Herri met de Bles - Landscape with a Foundry

Herri met de Bles, also known as Henri Blès, Herri de Dinant, Herry de Patinir, and ''il Civetta'' (c. 1490 – after 1566), was a

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

Northern Renaissance The Northern Renaissance was the Renaissance that occurred in Europe north of the Alps. From the last years of the 15th century, its Renaissance spread around Europe. Called the Northern Renaissance because it occurred north of the Italian Renais ...

and

Mannerist Mannerism, which may also be known as Late Renaissance, is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, ...

landscape painter, native of

Bouvignes Bouvignes-sur-Meuse ( wa, Bovegne) is a village of Wallonia and a district of the municipality of Dinant, located in the province of Namur, Belgium, on the River Meuse. In municipal terms, the ''commune'' was merged with Dinant in 1965. Either ...

Dinant Dinant () is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia located in the Namur Province, province of Namur, Belgium. On the shores of river Meuse, in the Ardennes, it lies south-east of Brussels, south ...

(both in present-day Belgium).Herri met de Bles
at the

Netherlands Institute for Art History The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

He contributed, along with

Joachim Patinir Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier (c. 1480 – 5 October 1524), was a Flemish Renaissance painter of history and landscape subjects. He was Flemish, from the area of modern Wallonia, but worked in Antwerp, then the centre of the art market ...

and

Lucas Gassel Lucas Gassel or Lucas van Gassel (Deurne, Netherlands, c. 1485 – Brussels, 1568 or 1569)Lucas Gassel
at the

, to a distinct style of

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a coherent compos ...

basically originating from Gerard David's works and combining small history or religious scenes into compositions defined by perspective and atmospheric effects. They all painted landscapes seen from a high viewpoint and rocky masses. They did not aim to create a realistic depiction but an atmospheric effect. Herri met de Bles always included a few small figures involved in a religious episode or everyday activities such as mining, agriculture or trade.

Life

Herri met de Bles - Story of David and Bathsheba

The

suggests that de Bles was born in Dinant in circa 1510. Very little is known about the artist. He is believed to be identical to a certain Herry de Patenir who joined Antwerp's

Guild of St. Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Four Evangelists, Evangelist Saint Luke, Luke, the patron sa ...

in 1533 as a painter. He may have been related to the landscape painter Joachim Patinir, perhaps as his nephew, although he may not have trained under him because of their age difference.Liechtenstein, the Princely Collections, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985, pp. 279–280 He may have visited Ferrara, Italy as an Italian source mentions it. But there is no other evidence to support this. His work was popular in Italy, where he was known as 'il Civetta' because of the little owl that often appears in his paintings, usually in a hollow tree or in a cavity between some rocks. The 17th-century biographer

Karel van Mander Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembe ...

regarded this motif as his signature.Hans Devisscher: "Bles lesio, Blesius, Blessio; de Dinant, de Patinir Herri met de enri, Henrico; Herry (met de) ivetta ''Grove Art Online''.

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, ccessed 11 July 2014/ref> The name ''Herri met de Bles'' translates literally from

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

as ''Herri with the blaze'' and was reportedly given him because of his characteristic white forelock. He may have been the pupil of

Lucas Gassel Lucas Gassel or Lucas van Gassel (Deurne, Netherlands, c. 1485 – Brussels, 1568 or 1569)Lucas Gassel
at the

, who was at least 10 years his senior. There are significant similarities between their works about the subject of David and Bathsheba are significant. Besides, they are depicted together (along with Hans Holbein) in a 1764 coloured engraving by Jan l'Admiral with Gassel being in the foreground and de Bles shown in the more obscure lower right corner. The

notname In art history, a ''Notname'' (, "necessity-name" or "contingency-name") is an invented name given to an artist whose identity has been lost. The practice arose from the need to give such artists and their typically untitled, or generically title ...

of "Pseudo Bles" was invented to cover a number of

Antwerp Mannerist Antwerp Mannerism is the name given to the style of a group of largely anonymous painters active in the Southern Netherlands and principally in Antwerp in roughly the first three decades of the 16th century, a movement marking the tail end of Ea ...

paintings that had previously been attributed to de Bles, after it was recognised that this was wrong. In 1915 by

Max Jakob Friedländer Max Jakob Friedländer (5 July 1867 in Berlin – 11 October 1958 in Amsterdam) was a German museum curator and art historian. He was a specialist in Early Netherlandish painting and the Northern Renaissance, who volunteered at the Kupferstichkab ...

in his work ''Die Antwerpener Manieristen von 1520'', made a first attempt to put order in the growing number of works from the Netherlands that were catalogued under the 'name of embarrassment 'pseudo-Herri met de Bles' (usually now "Pseudo Bles").Max J. Friedländer: Die Antwerpener Manieristen von 1520. In: Jahrbuch der königlich preußischen Kunstsammlungen 36, 1915, p. 65–91, p. 65 The renowned Dutch art institute and research center,

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

places him as still active in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

in 1566, based on recently discovered contemporary documents.

Work

Herri met de Bles - Landscape with the Offering of Isaac - Google Art Project

His landscapes are different from Patinir's in that de Bles' work shows more foreground landscapes, a looser composition and greater detail. His choice of colours is generally less rich than that of Patinir. Along with a group of Antwerp-based followers of

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (, ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch/Netherlandish painter from Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, generally oil on oa ...

that included

Jan Mandyn Jan Mandijn or Jan Mandyn (c. 1500, Haarlem – c. 1560, Antwerp) was a Dutch Renaissance painter, who worked in Antwerp after 1530. Biography Mandijn trained in Haarlem. He moved to Antwerp in 1530.Pieter Huys Pieter Huys (c.1519 – c.1584) was a Flemish Renaissance painter. He is known of his early life, and though he was mostly active in Antwerp, his place of birth and death is not certain. He became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1545 ...

, and Jan Wellens de Cock, de Bles brought the tradition of fantastic imagery into

northern Mannerism Northern Mannerism is the form of Mannerism found in the visual arts north of the Alps in the 16th and early 17th centuries. Styles largely derived from Italian Mannerism were found in the Netherlands and elsewhere from around the mid-century, es ...

. Most of his sketches are in German public collections, namely in Berlin and Hamburg, one of them is stored in the Louvre, Paris. Most of his paintings are exhibited in Belgian museums (Namur, Antwerp etc.), besides in the museum of Naples and the Museum of Art History of Vienna. Other works are circulating among private collectors and auctions.

In popular culture

Richard Powers Richard Powers (born June 18, 1957) is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel ''The Echo Maker'' won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction.The Gold Bug Variations ''The Gold Bug Variations'' is a novel by American writer Richard Powers, first released in 1991. Plot introduction The novel intertwines the discovery of the chemical structure of DNA with the musicality of Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord ...

'' (1991), one of the main characters is working on a dissertation whose subject is Herri met de Bles. The painter's obscurity and his peculiar imagery are woven into the motifs of the novel. In

Olga Tokarczuk Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk (; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland; in 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize ...

's novel " Empuzjon" one of the minor characters, a beaux arts student, is working on a PhD. thesis on Herri met de Bles.

Notes

References

* Norman E. Muller (Ed.): ''Herri met de Bles: Studies and Explorations of the World Landscape Tradition''. Brepols, Turnhout 1998, * Michel Weemans. "Herri met de Bles's sleeping peddler: an exegetical and anthropomorphic landscape". ''Art Bulletin'', Sept 2006. * Weemans, Michel. "Herri Met de Bles's Way to Calvary: A Silenic Landscape," ''Art History'', 32,2 (2009), 307–331.

External links

Long note on ''Landscape with the Conversion of Saul on the Road to Damascus'', ca. 1545

Oberlin College Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...

Web Gallery of Art: Paintings by Herri met de Bles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bles, Herri met de 1510s births 16th-century deaths Flemish Renaissance painters Walloon people Painters from Antwerp Court painters