Gillis van Coninxloo

Portrait of Gillis van Coninxloo by Andries Jacobsz Stock, published by Hendrik Hondius I in 1610. Gillis van Coninxloo (now also referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo II and previously referred to as Gillis van Coninxloo III) (24 January 1544 – January 1607) was a Flemish painter of landscapes. Commencing his career in Antwerp, he worked the last 20 years of his life abroad, first in Germany and later in the Dutch Republic. He played an important role in the development of Northern landscape art at the turn of the 17th century, in particular in his elaboration of the forest landscape.

Life He was born on 24 January 1544 in Antwerp as the son of Gillis and Adriana van Doornicke. His father, originally from Brussels, was a painter who had moved to Antwerp where he became a master in the Guild of Saint Luke in 1539 and married Adriana van Doornicke. Adriana van Doornicke was the daughter of the painter Jan van Dornicke and the widow of the painter Jan van Amstel. Her sister was married to the prominent artist Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Gillis' father died when he was only about 10 months old. His mother made a living by selling paintings in Antwerpen and cities in Brabant and Flanders. She remarried on 20 December 1545 to the painter Peeter van Else alias van den Winckele. In 1570 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. This painting achieves great intensity and atmospheric quality through its fine shades of brown and green and its accentuated handling of light.

During his stay in Frankenthal from 1588 to 1595, he influenced several better known Flemish émigré landscape painters, who are now collectively referred to as the 'Frankenthal School'. The early 17th century art historian Karel van Mander wrote about Coninxloo in his Schilder-boeck. Van Mander stated that Coninxloo's teacher Pieter Coeke van Aelst was his cousin, and that I know at this time of no better landscape painter, and I notice that they are following his manner very much in Holland.

Selected works His paintings include: The Judgment of Midas, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden Landscape with a Scene from the Myth of Latona and the Lycian Peasants, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg Landscape with Venus and Adonis, Cleveland Museum of Art Landscape with Duck Hunters (Saarland Museum, Saarbrücken Forest landscape, c. 1600, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna