Peter Gysels

Provenance:

• Slg. David Christopher Mettlerkamp, Hamburg;

• 1830 Syndicus Dr Karl Sieveking (1787-1847), Hamburg;

• private collection.

Already sublimated in the first few decades of the...

Provenance:

• Slg. David Christopher Mettlerkamp, Hamburg;

• 1830 Syndicus Dr Karl Sieveking (1787-1847), Hamburg;

• private collection.

Already sublimated in the first few decades of the 17th century by Jan Brueghel the Elder, it was thanks to the talent of painters such as Pieter Gysels that landscape had its golden age. Considered to be the best landscape painter among the first generation of followers of Jan Brueghel the Elder, our artist wonderfully illustrates his skilled brushwork and colours in this River landscape with windmill and tradesmen.

As usual, the artist depicts a scene of daily life on the banks of the Scheldt, in the countryside surrounding Antwerp. At the foot of the village’s windmill, the inhabitants welcome tradesmen and travellers disembarking from the boats. A village appears on the horizon, with the church’s bell tower standing out against an azure sky. The iridescent light shining on the clouds denotes the end of the day. Its softness highlights the gaily coloured clothes of the city dwellers. The men and women of fashion are portrayed in the foreground, waiting for the arrival of other bourgeois who are still on the boat. This small group of characters is directly inspired by ‘Velvet’ Brueghel, while the crystal-clear horizon and the river bank is reminiscent of Martin Rijckaert. The harmony of the colours is symptomatic of Gysels’ art, which opts for tender tones in the foreground and a brighter range in the background.

More than a simple landscape, this work by Gysels must also be understood as a symbol of another time: a time of peace and abundance when the Netherlands were still united.

The boats we see sailing down the Scheldt had in fact become a rare sight in Gysels’ time; far from linking people together, the river had become the natural border between the Calvinist and catholic provinces. Deprived of the maritime resources owing to the manu militari closure of the mouth of the Scheldt by the secessionist provinces of the north, the Spanish Netherlands looked nostalgically back on the images of a time that no longer existed.