The biography of Geisbrecht Leitens was partially restored only in the 20th century.
Came from the city of Antwerp. At first he was an apprentice and studied artistic skills under the guidance of the artist Jacques Vrolik, whose paintings have not been found.
In 1611 he became a painter and a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in Antwerp. From that time on, he had the right to open his own workshop in the city and take on students for training.
The last years of his life are poorly documented. According to various sources, he died either in 1643 or before 1656.
IN late XVI and the beginning of the 17th century, an anonymous artist worked in the Netherlands, conventionally called the Master of Winter Landscapes today, since most of his paintings depict winter. There have been attempts to identify him with Denis Alslot , a little-known Dutch landscape painter. But another hypothesis is much more plausible. One of the paintings by the Master of Winter Landscapes has a monogram and a sign of the Antwerp Guild of Artists burnt on the back. This monogram made it possible to consider the Antwerp master Geisbrecht Leitens (circa 1586 - about 1656) as the author of the painting.
The “Winter Landscape” from the Hermitage collection depicts a corner of Dutch nature: squalid huts under spreading trees, ice-covered ground and figures of people busy everyday work. The artist was able to see the beauty of an ordinary cloudy evening, when the last rays of the setting sun turn pink near the horizon, the trees cast long shadows, and cold blows from the frozen surface of the earth. The painter saw the beauty of the frost-covered branches, intertwined in an intricate pattern and shrouded in frosty air.
Without dividing the landscape into plans, as previous artists did, the Master of Winter Landscapes builds the space of the picture naturally and holistically, which is facilitated by the skillfully used aerial perspective: objects lose their clarity of outline and seem to dissolve in moist air as they move away from the foreground.
The problem of the atmosphere, the interaction of space, light and air - everything worried the artist. The sky occupies more than half of the picture - the painter sought to emphasize its relationship with the earth.
The human figures inhabiting the landscape are inextricably linked with nature and constitute its organic part. Bright spots of their clothes bring animation to the monotonous tone of the picture. Building color on a combination of delicate bluish-gray and pink tones, the artist showed great skill in painting. He painted with a thin liquid layer of paint, sometimes using light and transparent glazes, sometimes thick strokes when he emphasized individual objects. Sometimes light ground shines through the picturesque layer.
Geisbrecht Leytens in many respects anticipated the achievements of the Dutch artists of the 17th century, and not only he. Without the foundation laid in the 16th century, the brilliant flourishing of the art of the subsequent era would not have been possible. Dutch artists began to develop realistic genres - portraiture, everyday life, landscape and still life - finally formed in the 17th century. They created the first group portraits, anticipating the flowering of this genre in the works of Hals and Rembrandt, and achieved great success in drawing, composition, space construction, and improved the technique of painting. And most importantly, they resolutely turned to reality.
Nikolai Nikolaevich Nikulin. "The Art of the Netherlands in the 15th-16th Centuries". Essay guide.
In the exposition of the Kyiv Museum, until recently, this painting was designated as the work of an unknown artist of the circle of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Due to the complete inaccessibility of foreign professional literature, museum workers could not know about the article by the Dutch connoisseur of painting Petrus Reelik, who in 1942 published an exquisite winter landscape from his collection. On the reverse side of this work was a monogram of the letters "G" and "L". In the lists of masters of the guild of Antwerp painters - the guild of St. Luke, the researcher found information about the artist, the initial letters of whose name coincided with the monogram. This name is Geisbrecht Leitens. Taking into account the presence of paintings similar in style in European museums and private collections and the characteristic details of the author's handwriting indicated by V. Shavinsky, P. Reelik suggested that the Master of Winter Landscapes and Geisbrecht Leitens are one and the same artist. The list of authentic works of the master, the researcher expanded from the three indicated by Shchavinsky to eighteen.
In 1973, stubborn archival searches and comparative stylistic analysis allowed the German researcher Edith Graindl to name forty-four reliable paintings by the mysterious Master of winter landscapes. However, the facts from the biography of Geisbrecht Leitens, which the researcher managed to establish by that time, were extremely scarce. The artist was born in 1586 in Antwerp, studied and was an apprentice with the painter Jacques Vrolik, known only by name. In 1611, Geisbrecht Leitens qualified as an independent craftsman in the Guild of St. Luke and from 1617 to 1627 had several students in his own studio. In addition, in the archives of the guild, the artist is mentioned as the captain of the civil watch. For final confidence in the identity of the monogrammer "G.L." and the Antwerp Master of winter landscapes, these documented facts were not enough.
