oil-paint
oil-paint
landscape
romanticism
genre-painting
Dimensions height 136 cm, width 160 cm
Barend Cornelis Koekkoek painted this Forest Scene using oil on canvas. The artist shows mastery of a craft that was centuries in the making. Consider the labour involved here, not just Koekkoek’s own, but that of those who prepared his materials. From grinding pigments to stretching the canvas, each step demanded specialized knowledge and skill. The pastoral scene, bathed in a Romantic glow, invites reflection on our relationship with nature. Yet, this seemingly timeless image is deeply rooted in its own era. As the Industrial Revolution swept across Europe, landscape painting became a way to evoke an idealized past, one seemingly untouched by factories and urban sprawl. The very act of rendering this scene with such care, is a kind of preservation. By looking closely at the painting’s making, we can appreciate its richness and its place in the history of both art, and industry.
Comments
Of all Dutch landscape painters, Koekkoek is perhaps the most Romantic. He specialized in splendid panora-mas of the valley of the Rhine and forest scenes with majestic trees, which at the time were called ‘Wodan’s Oaks’ (Wodan being the Dutch name for Odin, the major god in Norse mythology). In 1834 Koekkoek settled in Cleves in Germany, over the border from Nijmegen. He found German scenery, with its hills and the Rhine, more romantic than the Dutch landscape.
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