,

  The itemization included such canvases as a painting of a slaughtered pig; tronies of a warrior, an old woman, an old man, and some unfinished faces; a landscape; and a “Vanitas,” a popular theme at the time that showed a skull, ripe fruit, dead fish, game, and other symbols of mortality meant to express the transience of life. There were more entries, but one that stood out was een vogel voer, which could have several different meanings. The notary’s handwriting is practically illegible, so it is difficult to say if his scribbled words describe a bird feeding, bird feed, or a bird’s feather. In any case, it shows that Fabritius expressed an interest in birds as a subject from the very start of his career.

  Aeltje’s inventory was filed on April 24, 1643, and the two families spent the next ten weeks negotiating an agreement regarding her estate, which had been valued at 1,800 guilders (about $28,000 today). The Velthusius side was a little nervous about entrusting Fabritius with all that money because young artists were famous for being impractical. The plan they proposed was that Tobias Velthusius would sell his sister’s possessions, hold on to the money, and pay Carel five percent interest for young Aeltje’s support. Additionally, eleven portraits of Velthuys family members — presumably painted by Fabritius — would be sold to benefit the child. On July 12, Tobias and Pieter Carelsz signed the agreement.

  For the time being, Fabritius planned on staying in Middenbeemster with his daughter, where she could grow up among his young siblings. His father and mother were still having children — ten in all by the time they were finished — so there were plenty of them to keep her company. Despite all this careful planning for Aeltje’s future, she died suddenly in August, not long after her first birthday. Now, Fabritius was so alone it seemed as if his marriage had never happened. Was he a single man? A widower? Did he belong back in Amsterdam with Rembrandt, his artist friends, and his younger brother Barent, an aspiring artist who was studying at the workshop? Or should he stay in Middenbeemster with his family? Incapable of choosing one life over another, Fabritius moved back and forth between the two worlds like a shadow.

  The one place he found comfort, or at least distraction, was in his art, so he resumed work on his ambitious series of history paintings. He portrayed the Roman goddess Hera lounging seductively by a pool, a work featuring his characteristic earthy tones and spotlighting effect. In 1645, he turned to the Roman poet Ovid, author of the fifteen-volume mythological marathon Metamorphoses, for inspiration. In particular, he found himself fascinated by Mercury, the messenger of the gods and the deity in charge of everything from poetry to pickpocketing.

  Fabritius painted Mercury twice, illustrating the stories of Mercury, Argus, and Io, and of Mercury and Aglauros. The first depicted Mercury’s involvement in a marital dispute between Jove and his goddess wife, Juno, who in a fit of jealousy turned her husband’s mistress, Io, into a cow and gave her to the many-eyed Argus for safekeeping. At Jove’s command, Mercury set out to slay Argus and rescue Io. Instead of showing the gory beheading, which most artists would see as the myth’s “money shot,” Fabritius captured the moment before, as Mercury leaned over Argus and prepared to pull out his knife. Similarly, Fabritius’ painting of the confrontation between Mercury and Aglauros, a young woman who refused the amorous god entry to her sister’s bedroom, captures the moment before Mercury becomes vengeful and turns her to stone.

  Painting the unexpected (including gods with dirty feet, which could be interpreted as feet of clay), and portraying traditional subjects with a completely fresh perspective, became Fabritius’ trademarks. One of his most original works was his first self-portrait, which he painted in 1647. The self-portrait was an important rite of passage for every artist, because a successful one had to express identity, character, and technique, all at the same time. Additionally, there was the practical challenge involved in studying one’s own face in a mirror and working with a reverse image. Rembrandt found the process so fascinating he painted, drew, or etched himself approximately ninety times over the years, with each portrait revealing something different about his appearance or personality.

  Fabritius’ Self-Portrait was similarly revelatory. He dressed himself in the loose garb of a young Romantic, his long hair curling around his shoulders. The locks were a sly statement about the ongoing Dutch controversy regarding appropriate hair length for men. They were also a form of rebellion, considering that the Protestant Church was so opposed to young men sporting long tresses that ministers condemned it from the pulpit, quoting Corinthians 11, 14, “doth not even nature itself teach you that, if a man wear his hair long, it is a shame unto him?” Even though few took heed, and church officials, eventually, decided to save their energy for more significant battles, Fabritius literally puts himself on the record regarding this issue.

  More importantly, tragedy seems to have taken its toll on Fabritius in this self-portrait: His cheekbones stand out prominently, and he looks thin, even though his rosy coloring seems to be a sign of good health, and there is a slight upward turn at the mouth that suggests he could be coaxed into a smile. A patch of chest hair peeking out from under his shirt indicates virility, and his gaze is steady, confidant — almost defiant. The most unusual aspect of the painting, however, is Fabritius’ placement on the canvas. Instead of being front and center, as was usual the case for a figure in a portrait, he sits low and a bit off to one side, backed by a very realistic rendering of a stucco wall. As a résumé piece, the work announces that the artist, Carel Fabritius, is fearless and experimental, as well as highly skilled.

  Sadly, the brilliant up-and-coming artist could also be described as “impoverished,” for Fabritius was in serious debt. While he wrestled with the important questions of w
here to live and how and what to paint, he was burning through money he didn’t have. Art supplies were expensive, especially the pigments he ground for his paints. In a moment of desperation, he turned to old family friends for financial assistance. Abraham de Potter and his wife, Sara, had known Fabritius his entire life. The wealthy Amsterdam merchant maintained a country house in the Beemster and he and Sara had such a close relationship with Pieter Carelsz and Barbertje that they agreed to serve as godparents to their son Johannes. In 1647, their son Jasper de Potter loaned Fabritius 620 guilders, which the artist accepted gratefully and promised to repay.

  Despite his reduced circumstances, Fabritius seemed to have very good prospects. His unusual talents caught the eye of discerning collectors who saw that he could deliver more than a routine likeness. A young gentleman named Balthasar Deutz, the scion of a wealthy family of silk merchants (who knew the De Potters), paid Fabritius 78 guilders and 10 stivers for a portrait. The exact nature of the work was not spelled out in the contract, but at roughly the same time, Fabritius was working on a large and impressive painting of a family that might have been the painting commissioned by Deutz.

  Signed “Caro fabritius. 1648,” the large canvas depicted a complex arrangement of family members in the main room of their well-appointed home. Fabritius tried something daring, theatrical, even psychological. There were seven people to place in the picture — the parents and their children, including their adolescent daughter, student son, a younger boy, and two little ones, possibly twins. He devised a pose that looked as if the curtain had just gone up on the opening scene of a play, with the action about to start. The teenage daughter stands on the threshold of the room, as if poised between childhood and adulthood. Her older brother sits at a desk covered with classic vanitas items, contemplating mortality for the first time. The carefree younger brother plays beneath a fountain, oblivious to anything but his game. The babies sit close to their mother and father, content and protected, while the parents watch over their flock with assurance. The “stage” they occupy is, of course, life itself.