Provenance: private collection.
This small coastal landscape displays the art of Valckenborch in all its refinement, while revealing a much more intimate side of his work.
Once again, this master...
read moreProvenance: private collection.
This small coastal landscape displays the art of Valckenborch in all its refinement, while revealing a much more intimate side of his work.
Once again, this master confirms his position as one of the pivotal figures in the development of a pictorial genre, in this case, that of the coastal marine.
The layout he adopts is an extension of the experiments and the work executed by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (thus, the platform on which the figures are positioned recalls the esplanade in the foreground of the Fall of Icarus), at the same time as anticipating, in its naturalism, the formulations that would later be used by Paul Bril and Jan Velvet Brueghel.
The decidedly rocky profile of the coastline unambiguously situates the scene in an imaginary Mediterranean locale, which the artist also indicates through the presence of a turbaned figure, lending a vaguely exotic note to the composition.
However, the viewer is quickly reassured that it is indeed Christian territory that is being depicted by the considerable numbers of Catholic clergy in evidence.
In fact, alongside a gentleman elegantly dressed in blue, the group that has come to welcome the fishermen consists of nuns, Dominican and Capuchin monks. No doubt they have come to eagerly claim their due share of the catch, and this element thus reveals the hidden meaning behind this seemingly innocent scene: it is intended as a critique of the exploitation of the hard labor of the members of the Third Estate by the members of the two other social classes.
In this sense, the deliberately fictional and exotic setting of this coastline may be justified by the more considerable leeway that it affords Valckenborch to express this social commentary. As we know, this content is also in accordance with the religious convictions that would lead the artist to flee occupied Flanders and seek refuge in the secessionist northern provinces.
Before 1535 Malines – Francfurt 1597
Lucas van Valckenborch was probably introduced to painting by his father Martin van Valckenborch the Elder, before he was admitted as Master of the Malines...
read moreBefore 1535 Malines – Francfurt 1597
Lucas van Valckenborch was probably introduced to painting by his father Martin van Valckenborch the Elder, before he was admitted as Master of the Malines Guild in 1564. Following the religious persecutions inflicted by the Duke of Alba’s troops on the Reformation’s sympathizers, he had to flee his native town in 1566 and take refuge in Liege and then in Aachen, where he rejoined his brother Martin and Hans Vredeman de Vries. He settled in Antwerp in 1576. The following year, he worked in Brussels for the Archduke Matthias, then Governor of the Low Countries. In 1581 he accompanied the latter in Austria, staying in Vienna and Prague as well as in Linz and Nuremberg. After 1593, he shared his Frankfurt studio with his brother Martin.
The master, with his brother, belongs to the greatest landscape painters of the XVI century. His concept of landscaping emanates from Joachim Patenier and Pieter Brueghel the Elder.
This careful and scrupulous observer uses a miniaturist’s fineness to treat anecdotal scenes, that is always attractive and of a surprising historical accuracy, whilst the surrounding scenery is rich with topographical exactness.
At the end of his life, his deep landscapes, with their luminous and refined nuances, are witness to a real creative intention, to go beyond the Brueghelian conception, and of a perfection never attained by his contemporaries.
