The five senses (smell)

The Dutch artist Jan Dirksz Both (c. 1615-52) was a near-contemporary of Rembrandt, but could not be more different from him stylistically. Coming from the more Catholic-influenced Utrecht, he probably trained with the famous Caravaggio follower Gerrit van Honthorst. Although he executed 17 documented etchings, Both was predominantly a landscape painter, and he collaborated closely with one of the greatest exponents of the genre, Claude Lorrain, on two series of large idyllic landscapes during his period in Rome (1637-41). Also in Italy he was closely associated with the so-called bamboccianti (followers of Pieter van Laer, Il Bamboccio, ‘ugly doll’), focussing on picturesque genre scenes with bucolic, often low-life figures. On his return to Utrecht Both concentrated on landscape paintings.

The original works inspiring these etchings are paintings by Jan Both's bother Andries. These would date from 1641 or earlier, as Andries tragically drowned in a canal that year while returning from festivities in that year, and Jan himself died prematurely in 1652.  With its origins in antiquity and subsequently in Christian thinking, the depiction of the five senses became a popular theme in the 17th century; it is often a sub-text of still-life painting. In late 16th and early 17th century renditions, classicised female personifications of the senses were favoured, e.g. Jan Saenredam’s brilliant Allegory of sight and of the art of painting (Te Papa 2011-0001-1). However, the theme was later democratised to embrace peasantry and these are probably the most celebrated examples, mentioned both in the Grove Dictionary of Art entry on Both and by Sheila D. Muller, Dutch Art: An Encyclopedia.

Te Papa purchased a set of the five senses in 2015. What distinguishes them is their outstanding execution and drawing, and the quality of impression, as well as their strong sense of earthy realism and sometimes coarse humour, belied by their technical delicacy. In Smell, the focal point is the child on his mother’s lap, with his trousers pulled down. The two men nearby respectively hold their nose and avert their eye/nose. The child in the left-hand corner has attained 200-level potty training and is watched by a companion. At the foot of each print is a four-line explanatory verse in Dutch which translates thus:  

      Is it strange that people frown on slovenly Trina Slomps
      Whose ungodly stench carries ten miles in the wind?
      ‘Tis a plague on our senses that children must shit
      In the pots that we use for cooking and eating.

Anna Rigg's conclusion on this print is apt: 'The past can indeed be like a foreign country at times, but satires like this are a reminder that some things – like toilet humour – don’t change much'.

Sources:

Sheila D. Muller (ed.), Dutch art: an encyclopedia (New York, 1997)

Anna Rigg, 'Taste, touch, see, hear and smell – sensory impressions with the Both brothers', https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2016/03/22/taste-touch-see-hear-and-smell-sensory-impressions-with-the-both-brothers/

Wikipedia, 'Jan Dirksz Both', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Dirksz_Both

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   August 2018