Pieter de Molijn
(1595 - 1661) |
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Nocturnal Scenes, Hunting Scenes, Landscapes, Art Work
| Name: |
Pieter de Molijn |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
London |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
1595 |
| Death: |
1661 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Nocturnal Scenes, Hunting Scenes, Landscapes, |
| Medium: |
Oil on canvas |
| Method: |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painter
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Biography
| One of three prominent early seventeenth-century Haarlem painters (along with Esaias van de Velde and Jan van Goyen), Molijn is today less well known, but scholars credit him with being the most adventuresome interpreter of landscapes during the 1620s. Together with van de Velde and van Goyen, Molijn helped make Haarlem the principal center for Dutch landscape painting in which Italianate conventions were eschewed in favor of new and innovative compositions based on studies of nature. Molijn helped make nature, particularly atmosphere, the animating and unifying element Sky begins to dominate and the human presence diminishes in importance. Dramatic compositional devices, particularly diagonals, organize the image and emphasize nature's vibrant aspect. Although Molijn's experiments in finding new approaches to landscape were less prolonged than those of his contemporaries, his are acknowledged as the earliest. Born in London of Dutch parents, Molijn was baptized there on 6 April 1595. His family moved to the Netherlands at some unknown date. In 1616 he joined the Haarlem painters* guild, and he remained in that city for the rest of his life. He married there in 1624. Records document his service in the guild between 1630 and 1649. His master is unknown. Scholars now discount earlier assertions that he studied with Frans Hals but accept Houbraken's account that Allan van Everdingen studied with Molijn. Gerard Ter Borch was Molijn's most famous pupil. Molijn's earliest pictures are undated, so his development from the time he was established as a master in 1616 until 1625, when his first dated pictures are known, is a matter of some speculation. Abraham Bloemaert* may have had some impact on the young artist. Esaias van de Velde, working in Haarlem during the early part of Molijn's career, must also have been a vital source of inspiration. By 1617 Molijn also may have met Jan van Goyen, who came that year to study with van de Velde. Molijn's earliest surviving dated paintings are from 1625 and reflect a varied subject matter, includingNoctumal Street Scene (dated 1625, Brussels, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique) and The Stadtholder Going to the Chase (Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland) as well as Wooded View with Hunter (Darlington, Raby Castle, Lord Barnard). Five works of 1626 are generally noted as the earliest dated manifestations of his new treatment of landscape. Of these, the painting Dunes (dated 1626, Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum) has been called (by Wolfgang Stechow) one of the cornerstones of Dutch landscape painting. Here the clouds billow up and envelop the scene in dampness, while the overall contrasts of light and shadow subordinate various details; the image is succinctly knit together out of several effectively placed diagonal elements. The effect is far more dramatic than anything done by van de Velde and van Goyen at this time. Similar treatment is found in Molijn's four etchings of landscapes, which, though still dependent on Bloemaert's ideas of genre, emphasize landscape for its own sake. Molijn continued to produce paintings of dunes and Dutch landscape during the later 1620s. Today those works are regarded as seminal in the development of the tonal landscape, which was to become the most advanced approach to landscape in Holland during the next decade. His early paintings probably influenced both van Goyen and Salomon van Ruysdael, the latter particularly in his treatment of beach and winter scenes. But those artists later eclipsed Molijn with their further advances in painting, while Molijn himself began to concentrate instead on landscape drawings, often created as finished and independent works. These later drawings are considered the most beautiful of his graphic oeuvre. Generally given a border by the artist, executed in black chalks with a gray wash, they hark back to his earlier compositions, evoking the isolation of figures seen from the back and set in the barren dune landscapes around Haarlem. Toward the late 1650s these drawings were executed on larger sheets and done in a broader format. |
Samples of Work
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