Hercules Seghers - Paintings

Paintings

He was probably best known to his contemporaries for his paintings of landscapes and still-life subjects; his paintings are also rare, with perhaps only fifteen surviving (one was destroyed in a fire in October 2007 ). The Stadholder, Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange bought landscapes in 1632. Many of his painted landscapes are fantastic mountainous compositions, whereas in his prints it is often the technical approach rather than the subject which is extreme. His painted landscapes tend to show a wide horizontal view, with emphasis on earth rather than sky; two in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin had strips of sky added at the top later in the century to meet a changed taste. Apart from Coninxloo, Seghers drew from the Flemish landscape tradition, perhaps especially Joos de Momper and Roelandt Savery, but also the "fantastic and visionary aspects of Mannerist" landscape painting. The 1680 inventory of the collection of the marine painter Jan van de Cappelle, who owned five paintings by Seghers, describes one as a view of Brussels, which if correct would presumably mean Seghers travelled there, probably when young, when his style shows most Flemish influence (in so far as the chronology of his work is clear).