The Liberation of St. Peter

Both in his fame as an artist and in his social standing, Gerrit van Honthorst was the equal in his own lifetime of the Flemish painter Rubens. That is why the great Rubens honoured his Dutch colleague with a visit to van Honthorst’s studio in Utrecht in 1627. Like Rubens, Honthorst had built up a flourishing studio that trained apprentices, and was wealthy in comparison to other Dutch painters. He received splendid commissions from churches and rulers. Articulate, highly educated and fluent in several languages, Honthorst was able to move in court circles. During his training in Utrecht under the well-respected painter Abraham Bloemaert (1567–1651), Honthorst turned to Florentine and Venetian Mannerism with its specific rhythm of colour and movement. In about 1615, “when Caravaggio’s manner was general” (Mancini and Bellori), he went to Rome, however. Under the influence of Renaissance art, which was more static and emphasised draughtsmanship and three-dimensionality, he decisively departed from the mannerisms that were usual in Utrecht and Haarlem. Now Honthorst gave priority to draughtsmanship, composition and grand natural forms whose contours were enhanced by light.
The Berlin painting is the earliest known commission from this successful period in Rome. It was executed in about 1616 for Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, the most famous collector and connoisseur in Rome. Honthorst lived in his palace and engaged in lively discourse with colleagues such as the painters Guido Reni and Bartolomeo Manfredi. The Marchese had a liking for the naturalism of Michelangelo da Caravaggio that was astonishingly modern for his time. In his theory of art, allocating painters to twelve categories, Caravaggio took the first rank alongside Carracci and Guido Reni. In the young Dutchman, too, he undoubtedly recognised
a talent for “good drawing, true colouring and fitting, true lighting”, elements of the Caravaggio style that are apparent in the Berlin work. Honthorst possibly adopted, for example, the gesture of the angel from Caravaggio’s depiction of Matthew the Evangelist with the Angel, then in the Marchese’s collection, or, as is more likely, from Caravaggio’s Calling of Saint Matthew in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. The liberation of Saint Peter is described as follows in the Acts of the Apostles (12:6–7): “The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate. Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, ‘Quick! Get up!’ And the chains fell off his wrists.”
Honthorst’s treatment of the story is extremely free. He leaves out both the soldiers and the guards outside the prison. Even the chains that were said to have fallen from Peter’s hands merely hang symbolically on the wall. The scene is dominated by the two main figures, whose interaction – the frightened prisoner drawing back vigorously, the angel pressing forward vigorously – are underlined with pathos through grand gestures. The figures, thus impressively connected, move in a stream of light that enters the dark space through the heavy cell door that the angel has pushed open, lending a magnificent three-dimensional quality to the two bodies. With magical force, the light is conducted via the angel’s outstretched arm to the old man’s arm, bent to protect his head, and to his face. A cluster of shadows forming at the level of the door handle divides the stream of light to great effect. The painting is rendered in a generous and dynamic manner. The colours – white, yellow, green and red – are warm with breaks of tone. This early composition by Honthorst must have been generally regarded as a masterly achievement. It was repeated in numerous replicas and copies. A drawing of the same subject in Dresden used to be regarded as Honthorst’s preliminary drawing for the Berlin painting, but a more suitable classification is probably the attribution to Abraham Bloemaert that is accepted in Dresden. Gerrit van Honthorst’s artistic significance, following a marked fall in appreciation of his work towards the end of his life, rests principally on his dissemination of Italian Caravaggism in the Netherlands. In historical, mythological and folk-genre figures, Italian influences are combined with Netherlandish ideas and forms. Irene Geismeier | 200 Masterpieces of European Painting - Gemäldegalerie Berlin, 2019