Guided tour · For everyone · One moment, ten places · about 1597–1610

The world around 1600

What were artists making around 1600? A journey westward from Japan to Spain, in ten works, most of them made within about ten years of that date.

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Works

10

Time

about 16 min

Collections

5

About this tour

Around the year 1600, ships, envoys and traders already linked much of the world, yet every place still had its own way of seeing. Here are ten works, most of them made within about ten years of 1600, on a journey westward, from Japan to Spain. At every work, look first, then discover.

We begin in Japan, where ships from Europe have just come into port.

The 10 works

1. 

   Work 1 of 10

   Arrival of the "Southern Barbarians"

   Japan, Momoyama period · about 1600 · Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

   A huge black ship has come into port. Who is arriving?

   Merchants from Europe, almost certainly Portuguese, with Roman Catholic priests and their cargo.

   This pair of folding screens, in ink, colour and gold, shows the newcomers the Japanese called 'southern barbarians', because their ships came from the south. Later the Portuguese were forced out, and from 1641 to 1853 the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan, and only from a port town near present-day Nagasaki.

2. 

   Work 2 of 10

   Bamboo in the Wind

   Yi Jeong · early 17th century · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

   The wind is blowing through this bamboo, painted in dark and light ink. Can you find the paler bamboo?

   Behind the dark stems stands a second bamboo in pale ink, as if seen through mist.

   Yi Jeong, a member of the Korean royal family, was one of the great painters of bamboo. For scholars in Korea and China, bamboo stood for an upright person: it bends in the wind, but it does not break.

3. 

   Work 3 of 10

   Studies of Traditional Trees and Rocks

   Dong Qichang · about 1610 · Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis

   Trees, but no landscape around them. What is the artist doing?

   Making a sourcebook. These are sketches of trees and rocks in the manner of older masters, which he copied from whenever he made a large composition.

   Dong Qichang was a high official, a collector, and the most influential painter and critic of his time in China. He taught that painters should first learn from the great masters of the past, and then make the old styles their own.

4. 

   Work 4 of 10

   Antelope and deer hunt

   Govardhan · about 1602–04 · Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

   A hunt at full gallop. Which animal is the hunter?

   A cheetah with a red collar, catching a blackbuck. The Mughals trained cheetahs to hunt.

   It was painted for Prince Salim, who loved hunting. Between 1600 and 1605 he set up his own court in defiance of his father, the emperor Akbar, and persuaded some imperial artists to join him. The young Govardhan, a Hindu, was one of them.

5. 

   Work 5 of 10

   Youth Holding a Pomegranate

   style of Riza-yi Abbasi · about 1600–1650 · Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland

   A young man in a striped coat. What is he holding?

   A pomegranate, a favoured fruit.

   It shows the style of Riza-yi Abbasi, the most gifted painter at the court of Shah Abbas, who made Isfahan his capital. Gold thread was so costly that rulers sometimes burned old fabrics to recover it. This youth is dressed less lavishly, with less gold thread than the youths in two other paintings: presumably a sign of lower status.

6. 

   Work 6 of 10

   View of the city of Prague

   Roelant Savery · 1602–1605 · SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen

   We look down on a city on a river. What crosses the water?

   A long stone bridge on many arches: the bridge we now call the Charles Bridge.

   Prague was then the home of the emperor Rudolf II, who gathered painters, scientists and astronomers at his court. Roelant Savery, a Flemish painter, worked for him and drew the city in pen and watercolour.

7. 

   Work 7 of 10

   The Musicians

   Caravaggio · 1597 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

   Four young men with music. One of them looks straight out at us. Who might he be?

   Caravaggio himself: the young man behind, looking out of the picture, is a self-portrait.

   Caravaggio painted it in Rome, most likely for his first major patron, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. The young man looking out at us, second from the right, is the painter himself. On the left, a boy with wings eats grapes: he is Cupid, the god of love, and his presence makes this an allegory of music.

8. 

   Work 8 of 10

   River Landscape

   Jan Brueghel the Elder · 1607 · National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

   A ferry is coming in to land. Who and what is on board?

   A baby. A boatman passes it to a man on the bank, while women, a girl and a dog wait nearby.

   Jan Brueghel, a son of Pieter Bruegel, painted tiny, glowing scenes on copper in Antwerp. The ferry on the right is full of travellers, horses and cattle.

9. 

   Work 9 of 10

   Portrait of a Woman

   Nicholas Hilliard · 1597 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

   This portrait is small enough to hold in your hand. How is it kept?

   In a gold frame set with jewels, to be worn or carried close.

   Nicholas Hilliard painted portrait miniatures on vellum for Queen Elizabeth I and her court. Look at the ruff around her neck: every fold of lace, painted with the finest brush.

10. 

    Work 10 of 10

    View of Toledo

    El Greco · about 1599–1600 · The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

    A storm breaks over a city on a hill. What rises highest on the skyline?

    The tower of the cathedral, and beside it the great square block of the Alcázar, the royal palace.

    El Greco was born on Crete and worked in Venice and Rome before settling in Toledo. Landscapes are rare in his work; here the city itself becomes the subject, under stormy skies that turn the foliage a lurid green.

The end of the tour

Ten places, one moment.

European ships in Japan, bamboo in Korea, old masters studied in China, a hunt in India, a youth in Isfahan, Prague, Rome, Antwerp, London and Toledo: most within about ten years of 1600, on one journey west.

Questions at the end

Start this tour in Auriaan

Works from these collections

• Cleveland Museum of Art
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Minneapolis Institute of Art
• SMK – National Gallery of Denmark
• National Gallery of Art

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