Mining Library Treasures

 “Reizen is het hart verwijden. Reizen is een vreemd land bezoeken met de innige begeerte het niet als een vreemd land te verlaten. Reizen is studeeren in anderen lichaamstoestand, studie in beweging. Wij die studeeren, zijn eigenlijk altijd op reis.”

- Allard Pierson -

(“Travelling is widening the heart. Travelling is visiting a strange country with the intense desire not to leave it as a foreign country. Travelling is studying in other physical conditions, to study in motion. We who study are actually always travelling.”)

Imagine a 24-year-old artist on a trip to Rome, seeking for more knowledge and recognition, visiting multiple cities and absorbing new cultures with every step towards the final destination. Nowadays, this would seem a quite likely thought, but around the nineteenth century, these trips were only reserved for wealthy and rich people. But why would an artist specifically want to visit Rome?

The Dutch painter Cornelis Kruseman (1797 – 1857) (see fig. 1; the author) son of a pharmacist, was taught in painting and drawing by Charles Howard Hodges (1764 – 1837) and Petrus Antonius Ravelli (1788 – 1861). In 1811, he started attending education at the Amsterdamse Tekenacademie (Dutch Drawingacademy), where he is rewarded with several prices. It is not surprising then, that Kruseman became a teacher at a young age and guided his own pupils.

In 1821, he starts an ‘art travel’ to Rome and during that particular trip, he keeps a journal. Once returned home, his Aanteekeningen betrekkelijk deszelfs kunstreis en verblijf in Italië was published in 1826 by A. (Augustus) Elink Sterk Jr. (1796 – 1875) and printed by S. de Visser in The Hague (see fig. 2; the book). The reader can follow Kruseman’s journey through several cities, such as Paris, Genève and Milan, before he arrives in Rome.

The most important reason for artists to travel to Italy was the need to study the Antiques and the grand Italian masters, which was still impossible in the Netherlands. This was due to Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 – 1791), an English painter who made a division between the ‘Ornamental Style’ (the Dutch and Belgian schools) and the ‘Grand Style’ (the Italian school and to a lesser extent the French school). The Grand Style was considered to have more taste in art, and so the Ornamental Style was subordinate to the Grand Style.  This led to a stream of artists travelling to Italy to study the most important Italian masters, in the belief that this would change their ‘national taste’. Later on, experiencing new realities also became an important goal of an art travel, which also will become clear in Kruseman’s text. By travelling the road to maternity could be completed, and education and character were shaped. 

Since an art travel was a considerable investment for a select group, the introduction of the ‘Prix de Rome’ in the Netherlands made such a journey a lot easier. De Prix de Rome was the biggest and the most important price an artist could win. It contains a four-year scholarship in which you are invited to study at the ‘Académie de France’ in Rome. But Kruseman’s work does not seem like a report of a ‘Prix de Rome’ trip. The book contains an introduction by ‘S.’, which most probably, I assume, refers to S. de Visser. In this ‘Voorberigt’, it becomes clear that S. has bundled the most remarkable letters written by his friend. Kruseman himself has not written anything at all in the introduction of the book.

What is most extraordinary about this introduction is that S. gives us a few final points of criticism. For example, he states that he remained faithful to the truth. He tried to convey the ideas of travellers as well as possible. Yet he notes that there is still room for improvement. S. notes that the main aim of Kruseman’s book is to amuse readers. Unfortunately, S. concludes that errors could not be avoided with the printing press. Errata are added in the back of the book (see fig. 3; errata). After this final remark, the story of Kruseman begins.

Travel journals have become an important object of study. Being faithful to the truth is a big part of the genre of travel journals, as S. already pointed out. In the nineteenth century, travellers were also credited with a certain degree of objectivity, which was then highly appreciated by historians. The forms of these texts were very diverse, varying from draft versions, bundled travel notes to a ‘reisboekje’ (travel book) or like this case, notes made during an art travel, later combined to a complete edition.

This book is not a travel guide, but a description of the places along which Kruseman travels. He provides descriptions of the environment, but also describes who he meets and what his thoughts and feelings are. The text is therefore personal and in a sense sometimes literary with references to, for example, Biblical history. The book reads pleasantly and all these factors almost make it like a novel. The book has some illustrations, probably made by Kruseman since they are signed by him (see fig. 4; illustrations).

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Kruseman shares his purpose at the beginning of the book: to discover a whole new world and thus also a new art world, and thereby to be formed more as a person. After all, who does not want to widen the heart?