De Achttiende Eeuw 31 (1999) 1
Annemieke Meijer
The Dutch discussion on sentimentalism, 1750-1800
When the first sentimental titles were published in the 1780s the Dutch
critics praised them as 'virtue-promoting'. Soon, however, came irritation
about the relative abundance of such works, and doubt about the true
intentions of many of their authors. Sentimentalism was investigated
in painstaking detail by Rhijnvis Feith and W. E. de Perponcher between
1784 and 1786. Their contemporaries' comments, however, remain on a
superficial level, with similar points being repeated over and over
again, and, in particular, very few attempts being made to place the
phenomenon in a social or politico-cultural context (which German and
English critics did do). Dutch sentimental writings, too, without exception
ignore party-politics: if some vague reference is made at all, it is
always conciliatory in tone, if there is any social comment, it is either
of a pious and conservative kind. All the more attention, however, was
given to morals and religion, which also formed the touchstone
of the critics' judgements. It appears that literature on the one hand
and politics on the other were regarded as clearly separate entities,
and the Dutch debate over Sentimentalism is determined by tacit consensus
about the fact that in literary discourse socio-political themes should
not explicitly be touched upon. In the Dutch literary scene, in short,
a 'politico-sentimental journal' such as appeared in England in the
1790s would be an impossibility. The characterization of 'theological-sentimental'
however which Vaderlandsche letteroefeningen gave the genre in
1794 remains a very apt one: both in the novels and in the critical
reactions they evoked, the individual's salvation in this life and hereafter
was the main concern.
omhoog
Ans J. Veltman-van
den Bos
Petronella Moens (1762-1843) and her circle of friends
In her time, Petronella Moens was a well-known writer of poems,
novels, children's books and magazines. From her early childhood she
was blind, due to the effects of small-pox. Her father, the clergyman
Petrus Moens, educated her by reading aloud the work of Dutch writers.
Her two sisters were very helpful in the beginning of her career, while
later on she relied on a secretary. Her large circle of friends was
of great influence during her literary life, which started in 1785 when
she won a gold medal for her poem De waare christen (The authentic
christian) and ended with her death in 1843. Her liber amicorum
shows that she knew how to handle people. Among the contributors were
clergymen, men and women of the Dutch literary world, men of learning
and Flemish poets. Contemporary poets and personal friends were impressed
by the never-ending stream of her novels, poems and articles. In her
youth the radical patriotic clergyman Bernardus Bosch was her mentor
in politics. In 1798 she founded her own periodical De Vriendin van
't Vaderland (The Friend of the Nation). As a member of several
literary societies, she was able to publish her poems and to move among
the best of literary Holland. In 1843 her close friends, W. H. Warnsinck
and J. Decker Zimmerman wrote a biography of this remarkable woman.
omhoog
Rietje van Vliet
The Bibliothèque Impartiale (1750-1758): a scholarly and
book trade journal
In retrospect the Leiden bookseller Elie Luzac (1723-1796) should
never have begun his Bibliothèque Impartiale. A management
conflict with his uncle Johan Luzac, his partner in this enterprise,
and constant squabbles with author Samuel Formey (1711-1797) about the
latter's salary and autonomy as a journalist, caused Luzac a lot of
worries. But it was the disappointing sales figures which made him decide
to put a stop to the journal and to look for other ways to communicate
with his clients. After eight years the Bibliothèque Impartiale
had proven to be an outdated concept.
The Bibliothèque Impartiale was a scholarly journal: it
offered reviews of various scholarly works and acted as a discussion
platform for the international learned community. The impartiality of
both journal and author had been expressly stipulated, which, however,
did not prevent both from becoming engaged in several polemics. Voltaire
was one of the correspondents, but also the clergy of the Eglise Wallon
in Amsterdam severely criticized the journal. In addition the publisher
became involved in a paper war pro and contra the Nederlandsche Spectator,
in which even arguments with regard to the Dutch government were not
spared. As such the Bibliothèque Impartiale in its last
year of publication also participated in the so-called 'Witten war'.
Yet it was not Formey, perpetual secretary of the Acadamy of Sciences
in Berlin, who made a stand in this issue, but - presumably - Elie Luzac
himself. Their surviving correspondence provides an excellent opportunity
to reconstruct their relationship as author and publisher. It is clear
that from the beginning Luzac carried much weight where it concerned
the choice of books to be reviewed and even Formey's writing style,
and this in spite of previous agreements. Already after a year Luzac
managed to convince Formey to enlist the cooperation of more authors
for the journal, a measure intended to boost the quality and the sales
of the journal. But Formey did not like sharing with others. Did he
think the publisher wielded too much influence? After all Luzac wanted
more and more to advertise his own publisher's list and the books he
had in stock, as a result of which the journal gradually took on the
appearance of a book trade periodical.
The disappointing sales figures caused Luzac great problems. Every year
he lost some two to three hundred guilders on the journal. He may have
thought that Formey's salary was too high (he earned seven guilders
per sheet, in addition receiving twenty author's copies), and that Formey
was hard to manage. Already earlier Luzac had threatened to stop the
enterprise altogether and to start with a new, Dutch-language journal;
- this was to become the Nederlandsche Letter-Courant, the book
trade journal which Luzac put on the market immediately after ending
the Bibliothèque Impartiale.
