Flemish school; mid-17th century

Flemish school; mid-17th century.
"Landscapes".
Oil on canvas.
The two paintings are re-drawn.
They present restorations on the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 128 x 84 cm; 137 x 202 cm (frame).
Set of landscape scenes that present a similar finish as for the use of the same chromatic range, based on ochre and greenish tones, with areas in cobalt blue that enhance the scene and provide greater vitality. Despite this similarity, the composition differs in both cases. The two images show small figures, in fact, in one of them it is possible to identify Saint Roque, so it is likely that both scenes form a narrative ensemble in which actions from the saint's life are narrated, and it is probable that they belonged to a larger pictorial cliché. In the Baroque period, landscapes were rarely depicted without the use of genre themes, as landscape painting as a genre was not fully established until the 19th century. In the West, landscape did not appear as a fully independent genre in art until almost the 17th century, thanks to Dutch painting (especially Jacob van Ruysdael). It was treated as a mere backdrop in the Middle Ages until the Renaissance began to show interest in it. It is striking to note the large production of the period, which was aimed at the increasingly wealthy urban bourgeoisie, an abundance of works and a proliferation of pictorial genres. One of these genres was landscape, which developed greatly from the 17th century, a time when it had not yet appeared as an independent theme, without needing the presence of an anecdote in order to exist. Like other genres that became very popular in Flanders during the 17th century, landscape painting has its roots in the Dutch pictorial tradition of the 15th century. The background landscapes in the religious works of Van Eyck, de Bouts and van der Goes occupy a much more important place as an artistic element in these works than landscape painting in Italian painting of the same period. With regard to the representation of the narrative, the landscape of the Flemish Primitives plays an essential role, not only as a natural setting for the characters but also to separate and set the various episodes of the story narrated in the work. With regard to the imitation of nature, 15th-century Flemish painters sought to depict the countryside and towns of their native country in their religious landscapes, detailing their flora with botanical precision and even giving an idea of the time of day and the season of the year in which the scene takes place. This special interest in depicting the landscape increased as the 16th century progressed, when a new type of landscape was developed and popularised for sacred scenes: the panoramic view. Very soon, however, it was the depiction of the landscape itself that was to receive the attention of painters and, of course, of the public. In the panoramic views of Joachim Patinir and his followers the roles are reversed: the religious subject is an excuse for the landscape. In these paintings the landscape becomes completely independent of any narrative, and this is the direction that the Flemish and Dutch painters of the late 16th and early 17th centuries were to follow, a time when landscape painting became very popular in the Low Countries and specialists in the genre began to proliferate. Gillis van Coninxloo, Paul Bril, Jan Brueghel the Elder and Joos de Momper are the most distinguished landscape painters of the transition from the 16th to the 17th century, and each of them gave their vision of landscape a very personal stamp.