Holger Hvidtfeldt Jerichau

HOLGER HVITFELDT JERICHAU (Copenhagen, 1861-1900).
"Two Men in Benares". 1884.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, located and dated in the lower left corner.
Preserves period frame.
It presents some faults in the golden frame.
Measurements: 60 x 40 cm; 82 x 62 cm (frame).

Holger Hvidtfeldt Jerichau lived in several Asian countries, especially in India. His travel paintings transcend the orientalist anecdote, as can be seen in this canvas. Two natives soak their feet in the Ganges, and the sacredness of the Hindu river is contagious in the clarity of the atmosphere, limpid and calm. Their dark complexion contrasts with the whiteness of the drapery. Slender palm trees prop up the sky, and their canopies paint the turquoise blue with their greenery. The warm luminosity of the sky is reflected in the transparent surface of the crystalline water, as well as the masculine silhouettes reverberate in it, melting in chromatic myriads that glide in rhythmic swaying. The huts huddle together on the slope, completing a picture that conveys an idyllic and romantic vision of this Indian landscape.
Holger Hvidtfeldt Jerichau was a Danish landscape painter. His brother, Harald Jerichau, was also a well-known painter of the same genre. He was the son of sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau and his wife, painter Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann. He was initially apprenticed as a merchant in Germany and Italy, but showed little aptitude for that career. He therefore chose to follow in his parents' footsteps. He received most of his training from his mother, but also studied with tutors abroad. He never attended art school. From 1884 he exhibited landscapes with Italian motifs. He lived abroad most of his life, mainly in Italy, but also in southern Russia and Asia, including a year in India (1893-94). Most of his Danish landscapes date from 1885 and 1886, when he lived near Hørsholm and married Anna Frederikke Birch, daughter of the local registrar. Their son, Jens Adolf, a promising expressionist painter, committed suicide at the age of twenty-five. Much of his work is today described as superficial, and obviously aimed at the tastes of the widest possible public. Despite the cultural diversity of the places where he lived and visited, his choice of subjects is often banal and the colors very simple. He died at Christmas 1900, and is buried in Hørsholm cemetery. Although he was only thirty-nine years old, his total output was considerable.