Jacob De Backer
(1608 - 1651) |
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Portraiture, Secular Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Jacob De Backer |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Harlingen |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1608 |
| Death: |
1651 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Portraiture, Secular Narratives |
| Medium: |
Oil, Pastel/Conte |
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Biography
| Although he is generally discussed as a Rembrandt follower, Jacob Backer's dependence on that master remains a matter of dispute. Only two years younger than Rembrandt, Jacob carved out his own identity as a portrait painter, though he comes closer to Rembrandt in his history pictures. A superb portraitist. Backer anticipated some of Bartholomeus van der Heist's* treatment of likenesses in that he endowed his sitters with a sense of ease and self-confidence that brought him numerous patrons. Backer had an immensely successful career and became one of the few painters mentioned in most contemporary sources of his time. Born in the port town of Harlingen in 1608, Backer joined Govert Flinck* as a pupil of Lambert Jacobsz in Leeuwarden. The two young painters then went to Amsterdam and both are thought to have joined Rembrandt's atelier during the early 1630s, although no documentary evidence supports Backer's presence there. Backer's oeuvre provides mixed clues. By 1634 he had signed and dated his Portrait of a Boy in Gray (The Hague, Mauri tshuis), one of his finest portraits, which is convincing proof of his artistic maturity and independence by that year. A masterpiece of lighting, modeling, description, and interpretation of its subject, the portrait has no obvious connections with Rembrandt, although the device of very subtly making the head the apex of a compositional triangle is rooted in Rembrandt's own development as a portrait painter. Backer's histories, on the other hand, indicate a familiarity with Rembrandt. In the 1640s Backer moved further away from Rembrandt's style, responding to contemporary trends such as van der Heist's approach to portraiture. Backer shares affinities with the styles of Jan and Salomon de Bray, Pieter de Grebber, and Caesar van Everdingen in stressing decorative and nearly classical balanced compositions filled with idealized figures. Backer's later commissions, not surprisingly, were suited to his approach: allegories and mythologies, chiefly used as chimney pieces. Until his death in 1651, Backer was an important contributor to the classicizing tendency in Dutch art, emphasizing decorative effect through a rather rigid, less fluid style. His fame was such that a commemorative medal was struck to honor him when he died in his early forties. |
Samples of Work
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