Claes Pietersz Berchem
(1620 - 1683) |
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Landscapes Art Work
| Name: |
Claes Pietersz Berchem |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Haarlem |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1620 |
| Death: |
1683 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Landscapes |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
Oil, Etching |
| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Berchem was a landscape painter, who not only produced highly popular Italianate landscapes in Holland but also executed allegories and mythologies. Widely imitated and copied, Berchem's work remained popular through the eighteenth century. He was especially popular with French collectors, notably with Francois Boucher, who owned Berchem's Landscape with Man and Youth Ploughing. Son of the famous still-life painter Pieter Claesz, Nicolaes was apprenticed to his father. This is recorded in a Haarlem Guild record dated 1634. Claes later adopted the name Berchem, which he spelled variously in his signatures.In 1642 Berchem registered in the Haarlem Guild and had three pupils. There is much speculation that Berchem must have traveled to Italy. Some scholars suggest he accompanied his cousin Jan Baptist Weenix to Rome in 1642. We know that Weenix was there until 1645. Furthermore, scholars have found no documented records of Berchem in Holland until 1646, when he was married, and again in 1649, when he and his wife, Catherine Claesdr. de Groot, made a will. A journey to Italy could also have taken place after 1649, because Berchem does not appear in Dutch documents again until 1656, when he is recorded in Haarlem. Records mention him there in 1657 and in Amsterdam in 1660. Regardless of the exact dating of his Italian sojourn, Berchem responded to many Italianate artists (including the nocturnal scenes of Elsheimer*) who were active in Rome. A number of scholars suggest that while Berchem was in Italy he made drawings of the Roman Campagna, which formed the basis for his later paintings. After 1677 Berchem probably settled in Amsterdam, where he worked until his death in 1683. He was buried in the Westekerk. However, a journey to Italy may not have been necessary for Berchem to produce the Italianate landscapes that appear in his oeuvre after 1644. Pieter van Laer (in Haarlem from 1639 to 1642) and Jan Both (who returned from Italy in 1641) might have inspired him. After Weenix's return to Holland (from Utrecht), Berchem's work became increasingly Italianate and more personal in its manner. Speculation about other travels has arisen because Berchem was a good friend of Jacob van Ruisdael, and presumably accompanied him to western Germany around 1650. Paintings by both of them after 1651 show views of Bentheim Castle. Berchem's Italianate subjects depicted generally imaginary views of the countryside and featured romantic ruins, charming peasants or travelers, and livestock. Gradually his style became highly finished, with skies of porcelain blue, beautifully rendered fabrics and textures, and a satisfying fusion of natural observation with idealized artifice. From preserved examples of signed and dated landscapes, his development has been outlined as follows. Around 1645, using a nearly monochromatic warm palette of sepias and ochres, Berchem produced a group of pictures all depicting imaginary countrysides with picturesque ruins, shepherds, cattle, as well as occasional sheep and goats. A good example is Milking Woman on the Edge of a Forest (dated 1645, Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum). These pastorales were undoubtedly inspired by van Laer. The first of two known nocturnes by Berchem, Landscape with Crab Catchers by Moonlight (signed and dated 1645, Cleveland Museum of Art) fits comfortably into this period in terms of figure type and composition, despite the reservations of some scholars who dispute the date's reading and want to place it five years later. Berchem's Italian sojurn has been given more credence by the recently discovered Italianate Landscape with Shepherds and Flock near a Bridge (dated 1651, Milan, Museo d'Arte Antica, Castello Sforzesco), which is painted on an Italian linen evidently not used in the Netherlands. Following his return from Italy shortly after 1650, Berchem shifted his palette and introduced a wider range of blues, greens, and occasional brilliant touches of white and red. His subject matter expanded to include panoramic views (adopted from those by Jan Asselijn*), such as the Italian Landscape with Figures and Animals (dated 1655, Windsor Castle, Royal Collection). Around that time his palette shifted again; the colors became more saturated; the contrasts between dark and light often became stronger, with larger areas of the canvas becoming deeply shadowed. A good example is the Landscape with Ruins and Travelers (signed and dated 1654, Los Angeles County Museum of An); another is preserved in the Louvre. Relaxed, carefree, and unhurried, rural life remains idealized in its portrayal. The 1650s also saw Berchem introducing bucolic renditions of Mediterranean harbor views, some with shepherds and cattle, but more often with travelers, merchants, and slaves, among whom a few elegantly dressed persons stand out. By the late 1650s and into the 1660s, the setting is diminished and the genre subject created by staffage is emphasized. A good example of the shift is found in his Moor Presenting a Parrot to a Laxfy (Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum), in which the harbor is barely visible; the action is crowded to the foreground and the palette has once more become a nearly monochromatic study (this time of grays), against which the blues, whites, reds, and yellows of the main characters stand out. Painting the texture and light reflecting the property of satin with all the polish of Ter Borch, these genre subjects with their stock types, smug social commentary, and facile technique appeal less today than Berchem's landscapes. During the 1660s Berchem's oeuvre expanded into allegories, religious subjects, and mythologies, cast as genre scenes and still bearing traces of the harbor setting. Two pendants in the Geneva Museum of Art portraying Abraham Receiving Sarah from King Abimelech and The Prodigal Son, inject artifice, pageantry, and fantasy into the subjects-qualities that clearly struck a responsive chord during the eighteenth century. Berchem's contemporaries sufficiently recognized his skill at rendering figures that he was occasionally asked to supply them for the likes of Jacob van Ruisdael, Meindert Hobbema, and Jan Hackaert. Berchem had a number of important pupils, including Pieter de Hooch, Jacob Ochtervelt, Carel Dujardin, Abraham Begcyn, Willem Romeyn, and Johannes van der Bent. |
Samples of Work
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