Academic literature on the topic 'Landscape painters, Dutch'

Abstract The Rondinini family is important for having developed a well-defined taste in collecting during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, with an interest in ancient sculpture and painting staged in their palaces and villas in Rome and its surroundings. The most eminent artists active in seventeenth-century Rome worked for them. The paintings presented here are the most relevant examples of a great number of works that have re-emerged during a collaborative research project conducted by the universities of Florence and Salerno on the family’s contributions to the history of collecting. The first is a signed self-portrait by the Flemish artist Paul Bril, a pioneer amongst the landscape painters active in Rome between the late 1500s and early 1600s – a work of large size for the artist (110.0 x 81.5 cm); the second is a ‘witchcraft crowded with figures’ painted by Pieter van Laer, an eminent Dutch painter and leader of the group of masters called the ‘Bamboccianti’.

The author studied the pictorial heritage of the Dutch artist and architect of the 17th century Pieter Post. In the scientific works of Russian art critics, the master’s work is mentioned in the context of his collaboration with the famous architect Jacob van Campen, even though Post is no less significant in the history of art. This article proposes to concentrate on the analysis of the artist’s canvases, tracing the evolution of his creative manner, which was formed under the influence of the art of the Italians and landscape painters of Holland, which is especially noticeable in the first paintings of Post. With the development of skill, the artist acquires his own style, characterized by an attempt to symmetrically build a composition, the predominance of line over color, the specificity of the interpretation of the human figure, which is due to the spread of the ideas of classicism in Dutch art. The main part of the artistic heritage of Pieter Post is made up of architectural monuments created in the classicist style, however, based on the study of the master’s painting, one can trace the stages of the formation of classicism in Holland in the 17th century and the formation the individual style of Post.

AbstractPhilips Wouwerman(s) was undoubtedly the most accomplished and successful Dutch painter of equestrian scenes in the 17th century. Even so, neither a critical study of his work nor a documented biography has been published. The present essay not only presents the results of archive research but also outlines his artistic development. Besides the seven dated pictures by the artist known by Hofstede de Groot, several others have been discovered. Wouwerman was born in Haarlem, the eldest son of the painter Pouwels Joosten and his fourth wife, Susanna van den Bogert. Two other sons, Pieter and Johannes Wouwerman, were also to become painters. Wouwerman's grandfather originally came from Brussels. Philips probably received his first painting lessons from his father, none of whose work has been identified however, making it impossible to determine the extent of his influence on the son's work. According to Cornelis de Bie, Wouwerman was next apprenticed to Frans Hals. He is subsequently reputed to have spent several weeks in 1638 or 1639 working in Hamburg in the studio of the German history painter Evert Decker. In Hamburg he married Annetje Pietersz van Broeckhof. On 4 September 1640 Wouwerman became a member of the Haarlem painters' guild, in which he held the office of vinder in 1646. In the following years his presence in Haarlem is mentioned repeatedly. In view of the many southern elements in his landscapes it has frequently been suggested that Wouwerman travelled to France or Italy. However, there is no documentary evidence of his having left Haarlem for any length of time. Wouwerman died on 19 May 1668 and was buried on 23 May 1668 in the Nieuwe Kerk in Haarlem. He evidently attained a certain degree of prosperity, going by the relatively large sums of money each of his seven children inherited on his widow's death in 1670 and by the various houses he owned. No confirmation can be found of Arnold Houbraken's often quoted remark that Wouwerman's daughter Ludovica brought a dowry of 20,000 guilders with her in 1672 when she married the painter Hendrik de Fromantiou (1633/34 - after 1694). Wouwerman's oeuvre consists mainly of small cabinet pieces with horses, such as battle and hunting scenes, army camps, smithies and interiors of stables. He also painted sensitively executed silvery-grey landscapes, genre pieces and a few original representations of religious and mythological scenes. Wouwerman was also exceptionally prolific. Although he only lived to the age of 48, more than a thousand paintings bear his name. Even when one bears in mind that a number of these paintings should actually be attributed to his brothers Pieter and Jan, Philips left an extraordinarily large oeuvre. Only a small number of drawings by his hand are known. His pupils include Nicolaes Ficke, Jacob Warnars, Emanuel Murant and his brothers Pieter (1623-1682) and Jan Wouwerman (1629-1666). He had many followers and his paintings were much sought after in the i8th and early 19th centuries, especially in France. Important collections created during that period, including those which form the nuclei of the museums in St Petersburg, Dresden and The Hague, all contain a large number of his works. Establishing a chronology with respect to Philips Wouwerman's work is extremely problematic. His extensive oeuvre notwithstanding, only a comparatively small number of paintings are dated. The style of the signature enables us to date pictures only within wide margins: the monogram composed of P, H, and W was only used before 1646; thenceforth he used a monogram composed of PHILS and W. Wouwerman's earliest dated work, of 1639 (sale London, Christie's, October 10, 1972), is of minor quality. However, during the 1640s his talents improved rapidly. During that period he was strongly influenced by the Haarlem painter Pieter van Laer (1599 - after 1642) with respect to both style and subject matter. This tallies with Houbraken's remark that Wouwerman laid his hands on sketches and studies by Van Laer after that artist's death. Van Laer's influence is evident in Attack on a Coach, dated 1644, in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Vaduz. Several figures and details are quotations from works by Van Laer. Most of Wouwerman's compositions of the mid-1640os are dominated by a diagonally placed hill or dune covering most of the horizon, a tree - often dead - as a repoussoir and a few rather large figures, usually with horses. Landscape with Peasants Merrymaking in front of a Cottage in the City Art Gallery, Manchester, Battle Scene in the National Gallery, London and Landscape with a Resting Horseman in the Museum der Bildcnden Künste, Leipzig, all dated 1646, are proof that Wouwerman gradually developed his own style; nonetheless, Van Laer continued to be an important source of inspiration. As demonstrated by the four known dated paintings of 1649, the artist had replaced his sombre palette for a more colourful one by that time, and had also adopted a predominantly more horizontal scheme for his compositions. During that same period Wouwerman' pictures came to reflect a growing interest in landscape, and in the first half of the 1650s he produced a number of paintings which bear witness to his mastery of the landscape idiom. In a Landscape with Horsemen, of 1652, in a private British collection, painted in silvery tones, the figures and horses are reduced to a fairly insignificant staffage. Genre elements continued to play an important role in most of his paintings, though. One of his most successful works of that period is the Festive Peasants before a Panorama, dated 1653, in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Perhaps nowhere else in his oeuvre did the artist succeed in producing such a happy synthesis of genre and landscape elements. In the second half of the 1650s Wouwerman painted many of the fanciful hunting scenes - often with a vaguely Italian setting and brighter local colours - which were particularly sought after in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Only a few dated works from the last decade of his life have been preserved, but they do show a tendency towards more sombre colours and suggest a slight decline in his artistic skills. Van Laer's stylistic influence on Wouwerman had almost disappeared by then, although it continued to play a major role in terms of subject matter. After the middle of the 19th century Wouwerman's popularity waned, but more recently his work has met with increasing acclaim.

