DOI Artikel:
Benesz, Hanna: Gillis van Coninxloo and his Disciples: three recently attributed landscapes from the National Museum in Warsaw
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18947#0043
kind of painting, which had been a very important iconographic domain in
their homeland as early as the mid-sixteenth century.3 The growing interest in
landscapes was also reflected in wridngs of the time.
In 1604 Kareł van Mander devoted an entire chapter of his book Den
Grondt der Edel Vry Schilderconst to landscape painting, which became the
first such completely and methodically elaborated work on this subject in the
theory of art. The author discusses the appearance around 1600 of landscapes
as an independent genre, and presents as well the principles for creating them.
He discusses composition in detail, including the construction of picture
planes, the creation of the illusion of space, the function of trees, and the role
of figures. The author recommended precisely the work of Gillis van Coninxloo
as a classic example of the genre.
Coninxloo was bora in Antwerp in 1544; he became a master of the guild
of St. Tukę in 1570. As a Protestant he was forced to leave his homeland after
the occupation of Antwerp by the Spanish Army in 1585. First he stayed in
Zeeland, then he spent a few years in Frankenthal in the Rhineland, where the
Prince of Palatinate extended hospitality to the Flemish emigres. In the artistic
colony gathered around the former Augustiman monastery, Coninxloo played
an important role as the pre-eminent creative personality. The activity of this
group of painters in the course of time even acąuired the name of the
Frankenthal school of landscape, which was associated with precisely expressed
stylistic features. Tandscape compositions were constructed of realistically
observed elements according to a specific principle which subordinated them
to the rules of painterliness and decorativeness. The type of landscape popularised
in Frankenthal usually follows one preconceived pattern: from one side
a closely viewed foreground with smali figures, bordered by a lateral group of
high trees, is counterbalanced on the other side of the composition by a distant
panorama. This distant view presents an unusual variety of background planes
which unfold like decorative waves toward the far horizon. Those distant
planes are usually filled with a large number of picturesąue details constituting
a literał illustration of the words of van Mander: “[...] down below you should
build cities on the sea, which extend toward broad lands, toward unassailable
castles on cliffs; you should divide the fields lying in the distance with fine
streaks.”4
Such compositions became the point of departure for further evolution of
the landscape as a genre in the direction of wooded landscapes, which in
yarious forms were repeated throughout the entire 17th century. After 1595
Coninxloo left Frankenthal and settled in Amsterdam, where he experienced
the apogee of his creativity. There he conducted an extensive workshop,
teaching a large number of students, who continued afterwards the characteristic
3 J. Briels, op. cit., p. 306: “La Flandre ne se contenta pas de fournir a la republiąue un langage
formel et des idees; elle lui fourmt egalement le talent artistiąue, on peut affirmer sans risque
d’erreur que jusqu’en 1620-1630, les paysagistes de la republique etaient des immigres flamands
de la premiere ou de la deuxieme generation”.
4 Cited in Białostocki, op. cit., p. 110.
37
their homeland as early as the mid-sixteenth century.3 The growing interest in
landscapes was also reflected in wridngs of the time.
In 1604 Kareł van Mander devoted an entire chapter of his book Den
Grondt der Edel Vry Schilderconst to landscape painting, which became the
first such completely and methodically elaborated work on this subject in the
theory of art. The author discusses the appearance around 1600 of landscapes
as an independent genre, and presents as well the principles for creating them.
He discusses composition in detail, including the construction of picture
planes, the creation of the illusion of space, the function of trees, and the role
of figures. The author recommended precisely the work of Gillis van Coninxloo
as a classic example of the genre.
Coninxloo was bora in Antwerp in 1544; he became a master of the guild
of St. Tukę in 1570. As a Protestant he was forced to leave his homeland after
the occupation of Antwerp by the Spanish Army in 1585. First he stayed in
Zeeland, then he spent a few years in Frankenthal in the Rhineland, where the
Prince of Palatinate extended hospitality to the Flemish emigres. In the artistic
colony gathered around the former Augustiman monastery, Coninxloo played
an important role as the pre-eminent creative personality. The activity of this
group of painters in the course of time even acąuired the name of the
Frankenthal school of landscape, which was associated with precisely expressed
stylistic features. Tandscape compositions were constructed of realistically
observed elements according to a specific principle which subordinated them
to the rules of painterliness and decorativeness. The type of landscape popularised
in Frankenthal usually follows one preconceived pattern: from one side
a closely viewed foreground with smali figures, bordered by a lateral group of
high trees, is counterbalanced on the other side of the composition by a distant
panorama. This distant view presents an unusual variety of background planes
which unfold like decorative waves toward the far horizon. Those distant
planes are usually filled with a large number of picturesąue details constituting
a literał illustration of the words of van Mander: “[...] down below you should
build cities on the sea, which extend toward broad lands, toward unassailable
castles on cliffs; you should divide the fields lying in the distance with fine
streaks.”4
Such compositions became the point of departure for further evolution of
the landscape as a genre in the direction of wooded landscapes, which in
yarious forms were repeated throughout the entire 17th century. After 1595
Coninxloo left Frankenthal and settled in Amsterdam, where he experienced
the apogee of his creativity. There he conducted an extensive workshop,
teaching a large number of students, who continued afterwards the characteristic
3 J. Briels, op. cit., p. 306: “La Flandre ne se contenta pas de fournir a la republiąue un langage
formel et des idees; elle lui fourmt egalement le talent artistiąue, on peut affirmer sans risque
d’erreur que jusqu’en 1620-1630, les paysagistes de la republique etaient des immigres flamands
de la premiere ou de la deuxieme generation”.
4 Cited in Białostocki, op. cit., p. 110.
37