Barend Cornelis Koekkoek - Summer Wooded Landscape with a Castle [1851]

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek - Summer Wooded Landscape with a Castle [1851], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (Middleberg, 1803 - Kleve, 1862) was one of the most important figures of the Dutch Romantic School. He became famous for his wooded and forest landscapes and his snow scenes, filled with large trees, winding paths, hilltops, ruins and of Meindert Hobbema and Jan Wijnants. Although Koekkoek wrote in his memoirs that he was interested in the simplicity of nature, the idyllic atmosphere of many of his landscapes was conceived in the spirit of Romanticism.

Koekkoek was born in Middelburg and received his earliest tuition from his father Johannes Hermanus Koekkoek (1778-1851) who specialised in marine subjects and river scenes. He then studied under Abraham Krayestein at the Middelburg Drawing Academy and at the Amsterdam Academy between (1825-1826). He first lived in Hilversum and later in Amsterdam, spending the summers in the wooded Beek and Ubbergen. In 1833, Koekkoek married Elize Therese Daiwaille who was also a painter and in 1834 they settled at Kleve. He published his Memoirs and Reports of a Landscape Painter in 1841 and in 1845, Koekkoek was commissioned by the King of Holland to paint a series of landscapes.

[Oil on panel, 50.8 x 62.2 cm]