AbstractA century ago the Rijksprentenkabinet in Amsterdam acquired a 19th-century album containing 56 rapid sketches in black chalk after 17th-century, mostly Dutch paintings (Note 1). The sketches, which are numberd, have the names of the painters wrillen on them in the artist's own hand. They were first published in 1895 (Note 2) by E. W. Moes, who concluded that they were by a Delft artist, and C. Hofstede de Groot, who convincingly attributed them to Leonaert Bramer (1596-1674) and identified two of the paintings in question. Since then various other paintings have been identified (Notes 5, 7, 8, 11 and 12), notably by A. Blankert, who has made his findings available for the present publication, and other drawings belonging to the series have been found, Frits Lugt leading the way here (Notes 9 and 10). The present study, the first to be undertaken in depth since 1895, has brought to light three more sketches after paintings by Bramer himself (cat. nos.9-11) and one probably after Wouwerman (cat. no.65), while seven more paintings have been identified and one of the sketches without a name has proved to be after a painting by Antonio Maria Viani. Two lists of the sketches so far found are given here: that of State I reproduces the original order, that of State II gives the artists in alphabetical order as they appear in the catalogue published here. These sketches are of exceptional documentary value, since they have not only given us the names of some previously unknown painters, such as M. de Berch, J. Garbaal, P. Monincx and A. Pick, but they have also revealed unexpected aspects of some well-known ones, e.g. a still life by P. van Groenewegen, a Dutch landscape by J.B. Weenix and a genre piece of a very Utrecht character by L. de Jongh. Moreover, the sketches afford a fine glimpse of collecting in Holland in the 17th century, a subject otherwise known uirtually only from non-visual documents. On the back of one of the drawings (cat. no.6) appears a list of the owners of the pictures sketched (Fig. I), possibly written by Bramer himself. This is reproduced here in an amplified version of Moes' transcription, with one completely new name yielded by the present study. The styles given in the list suggest that the men concerned appear in it in order of their social standing. The first, Simon Graswinckel (c.1611-71), was a member of a wealthy Delft family of brewers and regents. He owned a great deal of property in and around Delft, but is reported by his brothers-in-law to have spent his time in gaming-houses and taverns (Note 30). His will of 1663 is known, but no paintings are mentioned in it. The second man on the list was probably a Van Beresteijn, another family from the wealthy upper echelons of Delft society. His precise identity came to light in a roundabout way via the inventory of 28 February 1652 of Adriaen van Vredenburg, in which are listed a number of paintings that were very probably sketched by Bramer (Note 32), notably one of Jezebel, this mention and Bramer's sketch being virtually unique indications of this subject in Dutch 17th-century painting. Vredenburg does not appear in the list of owners of the paintings, but on his death his property went to his stepdaughter, whose guardian he had been and who married Theodorus van Beresteijn in November 1652. Antonie van Bronchorst is known only from the commission he gave Bramer in 1653 to painl frescoes in his house (Note 34), while Capitein van der Bon..., Nicolaas van der Werch and Johan Persijn have not yet been traced in the Delft archives. Willem de Langue (1599-1666), on the other hand, was a lawyer and a connoisseur of paintings unparalleled in Delft in the mid 17th century (Note 36). He himself made the inventories of the paintings in important estates and he numbered many artists among his clientele (Note 37). Portraits of him and his wife by Van Vliet are known (Note 38), while he also appears as an officer in a militia piece of 1648 by Jacob Willemsz Delff (Fig. 2). Abraham de Cooge (before 1600-after 1680) was the most versatile person in the list, being an engraver, painter, dealer in tulip bulbs, organs and paintings and pottery manufacturer (Note 39). He was registered in the Guild of St. Luke in Delft in 1632 and two paintings by him are known (Note 40). In 1646 Leonaerl Bramer made illustrations to the picaresque novel Lazarilo de Tormes for him (Note 17). In the 1650's De Cooge was increasingly involved in art-dealing and that on no small scale. He also had representatives in Antwerp, so was probably among the biggest art-dealers in the Northern Netherlands. Adam Pick (c. 1622-before 1666) enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke in Delft in 1642 (Note 43) and was active in the town up to the early 1650's as a painter of landscapes, genre pieces and still lifes (Fig.3) and also as the keeper of the Toelast ( Wine Cask) inn. He probably moved to Leiden, where he is mentioned in 1654 as a vintner, in 1653, perhaps as a consequence of the death of his first wife in 1652, f or he certainly sold the inn that year. The inventory of their joint property drawn up in 1653 includes a list of paintings, which tally with nos.8(?) -98 