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#0051
- possesses all the obvious features of the art of Jacąues van der Wyhen.
Characteristically illuminated hardwood lane with the upper parts of trees cut
down from the landscape with family portrait is distinctly recognisable in the
Berlin painting, the principle and the structure of the composition being
the same. The cluster of branches, usually placed in the top left corner, the
way of rendering leaves and the colour palette with prevailing olive green
hues complete the catalogue of the artist’s individual stylistic features. The
ornamental drawing of reeds along the lower edge of the painting and above all
the plants in the bottom right corner, painted with ąuick and fine brushstrokes,
find analogies in the related motifs in the Warsaw picture. The broken tree
trunk and a bough as well as birds perched on branches belong also to the
canon of van der Wyhen’s landscapes. Thus the inclusion of the Berlin painting
into the oeuvre of our artist seems ąuite justified.
Among Coninxloo’s students it was van der Wyhen who continued this
pattern the longest, sińce he perpetuated well into the 163 Os the forest and
mountain landscape compositions with the traditional side-wings that the
master had elaborated at the turn of the century. This concept obviously
seemed most appropriate to the artist for expressing the instructions formulated
by van Mander: that landscape painting ought to reflect a certain internal,
rational order, flowing from the soul and not from simple imitation of the
natural environment. This was the category, famous at the time, called uit den
geest, which was supposed to summon the artist to reveal the link between the
power of naturę and human naturę in landscapes that were completely
artificial, lofty and exalted, decorated with refmed elements. Such a picture
of naturę was supposed to issue from the imagination, from an “idea” and not
naturę itself. As Briels wrote “le lien etroit que 1’homme du XVIIe siecle avait
avec la naturę, et qui contribua a donner a Bart du paysage sa richesse et sa
diversite, presentait par ailleurs un aspect moins positif. II etait la consequence
du fosse qui n’allait pas cesser de s’elargir entre naturę (mta rustica) et culture
(vita urbana). Ta rationalisation croissante de l’existence eloignait 1’homme de
la naturę, qu’il allait ressentir de plus en plus nettement comme Bantipode de
sa personne et qu’il reussirait donc de plus en plus difficilement a integrer a sa
vie. Bhomme du XVIT siecle essaya de compenser cette alienation de deux
faęons: en considerant la naturę comme un lieu de divertissement et de detente,
[as is the case in the landscapes of Jacques van der Wyhen] ou par la projection
esthetique: ii reconciliait ainsi ce qui se trouvait separe existentiellement, mais
cette fois sous la formę d’une representation recreant Billusion de la naturę
[emphasis added].”1^
The illusion of naturę was best captured, however, in the method of creative
work naer het leven, or from naturę. Two different concepts of landscape had
thus already appeared earlier in the second half of the 16lh century: in the
mountain and forest landscapes, motifs observed from naturę underwent
Gemaldegalerie Berlin, Gesamtverzeichnis, Staatlische Museen zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
1996, no. 959 as “Flemish ca 1650”.
15 Briels, op. cit., p. 303.
45
Characteristically illuminated hardwood lane with the upper parts of trees cut
down from the landscape with family portrait is distinctly recognisable in the
Berlin painting, the principle and the structure of the composition being
the same. The cluster of branches, usually placed in the top left corner, the
way of rendering leaves and the colour palette with prevailing olive green
hues complete the catalogue of the artist’s individual stylistic features. The
ornamental drawing of reeds along the lower edge of the painting and above all
the plants in the bottom right corner, painted with ąuick and fine brushstrokes,
find analogies in the related motifs in the Warsaw picture. The broken tree
trunk and a bough as well as birds perched on branches belong also to the
canon of van der Wyhen’s landscapes. Thus the inclusion of the Berlin painting
into the oeuvre of our artist seems ąuite justified.
Among Coninxloo’s students it was van der Wyhen who continued this
pattern the longest, sińce he perpetuated well into the 163 Os the forest and
mountain landscape compositions with the traditional side-wings that the
master had elaborated at the turn of the century. This concept obviously
seemed most appropriate to the artist for expressing the instructions formulated
by van Mander: that landscape painting ought to reflect a certain internal,
rational order, flowing from the soul and not from simple imitation of the
natural environment. This was the category, famous at the time, called uit den
geest, which was supposed to summon the artist to reveal the link between the
power of naturę and human naturę in landscapes that were completely
artificial, lofty and exalted, decorated with refmed elements. Such a picture
of naturę was supposed to issue from the imagination, from an “idea” and not
naturę itself. As Briels wrote “le lien etroit que 1’homme du XVIIe siecle avait
avec la naturę, et qui contribua a donner a Bart du paysage sa richesse et sa
diversite, presentait par ailleurs un aspect moins positif. II etait la consequence
du fosse qui n’allait pas cesser de s’elargir entre naturę (mta rustica) et culture
(vita urbana). Ta rationalisation croissante de l’existence eloignait 1’homme de
la naturę, qu’il allait ressentir de plus en plus nettement comme Bantipode de
sa personne et qu’il reussirait donc de plus en plus difficilement a integrer a sa
vie. Bhomme du XVIT siecle essaya de compenser cette alienation de deux
faęons: en considerant la naturę comme un lieu de divertissement et de detente,
[as is the case in the landscapes of Jacques van der Wyhen] ou par la projection
esthetique: ii reconciliait ainsi ce qui se trouvait separe existentiellement, mais
cette fois sous la formę d’une representation recreant Billusion de la naturę
[emphasis added].”1^
The illusion of naturę was best captured, however, in the method of creative
work naer het leven, or from naturę. Two different concepts of landscape had
thus already appeared earlier in the second half of the 16lh century: in the
mountain and forest landscapes, motifs observed from naturę underwent
Gemaldegalerie Berlin, Gesamtverzeichnis, Staatlische Museen zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
1996, no. 959 as “Flemish ca 1650”.
15 Briels, op. cit., p. 303.
45