Hulin de Loo, Georges: Early Flemish paintings in the Renders Collection at Bruges: exhibited at the Belgian Exhibition, Burlington House, January 1927 (London, 1927)

JOACHIM PATENIER OR HIS STUDIO. 58 SAINT
JEROME, IN A LANDSCAPE, t-t-:---*-
5S Oaf{ panel : 37 centimeters high by 47 centimeters wide. 58
JOACHIM Patenier born probably in Bouvignes and
perhaps trained in Bruges in the vicinity of Gerard
David and who worked in Antwerp from 1515 till
1524 was one of those active elements that at the beginning
of the 16th. century were to break down the ancient formulae
and create a new art. It is, indeed, Patenier who may
perhaps be looked upon as the founder of landscape painting,
such as we conceive it in our days : I do not, however, mean
to say that it was purely his own invention. The traditions
of the Haarlem School, the productions of Gerard de St. Jean,
the researches of Gerard David, the clever intuitions of
Jerome Bosch had already in a great measure paved the way.
But it is in Patenier’s pictures that, for the first time, the
landscape is treated for its own sake and no longer as a
mere background of tapestry designed to set off the principal
subject, whether religious scene or holy personage. Patenier
reverses the proportions; in his case, nature, either real or
imaginary, becomes the object itself of the painting; the human
figure, the sacred episode are but accessory matters. r—~i-
The picture we are studying enables us to understand the