in the State I list. Only one painting by Pick is known (Fig.3), plus the sketch by Bramer after another (cat. no.44). Reinier Jansz Vermeer (1591-1652, Note 46), the father of Johannes, started out as a silk weaver, but appears in 1629 as an innkeeper and in 1631 was registered in the Guild of St. Luke in Delft as an art-dealer. From then on he came into frequent contact with local painters, Bramer included, but his dealing was probably only a sideline of his innkeeping. He died in October 1652. The last owner on the list is Bramer himself, who returned to Delft in 1628 after a lengthy period in France and Italy (1614-27, Note 49). He played a leading part in the Guild of St. Luke and was among the most successful painters in Delft around the middle of the 17th century. Later in life, however, he was often in financial difficulties (Note 50). He was one of the very few Dutch fresco painters (Note 51), as well as a painter of history and genre pieces and a prolific draughtsman and illustrator (Note 52), while just one document provides evidence of his dealing in paintirtgs (Note 54). The presence of works by Bramer himself among the sketches seems to rule out the theory that he made them as an aide mémoire for his own use (Note 15), while their very rapid character makes it unlikely that they were produced for one of the owners as an art-object. It also seems highly improbable that the collectors/owners would have wanted their collections of paintings sketched together in one book. The most acceptable suggestion appears to be that they were made in connection with a forthcoming sale of pictures, particularly as three of the owners listed were involved in art-dealing, while in the cases of Vermeer, Pick and Van Beresteijn there was every reason for paintings from their collections being sold around the end of 1652 or beginning of 1653: Vermeer's death left his family in dire financial straits, Pick will probably have sold his pictures (as he did his inn) before moving to Leiden and Van Beresteijn will probably have wanted to realize some money on his wife's inheritance. Thus the dates of Vermeer's burial in October 1652 and Pick's inventory of March 1653 would seem to provide crucial clues to the dating of the sketches, which were probably made in rapid succession, to judge from the unity of style, despite the great diversity of the models, and the straightforward consecutive numbering. Presumably the intention was to bring these pictures from Delft collections together for a sale (Note 18) and Bramer was commissioned to make sketches in advance (or even to make a certain selection, Note 19) possibly to give an idea of what was on offer to collectors or dealers elsewhere (which might explain the 'inking in' of the painters' names originally written in chalk on five of the drawings, cat. nos. 17, 35, 36, 47 and 64). Bramer made such chalk inscriptions on ten of the drawings (Note 20), probably while sketching them. Afterwards he inscribed and numbered all of them in ink (Note 5). Notes in another 17th-century hand appear on cat. nos.22 and 24. The sheets may all have been of the same size originally, but have since been cut down, often wholly or partly along the framing lines around the sketch. This may well have been done by Bramer himsef or the dealer he made them for. Just over half of them remained together and were stuck into the present album in the 19th century. There are no portraits among the sketches and only two stll lifes and two marine paintings, but eleven Italianate landscapes and 22 history paintings. Thus the subjects differ somewhat from the categories arrived at by Montiasfor mid 17th-century Delft from his study of inventories (Note 56). The preference for history pieces is probably to be explained by the high social standing of the owners. The majority of the pictures were very modern for that time and of the 41 artists, 28 were still alive in 1652-3 and eight of them were only 35 or younger. Bramer's material contradicts Montlas' conclusion that Delft collectors showed a preference for local painters (Note 58), whose work amounted to 40-50% of that listed in the inventories. Of Bramer's 41 painters, only thirteen were from Delft (Note 59) and only five are found in Montias' list of the most common painters in Delft inventories. Thus the pictures sketched by Bramer fall outside the 'normal Delft pattern' and evince a less provincial taste. However, the collectors were still not among the leading figures of their day in this field by comparison with, for example, Boudewijn de Man of Delft (Note 62), whose collection included works by Goltzius, Bloemaert, Rubens, Rembrandt and Ter Brugghen in 1644. The pictures sketched by Bramer were presumably to be brought together for public auction and the sketches may very probably have been made with an eye to the sale catalogue. While sale catalogues are known in the second half of the 17th century, they only relate to very important collections, which makes these sketches very unusual as a documentation of a sale of pictures from average well-to-do collectors and dealers. The collection of sketches as such certainly has no parallel at this period (Note 64).

