Woodland Pond at Sunset
Gerard Bilders
GERARD BILDERS, c.1862. OIL ON CANVAS.
‘It is not my aim and object’, said Bilders, ‘to paint a cow for the cow’s sake or a tree for the tree’s, but by means of the whole – to create a beautiful and huge impression which nature sometimes creates, also with the most simple means’. As a boy, Bilders visited museums in The Hague and there got lost in the 17th century Dutch Landscape paintings, falling headfirst into the framed scenes and finding refuge in the nature that he depicted. It was the all-encompassing pastoral beauty of these works that drove him to capture the landscape in its totality, and in doing so create works of abundant calm and beauty. It was not the individual elements of the natural world that enthralled him, but the unity and wholeness of the whole scene that was essential for his work. Bilders lived in the nature he created, finding his home in represented lands until he died from tuberculosis at the age of 26.