And so, in 1988, in the journal Die Kunst, the German researcher Ursula Herting published a typical painting in style “Winter landscape with a falconer and a frozen stream”. The work was no longer signed with a monogram, but full name artist - Geisbrecht Leitens! Meanwhile, in the Kiev museum, where exactly the painting of the artist is stored, with which the return of the name of Geisbrecht Leitens from non-existence began, nothing was known about the art criticism investigation. In 2006, thanks to the international organization of art researchers in the Netherlands (CODART), I was lucky enough to work in one of the most famous art archives in Europe in The Hague. Here I got acquainted with the materials of this long investigation. It turned out, however, that none of the foreign colleagues had seen or analyzed the Kiev work. The belonging of this painting - not only without a signature, but also without a monogram - by Geisbrecht Leitens still had to be proved.
Let's take a look at our Winter landscape»more attentively: bare trees of a bizarre shape, powdered with the first snow, froze in ice luxury; gnarled branches, tangled in a labyrinth with thousands of bends ... There are many birds on the branches. Here you can recognize jays, hoopoes, several magpies. A pair of kingfishers on the lower branch seem to be waiting for the moment when a peasant standing nearby on the ice breaks a hole with a pole and it will be possible to start underwater fishing.
In most of the Dutch paintings, such hallmarks have already been lost today due to numerous planing of the base. So the restorers prevented the destruction of the painting by wood-boring beetles. We managed to decipher all the hallmarks of the "Winter Landscape".
The first - "two palms" - is burned with an iron brand, red-hot, belongs to the Antwerp Guild of St. Bows and certifies the quality of the board prepared for painting. The sign itself - “two palms”, which is part of the coat of arms of Antwerp, is associated with a long-standing legend about a giant who cut off the hands of those who did not want to pay tax, passing by the city along the Schelde River. According to folk etymology, this is where the name of the city allegedly comes from: Antwerp (in Dutch “hand vrepen”) - “cut off hand”.
The second mark - "castle" - at the next stage of the guild control was already a confirmation of the quality of the artist's work. By "quality" in this case, the inspectors understood only the technological properties of painting and did not concern the assessment of the artistic level of the work. The guild also borrowed the motif of the "castle" from the coat of arms of Antwerp.
The last, third, stigma is “stylized plant motif» - made on the board in a cold way - embossed. This sign belongs personally to the master who made the board, and is almost equivalent to a signature. In addition to the elements of the ornament, the stamp bears the initials of the craftsman. It is also important that the Kyiv painting has a complete set of hallmarks, which is quite rare and can serve as a benchmark when compared with other works by Geisbrecht Leitens.
Consequently, it took almost a hundred years for the final disclosure of the mystery of the “Winter Landscape” from the Shchavinsky collection! Finally, the old label in the Khanenko Museum can be changed. Instead of " Unknown artist circle of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. Beginning of the 17th century. it will soon be marked: "Geisbrecht Leitens (1586-1646/56)".
Nineteenth-century Dutch painter Andreas Schelfhout (February 16, 1787, The Hague - April 19, 1870, The Hague) was an engraver and lithographer known for his winter landscapes. His favorite subject was the snowy winter, scenes of skating on the ice of the Dutch canals.
The paintings of Andreas Schelfhout are characterized by bright and natural color with rich strokes in the depiction of the seasons. Sometimes the artist painted and summer landscapes, sea scenes, but most of all he loved the winter landscape.
