Date of Award

3-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Art History and Visual Culture

Department

Art

First Advisor

Caroline Paganussi

Abstract

This paper proposes a new reading of the painting Punishment of a Hunter (1647-1652) by Dutch painter Paulus Potter through the lens of its unique position in seventeenth-century Dutch art with regards to allegory, human and animal caricature, human nature, class, and the influence of economic growth and complexity of class in Amsterdam. The painting consists of fourteen individual vignettes on one panel of wood. Utilizing socio-economic, political, historical and formal analysis, this thesis proposes a reading of the painting. A total of five chapters, each addressing key themes of the painting, will contribute to my main thesis asserting that Punishment of a Hunter is a critique on class and the aspirations of wealth by the rising merchant classes of Amsterdam. First, prints and paintings that informed certain vignettes will be addressed and used to show the satirical core of Punishment. Potter’s decision to use fourteen vignettes in the work will be described. The significance of the lack of unity between his landscapes and figures within will be shown to mirror the disconnect between man and nature. Said figures in Punishment will be compared to Potter’s peasant figures in other works illuminating an affection for the peasants and farmers while also indicating a disapproval of the hunting figures in Punishment. Finally, the history of hunting images in Dutch seventeenth-century art will be examined. I will explain the close correlation between hunting, class and moderation in Dutch and Flemish paintings and how these inform Potter’s Punishment. These five arguments will come together to support my argument that Potter created Punishment as a critique on social-climbing, the accumulation of wealth, and the resulting loss of farmland and rural space in his home of the Dutch Republic.

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