Utrecht Caravaggisti

Utrecht Caravaggisti.
A term applied to a number of Dutch painters active in Utrecht who were strongly influenced by Caravaggio's work and who in the 1620s made their city the chief centre of his style in northern Europe. The three main artists covered by the term are Baburen, Honthorst, and Terbrugghen, each of whom had lengthy stays in Rome. Terbrugghen was the first to return to the Netherlands, in about 1614, and Baburen and Honthorst followed in about 1620. The minor figures associated with them include Jan van Bijlert or Bylert (c.1598–1671) and Jan van Bronchorst or Bronckhorst (c.1600–61), both of whom visited Rome in the early 1620s. Utrecht was the main Dutch centre of Catholicism at this time, and all these artists painted religious subjects; their other staple was genre scenes, typically featuring gamblers or musicians. Terbrugghen's death in 1629 marked the end of the heyday of Utrecht Caravaggism (Baburen had died in 1624 and Honthorst had already moved away from the style). However, these artists exerted a lasting influence, for they ‘introduced one of the main currents of Baroque art into the Netherlands. Even the greatest masters of seventeenth-century Dutch painting, who were never in Italy—Hals, Rembrandt, and Vermeer—received decisive impulses from the Caravaggesque style’ (Seymour Slive, Dutch Painting: 1600–1800, 1995).