01 Work, RELIGIOUS ART - Cornelis Cornelisz van Haarlem's Susanna and the Elders, With Footnotes - #129

Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem

Detail; Susanna and the Elders, c. 1599

Oil on canvas

98.5 x 87 cm

National Gallery of Canada

Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem

Susanna and the Elders, c. 1599

Oil on canvas

98.5 x 87 cm

National Gallery of Canada

A fair Hebrew wife named Susanna was falsely accused by lecherous voyeurs. As she bathes in her garden, having sent her attendants away, two lustful elders secretly observe the lovely Susanna. When she makes her way back to her house, they accost her, threatening to claim that she was meeting a young man in the garden unless she agrees to have sex with them.

She refuses to be blackmailed and is arrested and about to be put to death for promiscuity when a young man named Daniel interrupts the proceedings, shouting that the elders should be questioned to prevent the death of an innocent. After being separated, the two men are questioned about details of what they saw, but disagree about the tree under which Susanna supposedly met her lover. In the Greek text, the names of the trees cited by the elders form puns with the sentence given by Daniel. The first says they were under a mastic, and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to cuthim in two. The second says they were under an evergreen oak tree, and Daniel says that an angel stands ready to saw him in two. The great difference in size between a mastic and an oak makes the elders' lie plain to all the observers. The false accusers are put to death, and virtue triumphs. More about Susanna

Susanna, caught unaware at her bath, is threatened by the two men who demand she give in to their lust. The popular subject was an opportunity for artists to depict emotions – Susanna’s shock and fear, the men’s lust – and to explore female beauty. Unexpectedly, Cornelis portrayed himself as the man to the right. Rather than implying the artist’s self-identification with the guilty Elder, it instead suggests how the troubling subject matter had been tamed – that the story was no more than a pretext for the display of artistic skill. More on this painting

Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem (1562 – 11 November 1638), Dutch Golden Age painter and draughtsman, was one of the leading Northern Mannerist artists in the Netherlands, and an important forerunner of Frans Hals as a portraitist. He is known among art historians as a member of the Haarlem Mannerists. He painted mainly portraits as well as mythological and Biblical subjects. Initially Cornelis Cornelisz painted large-size, highly stylized works with Italianate nudes in twisted poses with a grotesque, unnatural anatomy. Later, his style changed to one based on the Netherlandish realist tradition.

When his parents fled Haarlem in 1568, as the Spanish army laid siege to the city during the Eighty Years' War, Cornelis Cornelisz remained behind and was raised by the painter Pieter Pietersz the Elder. Later, in 1580-1581 Corneliszoon studied in Rouen, France, and Antwerp, before returning to Haarlem, where he stayed the rest of his life. In 1583 he received his first official commission from the city of Haarlem, a militia company portrait, the Banquet of the Haarlem Civic Guard. He later became city painter of Haarlem and received numerous official commissions. As a portrait painter, both of groups and individuals, he was an important influence on Frans Hals. More Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem

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