| Landscape with Venus and Adonis | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Tobias Verhaecht |
| Year | c. 1600 |
| Catalogue | CTB.1996.177 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 40 cm × 68 cm (15.7 in × 26.7 in) |
| Location | Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid |
Landscape with Venus and Adonis is an oil-on-canvas painting by Flemish painter Tobias Verhaecht. The work was probably painted in the 1600s, and is now in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid.
Painting
The view is from a vantage point. A river stretches down into a wide valley. To the left, two separate castles are visible behind the tall trees sitting on the wooded slope. In the foreground, on the roadside, there sit Venus and Adonis. A putto and Adonis' hunting dogs sit close by. From the foreground, a stony road unbends down into the dale. In the middle distance there stands a long palace's garden. High highlands are discernible in the misty background.
While Verhaecht reportedly visited Italy (living in Rome, where he reportedly was active as a painter of landscape frescos) his landscape paintings bear the mark of the Northern landscape tradition, and evince the influence of Brueghel and Patinir. Landscape with Venus and Adonis, like many other paintings by Verhaecht, depicts an imaginary, Weltlandschaft landscape characterized by mountainous topography. The Weltlandschaft tradition was popularized by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Verhaecht didn't paint his drawing or drew his studies while crossing the Alps in the context of his trip to Italy (possibly in the 1580s). Some of his mountain landscapes and drawings thereof are dated a late as 1620, long after his return to Flanders.
The custom of inserting biblical and mythological figures in the landscape paintings, practiced by Verhaecht contemporary landscapists such as Joos de Momper and Paul Bril, goes back to the first landscapists, which include Joachim Patinir and Herri met de Bles. These figures are but adornment to the real subject, the landscape, although they may give a painting its title and convey moral meanings, sometimes paralleled by items in the landscape.
References
- ^ "Mountainous Landscape with Venus and Adonis". Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Archived from the original on 24 July 2021. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Tomás Llorens Serra (1999). Painting Nature Genre and Landscape Painting from Brueghel to Van Gogh : Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection : 1 October 1999 to 16 January 2000. Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. p. 68. ISBN 9788488474629.
- Hans Heinrich Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, Thomas Llorens (2001). Landscapes from Brueghel to Kandinsky The Exhibition in Honour of the Collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza. Madrid: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. p. 68. ISBN 9783775711074.
- Hans Devisscher. "Verhaecht , Tobias." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 29 July 2014
- "Paul Bril". Mauritshuis. Archived from the original on 3 June 2020. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
External links
- Painting at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum Archived 2021-07-24 at the Wayback Machine
