Abel Grimmer

Abel Grimmer (family name variations: 'Grimer' and 'Grimmaert') (c. 1570–c. 1620) was a Flemish late Renaissance painter, mainly of landscapes and, to a lesser extent, of architectural paintings. His works were important in the development towards more naturalism in Flemish landscape painting.

Life Grimmer was born and died in Antwerp. He learned to paint from his father, the landscape painter Jacob Grimmer. His father Jacob Grimmer had established a name for himself by imitating the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder on small panel pictures and selling these on the market at low prices. He took over his father's workshop. He worked his whole career in Antwerp. The date of his death is not known exactly and is placed after 1620. He is principally known for his paintings in small format of country scenes, sometimes with a biblical theme. The subject is taken from the Book of Genesis 11:1-9. This narrates the story of the decision to build a city and a tower reaching into the heavens. The biblical character Nimrod was appointed to oversee the project's construction. This story was a rich source of subject matter for various late 16th and early 17th century Flemish painters. Their representations were inspired by the two works of 1563 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder on this subject matter (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam). The story of the Tower of Babel is in essence a reflection on human impiety and hubris, a moral message already implicit in both Bruegel's paintings. The architecture of the Tower of Babel in Grimmer's paintings of the subject echoes that of the Colosseum, which in the 16th-century symbolised the decay of imperial Rome. Grimmer's treatment of this subject can also be interpreted as a comment on the turbulent times in which he was living. His home country - the Spanish Netherlands - was at the time he created the paintings engaged in a struggle with the breakaway Protestant provinces in the north. The story of the Tower of Babel also tells about a world in which people speaking one language are suddenly riven with the incomprehension of many different languages. This paralleled the 16th century, when the once united Netherlands became divided between a Catholic south and a Protestant north which vigorously debated the interpretation of the bible and the role of the church. Abel Grimmer collaborated with several different figure painters who provided the staffage in his Babel paintings. He relied on other artists such as Frans Francken the Younger to paint the staffage in his architectural paintings. Earlier scholars suggested that Abel was also an architect on the basis of two autograph architectural drawings depicting respectively an elevation of the gable of Antwerp Cathedral and a church gable with a Gothic spire.