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DOI Artikel:Kozak, Anna; De Herdt, Jan [Ill.]: Jan de Herdt, a forgotten 17th century Flemish painter
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18902#0094
Another painting executed during Herdt’s visit to Trebic is the Baptism of ChrisC''1 (Fig. 42):,
signed and dated I. D. HERDT 1681. It was commissioned by the Svoboda family, the owners
of a large residence in the market sąuare in Trebić. Eager to benefit by the artist’s stay at the
castle, they probably addressed him with their commission. The painting is another example of
the growing decline of Herdt’s artistic ingenuity. The spheres of heaven and earth are so close
to each other that the composition lacks the spatiality and dynamics characteristic of his earlier
works. The decline is especially evident in his rendering of the figurę of St John whose body is
presented in an awkward turn so that the painter practically lacked room to convey the move-
ment of the saint’s right hand in the right proportion. Similarly, Christ’s figurę, though without
glaring flaws, is too static. A drawing intended as a design for the painting is now in the National
Museum in Warsaw (Fig. 43). Compared with the painting, the drawing is morę dynamie, and
the spatial arrangement of the figures is less restrained. The stylistic ąualities of the drawing,
and the paper with the same watermark as in, e.g., Crucifixion (fig. 27) brings the drawing in
cjuestion close to the set of drawings executed in the 1660s, discussed above. Therefore it seems
very likely that in the Baptism of Christ Herdt resorted to his own composition that he had
executed some score years earlier than the painting.
Not far from Trebić, in the Holy Cross Church at Znojmo, there are two paintings by Herdt,
Finding of the Holy Crosss0 (Fig. 44) and St Thomas Aquinassl (Fig. 45). They are badly preserved,
and therefore difficult to assess. It is hard to establish with all certainty when they were painted.
Some elements, for instance God the Father in the painting Finding of the Holy Cross, relate
them to the painting Baptism of Christ in Trebic. But they might have as well been executed
earlier, during Herdt’s work on the Gerusalemme Liberała series, which is indicated by their
higher artistic quality, and the similarity between some of the figures, e.g. St Helen of the Finding
of the Holy Cross and Erminia of Erminia at the Sliepherds.
The composition St Thomas Aąuinas (Fig. 45) shows an event from the saint’s life, as described
by his biographer Wiliam de Toeco82. The saint, tempted by a young woman, has been sashed
with a belt by two angels, which means that nothing is to stop him in his striving for sainthood.
The colour-scheme, with black, wbite and brown, is slightly reminiscent of C. de Crayer’s com-
position on the same subject in Our Lady’s Church in Bruges, but artistically, de Herdt’s pain-
ting does not compare with that by C. de Crayer. The drawing of the hands (the saint’s right
hand, for instance) combined with the somewhat theatrical gestures, and oversimplified and
rather mawkish faces, e.g. the angefs on the left, are the signs of a decline in Herdt’s artistic
class. The figurę of St Florian (?), in the lower part of the altar, reminiscent of soldiers in the
paintings of C. de Crayer and Jan Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, is somewhat better.
The painting Finding of the Holy Cross (Fig. 44), whose light-and-shade effects bring it closer to
the Caravaggionist trend in Flemish painting, is artistically a better work. The figurę of St Helen
is especially beautifully represented. She is slightly reminiscent of women types in Strozzi’s
paintings and depictions of the Virgin Mary in C. de Crayer’s compositions (cf. the painting
Firgin and Child Adored by Saints, Meppen, Gymnasialkirche83, Fig. 46). IJerdt’s patterns in
the painting in ąuestion are varied and sometimes quite unexpected. Some of the figures on the
right are physiognomically reminiscent of those in Jordanes’ paintings, but, for instance, th&
79. Oil on canvas, 233x 165 cm, inv. no. 400 115. A. Bartusek, op. cit.,p. 74.
80. Oil on canvas, ca. 400 x 180 cm, V. Richter, B. Samek, M. Stehlik, Znojmo, Praha, 1966, p. 67.
81. No data available, ibid.
82. Quoted after J. B. Knipping, Iconography of Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands, Leiden, 1974, 1, pp. 160—161 —
83. H. Ylieghe, op. cit., no. A 185, p. 216, Fig. 173.
84
signed and dated I. D. HERDT 1681. It was commissioned by the Svoboda family, the owners
of a large residence in the market sąuare in Trebić. Eager to benefit by the artist’s stay at the
castle, they probably addressed him with their commission. The painting is another example of
the growing decline of Herdt’s artistic ingenuity. The spheres of heaven and earth are so close
to each other that the composition lacks the spatiality and dynamics characteristic of his earlier
works. The decline is especially evident in his rendering of the figurę of St John whose body is
presented in an awkward turn so that the painter practically lacked room to convey the move-
ment of the saint’s right hand in the right proportion. Similarly, Christ’s figurę, though without
glaring flaws, is too static. A drawing intended as a design for the painting is now in the National
Museum in Warsaw (Fig. 43). Compared with the painting, the drawing is morę dynamie, and
the spatial arrangement of the figures is less restrained. The stylistic ąualities of the drawing,
and the paper with the same watermark as in, e.g., Crucifixion (fig. 27) brings the drawing in
cjuestion close to the set of drawings executed in the 1660s, discussed above. Therefore it seems
very likely that in the Baptism of Christ Herdt resorted to his own composition that he had
executed some score years earlier than the painting.
Not far from Trebić, in the Holy Cross Church at Znojmo, there are two paintings by Herdt,
Finding of the Holy Crosss0 (Fig. 44) and St Thomas Aquinassl (Fig. 45). They are badly preserved,
and therefore difficult to assess. It is hard to establish with all certainty when they were painted.
Some elements, for instance God the Father in the painting Finding of the Holy Cross, relate
them to the painting Baptism of Christ in Trebic. But they might have as well been executed
earlier, during Herdt’s work on the Gerusalemme Liberała series, which is indicated by their
higher artistic quality, and the similarity between some of the figures, e.g. St Helen of the Finding
of the Holy Cross and Erminia of Erminia at the Sliepherds.
The composition St Thomas Aąuinas (Fig. 45) shows an event from the saint’s life, as described
by his biographer Wiliam de Toeco82. The saint, tempted by a young woman, has been sashed
with a belt by two angels, which means that nothing is to stop him in his striving for sainthood.
The colour-scheme, with black, wbite and brown, is slightly reminiscent of C. de Crayer’s com-
position on the same subject in Our Lady’s Church in Bruges, but artistically, de Herdt’s pain-
ting does not compare with that by C. de Crayer. The drawing of the hands (the saint’s right
hand, for instance) combined with the somewhat theatrical gestures, and oversimplified and
rather mawkish faces, e.g. the angefs on the left, are the signs of a decline in Herdt’s artistic
class. The figurę of St Florian (?), in the lower part of the altar, reminiscent of soldiers in the
paintings of C. de Crayer and Jan Erasmus Quellinus the Younger, is somewhat better.
The painting Finding of the Holy Cross (Fig. 44), whose light-and-shade effects bring it closer to
the Caravaggionist trend in Flemish painting, is artistically a better work. The figurę of St Helen
is especially beautifully represented. She is slightly reminiscent of women types in Strozzi’s
paintings and depictions of the Virgin Mary in C. de Crayer’s compositions (cf. the painting
Firgin and Child Adored by Saints, Meppen, Gymnasialkirche83, Fig. 46). IJerdt’s patterns in
the painting in ąuestion are varied and sometimes quite unexpected. Some of the figures on the
right are physiognomically reminiscent of those in Jordanes’ paintings, but, for instance, th&
79. Oil on canvas, 233x 165 cm, inv. no. 400 115. A. Bartusek, op. cit.,p. 74.
80. Oil on canvas, ca. 400 x 180 cm, V. Richter, B. Samek, M. Stehlik, Znojmo, Praha, 1966, p. 67.
81. No data available, ibid.
82. Quoted after J. B. Knipping, Iconography of Counter-Reformation in the Netherlands, Leiden, 1974, 1, pp. 160—161 —
83. H. Ylieghe, op. cit., no. A 185, p. 216, Fig. 173.
84