Sunday, October 16, 2016

Flemish Painting, 17th century

Jasper Geeraerts
Still life with Lobster
ca. 1645
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

"Learning that color is a fiction of light is one of the primary shocks of growing up: that this hitherto deeply physical thing is just a reflection, and that nothing can keep its color under the cover of darkness, are monstrous things to understand, even for my adult mind. Yet there is something about color's frailty at its twilight moment of oblivion that also brings out its magnificence. At color's juncture with night, everything is suddenly in climax. The world gleams like burnished metal; water like inlaid gold. The sky hangs like heavy weave tapestry. Detail is secondary and focus is lost. The dullest window glows with evanescent glory and even streetlights dominate with an intensity normally unknown to them. Then you watch in thrill and panic as this vivid world is slowly tarnished by night, both woolly and indistinct, denying finally the mysterious illusion of color."

 Magic Hour by Tacita Dean, 2007

Michiel Sweerts
Boy in a Turban holding a Nosegay
ca. 1661
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Peter Paul Rubens
The Four Continents
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jacob van Oost
St Macarius of Ghent with Plague Victims
1673
oil on canvas
Louvre

Lodewijk de Vadder
Soignes Forest
17th century
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent

Jacques Fouquier
Wooded landscape with stream
17th century
distemper on paper
Louvre

Thomas van Apshoven
Landscape with musician
17th century
oil on canvas
private collection

Denys van Alsloot
Landscape with Flight into Egypt
ca. 1608
oil on panel
private collection

Roelant Savery
Mountain Landscape with a Castle
1609
oil on panel
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Jan Davidz. de Heem
Eucharist exposed in niche within fruit wreath
1648
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jan Siberechts
The Ford
ca. 1672
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Paul Bril
View of a Port
ca. 1607
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Jan Fyt
Vase of Flowers and Two Bunches of Asparagus
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Anonymous Flemish painter
Corpse of a nun laid out on a bed 
17th century
oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut