Lot 676 | Jacques-Guillaume van Blarenberghe | The Four Seasons

BLARENBERGHE, JACQUES-GUILLAUME VAN
1679/91 Leiden - 1742 Lille

Title: The Four Seasons.
Four paintings with village landscapes and numerous people.
Technique: Each: Gouache on wood.
Mounting: Mounted on wood.
Measurement: 21 x 28,5cm.
Notation: Signed each lower right, resp. left: van Blarenberghe invenit et pinxit.
Frame/Pedestal: Framed.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

The van Blarenberghes were a dynasty of painters from French Flanders (Lille), beginning with Joris (1612-1670). His son Hendrick (1646-1712) and grandson Jacques-Guillaume (ca. 1679-1742) continued the work of Joris, passing the knowledge of painting and miniature painting acquired and perfected over a century and a half of practice on to the next generation.

Jacques-Guillaume, creator of the present series with the four seasons, was trained in his father's workshop. He was particularly skilled in small-format painting and soon made a name for himself as a painter of small and gallant scenes, landscapes with markets and harbours, depictions of palace interiors and receptions. His masterpiece is the "Four Seasons" from 1735 - 1745 in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (Inv. SK-A-4249).

The Amsterdam paintings show various landscapes on four equally sized panels, enlivened by different figures in gallant poses, executed in gouache. The predominant hues are variations of blue and grey. Great attention to clothing, the composition of the scene and the balance between the atmosphere of nature and the outdoor life of the persons depicted characterise these works.

The four seasons presented here also have in common with the Amsterdam series an interest in detail, realised with fine, confident brushwork and the delicate passages of nuance that blend into one another.
Here Jacques-Guillaume Blarenberghe uses nature as a theatrical backdrop, not to depict the respective month's work outdoors, as many other Flemish artists of his time or earlier centuries did, but a gallant love story in four acts.

It is thus a kind of play with four scene changes, each of which tells a new, exciting episode. The artist thus unravels a story across several works, presenting himself as a forerunner of the comic strip, which tells a visual story in episodes to hold the reader's or viewer's attention. In summer, the young men compete with the ladies; in autumn, new wine is toasted and drunk. Winter is for skating and flirting with the ladies, and in spring love triumphs and there is merry dancing.