Ludolf Bakhuysen

LUDOLF BACKHUYSEN (Emden, Hanover, 1630 - Amsterdam, 1708)
"Beach Scene". 1663.
oil on panel.
Signed and dated in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 52 x 43 cm; 68 x 60 cm (frame).

In this oil painting the most admired and characteristic aspects of the singular painter Ludolf Bakhuysen coincide: his fascination for the sublimity of nature expressed through thick seascapes, which here is translated into a port landscape reduced to a feral beach. The boats look fragile before the agitation of the waves and the breeze swells the white sails. In the foreground, a group of fishermen offer their merchandise to a gentleman wearing a wide-brimmed hat and his wife. But the human anecdote is an excuse to explore the magnanimity of the sea, crossed with cerulean and silver colors.

Born in Emden, Germany, the marine painter and engraver Ludolf Bakhuysen arrived in Amsterdam in 1649. There he was taught by the landscape painter Allart van Everdingen and the sailor Hendrick Jacobsz Dubbels, two eminent masters of the time, who soon praised his seascapes. His work also reveals the influence of Willem van de Velde I, another nautical specialist. In addition to his views of harbors and portraits of ships, Bakhuysen painted many dramatic scenes of stormy seas and shipwrecks. It was said that he often went to sea when the weather heralded stormy weather to study the effects first hand. He depicted many episodes in Dutch maritime history. When the Van de Veldes moved to England around 1672, Bakhuysen remained the last great artist working in the genre in Holland. During his lifetime, Backhuysen was visited by Cosimo II de Medici and Peter the Great. In 1699 he opened a gallery on the top floor of Amsterdam's famous town hall. After a visit to England, he died in Amsterdam on November 17, 1708.