Andreas Schelfhout until the age of 24 worked for his father, who had a studio for the production and sale of photographs. After he began to study painting with the artist Joannes Breckenheimer (1772-1856). In 1815, Andreas exhibited his first painting with a winter landscape, which was an unprecedented success with art critics, which was the beginning of a long and brilliant career as an artist. In 1830, the artist visited an exhibition of his paintings in Paris, and was also a member of the PulchriStudio in The Hague. Andreas actively collaborated with other contemporary artists: PieterGerardusvanOs, Joseph Moerenhout and Jacobus Eeckhout, the latter often added his figures to the artist's landscapes. Andreas Schelfhout exhibited regularly in The Hague and Amsterdam. Many of his students became famous artists: Charles Leickert, Nicholas Roosenboom and Willem Troost. He also had a great influence on the work of one of the forerunners of Impressionism - Johan Barthold Jongkind. The work of Andreas Schelfhout is widely represented in many museums around the world, including the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, theTeylers Museum, Haarlem, the Gemeentemusum, The Hague, and the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
Scaters on frozen river with firs Sun
Frozen canal near the Maas Sun
Ice fun sunset
Riverlandscape Sun
Scaters at Koek en Zopie
Scatters in stormy weather Sun
Scatters on canal
Scatters on frozen river
Scatters with sleds Sun
Traveler country road in winter Sun
winter landscape
Winter landscape Sun
Winter market on ice Sun
Winter view with ice boat Sun
Winterlandscape Sun
On the walls of one of the halls art gallery in Berlin, several winter landscapes of the "small Dutch" are presented. Maybe in the summer or spring I would not linger around these works, but after the piercing January wind with drizzling rain, from which the walls of the gallery so well protected, it was the winter scenes that naturally fell on the soul. Artists XVII centuries have been able to see beauty even where it is damp, dank, and the snow has only slightly powdered the road dirt and withered grass. In Art van der Neer's painting, attention shifts to the sunset sky. A golden glow argues with leaden clouds, its reflections enliven the ice, and following the people skating, our gaze slides to the horizon:
Nearby hangs a small canvas by Isaac van Ostade. Here, too, a wonderful pinkish sky. But the bad weather cleared up in earnest, people bend down under the wind. The boats are frozen in the ice. Both of these landscapes originated in the middle of the 17th century, as did the next two works by Jan van Goyen.
One of them depicts winter entertainment near the tavern, the other shows ice skating on a frozen canal or lake. The artist is true to himself: he depicts the most common: a flat landscape, old gnarled trees, an ordinary tavern. People are dressed simply, most often turned their backs to us. The first landscape enlivens only blue sky peeping through the clouds.
And on the second there is not even this - everything is in a foggy haze. It was about such canvases that Johan Huizinga wrote: “Naive devotion to the craft allows the landscape painter to discover unexpected possibilities, within which he simply follows the unstoppable dexterity of his brush. The transmission of the breadth of space and diffused light did not come from any school. Individual objects are either sharply defined or immersed in the atmosphere of the picture as a whole. Artists reach the pinnacle when they are not at all thinking about some big style, show only their unheard-of skill in depicting the everyday, in which they find treasures of beauty, hardly realizing it all. / J. Huizinga. Culture of the Netherlands in the 17th century. Erasmus. Selected letters. Drawings. SPb., 2009, p.112/
Ice skating is an extremely common motif in 17th-century Dutch painting. True, in Berlin there were no paintings by the artist who specialized in this topic - Hendrik Averkamp. Here is his painting from the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The people at the rink are smartly dressed. A waving flag is visible to the left. Perhaps some kind of holiday is depicted.
http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/images/aria/sk/z/sk-a-3247.z
On this canvas, as in the picture from the Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin, people of different classes gathered on the ice, having fun or doing their usual things. In the Moscow picture, in the foreground is a lady in a mask. How can you not think about the hidden meaning? “In the depiction of crowded scenes against the backdrop of a winter landscape, in which people participate different ages and social affiliation, moralistic and emblematic interpretations are already a priori assumed, in particular, as a “skating rink of life”, as a slip of people full of surprises and dangers following a ghostly and deceptive luck” / A visible image and hidden meaning. Allegories and emblems in the painting of Flanders and Holland in the second half of the 16th - 17th centuries. M., 2004, p.2/
http://files.smallbay.ru/images9/avercamp_07.jpg
Among the skaters, H. Averkamp depicts a dandy balancing on one leg. I came across this image at an exhibition at the Queen's Gallery in London. The exhibition was dedicated to the "little Dutch". It featured not only paintings, but also drawings. One of the best was H. Averkamp's sketch:
But back to Berlin. Towards the end, two more winter landscapes, already without any entertainment. This is a canvas by Philips Wauwerman with fishermen, peasants carrying firewood, and a shaky wooden bridge.