AbstractUntil now, the Rotterdam portraitist Jan Daemen Cool was known in the literature only as the maker of a group portrait painted in 1653 of the governors and administrator of the Holy Ghost Hospital at Rotterdam, and of a portrait of Piet Hein, which is dated 1629. Closer scrutiny of his activities reveals that the artist, who never signed his work, was Rotterdam's leading portrait painter in the second quarter of the 17th century. Jan Daemen Cool was born in Rotterdam in 1589 or thereabouts. He may have studied with Michiel Jansz. van Mierevelt in Delft, where he married Agniesje Jaspersdr. in 1613 and was admitted to the guild in 1614. He probably returned to Rotterdam in 1614 and spent the rest of his life there. After his first wife's death in 1622 he married again in 1623, this time to Lijsbeth Cornelisdr., the widow of Lowijs Porcellis. Many archive records indicate that Cool was a very prosperous man. After the death of his second wife in 1652. he bought himself a place in the Rotterdam almshouse; he also pledged to paint a group portrait of the governors. He died in 1660. An important starting point in reconstructing the artist's oeuvre is the portrait of the governors of 1653 (cat.no. 28), the authorship of which is substantiated by archive records. However, the portrait of Piet Hein, painted in 1629 (cat.no. I, 1st version), attributed on the basis of the inscription on Willem Hondius' print, is not an authentic Cool but probably an old copy after a portrait which he had painted a few years earlier. A systematic investigation of Rotterdam portraits from the period between 1620 and 1660 has yielded a closely related group of portraits which may be regarded as the work of one man and which include the 1653 governors piece. Combining this information with additional data and further indications has facilitated the reconstruction of Jan Daemen Cool's oeuvre. Pride of place in that oeuvre is occupied by a group of four family portraits painted between 1631 and 1637 and now in the museums at Lille (cat.no. 4), Edinburgh (cat.no. 6), Rotterdam (cat.no. 16) and Brussels (cat.no. 19). Hitherto these portraits have usually been assigned to Jacob Gerritsz. Cuyp. They are all situated in a landscape and represent an important step in the development of this type of family group in Dutch portraiture. A series of portraits of individual sitters painted be-for 1640, including companion pieces, some them identifiable a people who lived in Rotterdam, arc entirely consistent in style and execution with the aforementioned g group portraits. Elements in the portrait of Johan van Yck with his wife and son, painted in 1632 (cat.no. 5), correspond very closely with these works, but there are also discrepancies which suggest cooperation with another painter or later overpaints. A series of individual portraits dating to 1640 - 1654 link the first group of paintings and the late governors piece, the composition of which is quite exceptional in the entire production of such paintings in 17th-century Holland. Here, as in his early family groups, the artist shows himself to be quite an adroit arranger of f gures. Although this painting and two others of 1654 clearly show that he continued to paint after enterning the almshouse, ture is no extant work from the last years of his life. Along the Rotterdam portraits of the rest ched period are a few - likewise unsigned - family groups which are strongly influenced by Cool but are obviously the work of a less proficient hand (figs. 5 and 6). Comparison with a signed portrait of 1649 (fig. 7) enables them to be assigned to the painter Isaack Adamsz. de Colonia (ca. 1611-1663), presumably a pupil of Cool's. Although the work of Jan Daemen Cool bears a resemblance to that of such artists as Michiel van Mierevelt and Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn, his oeuvre has a distinctive character that is most in evidence in his group portraits. There are obvious correspondences with painters such as Jacob Gerritz. Cuyp of Dordrecht, to whom various works by Cool were hitherto attributed, and Willem Willemsz. van Vliet of Delft - artists who likewise developed their own characteristic styles.

Looks at the presence of America in early Dutch visual paintings and prints, and the significant role in interpreting Americana played by Karel van Mander. Van Mander was a 16th-c. art historian, painter, poet, and translator. Van Mander's notes reveal a number of developments in Dutch perceptions of the New World and how pervasive incidental Americana had become by the late 16th c.

In 1840, Joseph Mallord William Turner, the English painter, created Slave Ship: Slavers Throwing Overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon Coming On. The painting has many of Turner's signature elements: sensual imagery, brilliant sunsets, and dramatic landscapes ablaze with color. A closer look haunts the viewer. The scattering of a severed leg, shackles, and chains floating in bloody waters capture the monstrous decision of the captain and crew of the slave ship the Zong (originally named Zorg, which means, ironically, “Care” in Dutch) to throw 132 enslaved men, women, and children overboard, one by one, through cabin windows.

Throughout the seventeenth century the Dutch and Flemish enjoyed the reputation of being the best-fed population in Europe. Immigrants and refugees from the Low Countries brought their know-how and eating habits with them. Their arrival in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries coincided with the beginning of commercial market gardening in England. Dutch and Flemish immigrants were the first to grow them on a commercial scale. The skill of Dutch and Flemish gardeners did much to alter the English landscape. Many varieties of flowers now considered native to England were brought over from the Low Countries, not to mention the cultivation of bulbs. The tulip became an object of insane speculation. Paintings were often cheaper than the flowers they depicted. Dutch flower painter Simon Pieterszoon Verelst (1644––1721?) became the best-paid artist in London after he settled there. Immigrants from the Low Countries also engineered some of the most fertile areas of Britain today. Cornelius Vermuyden (1590––1677) was responsible for the draining the Fens (Cambridgeshire) which gave an enormous boost to England's agricultural development. In summary: the English agricultural revolution coincided with an influx of immigrants from the Low Countries who enriched almost every aspect of British agriculture.

‘Northern Europe’ considers the garden history of the Low Countries, Germany, and Russia. Dutch and Flemish gardens of the 16th century had a markedly different character from the Renaissance gardens in Italy; garden art is one of the forms in which the differences are readily apparent. Gardens described include the gardens of Jan Vredeman de Vries, which contained medieval and Erasmian elements laid out with a painterly attention to detail and form; the Honselaarsdijk estate of Prince Frederik Hendrik, between The Hague and the Hook of Holland; the Hortus Academicus at Leiden; Germany’s first important public garden, the Englische Garten in Munich; and Pavlovsk in Russia, one of the world’s greatest landscape gardens.