Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with a river in the mountains

Jacques Fouquier, Jacques Fouquières or Jacob Focquier (c. 1590/91 – 1655)Laurence Quinchon-Adam, ''Quelques aspects nouveaux de l'oeuvre de Jacques Fouquières (Anvers?, vers 1589 - Paris, janvier 1656)''
in: Joost vander Auwera, André Tourneux, Jacques Paviot, ''Liber amicorum Raphaël de Smedt : Artium historia'', Peeters Publishers, 2001 was a Flemish landscape painter. After training in Antwerp he worked in various places where he often obtained appointments as a painter to the court including that of the French kings.Jacques Fouquier
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 earned great success and a very high reputation during his lifetime and was even referred to as the 'Flemish

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italians, Italian (Republic of Venice, Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school (art), ...

'.W. Stechow, 'Drawings and etchings by Jacques Foucquier'
Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6 (1948), pp. 419-465 Very few of his paintings have been preserved. His work was influential in his time and was widely circulated thanks to reproductions by various contemporary engravers.

Life

Little is known with certainty about the life of Jacques Fouquier.Wolfgang Stechow, ''Jacques Foucquier''
in: De kunst der Nederlanden. Maandblad voor oude en nieuwe beeldende kunst 1 (1930-'31), pp. 296-303 He was traditionally believed to have been born in Antwerp at about 1580. Wolfgang Stechow was able to show in 1930 that his birth date should be placed around 1590. He came to this conclusion on the basis of an autograph inscription by Fouquier on a drawing dated 1604 kept in the Art Collection of the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

(inv. no. H 465). The drawing contains in the lower right corner the inscription ''I.F. jaques foucquier me feciet aetatis suae 13 iaer 1604 5 ianvarer'' ('I.F Jacques Foucquier made me at the age of 13 in the year 1604 on 5 January. There is no documentary evidence to prove his place of birth. The 17th century German Baroque art-historian

Joachim von Sandrart Joachim von Sandrart (12 May 1606 – 14 October 1688) was a German Baroque art-historian and painter, active in Amsterdam during the Dutch Golden Age. He is most significant for his collection of biographies of Dutch and German artists the ''Te ...

stated that Fouquier was the scion of a good family from western Flanders. A signature on an early drawing after Jan Brueghel the Elder indicates that he used the French name at an early age which possibly suggests that his ancestry was a French-speaking community. Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with hunters

Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with hunters

In 1614 he was registered as a master painter under the name Jacques Foucque in the registers of the Antwerp

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 ...

. The record does not mention who was his master.Ph. Rombouts and Th. van Lerius, ''De liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche sint Lucasgilde''
Volume 1, Antwerp, 1864, p. 505 Some art historians have proposed a traineeship first under

Joos de Momper Joos de Momper the Younger or Joost de Momper the Younger (1564February5, 1635) was a Flemish landscape painter active in Antwerp between the late 16th century and the early 17th century. Brueghel's influence is clearly evident in many of de Momp ...

, a prominent landscape painter and later under Jan Brueghel the Elder, a prolific painter and regular collaborator of Rubens.Adolphe Siret, ''Jacques Fouquières'' in: Biographie nationale de Belgique, Volume 20, pp. 913-918 While there is no documentary evidence for such apprenticeships, they are supported on stylistic grounds. Although some biographers believe he left Antwerp shortly after 1614, others claim he is still mentioned in Antwerp as late as 1616. He was possibly registered in the Brussels' Guild of Saint Luke in 1616 as a pupil of Arnould van Laken and became citizen of the city of Brussels in the same year. Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with a tree hanging above a path

Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with a tree hanging above a path

In the period between 1616 and 1619 he worked in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

at the court of the art loving Frederick V, the Elector Palatine. He was in charge of the decorative programme for the new 'Englischer Bau' (English building) of Heidelberg Castle, which was purpose-built for the Elector's English bride Elizabeth Stuart. He also painted a ''View of the Hortus Palatinus and Heidelberg Castle'' during this time (before 1620, (

Kurpfälzisches Museum The Kurpfälzisches Museum (Palatinate Museum) is a museum of art and archaeology in Heidelberg, Germany. It is located in the Palais Morass. It was founded in the late 1870s, when the city of Heidelberg purchased the private collection of the ...

, Heidelberg). From 1619 to 1621 he was back in Brussels, where

Philippe de Champaigne Philippe de Champaigne (; 26 May 1602 – 12 August 1674) was a Brabançon-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school. He was a founding member of the Académie de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, the premier art ...

was one of his pupils. He possibly travelled around 1620 to Italy where he resided for a time in Rome. At the latest by 1621 he had established himself in Paris, where he became court painter to King

Louis XIII Louis XIII (; sometimes called the Just; 27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was King of France from 1610 until his death in 1643 and King of Navarre (as Louis II) from 1610 to 1620, when the crown of Navarre was merged with the French crown ...

. The monarch elevated him to the peerage in 1626. This mark of distinction is said by

Dezallier d'Argenville The family of Dezallier d'Argenville produced two writers and connoisseurs, father and son, in the course of the 18th century. The father, Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville (1680–1765) is now best known for writing the fullest French trea ...

to have rendered him so vain, that afterwards he always painted with his sword on his side. On 15 July 1626 the king commissioned him to make plans, paintings and views of landscapes for the Grande Galerie of the Louvre palace. To execute this commission, Fouquier travelled to

Toulon Toulon (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Tolon , , ) is a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast, with a major naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region, and the Provence province, Toulon is th ...

in 1626,

Aix-en-Provence Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...

in 1627, Toulon and Marseille in 1629 and Toulon and Aix-en-Provence in 1632 and Toulon in 1633. It seems he was a slow (or even lazy) painter as only in 1632 the citizens of Toulon were able to send the first of his two large paintings to the King. Legend has it that this commission was the cause of a public rift between Foucquier and

Nicolas Poussin Nicolas Poussin (, , ; June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was the leading painter of the classical French Baroque style, although he spent most of his working life in Rome. Most of his works were on religious and mythological subjects painted for a ...

in the summer of 1641. It was provoked by the exacting attitude of Foucquier vis-à-vis Poussin in relation to the decoration of the Grande Galerie of the Louvre palace. Foucquier insisted his landscapes be the principal decorations. In a letter to

Paul Fréart de Chantelou Paul Fréart de Chantelou (25 March 1609 – 1694) was a French collector and patron of the arts. He encouraged major artists of his era, in particular Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665) and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680), and is known for his dia ...

, Poussin made fun of "le baron Foucquier" and is said to have avenged himself after his escape from Paris associated with the dispute in an allegory in which Foucquier was represented by a donkey on which

Jacques Lemercier Jacques Lemercier (c. 1585 in Pontoise – 13 January 1654 in Paris) was a French architect and engineer, one of the influential trio that included Louis Le Vau and François Mansart who formed the classicizing French Baroque manner, drawing ...

sat enthroned as the queen of stupidity. Jacques Fouquier - Winter Landscape - WGA08044

Fouquier lived in 1644 together with Flemish artists Philippe Vleughels,

Pieter van Mol Pieter van Mol or Peter van Mol (17 November 1599 in Antwerp – 8 April 1650 in Paris) was a Flemish painter known for his history paintings of religious subject matter, and to a lesser extent for his allegorical compositions, genre scenes and p ...

Willem Kalf Willem Kalf (1619 – 31 July 1693) was one of the most prominent Dutch still-life painters of the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age. We first get acquainted with Willem Kalf through Arnold Houbraken, in his Groot Schilderboek, who speaks very h ...

Nicasius Bernaerts Nicasius Bernaerts, Monsù Nicasio or simply Nicasius(1620, Antwerp – 1678, Paris) was a Southern Netherlands, Flemish Animalier, painter of animals, hunting pieces and flowers who had an international career in Italy and Paris. He worked for ...

and

Peter van Boucle Peter van BoucleName variations: Peter van Boeckel, Pieter van Boeckel, Pierre van Boucle, Pieter van Boeckel, Pieter van Bouck, Pieter van Boucle, Pieter van Bouck, Pieter Boucle, Pierre van Boucle (between 1600 en 1610 (?), probably Antwerp - 1 ...

in Paris. He died at the end of 1655 in a room given to him by the painter Sylvain in the Fauxbourg Saint Jacques in Paris. The inventory of his estate was drawn up on 4 January 1656 at the behest of his creditors. His meager possessions are evidence that he had fallen on hard times at the end of his life. His pupils included

, Matthieu van Plattenberg, and Etienne Rendu.

Work

Fouquier was a specialist painter and draughtsman of landscapes. While his paintings are now scarce, drawings from his entire career are preserved in various collections.James A. Welu, ''The Collector's Cabinet: Flemish Paintings from New England Private Collections'', Worcester Art Museum, 1983, pp. 46-49 The city views he made for the King of France are lost as well as a series of grand landscapes he made for the

Tuileries The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from ...

. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he usually took charge himself of the painting of the

staffage In painting, staffage () are the human and animal figures depicted in a scene, especially a landscape, that are not the primary subject matter of the work. Typically they are small, and there to add an indication of scale and add interest. Before ...

in his landscapes. This did not prevent a collaboration with Rubens on a ''Landscape with a satyr chasing a nymph'' formerly in the collection of

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria (5 January 1614 – 20 November 1662), younger brother of Emperor Ferdinand III, was an Austrian soldier, administrator and patron of the arts. He held a number of military commands, with limited success, and ...

in which Rubens painted the satyr and nymph and Fouquier the landscape. Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with two figures on a road descending through trees

Jacques Fouquier - Landscape with two figures on a road descending through trees

His early work showed the characteristics of the Northern style prevalent in the late 16th and early 17th centuries as represented by the works of Joos de Momper and Jan Brueghel the Elder, which was still dependent on the

world landscape The world landscape, a translation of the German ''Weltlandschaft'', is a type of composition in Western painting showing an imaginary panoramic landscape seen from an elevated viewpoint that includes mountains and lowlands, water, and buildings. ...

tradition started in the early 16th century. This tradition showed a preference for sweeping views with craggy rocks in the distance and a blue-greenish palette. The influence of this tradition is visible in his earliest known painting, the ''Winter landscape'' of 1617, now in the

Fitzwilliam Museum The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge. It is located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge. It was founded in 1816 under the will of Richard FitzWilliam, 7th Vis ...