After contemplating the Dutch winter landscape, you involuntarily think that we are still more fortunate with winter. And in Russian art there is not only the image of winter slush by Vasiliev or Savrasov, but also the sunny frosty days of Kustodiev.
Holland. 17th century The country is experiencing unprecedented prosperity. The so-called "Golden Age". At the end of the 16th century, several provinces of the country achieved independence from Spain.
Now the Protestant Netherlands went their own way. And Catholic Flanders (now Belgium) under the wing of Spain - its own.
In independent Holland, almost no one needed religious painting. The Protestant Church did not approve of the luxury of decoration. But this circumstance "played into the hands" of secular painting.
Love for this type of art woke up literally every inhabitant new country. The Dutch wanted to see their own life in the pictures. And the artists willingly went to meet them.
Never before has the surrounding reality been depicted so much. Ordinary people, ordinary rooms and the most ordinary breakfast of a city dweller.
Realism flourished. Until the 20th century, he will be a worthy competitor to academism with its nymphs and Greek goddesses.
These artists are called "small" Dutch. Why? The paintings were small in size, because they were created for small houses. So, almost all paintings by Jan Vermeer are no more than half a meter high.
But I like the other version better. In the Netherlands in the 17th century he lived and worked Great master, the "big" Dutchman. And all the others were "small" in comparison with him.
We are talking, of course, about Rembrandt. Let's start with him.
1. Rembrandt (1606-1669)
Rembrandt. Self-portrait at the age of 63. 1669 National London gallery Rembrandt had a chance to experience the widest range of emotions during his life. Therefore, in his early works so much fun and bravado. And so many complex feelings - in the later ones.
Here he is young and carefree in the painting “The Prodigal Son in the Tavern”. On her knees is Saskia's beloved wife. He is a popular artist. Orders are pouring in.
Rembrandt. The prodigal son in the tavern. 1635 Old Masters Gallery, Dresden But all this will disappear in some 10 years. Saskia will die of consumption. Popularity will disappear like smoke. Big house with a unique collection take for debt.
But the same Rembrandt will appear, which will remain for centuries. The naked feelings of the characters. Their most secret thoughts.
2. Frans Hals (1583-1666)
Frans Hals. Self-portrait. 1650 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Frans Hals is one of the greatest portrait painters of all time. Therefore, I would also rank him among the "big" Dutch.
In Holland at that time it was customary to commission group portraits. So there was a lot of similar works depicting people working together: shooters of the same guild, doctors of the same town, managing a nursing home.
In this genre, Hals stands out the most. After all, most of these portraits looked like a deck of cards. People sit at the table with the same expression on their faces and just look. Hals was different.
Look at his group portrait "Arrows of the Guild of St. George".
Frans Hals. Arrows of the Guild of St. George. 1627 Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, Netherlands Here you will not find a single repetition in posture or facial expression. At the same time, there is no chaos here. There are many characters, but no one seems superfluous. Thanks to the surprisingly correct arrangement of figures.
Yes, and in a single portrait, Hals surpassed many artists. His models are natural. People from high society in his paintings are devoid of far-fetched grandeur, and models from the bottom do not look humiliated.
And his characters are very emotional: they smile, laugh, gesticulate. Like, for example, this "Gypsy" with a sly look.
Frans Hals. Gypsy. 1625-1630 Hals, like Rembrandt, ended his life in poverty. For the same reason. His realism went against the tastes of customers. Who wanted to embellish their appearance. Hals did not go for outright flattery, and thus signed his own sentence - "Oblivion".
3. Gerard Terborch (1617-1681)
Gerard Terborch. Self-portrait. 1668 Mauritshuis Royal Gallery, The Hague, Netherlands Terborch was a master household genre. Rich and not very burghers talk slowly, ladies read letters, and a procuress watches courtship. Two or three closely spaced figures.
It was this master who developed the canons of the domestic genre. Which will then be borrowed by Jan Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and many other "small" Dutch.
