The books and art of Jan Goeree (1670-1731) in relation to the artistic theories of Willem Goeree (1635-1711)
Between 1700 and 1720, the Amsterdam engraver and painter Arnoud van Halen (1673-1732) collected poets. He painted their portraits on small oval-shaped metal plates and placed them in gilded frames. After 1720 the portraits were safely stored in the many drawers of a wooden cabinet designed by Simon Schijnvoet (1652-1727), who was an artist and collector of natural and historical objects. This cabinet is depicted on the frontispiece of the book Panpoëticon Batavûm (1720), written by Lambert Bidloo (1637-1724), in which all portrayed poets are celebrated through an elaborate poem. Included among the painted portraits and in the book are Willem Goeree (1635-1711) and his son Jan Goeree (1670-1731). Willem Goeree was a book publisher and a writer of books on art, theology and history and did not write any poems or comedies. By calling visual arts “Rym-loose Poësye,” Lambert Bidloo defended Goeree’s presence amongst the greatest poets in the Panpoëticon Batavûm. Bidloo further highlights the importance of Willem Goeree for the intellectualisation of arts and his influence on his son’s artistic practice, which can be distilled from the quote above. Jan Goeree was an engraver who made many frontispieces, of which the Panpoëticon Batavûm is but one example. He regularly wrote short explanatory poems accompanying his frontispieces and occasionally engaged in burlesque poetry that would be published posthumously in Mengelpoëzy (1734). In the few scholarly publications on Jan Goeree, he has never been discussed as bearer of his father’s art theories. This paper fills this gap in the research by relating Jan Goeree and his artistic oeuvre to his father’s treatises and asking to what extent Jan Goeree truly executed his father’s pursuits, as suggested by Lambert Bidloo.
Because Willem Goeree never theorized on poems or wrote treatises on engravings or book illustration, this paper is based on Jan Goeree’s library and on his drawings. It is argued that Jan Goeree’s collection of books closely resembles the advises of not only his father Willem Goeree but also of his teacher Gerard de Lairesse (1640-1711) and other writers such as Philips Angel (1618-1664). Jan Goeree’s drawings seem to deviate from his father’s advices as set out in Inleydinge tot de al-ghemeene teycken-konst (1668) and are instead more closely related to the practices of Jan Goeree’s teacher.