Landscape with a Road through a Beech Forest
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 90 x 125 cm h x w x d: Ram 109 x 142 x 11 cm
Inventory numberNM 1147
AcqusitionBequest 1872 of Carl Leonard Kinmanson, Marshal of the court
Other titlesTitle (sv): Landskap med väg vid kanten av en bokskog Title (en): Landscape with a Road through a Beech Forest Previous: Landscape with a Road through a Wood of Beeches
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 218: Technical notes: The painting’s support (lined) consists of a single piece of dense, medium-weight, plainweave linen with a selvedge at the top and bottom edges. The left and right tacking edges trimmed, with strips of the original paint surface, resp. c. 1.7 cm and 9.2 cm, have been folded over the edge of the new strainer. Paint is applied thinly – except in the sky – in opaque layers over a thick brush-applied whiteish ground layer, with pastose lights in the foliage and clouds. The ground completely obscures the canvas texture. Infrared reflectography revealed a loosely executed, extensive underdrawing in a dry, crumbly medium, possibly charcoal, delineating the main elements of the landscape and frequently diverging from the final painting: the contours of the road in the right foreground and the shoreline on the left, of the fluffy clouds, the tree trunks and foliage, the horizon line above the church on the left. The drawn contours of the tree trunks were then gone over with a pointed brush. The shady patch beneath the large tree at centre right is indicated by vigorous parallel hatching, curved parallel hatching occurs in a few of the tree trunks on the right, and the irregular surface of the sandy bluffs is indicated by loose, zig-zagging lines. In addition, a broad, brush-applied underdrawing in a liquid medium was detected in the foreground area on the right, in the road and the sandy bluffs. The staffage is painted free-hand, without prior drawing, over the landscape. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1976. Provenance: Bequeathed by Carl Leonard Kinmanson in 1872. Bibliography: NM Cat. 1872, p. 82 (as Lucas van Uden); Göthe 1887, p. 269 (as Lucas van Uden); Göthe 1893, p. 325; NM Cat. 1958, p. 203 (attributed to Lucas van Uden); NM Cat. 1990, p. 361 (attributed to Lucas van Uden). In the foreground of this tranquil rural scene, several peasants, men and women carrying round pitchers and baskets with laundry, walk along a wide sandy road leading out of a dense beech forest, illuminated by patches of sunlight. A single figure appears in the path further on. The forest depicted in the right half of the composition, dominated by a few majestic, broadbranched trees, gives way on the left to an airy view of a pond or stream, and a deep vista over distant wooded plains punctuated by the steepled silhouette of a church. On the left, trees and clouds are reflected in the waters’ placid surface. In his landscapes Lucas van Uden favoured picturesque woodland scenery, resembling the topography of the Forest of Soignes, located to the south and east of Brussels, a favourite hunting terrain for the local nobility since the Middle Ages. Although large areas remained relatively wild and unpopulated throughout the 17th century, the forest encompassed the ducal castle of Tervueren, as well as other country estates, small hamlets, several convents and monasteries. The dense woodland scenery, generously interspersed with open heath and numerous small ponds and streams, was a constant source of inspiration for Brussels landscapists beginning in the first quarter of the 17th century. In his paintings, watercolour drawings and etchings of the 1640s and ’50s Van Uden depicted numerous views of woodland settings with rows of slender ash trees or birches lining a brook or stream, inspired by the Soignes forest scenery as well as prototypes in the work of Rubens.1 He generally preferred views at the edge of the forest, which afforded the juxtaposition of bosky woods with airy vistas of water and open land, and enabled him to include a greater variety of tree forms and other vegetation native to the area. In composition and execution this painting is very close to Van Uden’s signed Wooded Landscape with Peasants, which was on the Dutch art market in 1994.2 The crisp handling of the feathery foliage of the tall foreground trees can be compared with further signed examples of the genre, including a picture that was on the Dutch art market in 1995,3 and another, signed and dated “1646”, in an English private collection.4 The characteristic sketchy underdrawing in a dry medium revealed by infrared reflectography (see Technical Notes) can be compared with the artist’s rare studies of individual trees, or groups of trees, executed in black chalk.5 Although naturalistic in conception, Van Uden’s landscapes are generally built up according to a set formula. The foreground usually has a small river bank or hillside to one side of the picture, topped by tall slender trees with transparent foliage – and with one or more trees growing at an angle – while the opposite side offers a deep vista of peaceful fields and meadows with rows of small rounded trees, and small ponds or streams with beautifully captured reflections of light, trees and clouds. As in the present picture, the colours are rather pale – principally dull green, pinkish brown and the yellow tone of the sunbeams – and the whole is bathed in a unifying silvery green haze. CF 1 See, among numerous examples, an oil painting (oil on canvas, 41 x 64 cm) that was on the British art market in 1953 (sale, London, Christie’s, 15 May 1953, lot 150); see a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague; a drawing in pen and ink, with watercolours, 232 x 355 mm, in Hamburg (Kunsthalle, inv. no. 22594); see a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague; and a drawing of A Woodland Scene with a Stream of c. 1640 in a private collection; see Wellesley, Mass/Cleveland, Ohio 1993/1994, no. 72, illus. [A-M. Logan]. And cf. a drawing of a similar motif, the Wooded Landscape with Monastery, dated 1640, in London (Courtauld Institute of Art Galleries, Witt Coll.); see New York/London 1986, no. 23, illus. 2 Oil on wood, 41.6 x 64.7 cm, signed, Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian, 1994; see a photograph on file in the artist’s dossier in the Service d’étude et de documentation des Peintures, Musée du Louvre, Paris. 3 Oil on wood, 41.6 x 64.8 cm, signed, sale, Amsterdam, Christie’s, 8 May 1995, lot 19; see the photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague. Cf. also the Forest Landscape with Cows, oil on canvas, 69 x 93 cm, signed, Budapest, The Museum of Fine Arts, inv. no. 734; see Cat. Budapest 2000, p. 167, illus. 4 Oil on canvas, 40.5 x 63 cm, signed and dated “1646”, England, priv. coll.; see a photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague. 5 See, for example, the Landscape with a Group of Trees by a Sandy Road (black chalk, heightened with white, on paper given a blue wash, 300 x 211 mm, Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, inv. no. NMH 1956/1863.[End]
Motif categoryLandscape
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword