| This dissertation is a theoretical examination of the representational status of musical subject matter in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Images of musical instruments and performances are seen to function in one of two ways: as visible referents for an abstract conception, such as "harmony", or as visually descriptive recreations of actual musical experience. This duality is understood as part of a broader historical change in the representational systems of western Europe during the seventeenth century as defined by Michel Foucault. Part one of the discussion, "The Concept of Harmony and Its Representation," examines how much and in what ways Dutch artists use music as a symbol of harmony. Chapters are divided according to the three classical categories: musica mundana, musica humana, and musica instrumentalis. The classical theory of harmony is defined, followed by a discussion of various Dutch iconographic motives based upon it, including: the upward glance; Orpheus charming the animals; music in scenes of marriage and the family; David playing the harp for Saul; and pictures of music in the artist's studio. In many paintings the music clearly functions as a symbol of harmony; but for other examples this is clearly not the case. Part two of the dissertation, "Musical Experience and Its Representation," elaborates some alternative approaches for critically discussing these images. Greater stress is placed on the painting as a pictorial representational and on the subjective role of the observer. It is argued that in some paintings music is used as a pictorial device for involving the viewer vicariously in the representation. Musical genre paintings by Gerard Ter Borch are cited as visually descriptive reconstructions of the Dutch musical courtship experience among the leisure class. Finally, the mercantile values of the Dutch are evident in the way musical experience is often pictured as though it were a marketable commodity. |
