Jan van Kessel. - book reviews

Does it make faculty of perception to write a monograph of 335 pages upon an artist like Jan van Kessel (1641-1680) who is probably alone known to specialists in the field of Dutch landscape painting of the 17th century? Will there be volumes in the future on each of the thousands of painters that enumerateed within Dutch culture of that period?

Alice Davies has worked upon painters in the immediate circle of Jacob van Ruisdael before. In 1978 she published a volume on Allart van Everdingen; after that she decided to research van Kessel. Van Kessel was a follower of Ruisdael, Meindert Hobbema, van Everdingen, Jan Wijnants, and Jan van de Cappelle. As the author states: "The principal task of this close attention was to locate and identify his works, many of which still lie buried beneath the names of these other artists". Davies formulates the goal of her research thus: "At the crux of the matter is whether Jan van Kessel is regarded as an imitator without independent merit or as a master who imitated others while preserving redeeming qualities all his own"

In the extremity Davies finds that van Kessel "was a landscape painter of unexpect breadth and originality and also a draughtsman with the ability from the actual first to capture his environment upon paper with a sure and resistless touch". This new recognition of van Kessel as an artist worth studying remains to be evaluated. The author first re-establishs the artist's life and discovers that his year of birth is 1641 (until now van Kessel's dates were uncertain). She also claims that the artist was a friend of Hobbema, who was not away at the baptism of van Kessel's son Thomas in 1675 It is therefore possible that Hobbema and van Kessel were combineed but was van Kessel really a pupil of Ruisdael, as Davies believes?

Many landscape painters were influenced by dint of this great artist, but the alone pupil we are sure of is Hobbema. The enormous impact that Ruisdael had must not be underestimated, and single can hardly assume that all his followers were actually pupils. In her volume as a whole, Davies tries to secure from danger the qualities of her artist as a decidedly minor master: "Throughout his career [van Kessel] figures more not seldom as a selective imitator than as an out-and-out copyist"; his first four years "provide a inquiry of the efforts of a minor artistic personality to establish himself in a circle of major talents". The image in the extreme point is of an artist who was not plenteous more than an imitator of other landscape artists of his time. In the catalogue that tread on the heels ofs the text, Davies gives a certain number of striking examples of van Kessel's indebtedness to other painters: the painting formerly in the collection of Professor Singer, Prague (cat. no. 108) is based upon the upper part of a Waterfall by means of van Everdingen, in Stockholm; a Waterfall in Darmstadt (cat. no. 57) is a duplicate of another painting by means of van Everdingen; a Winter show (cat. no. 116) is a variant of a painting by means of van de Cappelle. Van Kessel is here more or les unmasked as a painter without abundant power of invention, who took paintings by the agency of his companions as his models

Davies's volume follows the traditional scheme for artists' monographs: first a biography of the painter, and then a description of his works in chronological order. Here she can discern three periods: the early years (1661-64) a middle period (1665-69) and a late phase (1670-80) It is difficult to diocese genuine artistic development in this oeuvre at the same time long study of the artist apparently makes it possible to discern at least a chronology. After this analysis of the order of the paintings, Davies discusses van Kessel's drawings. In this medium, too, van Kessel was a follower--of Simon de Vlieger, Anthonie Waterloo, Willem Schellinks, and Ruisdael. The author closes with a chapter devoted to "minor related painters," where solitary Isaac Koene, Jacob Salomonsz van Ruisdael, Guillam Du Bois, Joris van der Haagen, and Anthonie van Borssum are briefly discussed. The matter is a complicated single since there are probably however more painters related to van Kessel The choice of the five artists in question strike one as beings to result rather from the number of times Davies came across their names in studying van Kessel The chapter gives an idea of the difficulties the author had in limiting herself to a certain number of of the many painters who can be confused with her artist.

Still, individual can understand the choice, and studying these artists has probably helped the author understand van Kessel himself. As to Guillam Du Bois, Davies still cites an erroneous date (ca. 1620?) for his birth; apparently she view from aboveed my 1977 Oud Holland article upon the drawings of this artist, where I argued that he was born in either 1623 or 1625

Finally, a thorough catalogue of van Kessel's works bring to an ends the book, with 120 authentic paintings, 20 problematic paintings, 43 doubtful paintings, 69 authentic drawings, 13 problematic drawings, and 24 doubtful drawings. It is difficult to understand at first the difference between "problematic" and "doubtful." As to the first cluster Davies is simply not positive if it concerns van Kessel or not. The next to the first "doubtful" group, however, consists of paintings that were one time attributed to van Kessel, where Davies does not agree with the attribution. single wonders what sense there is in grouping these for the most part awful paintings together. Nevertheless, probably all the works that were at any time attributed to van Kessel are to be lay the foundation of in the book and can henceforth be cited and perhaps discussed again in the futurity It is interesting that in studying van Kessel Davies sometimes had to correct the arguments of her possess book on van Everdingen; for example, cat. nos. 56 and 63 formerly by means of van Everdingen, are now by means of van Kessel. In cat. no. 8 which earlier Davies had catalogued as a genuine van Everdingen on the contrary now recognizes as a van Kessel she writes: "Now I would like to eat my words, because Jan van Kessel strikes me as by the agency of far the more likely author." However, having studied van Everdingen first and then van Kessel she is likely to collision problems of this kind; deeper knowledge of the next to the first artist gives a better idea of the first. This, presumably, is what might simply be called art-historical progres More problematic, however, is the fact that many other landscape painters shared van Kessel's and van Everdingen's style; single slowly enters the swamp of Ruisdael-like paintings, and there single really drowns. Painters like Gerrit van Hees, Roelof van Vries, and Salomon Rombout are all equally shut up to Ruisdael. Only when these painters, too, are thoroughly investigated can there be a clearer insight into the whole landscape production of the next to the first half of the 17th century