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Jan Wijnants (1632 - January 23, 1684)
Jan Wijnants
(1632 - January 23, 1684) |
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Landscape, Genre Narratives Art Work
| Name: |
Jan Wijnants |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Haarlem |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
1632 |
| Death: |
January 23, 1684 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Landscape, Genre Narratives |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
Baroque |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| A minor if influential landscape specialist, Jan Wijnants was particularly important for the development of eighteenth-century English painting (notably the art of Gainsborough). Wijnants is also credited with being the first seventeenthcentury painter to portray a city view in paint with his View of the Heerengracht, Amsterdam (Cleveland Museum of Art). Unique in his oeuvre, (which consists mainly of dunescapes and Italianate landscapes) that picture is a marvelous example of detailed reportage combined with a picturesque sensibility. Few documents elucidate Wijnants's life. His birthdate has been variously estimated between 1620 and 1630, with the years between 1630 and 1632 most often suggested. His father was probably an art dealer named Jan Wijnants the Elder (who is documented in Haarlem in 1642). Jan the Younger likely spent his early years in Haarlem, where the surrounding dunes and sand hills became his principal subject matter. Documented in Haarlem in 1657, Jan was betrothed in Amsterdam early in 1661 and seems to have remained there until his death in 1684. In 1672 he is described there as a painter and an innkeeper. Numerous reports of financial difficulties survive, and upon his death in January 1684 he left his widow and four children deeply in debt. Jan's surviving oeuvre is large. Securely dated examples survive from 1649 on. His early pictures reflect the influence of Cornelius Decker and Dubois; later on, the spell of the Italianate painters injected a wanner light and atmosphere into his paintings. At his best, his clear and direct response to nature is unsurpassed, but that sense of immediacy is often tempered by the addition of stock compositional devices, such as a blasted tree in the foreground or a clump of willows in the middleground. Such artificial repetitions diminish the freshness of his pictures. Nonetheless his gift for transcribing the sense of open air, deep space, and palpable atmosphere is admirable. The similarity between the work of Wijnants and Wouwerman* suggests a mutual influence. Houbraken* reports that Adriaen van de Velde* was his pupil. Van de Velde and Johannes Lingelbach* generally added the staffage to Wijnants's paintings. |
Samples of Work
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