Ein Backhuysen-Gemälde im Deutschen Schiffahrtsmuseum. Teil 1: Der kunsthistorische Aspekt

Abstract

In a work now on view in Bremerhaven, the Dutch seascape painter Ludolf Backhuysen (Emden 1630 - Amsterdam 1708) depicted a shipment scene likely to have taken place in the Dutch roadstead of Texel. The painting focuses primarily on a group of figures in the foreground and the warship EENDRACHT. Because of their significance from the point of view of content, visual attention is drawn to the two motifs by means of their compositional treatment. The general composition scheme differs from Backhuysen's typically dramatic and lively Baroque style, exhibiting a harmony more characteristic of classical tendencies. This originally French conception of art also demands the emphasis of the staffage through colour and other formal means. Following the assumption of power by the family of Orange in 1672, the courtly figural type gradually replaced the bourgeois one in the works of Backhuysen. The Bremerhaven scene is a good illustration of this aspect of Backhuysen’s artistic development. The shipment scene is the final link in the chain of four paintings dated 1682 and listed by Hofstede de Groot in his catalogue raisonne of 1918. In its formal correspondence to the two other shipment scenes of the same year, the Bremerhaven work is proof of the artist's particular preoccupation with the classical composition form in 1682. The large format of the Bremerhaven shipment scene indicates that it was a commissioned work.