At the end of 1758 Luzac told Formey that he wanted to put a definite
stop to the project. The concept 'bibliothèque' had outlived
itself. The public's interests had changed and books in the national
language were coming into vogue. Also because of growing competition
with France and Germany the book trade in the Republic had obviously
entered a new era.
omhoog
Thomas H. von
der Dunk
The Maandelykse Nederlandsche Mercurius and the importance of
its engravings for the spread of knowledge of Dutch architecture
Until the 1840s Dutch architects did not have a technical periodical
of their own. In the second half of the 18th century their main source
of knowledge of the architectural developments in their own country
consisted of engravings of the most prominent modern buildings in cultural
journals and more general magazines. One of these magazines was the
Maandelykse Nederlandsche Mercurius, which appeared almost every
month in Amsterdam from 1756 until 1807. It was edited by the famous
bookseller Bernardus Mourik (1709-1791) and continued by his colleague
Jan Augustijn Swalm (1762-1807). After his death, no successor could
be found.
From an early stage, several issues a year the magazine would contain
engravings, so-called 'Kunstplaaten'. A whole range of subjects could
be used for such a print: earthquakes and executions, calamities and
solemnities, unveilings of royal statues and exploding powder-magazines,
and especially all kinds of festivities connected with the baptisms,
weddings and funerals inside the Orange-dynasty would stir up the interest
of the illustrators. But from 1766 on as (a more restrained and intellectual)
neo-classicism began to replace the exuberant rococo as the dominant
style in art, building activities were pictured increasingly often.
Although it was never announced as such, these engravings in the end
made up a gallery of modern Dutch edifices, because within a decade
it became customary for the Mercurius to present its readers
with prints of three or four of these each year. When the Mercurius
had ceased to appear, faithful subscribers possessed some sixty pictures
of the facades of interesting buildings, most of them in the new style.
Their characteristic soberness was repeatedly praised in the sometimes
lengthy descriptions which accompanied the prints.
The first buildings to be pictured were a few Lutheran churches, because
from the start the Mercurius contained a special column with
news from inside this religious community. These news columns included
reports about the many newly built Lutheran churches, and to illustrate
these was a logical next step. From here, this gesture to the reader
quickly spread as engravings of for the most part public buildings such
as town-halls and town-gates, churches and theatres, club-houses and
charitable institutions filled the pages.
Most striking, perhaps, is the fact that ample room was allotted to
new edifices in the Roman Catholic sphere. Until 1795, the Roman Catholic
Church was not officially recognised. Many in the dominant Calvinist
Church, to which Mourik belonged, considered it an illegal conspiracy
of superstitious papists and, as such, a threat to Dutch identity and
independence. That was why for nearly two centuries after the Reformation,
Roman Catholics were forced to celebrate mass in attics and other hiding-places.
During the latter years of the ancien régime, however,
they were allowed to (re)construct their own orphanages and churches
in a more representative style within the more open-minded city of Amsterdam,
which of course could not be ignored by the Mercurius.
Simpler topics such as hydraulic engineering, or private housing were
not thought fit for a place in the gallery of Dutch architectural highlights.
The only townhouse pictured during the life time of the magazine was
a big Amsterdam housing complex at the central Dam square, the only
countryhouse was the famous Paviljoen Welgelegen of the wealthy
English banker Henry Hope at Haarlem, built between 1786 and 1789. This
last choice was inevitable in a selection of the best and most modern
buildings of the Netherlands.
Not only did the Mercurius concentrate on public buildings, it
also focused on Amsterdam and its immediate neighbourhood. The bulk
of the illustrated edifices was to be found in Amsterdam itself, where
the modern classicist style flowered most: no important specimen is
lacking and nearly the whole oeuvre of Jacob Eduard de Witte
and Abraham van der Hart, who were the official town architects during
the period, is pictured. The rest of the engravings showed buildings
from the nearby city of Haarlem and some smaller towns around Amsterdam.
Very few buildings in the rest of the Netherlands were pictured, and
the engraving of the megalomaniac Pyramid of Austerlitz in the province
of Utrecht, which was chosen for one of the last volumes of the Mercurius
in 1805, was an exception. The fact that illustrations of buildings
in The Hague, the residence of the stadtholder, are almost complete
absent, is remarkable. It may be that the conservative character of
The Hague architecture made it less suitable for illustrations, at least
in the eyes of the Amsterdam editors.
Not all illustrations showed new buildings. When no interesting modern
material was at hand, older buildings in Amsterdam could also be chosen.
In the 1790s a few seventeenth-century buildings were pictured, which
according to the new editor, Swalm, was intended to make up for the
biggest gaps in the existing printbooks of Amsterdam. After the Batavian
Revolution of 1795, however, the lack of interesting contemporary architecture
was no longer compensated this way, as Swalm looked to other themes
for his illustrations, like the new national flag, the official robes
of the members of the government, and a stage-curtain inside the theatre
of Amsterdam. The gallery of national architectural pride ended ten
years later with an engraving of a range of collapsing old-fashioned
gables at the Leidseplein: a symbolic choice reflecting on both the
Mercurius and the Dutch nation in 1806.
omhoog
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