5. The First Generation of Landscape Painters

At this point we must go back to the beginning of the 17th century and turn our attention to landscape painting. Once again, fleeting mention at least must be made of the Flemish artists to avoid any gross misrepresentation of the image of the group of specialists in the field. Needless to say, landscape art in Rome did not assume a purely Flemish character due to the presence of the brothers Paul and Matthijs Bril.⁹⁶ Venice and Bologna, in particular, could point to a vibrant local tradition, the leading representative of which in Bologna was Annibale Carracci (1560-1609). In 1600 the brothers Bril were joined in Rome by Adam Elsheimer (1578-1610), whose small landscapes with their mythological and biblical staffage evoked intense admiration. Whereas Matthijs Bril, who died as early as 1583, adhered to Mannerist landscapes, his younger brother Paul Bril (1553/54-1626), who was fortunate enough to be able to express himself in both frescoes and cabinet paintings, initiated a move towards naturalistic landscapes. The frescoes in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere (c. 1599) [i][i] and the Vatican (1606/7) [i] – to mention just two of his works – are outstanding atmospheric landscapes which had a great impact.⁹⁷

The older Guilliam van Nieulandt I (c. 1560-1626), whom the Italians called Guglielmo Terranova, was in Rome with his nephew Guilliam van Nieulandt II (1584-1635) before the turn of the century.⁹⁸ The latter, who was trained by Paul Bril, returned to Antwerp in 1604 and later settled in Amsterdam.⁹⁹ We are familiar with a number of his charming drawings in pen and wash of Roman ruins, the layered composition of which was a feature characteristic of his teacher [i][i].¹⁰⁰ These topographically fascinating sketches must have been very popular north of the Alps. In 1618, van Nieulandt published in Antwerp a book of engravings of ancient Roman ruins, for which he probably also used drawings by his uncle who had remained in Rome. He made etchings after works by Bril as well.¹⁰¹ His paintings were much plainer and more schematic than those of his model. His nephew, Adriaen van Nieulandt (1586/7-1658) , who probably never went to Rome, also painted views of the city, for which he was able to find sufficient models in the north.

In taking Adam Elsheimer as their source of inspiration, a second exclusively Dutch group to visit Rome in the first decade of the 17th century largely turned their backs on pure landscapes. This group included Pieter Lastman (1583-1633)[i], Jan Tengnagel (1584-1635), Jan Pynas (c. 1581/2-1631)¹⁰² [i][i] and his brother Jacob Pynas (c. 1592/3-after 1650),¹⁰³ Mozes van Wtenbrouck (c. 1595-1647)¹⁰⁴ and Hendrick Goudt (c. 1583-1648), the latter not as a painter but as an engraver of Elsheimer’s compositions [i].¹⁰⁵ The members of this group discarded the Mannerist flourishes of their youth, embracing instead the composed, classical style characteristic of Elsheimer and Carracci. Like Dutch Caravaggism, this movement runs counter to the dissemination of Dutch art, so we will have to content ourselves here with this brief reference to it.¹⁰⁶

Gerard ter Borch I (1582/83-1662), who travelled to Rome via Germany and Venice, resumed the tradition established by Maarten van Heemskerck, Paulus Bril and the Nieulandts of producing drawn vedute of ruins. Between 1607 and 1609 he drew the Colosseum in Rome [i], Constantine’s Arch [i], the ‘termo Antoniano’ [i][i] and many other ruins. He also searched for motifs ‘buytten Roma’ (outside Rome) [i][i]; he went to Tivoli and was in Naples in 1610 [i].¹⁰⁷

François van Knibbergen (1596/7-after 1664) was in Italy in 1614 and Pieter de Molijn (1596-1661) entered his name in Wybrand de Geest’s (1592-1661) friendship album in Rome in 1618,¹⁰⁸ but there appears to be no firm evidence of Jan van de Velde’s (1593-1641) sojourn in Rome.¹⁰⁹ None of Knibbergen’s ‘Italian’ works have survived; he followed so closely in the wake of Jan van Goyen that there are no Italian elements whatsoever in his style. Various works recalling their stay in Italy have come down to us from Jan van de Velde II and Pieter de Molijn. The two drawings by Molijn, however, are works based on the memories of his youth that he produced as an old man in Holland in 1653 and 1658 [i][i].¹¹⁰

More important for our purposes and of greater significance is the graphic oeuvre of Cornelis van Poelenburch (1594/5-1667)¹¹¹ and Bartholomeus Breenbergh. Poelenburch was in Rome from 1617 to 1622, although he spent some time during those years in Florence [i], where he must have met Jacques Callot. It can be assumed that Poelenburch also learned from Elsheimer and he will definitely have admired Bril’s works. However, he was probably the first Dutch landscape painter whose works attracted attention in Rome because of their artistic and not their topographical character and consequently found their way into Italian collections.¹¹² Poelenburch’s charming cabinet pieces featuring dancing putti and rejoicing angels [i] as well as a peaceful flight into Egypt [i] are more graceful than the mythological images of Francesco Albani (1578-1660) from Bologna, who was highly regarded by his contemporaries. Poelenburch also presents his vedute in a new guise [i][i].

