In his 1961 book entitled The Seventeenth Century, the historian Sir George Clark counted only seven complete calendar years during that century in which there was no war between any of the European states. It is not surprising, therefore, that a large part of Jacques Callot's production and some of his most accomplished prints center around military life. Callot's military prints can be divided into three broad categories: detailed maps of military sieges, his two famed series on the Miseries of War, and his cavalry combats.
The Siege of Breda, probably Callot's most ambitious military commission, is composed of six etched plates which fit together to form the image. The UAG owns only the bottom center and the bottom right portions. Ambrogio de Spinola, the Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish forces in the Netherlands, laid siege to the strategic city of Breda in August, 1624. Located in Northern Brabant, Breda, which protected the roads to Utrecht and Amsterdam, was an enclave of the United Provinces in the Spanish Netherlands. Breda surrended to Spain on June 5, 1625 and a few days later the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, who became the regent of the Spanish Netherlands at the death of her husband in 1621, triumphantly entered the city. This siege fascinated Europe; the gazettes of the time carried weekly updates and dignitaries such as the Prince of Poland and the Duke of Bavaria visited the site.
Callot received this prestigious commission from the Infanta Isabella who paid him 850 ecus. His name may have been suggested to the Infanta by his Florentine friends Giovanni de' Medici and Giovanni Francesco Cantagallina, who, as military engineers, played an important role in the siege. At the beginning of February 1626, Callot returned to Nancy with the necessary documents to execute the commission, although it is not documented that Callot actually went to Breda.
According to the commission, 200 impressions of Callot's Siege of Breda as well as 200 separate explanatory booklets were printed by the Plantin-Moretus press in Antwerp in 1628. Because of the accompanying booklet, the print did not incorporate an explanatory legend, which did not please Callot. As a result, he commissioned the same publisher to print another edition of his Siege of Breda with the legend joined to the image in Spanish, French, Italian and Latin. The correspondence between Callot and his publisher, most of which is now in the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, indicates that the new impressions were ready around July 1628. Callot ordered 1,825 impressions of the new edition, a surprisingly high number. It is unclear what he did with these prints or how successful he was in selling them, but it underscores the interest which this event held for Callot's contemporaries.
Callot's etching is a synoptic view of the siege, a juxtaposition of events which took place throughout its eleven-month duration. On the right side of the print, Callot shows the Infanta Isabella and her entourage moving toward the city and her triumphant entry on June 12. Each event or geographical element is carefully inscribed with a number or a letter, like the number 52 on the Infanta's carriage, which is explained in the legend. Some major protagonists, like Spinola, the Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish forces, appear several times. He appears as a rider on the right of the Infanta's carriage and again holding the baton of command in the right foreground. Certain elements, such as the movements of Spinola's armies on the top portion of the print, are accurate, but the visualization of the encampments in the lower center is largely imaginary.
The goal of this project was to emphasize the accomplishments of the military engineers and, in a sense, to justify the enormous human and financial resources expended on the siege. It should be noted that the King of Spain in Madrid opposed the siege but the Government of the Spanish Netherlands in Brussels saw the capture of Breda as essential to the maintenance of its political power.
Callot's two series, The Small Miseries of War and The Large Miseries of War, are the best known and most widely reproduced of his military prints but their meaning is also the most debated, largely because of their lack of contemporary documentation. The interpretations proposed for the series range from patriotic protest on the part of Callot against the French invasion of Lorraine to ironic condemnation by the artist of all wars. Diana Wolfthal summarizes these interpretations in her article, `Jacques Callot's Miseries of War' [Wolfthal (1977)].
Paulette Choné [Choné (1992)] has brought forward the most convincing interpretation of these series. She argues that they dealt with contemporary political and legal debates on the problem of the discipline of soldiers in their country and abroad. Are soldiers supposed to plunder a country during war? Are the peasants entitled to avenge themselves? Is this plundering and avenging right or wrong? Should the soldiers be rewarded or punished for their lack of discipline and whose responsibility is this? According to the holdings of Callot's library, the artist was well aware of these debates and it is likely that they had an impact on these series.
The UAG owns the six etchings of The Small Miseries of War. Left unfinished, this series is traditionally perceived as a first, aborted essay for The Large Miseries of War. While Callot probably etched the plates around 1632, they were printed after his death by Henriet who commissioned Abraham Bosse to do the frontispiece for the series in 1636.
Caption: Plundering and Burning of a Village Caption: Destruction of a Monastery
In the inventory made of Callot's work after his death, the title appears not as The Miseries of War, but rather as The Life of the Soldier and the six prints evoke various aspects of a soldier's life. The Plundering and Burning of a Village and The Destruction of a Monastery show the soldiers' brutality and lack of piety.
Caption: The Peasants Avenge Themselves Caption: The Hospital
The Peasants Avenge Themselves depicts the brutalities inflicted on the soldiers by those they had wronged in the print entitled Plundering and Burning a Village. The Hospital shows the miserable end of the soldiers. The Small Miseries of War lacks an important image, The Distribution of Rewards, which would be included in The Large Miseries of War. This suggests that the political reflection, which characterizes the larger set, was not yet fully developed.
The eighteen etchings of The Large Miseries of War are larger and have more protagonists than those of the earlier series, and moreover, they are organized in a chronological sequence which suggests a progression of time. Inscribed with numbers, the second state of The Large Miseries of War is accompanied by verses which were probably approved by Callot since the state was printed in 1633, before his death in 1635. The verses may have been written by the Abbot de Marolles, a poet and art collector.
Caption: The Plundering of a Large Farmhouse <Caption: The Discovery of Criminal Soldiers
The Plundering of a Large Farmhouse shows the cruelty of soldiers during a war. By abusing the most helpless members of the population, the women and children who should be protected, the soldiers appear as the enemy of civil order. The Discovery of the Criminal Soldiers, in contrast, shows the army capturing soldiers who have committed crimes and thus how justice and civil order are restored.
The Distribution of Rewards, the last print in the series, serves as a conclusion for the set. This print shows the just ruler rewarding and punishing the good and bad soldiers according to their desserts.
To conclude this discussion of Callot's military prints, I show two small etchings of the Cavalry Combat series, which are representations of anonymous cavalry battles. These are generally dated around 1633 because of their affinities with The Large Miseries of War.
Caption: Cavalry Combat with Pistols Caption: Cavalry Combat with Swords
These etchings contrast the proximity of soldiers in pistol and sword battles, and may have been intended to illustrate two different stages in battle. During the Thirty Years War, King Gustav of Sweden ordered his cavalry troops to first use their pistols, shooting as many enemies as possible, and then use their swords to finish them off. Callot's interest in this technical detail may be due to the recent introduction of pistols for use in the cavalry.
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