Gerard Terborch. A glass of lemonade. 1660s. State Hermitage, Saint Petersburg "A glass of lemonade" is one of the famous works Terborch. It shows another advantage of the artist. Incredible realistic image dress fabrics.
Terborch has and unusual work. Which speaks of his desire to go beyond the requirements of customers.
His "Grinder" shows the life of the poorest inhabitants of Holland. We are used to seeing cozy courtyards and clean rooms in the pictures of the “small” Dutch. But Terborch dared to show unattractive Holland.
Gerard Terborch. Grinder. 1653-1655 Berlin State Museums As you understand, such works were not in demand. And they are a rare occurrence even in Terborch.
4. Jan Vermeer (1632-1675)
Jan Vermeer. Artist's workshop. 1666-1667 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna What Jan Vermeer looked like is not known for certain. It is only obvious that in the painting "Artist's Workshop" he depicted himself. True from the back.
Therefore, it is surprising that a new fact from the life of the master has recently become known. It is associated with his masterpiece "Street of Delft".
Jan Vermeer. Delft street. 1657 State Museum in Amsterdam It turned out that Vermeer spent his childhood on this street. The house pictured belonged to his aunt. She raised her five children there. She may be sitting on the doorstep sewing while her two children are playing on the sidewalk. Vermeer himself lived in the house opposite.
But more often he depicted the interior of these houses and their inhabitants. It would seem that the plots of the paintings are very simple. Here is a pretty lady, a wealthy city dweller, checking the work of her scales.
Jan Vermeer. Woman with weights. 1662-1663 National Gallery of Art, Washington How did Vermeer stand out among thousands of other "small" Dutch?
He was consummate master Sveta. In the painting “Woman with Scales”, the light gently envelops the face of the heroine, fabrics and walls. Giving the image an unknown spirituality.
And the compositions of Vermeer's paintings are carefully verified. You will not find a single extra detail. It is enough to remove one of them, the picture will “crumble”, and the magic will go away.
All this was not easy for Vermeer. Such amazing quality required painstaking work. Only 2-3 paintings per year. As a result, the inability to feed the family. Vermeer also worked as an art dealer, selling works by other artists.
5. Pieter de Hooch (1629-1884)
Peter de Hooch. Self-portrait. 1648-1649 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam Hoch is often compared to Vermeer. They worked at the same time, there was even a period in the same city. And in one genre - household. In Hoch, we also see one or two figures in cozy Dutch courtyards or rooms.
open doors and windows make the space of his paintings multi-layered and entertaining. And the figures fit into this space very harmoniously. As, for example, in his painting "Servant with a girl in the yard."
Peter de Hooch. Maid with a girl in the yard. 1658 London National Gallery
Until the 20th century, Hoch was highly valued. But few people noticed the few works of his competitor Vermeer.
But in the 20th century, everything changed. Hoch's glory faded. However, it is difficult not to recognize his achievements in painting. Few people could combine the environment and people so competently.
Peter de Hooch. Card players in the sun room. 1658 Royal Art Collection, London Please note that in a modest house on the canvas "Card Players" there is a picture in an expensive frame.
This once again speaks of how popular painting was among ordinary Dutch. Pictures adorned every house: the house of a wealthy burgher, a modest city dweller, and even a peasant.
6. Jan Steen (1626-1679)
Jan Stan. Self-portrait with a lute. 1670s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid Jan Steen is perhaps the most cheerful "small" Dutchman. But loving moralizing. He often depicted taverns or poor houses in which vice was found.
Its main characters are revelers and ladies of easy virtue. He wanted to entertain the viewer, but implicitly warn him against a vicious life.
Jan Stan. Chaos. 1663 Art History Museum, Vienna Stan also has quieter works. Like, for example, "Morning toilet". But here, too, the artist surprises the viewer with too frank details. There are traces of stocking gum, and not an empty chamber pot. And somehow it’s not at all the way the dog lies right on the pillow.
Jan Stan. Morning toilet. 1661-1665 Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam But despite all the frivolity, Stan's color schemes are very professional. In this he surpassed many of the "small Dutch". See how the red stocking goes perfectly with the blue jacket and bright beige rug.
7. Jacobs Van Ruysdael (1629-1882)
Portrait of Ruisdael. Lithograph from a 19th century book.