Provenance: private collection
Magnificently constructed, this river landscape offers us resounding proof that Jan Brueghel the Younger well and truly belongs to this great line of...
read moreProvenance: private collection
Magnificently constructed, this river landscape offers us resounding proof that Jan Brueghel the Younger well and truly belongs to this great line of descendants.
This highly delicate, well-balanced painting, benefiting from colours of a rare freshness, is based on a relatively simple composition allowing the artist to brilliantly develop his taste for harmony. Inspired by a subject often painted by Jan Brueghel the Elder, the theme of the river landscape is taken up again here with great talent, finesse and meticulousness.
An open window on the 17th century, this panel springs to life before our very eyes and leads us to the heart of the “flat country”. Man and nature seem to exist side by side in perfect harmony. Sky and water dominate this painting imbued with a powerful blue and illuminated by the white of the clouds and the sun’s reflection on the water. This fresh and luminous colour gives the painting a certain quality, closely linking it with the portrayal of the landscape of the north. This traditionally composed work is marked by a strong diagonal beginning from the riverbanks on our left and ending up at the horizon on the right.
The overall composition of this landscape takes inspiration from a painting on copper by Jan ‘Velvet’ Brueghel kept in Apsley House’s Wellington Museum in London[1] dated 1607[2]. However, Brueghel the Younger willingly introduces a number of changes which involve reducing the space given to the shore and quite naturally increasing the importance given to the water.
Man is of course present in the landscape. Besides the great number of boats sailing up and down the river, the foreground of the copper is teeming with those details so dear to enthusiasts of this great painter’s oeuvre. The artist remarkably illustrates the daily life of his era, carefully depicting the boats overloaded with passengers and horses, or the tenderness with which a father takes his baby from the arms of a sailor who has come to help him cross the river. Compared with the landscapes of the beginning of the 16th century by Herri Met de Bles, where the human element is often lost in an abundant nature, this new type of landscape initiated by Jan Brueghel the Elder introduces Man as an actor. The artist creates a landscape based on a perfect harmony between Man and the elements. Far from being a danger, water is perceived here as a positive element. It was indeed a determining factor in the development of sea trade and transport, allowing the population of Flanders to take advantage of its numerous waterways.
Jan Brueghel the Younger’s flowing and meticulous colourist’s technique is perfectly illustrated in this painting. It combines the extreme finesse of its execution with a free and flowing rhythm. It is undoubtedly the source of the grace emanating from each of his landscapes, which reconcile analytical precision with a new atmospheric sensitivity.
[1] Jan Brueghel the Elder, Coastal landscape with a landing stage, 1606, copper, 27.3 x 40.6 cm, London, Wellington Museum, Apsley House.
[2] Klaus Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere, vol. I, Lingen, 2008, p. 273-277, no. 124.
1601 – Antwerp – 1678
Jan Brueghel the Younger, the eldest son of Jan 'Velvet’ Brueghel and his first wife, Isabelle de Jode, was born in Antwerp on 13th September 1601.
As early as 1603, his...
read more1601 – Antwerp – 1678
Jan Brueghel the Younger, the eldest son of Jan 'Velvet’ Brueghel and his first wife, Isabelle de Jode, was born in Antwerp on 13th September 1601.
As early as 1603, his childhood was overshadowed by the death of his mother. Jan was initiated in the art of painting in his father’s studio. He was almost fifteen years old when his father thought of sending him to Italy – this plan was made all the more possible since “Velvet” Brueghel was counting on a noble patron in Milan, Cardinal Borromeo. He only left in May 1622. He did indeed stop in Milan, where he entered into the family circles of the cardinal before continuing his journey onto Sicily, but the sudden death of his father in 1625 brought an end to this trip. He returned to Antwerp on 12th August 1625, and immediately registered as a member of the Guild of Saint Luke and the adjoining ‘De Violere’ chamber of rhetoric, where he was promoted to dean as early as 1630. He took over the management of the family studio and recorded his activities in a diary, which he kept between 1625 and 1651. In 1626, Jan married Anne-Marie Janssens, daughter of the famous painter Abraham Janssens, at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp.
Although he remained close to the subjects of his father, he did however renew their conception, adapting himself to the desires of his contemporaries. He substituted the mannerist style, prevalent until then, with a more realistic, simple and light-hearted art.
In his exceptionally elegant floral paintings, he abandoned compact arrangements and instead, treated each richly sculptured flower as an entity in itself, thus revealing the beauty of each one. He therefore depicted a space where forms were organised more freely, treated with a succession of precise and rapid strokes, and given generous and deep contours.
Today, his work is admired by connoisseurs and his skill is such that sometimes, his works are confused with his father’s. His art, helped by the incredible softness of his palette, excels as much in the landscapes featuring rivers and woods enlivened with figures, as in his still lifes.
A smooth, glossy colour, which reflects the same enthusiasm that renders each painting a feast for the eye, makes Jan Brueghel the Younger, through his personal endeavours, a precursor of modern painting.
