![]() The signed and finished works discussed here, on the other hand, were clearly intended for the collectors’ market from the outset. Furthermore, Dusart’s preparatory drawings for Gole’s mezzotints tend to be different in nature: looser and more wash-based in conjunction with the tonal values of that process. He could have owned or had access to some of Ostade’s drawings (perhaps even from the estate of Dusart, Ostade’s pupil) from which he made prints on his own initiative. Gole made a similar mezzotint depicting two figures against a dark background generated from separate drawings by Adriaen van Ostade (1610 – 1685), almost certainly after that artist had died. Only one pair of musicians appeared in print, however, suggesting that Gole did not actually collaborate with Dusart in executing the print of the Hurdy-Gurdy Player and Lute Player, but rather had access to Dusart’s drawings after the artist’s death. Scholars have speculated that this series of drawings and the related print by Gole were part of an effort to produce a series of musicians in mezzotint, as Dusart and Gole had done on other series. As Herman Roodenburg pointed out, it was precisely the perceived impropriety of these contorted poses that contemporary viewers found so comical. This attitude finds correspondence in Dusart’s bagpiper, whose slouching pose and tilted head exhibit a certain insouciance, as does the fact that his drone pipes (the two sticking out furthest on the left) fall awkwardly in front of him rather than sit vertically against his shoulder, as was the norm. For an image of a bagpiper from 1630 by Jan van de Velde II (1593 – 1641), Samuel Ampzing (1590 – 1632) penned a verse that begins, “I belong to the sluggard’s guild, to the band of apprentice beggars who would rather play than work…” 9 This is not to say that artists would hesitate to make specific associations with certain types of musicians. It is worth noting as well that the missing Lute Player bears a striking resemblance to the comic painter Jan Steen (1626 – 1679), who was fond of depicting himself playing that instrument. Bavo, owned two violins and likely knew how to play them. For example, Dusart, who was the son of the organist of St. The violin and lute, however, were more “crossover” instruments in terms of class, and were sometimes found in the hands of artists themselves. The bagpipes and hurdy-gurdy, in particular, were associated with the lower classes, and thus instruments not to be handled by anyone with a sense of propriety. All four of the instruments in Dusart’s series are the type that might be performed at a kermis in a village, a rowdy tavern or inn, or in one of the musicos or dance halls that provided entertainment for the brothel-friendly habitués found in cities. Iconographers have sometimes overstressed the erotic connotations of an instrument that resembles male genitalia, but a common thread that more safely unites these depictions is their nearly universal association with festivities, both urban and rural, and especially those that involve dancing. ![]() By Dusart’s day, artists had already developed a long tradition of comically depicting bagpipe players in prints from the German Renaissance onward.
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