Kerkelijke kunstateliers en corporatisme in de negentiende eeuw

Samenvatting

Religious Art Workshops and Corporatism in the Nineteenth Century. After 1795, the repression of Roman Catholics and other religious minorities ended and all denominations received equal rights. As a result, in the nineteenth century, Dutch Catholics built around 800 new churches, some 250 in North Brabant. Until the restitution of the episcopal hierarchy in 1853, most churches were built in a neoclassical or neo-baroque style. After the introduction of the new Episcopal hierarchy in 1853, the Dutch Catholics lose their missionary status and the organisation of the Church is entirely reformed. A new, centralised diocesan organisation of bishoprics and parishes is installed. Gothic revival sets in and develops itself as the corporate identity of Dutch Catholicism.

Catholic authors and theorists such as A. Reichensperger and J.A. Alberdingk Thijm were the protagonists of medieval architecture and pleaded for the revival of the historic guild system and the building lodges of great cathedrals. Medieval society, in their eyes, was essentially an organic and truly Catholic society on a corporate base. They stated that the guilds and lodges produced works of art of a superior quality compared with industrial mass-production in the nineteenth century. Later, artists and architects such as William Morris, Walter Crane and Walter Gropius would idealise these guilds in their view of a new and ideal society: a union of genuine artists and workers.

Until the sixties, most churches were furnished in a neo-baroque style, in harmony with neoclassical buildings in so-called ‘Waterstaatsstijl’. Furniture was bought from the sale of dissolved convents in Belgium or ordered from workshops in Flanders; for example, in Turnhout and Antwerp. The church building and its decoration were almost part of religious doctrine: one of the few places where the illiterate public could receive religious and moral messages that were delivered by paintings, stained glass windows, and sculptures. Between 1860 and 1920, gothic revival interiors were designed in accordance to the style of the building: they harmonised in a so-called ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’. The arts performed ‘a concert of religious harmony and union’. Its symbolism represents the ideal catholic society.

In Roermond, ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Tilburg, Cuijk, Boxmeer and Eindhoven, new work- shops were founded to produce church art. Artists and producers such as P. Laffertée, S.L. Veneman, J. and G. Goossens, P. Van Tielraden, J. F. Buijssen, W. de Kort and J. van der Mark were the leaders of these workshops. They worked in labour division and used plaster models and casts. The parish priests could choose from photographs, models, and catalogues. Quality and prices differed: from painted plaster to polychrome wood or stone.

The most famous workshops were those of P.J.H. Cuypers in Roermond, H. van der Geld in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and J. Custers at Eindhoven. They worked in high gothic and late gothic styles and produced sculpture of a high quality. Pierre Cuypers was very moralistic and idealistic: he promoted the ideas and practices of the medieval guild system. In reality, he is a businessman and an entrepreneur. Most of these companies are early capitalist businesses that work as cheap as possible, for pragmatic principals, and in competition with other workshops. In style, they revert to the Middle Ages, where (in reality) they do not work with idealistic artists, but mostly use workers in a business-like workshop