. This work also shows the influence of Dutch painters such as

Adriaen van de Venne Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne (1589 – 12 November 1662), was a versatile Dutch Golden Age painter of allegories, genre subjects, and portraits, as well as a miniaturist, book illustrator, designer of political satires, and versifier. Biog ...

and

Hendrick Avercamp Hendrick Avercamp (January 27, 1585 (bapt.) – May 15, 1634 (buried)) was a Dutch painter during the Dutch Golden Age of painting. He was one of the earliest landscape painters of the 17th-century Dutch school, he specialized in painting th ...

. The ''Landscape with hunters'' (signed and dated 31 July 1620,

Musée d'Arts de Nantes The Fine Arts Museum of Nantes, along with 14 other provincial museums, was created, by consular decree on 14 Fructidor in year IX (31 August 1801). Today the museum is one of the largest museums in the region. The facades, roof and stairs in the ...

) is from this same period and show de Momper's influence. The agitated figures in the landscape are painted by Fouquier himself and are typical of his work. In his 1622 ''Forest landscape'' (

Wallraf–Richartz Museum The Wallraf–Richartz Museum (full name in German: ') is one of the three major museums in Cologne, Germany. It houses an art gallery with a collection of fine art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century. History The museum ...

) he broke with this tradition by abandoning the wide panoramic landscapes in favour of a narrow focus on the depiction of a dark tree and a group of trees. In this development he followed in the footsteps of

Gillis van Coninxloo Gillis van Coninxloo (now also referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo II but previously referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo III) (24 January 1544 – January 1607) was a Flemish painter of landscapes who played an important role in the development ...

a generation before him. He does not follow van Coninxloo in the direction of-a more naturalistic display of leaves, but he maintains the abbreviated, schematic treatment of foliage to concentrate rather on the new compositional ideas: uniform space in the foreground and middle ground rather than the stratification of the foreground, middle ground and distant portions and the romantic rocks of the de Momper school, only occasional perspective into the distance, greater ability to draw the viewer into the image, and above all a harmonization of color with more emphasis on light and the direction of the light: The color scheme, especially in the background, points to later developments in the 17th century such as seen in the works of

Gaspard Dughet Gaspard Dughet (15 June 1615 – 25 May 1675), also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome. Life Dughet was born in Rome, the son of a French pastry-cook and his Italian wife. He has always generally been considered as a Fr ...

and

Jacques d'Arthois Jacques d'Arthois (12 October 1613 (baptised) – May 1686) was a Flemish painter and tapestry designer who specialized in wooded landscapes with figures. He often depicted the woods around his native Brussels.Carracci's and

Paul Bril Paul Bril (1554 – 7 October 1626) was a Flemish painter and printmaker principally known for his landscapes.Nicola Courtright. "Paul Bril." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 26 September 2016 He spent most of h ...

, which was then being introduced into France through the works of Poussin,

Claude Lorrain Claude Lorrain (; born Claude Gellée , called ''le Lorrain'' in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c. 1600 – 23 November 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in It ...

and

. Many of the works of Fouquier were engraved by contemporary artists including

Alexander Voet the Younger Alexander Voet the Younger or Alexander Voet II (27 June 1637, in Antwerp – 1693/1705) was a Flemish engraver, print artist and publisher. He was the son of Alexander Voet the Elder, one of the leading engravers and publishers in Antwerp in th ...

, Matthieu van Plattenberg, Jan Baptist de Wael, Jean Morin,

Gabriel Perelle Gabriel Perelle (born 1604 in Vernon, Eure, died 1677 in Paris) was a French draftsman and printmaker of topographic views and landscapes. A pupil of Simon Vouet, Perelle specialized in classical landscapes not dissimilar to those of Francisque M ...

Jean-Jacques de Boissieu Jean-Jacques de Boissieu (Lyon 30 November 1736 – 1 March 1810 Lyon) was a French draughtsman, etcher and engraver Biography Boissieu was born at Lyon, and studied at the École Gratuite de Dessin in his home town, but was mostly self-taugh ...

Nicolas Cochin Nicolas Cochin (1610–1686), called the Elder, was a French draughtsman and engraver. He was born at Troyes in 1610, the son of a painter named Noel Cochin. About 1635, he went to Paris, where he died in 1686. He often imitated and copied Jacques ...

and Ignatius van der Stock.''Jacques Fouquier''
at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam The prints provide a record of Fouquier's large-scale works that were produced after his move to France, most of the originals of which have been destroyed or not located. They show that throughout his French period Fouquier remained faithful to the style he adopted from 1622 onwards.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fouquier, Jacques Flemish Baroque painters Flemish landscape painters 1590s births 1655 deaths Artists from Antwerp Painters from Antwerp Painters from Brussels Court painters Expatriates of the Holy Roman Empire in the France