Arcadian landscape with figures, Jan Frans Van Bloemen, The Horizon (Antwerp 1662 – Rome 1749)

Valuable painting depicting 'Arcadian landscape with figures along a watercourse and villages in the distance', attributed to Jan Frans Van Bloemen, The Horizon (Antwerp 1662 – Rome 1749).

Oil painting on canvas
Provenance: Lempertz Cologne, 15.05.2002, Old Master Paintings, Drawings & Sculptures (Estimate 35.000 euros)

This significant Arcadian landscape, wide-ranging and classical, formed by an aristocratic picture gallery, clearly refers to the hand of one of the greatest landscape painters active in Rome between the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century, Jan Frans Van Bloemen known as L' Horizon. It is a real but idealized view of the Roman countryside, interpreted with pastoral sensitivity where the gaze is lost in the distant horizon.

The work reflects an emblematic example of Bloemen's landscape painting, where it is possible to trace the salient points of his painting, such as the horizons shining with the changing play of light and shadow, the hills kissed by an almost fairytale-like luminosity in pastel tones, the green intensity of the vegetation and the typical touches of light alternating between the branches of the trees, as well as the plateaus and hills in the background, drenched in light.

The artist was a skilled master in describing the Roman countryside with a purely idyllic sensitivity, permeated by suggestions oscillating between mythology and reality, and with an atmosphere that recalls the myth of Arcadia.

The structure of the composition, dotted with numerous villages arranged in different perspective levels, recalls the Lazio districts between Orvieto and Orte, bringing to mind the Tivoli area, one of the favorite locations during the Grand Tour, crossed by the Aniene river, on whose banks we see some figures of fishermen.

Of Flemish origins, Van Bloemen learned the art of drawing in his homeland, initially studying with Anton Goubau. After a documented stay in Paris between 1682 and 1684, he moved to Italy with his brother Pieter (also a painter, known by the nickname "Stendardo"), passing from Turin to Rome, the latter city where he resided permanently, except for a short trip to southern Italy.

After a debut entirely oriented towards the execution of landscapes markedly by Dughetti, he acquired an extraordinary fame as a landscape painter in Rome at the end of the seventeenth century, earning the nickname "Orizzonte". His lively, brilliant colours, sometimes tending towards pastel tones, gradually overthrew the hegemony of the brown tones and dark backdrops typical of his famous predecessor Dughet.

Furthermore, there are the stylistic suggestions that he had borrowed from fellow painters such as Claude Lorrain and Jacob de Heusch, without forgetting Andrea Locatelli, his bitter rival in claiming the role of the greatest exponent of that genre in Rome.

The painting is in an excellent state of conservation, perfectly restored, accompanied by a beautiful golden frame.

The work, like all our objects, is sold accompanied by a certificate of photographic authenticity in accordance with the law.

For further information you are welcome to contact us.

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