How linen connected Europe

“The stands of Haarlem” (around 1670) by Jacob Isackszoon van Ruysdael (around 1628–1682) is one of my favorite photos. At first this was certainly due to coincidences – and to the appeal of Ruysdael’s name.

The Dutch painter is considered a ‘little master’, someone who focused on everyday subjects. However, his works found many fans during his lifetime and ended up in many important museum collections. He also owes his fame to many prominent admirers from art and literature, including Füssli and Goethe.

Ruysdael varied only relatively few subjects that were successful with his buyers. The forest landscapes with waterfalls are famous. But the numerous views of his hometown of Haarlem with the typical bleached linen were also very well received.

The one hanging in the Zurich Art Museum falls in between “The stands of Haarlem” away from here. The painter initially attracts attention with dramatically stacked cumulus clouds. Occupying about two-thirds of the surface of the rather small painting, he celebrates the play of clouds and the clear, high sky that only exists near the sea. The elevated viewpoint on the dunes in front of Haarlem offers the then popular panoramic view of the city.

Ruysdael’s artifice lies in the composition. He uses the rectangular linen strips as a compositional counterpoint to the round shapes of the clouds. Together with the pond and its irregular sandbanks, they reflect light from a hole in the clouds. In this way they tensely combine heaven and earth as the two dominant parts and spheres of the image. Two worlds in which forces and laws predominate, yet are existentially connected. This, together with the symbolism of the pure white linen, has already led to theological interpretations.

Ruysdael performed his excellent light plays even more often. In addition to bleaching canvas, he also uses spray, a grain field or a birch trunk.

All this makes it easy to get excited about Ruysdael on aesthetic grounds. But beyond that, a painting like his still has a lot to say. For example, about the society in which and for which it was made, about the ideal and economic context. This is what the depicted decor of the work on the Bleichen is about. It is not only central to the painting, but also refers to an equally central theme in European economic history.

After gaining independence from the Spanish Habsburg Empire in the 17th century, the Netherlands developed into the economic engine of Europe. The liberal constitution and especially freedom of religion contributed to prosperity, as religious refugees from Flanders, for example, immigrated and brought specialist knowledge with them. The fleet was also crucial as a basis for the early dominance of the Netherlands on the world’s oceans. However, the Dutch needed less white, fine canvas for their sailing ships. The canvas served primarily as a valuable trade item in the emerging triangular colonial trade.

Today people have little idea of ​​the former importance of linen production in Europe. The corresponding trade started as early as the 13th century. The starting point was the national production of the substance. Linen is a thrifty plant and was often grown as ground cover. Processing, spinning and weaving are possible on a domestic scale and were initially a farm activity for personal use in winter. Linen was sought after for clothing, especially in warmer climates, at a time when wool and hemp were the alternatives. The expansion of trade was accompanied by the development of quality standards.

According to the historian Philipp Rösner, from the 16th century onwards, entire regions of Europe were involved in the production and distribution of linen, especially southern Germany, where the powerful Fuggers in Augsburg owed their wealth to the linen trade, among other things, but also Silesia, Scotland and Ireland and Switzerland. Without linen production, their economic history would have been different. St. Gall gradually established itself as a stronghold, overtaking the previously dominant Constance from the mid-15th century.

The rise of St. Gall was based on a guild system. At the heart of this system is the separation of production and sales, as well as advanced regulation in the form of a “Canvas Statute”. The canvas weavers, who worked at home and were mainly farmers, were kept to one “Publishing system” at a distance. A central element was the so-called “Screen show”. For this, the quality standards were defined by the intermediaries and enforced through pricing policies.

Linen from St. Gall reached Northern Europe, North Africa and even Asia via seaports such as Venice, Genoa and Antwerp. In return, the traders bought spices, food specialties, jewelry and also silk.

The finishing of the linen described by Ruysdael and thus the lawn bleaching played a decisive role in the added value. It is a complex photochemical process. Suitable lawns were kept free for the cities for this purpose. The canvas panels, up to 80 meters long, were spread out on top. This was also the case in St. Gallen. An unknown painter has introduced bleaching into the so-called «Canvas cycle» held. The relatively clumsy representation probably served less for refined artistic enjoyment than for advertising purposes.

The stands of Haarlem had an excellent international reputation due to sophisticated processes and dominated the city economy in Ruysdael’s time. Linen from the so-called “Haarlemmer pale” was a luxury product. “Our household linen cloth(s) do not retain the whiteness of the Dutch one for long when bleached,” says the 1778 article “Linen and yarn for bleaching” from the Bündner Wochenschrift “The Miscellaneous” firm.

There is then speculation about the reasons for this: “Due to the nearby sea and the amount of standing water in the canals and in the countryside, the Dutch air is much fuller of vapor than elsewhere.” In Haarlem people worked with the addition of willow ash (potash), cow manure or abundant buttermilk. The fabric has been soaking in it for weeks.

Linen was exported from all over Europe to Haarlem for finishing purposes. Some of the canvas panels depicted by Ruysdael may have come from St. Gallic. But even without such fantasies, his painting opens a view to a dimension of economic networks and logistics in Europe that can hardly be underestimated, in which Switzerland managed to secure its place early on. The promising aspect of linen production was the development of production and sales structures. These formed the basis of the early globalization of the world economy that began in Europe.

Ironically, the decline of the linen trade was heralded by the colonial trade, to which it had contributed significantly. Increasing competition from cheaper cotton played a role. The first cotton-linen blends were produced in the northeast of England from 1730. The expansion of the cotton industry went hand in hand with the slave trade. But it also led to India’s relegation. This was a leader in the production of cotton cloth long before England. But after the British acquired the relevant knowledge, they increasingly delayed India with protective tariffs.

In the 19th century the technological revolution came with the steam engine and spinning and weaving machines. The weavers’ uprisings that became increasingly common throughout Europe due to the subsequent exploitation and impoverishment of the weavers, which Heinrich Heine described in his famous poem “The Silesian Weavers” discussed in an exemplary manner, also interested a young philosopher and economist named Karl Marx.

You could also simply interpret Ruysdael’s painting as a tribute to the medium: canvas as the basis for painting, which has increasingly replaced wooden panels since the Renaissance.

But more interesting is the reference to a source of Dutch wealth, to which the Bleachers of Haarlem made a decisive contribution. In addition to the construction of impressive churches, such as St. Bavo’s Cathedral on the horizon of Ruysdael’s painting, this led to a true explosion in art production. The “Golden Age” represents a number of illustrious painting careers. Think of Ruysdael’s contemporaries such as Rembrandt or Jan Vermeer. Many people celebrated the luxury of a wealthy bourgeoisie in lavish still lifes.

At Ruysdael, which specializes in landscapes, citizens can see from an elevated vantage point how the workforce works to their advantage. It is probably not without reason that he depicts the rigors of unregulated seasonal work in the stands in Lilliputian format. This means that the aesthetic pleasure is not disturbed by annoying details.

Ruysdael was not the only one who chose the artistically rich subject: more than two hundred years later the German impressionist Max Liebermann would “Lawn bleaching” (1882) painting. Liebermann also saw the scene in the Netherlands. But he is not even remotely concerned with the economic fundamentals of a heyday, but only with private washing and bleaching, shortly before detergents such as Persil (from 1907) take over bleaching. Nowadays, only street and field names remind us of the area’s former use.

A final point worth mentioning is how the painting ended up in Zurich, a city that owes its modern rise to the textile industry. Ruysdael’s painting, which depicts a chemical process from which the city of Haarlem benefited economically, was purchased for the museum in 1949 by the ETH chemist and Nobel Prize winner Leopold Ružička. He had become wealthy with his coveted chemical patents, especially for artificial fragrances and testosterone.