Barend Cornelis Koekkoek

Barend Cornelis was one of the four sons of the Zeeland marine painter Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek. The other three – Marinus, Johannes and Hermanus – also became highly respected painters. Their grandchildren, in turn, continued the family’s painting tradition.

A typical ‘Koekkoek composition’ is a hilly landscape, often diagonally intersected by a river or valley with a panoramic view in the background. His skies frequently feature the sun rising or setting, or an approaching squall or thunderstorm. This harbinger of change imbued a landscape with the requisite Romantic dynamic tension.

As drawing is the basis of all art, like every young artist at the art academy Koekkoek had to draw life models. However, he preferred to study figures which he could use as staffage in his landscapes.

As a young artist, Koekkoek spent several years in search of the varied kind of landscape he needed for his Romantic vision. He sojourned in the Gooi region and the province of Brabant in the Netherlands and visited the Harz Mountains and the Rhineland in Germany. In 1834 he moved permanently to the historic German town of Cleves, just across the border near Nijmegen.

Koekkoek’s inclination to teach manifested itself early on. In 1829 and 1830, together with his father-in-law Jean Auguste Daiwaille, he published six booklets, each with six lithographs, entitled Landschapstudiën (Landscape Studies). They were used for drawing instruction and even reprinted later on.

The appearance of a landscape differs depending on its region, but also the weather conditions and the seasons. Romantic landscape painters such as Koekkoek would sooner depict a scene in summer and in winter, sometimes even of the same view. This served to emphasize a sense of variation, a key aspect of the Romantic art movement.

Koekkoek was fond of medieval history, and ancient castles feature regularly in his oeuvre. This led to a highly prestigious commission in 1843, when the Dutch king William II invited him to immortalize his castles in the Duchy of Luxembourg.

Koekkoek’s paintings were greatly appreciated by all, not only art critics but also collectors. And not just anyone: this picture belonged to the Amsterdam banker Adriaan van der Hoop, the wealthiest Dutchman of his time.

By 1841, Koekkoek’s star had risen to such an extent that he published a book describing his travels through Germany and outlining his views on painting. It also contains instructions for beginning landscape painters and was probably intended for the drawing academy he had founded in Cleves in the same year.

Cleves had virtually no artistic climate or any real landscape painters to speak of. However, this changed with the establishment of Koekkoek’s drawing academy and the artist soon had followers and supporters. His brother-in-law Alexander Joseph Daiwaille was his first pupil.