Haunted by Tao

As already much has been written about him, there is nothing more to add. Perhaps one thing that might be interesting.

Landscape portrets were already known by the Flemish Primitives (hate that term!). So perhaps Patinir wasn’t really a pioneer there. Also religious inspired pictures existed for over centuries, ages, … The question just might be where his genious lied. It is in fact, rather simple to discover. Just look at the pictures that I included. What does come back in every picture? A little hint might be: examine the color schemes used. It’s the same everywhere. Also the depicture of the rocks is typical to Patinir.

So we have a scheme that goes as follows: brown in the front to depict the important scene, green in the middle and blue in the back. Somewhere in between stand the rocks to form a solid connection between all the different layers. Take a look: it’s the same for all.

Patinir thus created a new form of landscape painting that will have great influence on later artists and will live on until the 18th century. Fascinating, no?

Pictures by Google