One senses that he had experienced the mood of the south and attempted to capture its sunny glow on light paper and with rapid strokes of the brush. His drawings are thus freed of the final vestiges of the pedantic rendering of antiquity with which artists were still burdened as a legacy of the 16th century. He viewed the Arch of Titus from an unconventional and unrepresentative angle [i] and was fond of picturesque ruins and ancient statues which cast peculiar harsh shadows [i]. His works were occasionally engraved, although they forfeited a great deal of their painterly charm in the process. It was perhaps not until he was back in Holland that Poelenburch produced most of his vedute, for like all his contemporaries he naturally invented other compositions at home that were based on his abundant memories of Italy. When he was in the country he seems to have preferred red chalk for his drawings.¹¹³

This type of landscape art was continued by Bartholomeus Breenbergh (1598-1657), who was active in Rome from 1620 to 1629 [i][i].¹¹⁴ He started out as a pupil of Paulus Bril and his rich drawn oeuvre makes it possible to monitor his progress from Mannerism to the natural rendering of nature from a predominantly aerial perspective. In all probability the older Poelenburch nudged him in the right direction. The landscape images he produced during his time in Rome are painted in a gentle and airy manner in the style of Poelenburch [i]; later on he was exposed to other influences which led him to embrace Amsterdam-style classicism.¹¹⁵

Breenbergh’s drawings are very similar to the early works of Claude Lorrain (1604/5-1682). Claude is said to have worked in the studio of Agostino Tassi (1578-1644) in 1617 when he was 13 years of age. He then disappeared from sight before re-emerging in Rome in 1625 and again in 1627. By this time, however, Breenbergh had already consolidated his painterly, ‘sunny’ style, which Claude admired and must have assimilated. We mentioned earlier that Claude and Breenbergh knew each other, since they were next door neighbours, as it were, in the Via del Babuino in 1625.¹¹⁶ Claude may have incorporated some Netherlandish elements from Agostino Tassi as well. Tassi, who worked with Remigio Cantagallina (1575-1656)¹¹⁷ in Livorno around 1600, was in Rome when he met Paulus Bril, whose works made a great impression on him.¹¹⁸ Evidence of this is provided by Tassi’s coastal views in Palazzo Lancellotti [i][i] and Palazzo Doria Pamphili [i][i]. In these scenes, which date to the second half of the 1630s, Tassi moves beyond Bril’s layered composition. Could it be that he, too, perceived something in the loose and airy renderings of the Dutch landscape painters? It was not given to the Dutch artists to try out this style in frescoes, but Tassi, who copied one of Bril’s cabinet paintings [i], will also have been familiar with the paintings and drawings by Poelenburch and Breenbergh.

Tassi’s pupil Gottfried Wals (c. 1595/1600-in or after 1638), a native of Cologne who according to Baldinucci was Claude Lorrain’s teacher, must also have made drawings in the manner of Breenbergh, although no definitive judgment can be made on the basis of the few unsigned works that have survived [i].¹¹⁹ It is strange, however, that the 60 landscapes and 14 gouaches recorded in the collection of the Gaspar Roomer (1595-1674) should have disappeared entirely.¹²⁰

Be that as it may, the Dutch played an active part in the formation of the Romantic image of Italy, which Claude would later perfect. The ties between this early group of Northern European, French and Italian artists become closer if we include the Bamboccianti genre painters, especially the Fleming, Jan Miel, who added staffage figures in the style of the Dutchman, Pieter van Laer, to paintings by Sacchi, Tassi and Claude. In the 1630s, the landscape art of Elsheimer and Breenbergh experienced a harmless second flowering in the works of Claes Moeyaert (1591-1661), Nicolaes Latombe (1616-1676), Marten de Cock,¹²¹ Jan van Bronchorst (c. 1603-1661) (who specialised in etchings after Poelenburch) [i]),¹²² Steven van Goor (1607/8-after 1659) and Chaerles de Hooch (died 1638) [i].¹²³ Jan Both, who viewed the Roman Campagna through the eyes of Claude Lorrain in the second half of the 1630s, marks the start of a second period of Dutch landscape painting which we will examine later.¹²⁴