Mountain Landscape with a Church

Artist/Maker

Material / Technique

Dimensionsh x w: Mått 25 x 34 cm h x w x d: Ram 43 x 50 x 6 cm

Inventory numberNM 2721

AcqusitionPurchase 1929

Other titlesTitle (sv): Landskap med kyrka Title (en): Mountain Landscape with a Church Previous: Landscape with a Church

DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 149: Technical notes: The painting’s support consists of a copper plate with a thickness of ±1 mm. The verso is smooth and shows no signs of its manufacture, such as hammer- or roll marks. Three corners (except the lower left corner) are dented on the verso, and a small piece is missing at the upper left corner. The painting is in excellent condition, with little retouching and moderate abrasion overall. A slightly discoloured layer of old varnish is present. Scattered minor losses occur along the edges and throughout the landscape. A few small retouches are visible near the bottom edge and at the upper right. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1984. Provenance: Purchased in 1929. Exhibited: Stockholm 1977, no. 64 (as Paul Bril). Bibliography: NM Cat. 1931, p. 14 (as Paul Bril); NM Cat. 1941, p. 65 (as Paul Bril); NM Cat. 1958, p. 27 (as Paul Bril); NM Cat. 1990, p. 58 (as circle of Jan Brueghel I); Berger 1993, p. 216 (as circle of Paul Bril). From an elevated position the observer is offered a sweeping panoramic vista across a landscape of mountain highlands to a coastal bay and rolling mountains that stretch to the distant horizon. On the left, the view is closed off by a tall tree growing atop a rocky outcropping and, on the right, by a wall of rocks towering above a river with a waterfall. Winding roads lead diagonally through the landscape, linking the different planes, from the left foreground to the village with a Gothic church on a hill in the middle ground and, passing a gallows on the right, to a coastal town in the far distance. The foreground is animated by small figures: hunters, travellers, a man fishing quietly next to a pigsty, and another answering the call of nature. With its traditional three-colour sequence of planes (brown-green-blue), employed to create a sense of spatial progression, the present picture is indebted to the late Mannerist tradition of Netherlandish landscape painting. The alternation of distinctive light and dark zones supports this effect and enlivens the composition; the predominant brown tone in the foreground forms a foil for the view into the brightly lit valley beyond. The painting entered the collection – erroneously – as a work of the Flemish expatriate landscapist Paul Bril, who was active in Rome (after 1582), and was considered as such until its reattribution, in 1990, to the circle of Jan Brueghel I. The composition, however, seems more closely related to a series of landscapes by Joos de Momper II, partly inspired by Brueghel, which depict wide valley- and highland views, often including villages and churches or small roadside chapels, and framed by trees or rocks in the foreground, like dark silhouettes before a brightly lit middle- and background.1 Examples include the Moscow Landscape with a Chapel (Puschkin Museum)2 and the Wide Mountain Landscape with a Windmill formerly at The Hague.3 This group of landscapes, often with staffage painted by Brueghel, was produced after c. 1610. The colours of this painting closely resemble those of De Momper’s landscapes: dominating brown tones, lighter yellows mixed with green, a bit of blue, white impasto highlights, like a delicate filigree-like net applied last, a few reddish brown accents in the figures. The light, rather loose, painting style enabled the artist to sensitively suggest the fluid nature of the mountain atmosphere. Possibly, the painting was executed by Antwerp artist Marten Rijckaert. Rijckaert is known to have specialized in small-format landscapes like this one, many originally intended for decorated cabinets.4 The present landscape may be interpreted not only in formal but in allegorical terms. A large cross figures prominently, next to the church, in the middle ground, and diagonally across from the church is a gallows on a hill with a group of people gathered nearby. A road passes between cross and gallows, probably allegorizing moral choice.5 The landscape here symbolizes the world in the theological sense, the fallen world. A choice is implied, analogous to that of Hercules at the crossroads – travellers on this road must choose between spiritual life (the cross) and spiritual death (the gallows): “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it” (Matt. 10:38–9). The two tiny figures of pilgrims shown walking towards the entrance of the church can, thus, be seen as having turned to the cross, and to spiritual life, and away from the gallows and spiritual death. CF 1 For a discussion of this group of paintings, see Raczynski 1937, 75–76, figs. 49–53; and Ertz 1986, 187–91, figs. 200–206. 2 Oil on wood, 44 x 73 cm, Moscow, Puschkin Museum, inv. 2631; for which see Ertz 1986, pp. 87, 187, 548 no. 286, fig. 201 (the figures by Jan Brueghel I). 3 Oil on wood, 47 x 73 cm, formerly The Hague, Galerie Nystad, 1959; for which see Ertz 1986, pp. 187, 194, 549 no. 293, fig. 200 (the figures by Jan Brueghel I). 4 Rijckaert painted a large number of similar small-format landscape paintings, on wood or copper, frequently of rectangular format. Cf. for example a series of six small landscapes, in oil on wood, each 5.7 x 10.8 cm, sale, New York, Sotheby’s, 28 January 1999, lot 479; see photographs on file at the RKD, The Hague. The attribution was tentatively suggested by Dr. Luuk Pijl during a visit to the Nationalmuseum in 2005. 5 A gallows is often included in panoramic views by Pieter Bruegel I and others, suggesting in standardized fashion the worldly path as opposed to the way of the devout: where gallows and cross are juxtaposed within these larger landscapes, the former usually connotes the expected end of a dissolute life. Cf. Bruegel’s engr. Magdalena Poenitens, or his painting The Magpie on the Gallows of 1568 in Darmstadt, Hessisches Landesmuseum; for which see Brumble 1979, pp. 126–130, 134–135. See further M. van Vaernewijck, Van de beroerlicke tijden in die nederlanden en voornamelijk te Ghent, 1566–1568, Ghent 1872–1882, I, pp. 26, 228. [END]

Motif categoryLandscape

Collection

MaterialCopper (Metal), Oil paint

TechniquePainting

Object category

Keyword