Dutch marine painter, active mainly in Amsterdam. After the van de Veldes moved to England in 1672, Backhuysen became the most popular marine painter in Holland. He captures the drama and movement of ships, but seldom achieves the poetic effects of either van de Velde the Younger or Jan van de Capelle.
The painting depicts a fishing pink being made ready to be launched from a beach in a breeze, with small dutch vessels inshore. Although the setting is imaginary, we are on the sandy coastline of Holland near Alkmaar, or further south-west between Haarlem and Scheveningen. The prevailing westerly wind is driving the clouds along as we look towards the north-west, with the low afternoon sun to our left casting long shadows from the fisherman in red in the foreground. Close inshore, two smalschips are manoeuvring, one with the wind on its quarter, the other close-hauled, while to the right and further offshore, a wijdschip makes its way upwind along the coastline.
This gentle coastal marine is undated, but is consistent with paintings by Backhuysen from the late 1670s and around 1680, when the artist starts to simplify his cloudscapes, as the influence of Willem van de Velde the Younger on his work, who had left for London several years earlier, recedes.
The painting is signed lower left: LBak.
Although the work is undated, the vessels depicted and the style, which retains the influence of Willem van de Velde the Younger, points to a dating c. 1680.
This is a late work of the artist. The distant city in the background cannot be identified, it is probably Amsterdam.
This painting is also known as The Gale.
The present canvas shows a fishing fleet off the Dutch coast navigating choppy waters. In the far background, a Dutch man-o’war can be seen.
The painting is monogrammed on the barrel lower right: ‘L.B.’
While Dutch primacy in merchant shipping offered high rewards, its risks were equally significant. On their long journeys to the Mediterranean, the New World, Africa, and the East, merchant vessels were perennially endangered by warfare, piracy, treacherous shores, and storms. Several painters, most dramatically Ludolf Backhuysen, specialized in ships adrift in tempests.
Backhuysen executed this painting (his largest surviving one) as if he were observing the disaster in the midst of the roiling seas, thus engaging beholders in the unfolding tragedy, encouraging them to empathize with the ships and their crews and to contemplate the powers of God, beyond full comprehension.
But even as such paintings acknowledge the fragility of Dutch seaborne success, their distant shafts of sunlight usually hold out hope for reversals of misfortune. A brighter future may still save Backhuysen’s ship at left, its Dutch flag unfurled against lightening skies. Collectors occasionally hung a tempest painting opposite a sunny shipping scene, implying that the power of God and nature, whether terrifying or benevolent, is always magnificent.
Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 10 minutes):
Antonio Vivaldi: Concerto in E flat major RV 253 op. 8 No. 5 (Storm at sea)
The violence of nature is the main focus of Backhuysen’s painting. He concentrated on the high waves lashing against the ships The frigate in the foreground attempts to lower her sails before it is too late. Two masts of the ship on the left have nearly been swept overboard. The wild sea finds its echo in the racing clouds. One cannot be certain these ships will reach the coast safely.
The painter did not paint an actual shipwreck, the painting is an illustration of a severe storm at sea.
Backhuysen is the last representative of the great tradition of Dutch marine painting; eighteenth-century Dutch artists did much less of consequence in this category than in the others they practised.
Backhuysen was born in Emden, Germany, and came to Amsterdam around the middle of the century where he remained for the rest of his life. His high-placed patrons include the burgomasters of Amsterdam, the Archduke of Tuscany, Czar Peter the Great, and various German princes. He is best known for his stormy scenes. Houbraken writes that when a storm threatened he sometime went by boat ‘to the mouth of the Sea, in order to observe the crash of the Seawater under these conditions’.
His Ships in Distress off a Rocky Coast shows the chilling drama he can bring to the theme. The large cargo ship in the centre is managing to make way along the perilous coast, while on the right, two vessels are in even greater danger.
Later his storms become melodramatic, his chiaroscuro effects exaggerated, and his gigantic waves rather schematic and glass-like.
In this balanced composition we see to the right a kaag (a coastal transport vessel). At the extreme left is a fluyt, the most successful trading vessel. Beyond the heavily armed two-decker warship in the centre is a wijdschip, and in the foreground, animated by a standing seaman and in the process of heading downwind, is a weyschuit.
The painting depicts small Dutch vessels in breezy coastal waters, a harbour beyond.
Backhuysen depicted the city of Vlaardingen on various occasions. The present work is set on the Nieuwe Maas River, looking towards the city of Vlaardingen with a view of the Old Town Hall (built in 1650), the Grote Kerk and the harbour.
This is a breezy view of the distant Rotterdam Gate and church towers from the Schie in Delft.
