Landscape
Gillis van Coninxloo
An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art
In its unfinished state, this pen and gouache landscape has an almost ghost-like appearance. This is partly due to the strong contrast of the colors on the brown paper. Originally, however, the sheet would have had a very different appearance: the edges of the drawing show that the paper actually was blue, but has discolored due to the exposure to sunlight. In its original state, the gouaches therefore would not have stood out as much, and the drawing would have been more legible and appealing. The anonymous author of this landscape was clearly influenced by the works of the Dutch painter Gillis Coninxloo. Coninxloo worked in the early 1600s and was a pivotal figure in the development of the forest landscape. His detailed and realistic forest interiors were a distinct move away from the fanciful mannerist mountain valleys of earlier decades. Various prints after Coninxloo’s designs were made, increasing the dispersal of his inventions and these were an important means for the dispersal of his inventions. It has the appearance that the author of this drawing composed the landscape by assembling various visual elements, deriving from these engravings. Coninxloo’s Landscape with Samson Killing the Lion, for example, shows a strikingly similar castle on a hilltop with various arched structures surrounding it. The Landscape with the Judgement of Paris , likewise depicts cottages along a forest edge, resembling the ones in our drawing.[1] Another indication that this might be the work of a copyist is the fact that the draftsman seems to have been preoccupied with the delineation of the outlines of the structures he depicted. His cautious lines lack the freedom of an original designer, whose creative process would have shown less premeditation. Clearly, the drawing was left unfinished. Possibly the stains of spilled paint in the upper right led the artist to discard the sheet. [1] This comparison was made by W. Wegner, ‘Zeichnungen von Gillis van Coninxloo und seiner Nachfolge’, Oud Holland LXXXII (1967), p. 215 and 221.
Drawings and Prints
An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.