Project 2 :17th-century Artist

Research about the artist :

• Dutch painter.
• He was a generalist artist, doing portraits, history paintings, marine scenes and, chiefly, the interiors of churches.These are usually quite imaginary churches, exercises in mood as much as architecture, complex overlays of arches and pillars and organ pipes, darkened with atmospheric gulfs of shadow.
• He also did markets, with hearty traders and slimy fish.
• He was often in debt, and his longish life appears to have been ended by suicide

• He had a long career as an unpromising figure painter,
• Later de Witte’s interpreted architectural interiors predominantly in terms of light and shade, and—in their casual drawing, comparatively broad brushwork and uncertain articulation of space.
• From the beginning, de Witte’s imagination seemed to have responded more to the great spaces than to the forms of Dutch Gothic churches, to the evocative contrasts of sunlight and shadow and to the people who visited and worshipped in these communal and spiritual environments.
• The Oude Kerk in Delft with Pulpit (1651; London, Wallace), de Witte’s first dated church interior, suggests in its descending daylight some communication between the heavens and the quiet congregation; the preacher in the pulpit, unlike van Vliet’s gravediggers and some of Houckgeest’s tourists, plays a comparatively inconspicuous part.
• in de Witte’s approach, archways and windows were as assertively shapes in the compositional pattern as a solid architectural element or a piece of furniture.
• de Witte de-emphasized diagonal and direct recessions into depth in favour of forms spaced at rhythmic intervals from side to side. Zones of space are thus layered and interrelated by a continuous interplay of solid and void, as well as by rich harmonies of light and shade.
• De Witte also used linear perspective
• de Witte passed from ‘portraits’ of actual churches to paintings of imaginary buildings, many of which incorporate elements of Amsterdam’s main churches and Stadhuis
• de Witte also worked rather like a landscape painter, employing plausible and sometimes actual elements to create largely invented views.
• Later de Witte painted outdoor market scenes,
• The quality of de Witte’s work varied considerably, due partly to his unstable temperament, But most of his surviving works are exceptionally good
Bibliography
A. Houbraken: De groote schouburgh (1718–21), i, pp. 223, 282–7; ii, p. 292
I. Manke: Emanuel de Witte, 1617–1692 (Amsterdam, 1963)
W. A. Liedtke: Architectural Painting in Delft: Gerard Houckgeest, Hendrick van Vliet, Emanuel de Witte (Doornspijk, 1982)