River Landscape with a Boar Hunt
Joos de Momper
JOOS DE MOMPER, c.1600. OIL ON PANEL.
Some artists cannot escape the death of their tradition. After a century of public adoration and a meteoric rise to the visual vogue, World Landscapes, those imagined, idyllic scenes with biblical influence where figures are dwarfed by their beautiful surroundings, were falling out of favour. Joos de Momper, born in 1567, was too much a man of his time. A master of these dreamlike landscapes, he was not able to adapt to the changing styles that found beauty in realism and more mundane depictions of life. Instead, he found himself as the figurehead of the death of a movement, representing a tradition that the contemporary age found little purpose for. His attempts to adapt were noble in effort, and as he aged the vantage point of his work moved downwards - his fantasy worlds were seen from above while the real world from below; in the former he had the gaze of a creator, and in the latter only that of a common man. He found little success with these later works, and his reputation was tarnished beyond repair such that he died in debt to little acclaim. But though he was caught on the precipice of history, de Momper’s works are feats of beauty and imagination that seem to transcend time today.