The Paintings of Dirck van Baburen (ca. 1595-1624)
FAIN: FT-57469-10
Wayne Edward Franits
Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY 13244-0001)
During the grant period (July and August, 2010), I plan to conduct research for a book-length study of the paintings of the celebrated seventeenth-century Dutch master, Dirck van Baburen (ca. 1595-1624). Baburen was the most influential artist of the so-called Utrecht Caravaggisti, a term denoting the followers from the Dutch city of Utrecht of the famous Italian painter, Caravaggio (1571-1610). Upon his return to the Dutch Republic in the fall of 1620 after an extended stay in Italy, Baburen executed pictures that were seminal for the thematic development of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. The proposed project will eventually result in a book that will make substantial contributions to ongoing scholarship on Baburen as well as to the overall field of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Yet, owing to the richly evocative imagery that Baburen created, the book will also appeal to scholars of other disciplines in the humanities, including religion, literature, and women's history.