Willem Kalf

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Peasant interior . approx. 1640-1645. Oil on canvas. Private collection / Bridgeman Art Library
Still life with a Chinese terrine , Gemäldegalerie Berlin

Willem Kalf (baptized November 3, 1619 Rotterdam ; † July 31, 1693 Amsterdam ) was one of the most important still life painters in the Netherlands in the 17th century .

Life

Willem was the sixth child of the wealthy Rotterdam cloth merchant Jan Jansz. Kalf and his wife Machtelt Gerrits (née van Proyen). The father was also a member of the Rotterdam Council, but died in 1625 when Willem was six years old. The mother continued the cloth trade, but with less success.

It is not known which artist Willem Kalf did his apprenticeship. Arnold Houbraken mentions in his Groote Schouwbourgh (1708) the in Haarlem living Hendrick Gerritsz. Pot , perhaps also because relatives of the Kalf family lived there. The relationship to one of the best-known Rotterdam artists, Willem Pietersz, may be of greater importance, at least for Willem's artistic development . Buytewech , have been.

Shortly after Willem's mother died in 1638, Willem left his hometown and initially seems to have moved to The Hague before moving to Paris around 1640/1641 . There he quickly achieved a great reputation for his peasant interiors in the style of the Flemish tradition, as practiced by artists such as David Teniers in the first half of the 17th century. His rustic interiors, in which the figures tend to appear in the background, but the fruit, vegetables and various utensils arranged in artistic arrangements shine in the full light of an invisible source and also emerge through stronger colors, exerted a great influence on the circle around the Antoine brothers Le Nain , Louis Le Nain and Mathieu Le Nain .

During his stay in Paris, Kalf developed the 'banquet scenes ' ( banketjes ), such as those from Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz. Heda and especially from Jan Davidsz. de Heem was painted in the early 1630s, a new form of artfully composed still life with precious, richly decorated objects (mostly bottles, plates, glasses) made of highly reflective materials such as gold, silver, pewter or glass, which culminated in the fascinating Reach the splendid still life ( pronkstilleven ) of his time in Amsterdam. Probably the most famous (and two meters tall) work of his Paris time is a still life with ostentatious vessels, parts of armor and weapons, possibly created in 1644/1645 on behalf of the Maréchal de Tessé (René II. De Fourlay, Comte de Tessé) (today im Musée de Tessé, Le Mans ).

In 1646 Willem Kalf returned to Rotterdam for a short time, from there to Amsterdam and Hoorn , where in 1651 he married Cornelia Pluvier, the daughter of a Protestant clergyman. Cornelia was a well-known calligrapher and poet who was also in contact with Constantijn Huygens (1596–1687), the private secretary of three governors of the young Dutch republic, renowned poet and probably the most accomplished connoisseur of the Dutch as well as the international art and music scene.

The couple moved to Amsterdam in 1653, where four children were born. However, despite his wealth, Willem Kalf did not seem to lead a lavish life, he also does not seem to have owned a house during his life, at least there are no entries in the land register for him. Instead, he often advocated colleagues or other acquaintances in need. His splendid Amsterdam still lifes increasingly show exotic objects such as Chinese bowls, mussels and the tropical fruits that have appeared before, such as partially peeled oranges and lemons.

These objects had certainly been imported through the rich overseas trade of the Netherlands and were therefore popular prestige objects of the prosperous, aspiring bourgeoisie, who also wanted to display this prosperity. Like all still lifes, Kalf's had the then well-known iconographic meaning of vanitas , memento mori (“Remember, man, that you must die”), the warning that all things, animate and inanimate, are ultimately perishable.

Kalf, however, was interested in something else in his art. Throughout his life he seems to have had a lively interest in the play and effect of light on materials as diverse as the woolly texture of the carpets, in the strong glowing of metallic objects made of gold, silver or pewter, the soft shimmer of porcelain and the different colors Shells to the mysterious sparkle of the artfully cut cups and vases in the Venetian style.

The structure of his still lifes, which is well thought out down to the smallest detail, is determined, in addition to their specific rules for the composition of the picture, by a difficult lighting direction. Similar to the early peasant interiors, only individual, mostly strongly colored objects (e.g. the bright red of the lobster in the famous still life with drinking horn of the Amsterdam St. Sebastians Rifle Guild, with lobsters and glasses ) are fully illuminated by the invisible one Light source. Other treasures, such as the cut glasses, often half filled with wine, only gradually emerge from the darkness of the background after a while, and their shape is often only determined by individual points of reflection ( pointillès ) that you can only guess at but the effect is all the more amazing. He is also known as the " Vermeer of Still Life Painting" "and may even have surpassed this great master of light rendering in some ways.

From around 1663 Kalf seems to have painted less and less, but he became increasingly active (after Houbraken) in the art trade and was also a sought-after art expert. Among other things, he was involved in assessing the notorious case of the collection of Italian paintings that were offered for sale to the Great Elector Friedrich Wilhelm in 1672 , but which turned out to be "worthless stuff".

Willem Kalf died at the age of almost 74 as a result of a fall on the way home from a visit. Through his acting skills, coupled with a comprehensive education and scientific knowledge, he has significantly expanded the illusionistic possibilities of still life painting; his works are considered the highlights of this art.

  • Still life with jug and fruits

  • Still life

Other works

  • Inside of a barn, wood, 50 × 38 cm.
  • Interior with showpieces and weapons, canvas, 200 × 160 cm.
  • Kitchen, wood, 40 × 53 cm.
  • Kitchen, copper, 17 × 14 cm.
  • Kitchen, wood, 21 × 19 cm.
  • Shells and corals, canvas, 53 × 43 cm.
  • Ornate still life, canvas, 71 × 59 cm.

literature

Web links

Commons : Willem Kalf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ s. Houbraken.
personal data
SURNAME Kalf, Willem
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Dutch painter
DATE OF BIRTH baptized November 3, 1619
PLACE OF BIRTH Rotterdam
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 1693
Place of death Amsterdam