CAULLERY, Louis de - b. ~1580 Caullery, d. 1621 Antwerpen - WGA

CAULLERY, Louis de

(b. ~1580 Caullery, d. 1621 Antwerpen)

Flemish painter, a pioneer in the genre of courtly gatherings in Flemish painting of the 17th century. He probably came from the village of Caullery near Cambrai, but moved to Antwerp in 1594 to train with Joos de Momper and was accepted as a Master there in 1602. While the date he went to Italy in uncertain, his works reveal that he spent time in Venice, Florence and Rome. He was particularly interested in genre painting and dealt with a high variety of scenes: carnivals on ice, fireworks, bull-fights, open-air entertainments, allegories of the five senses and get-togethers in the spirit of the Fontainebleau School. His figures are particularly elongated and strike elegant poses and are generally characterised with smooth pale faces and broad foreheads. His colour palette reveals the influence of the Italian painters: half tones, ocher-yellow, Veronese green and Burgundy red. He was particularly interested in the depiction of architecture and was skillful in representing his figures and their settings in perspective.

A View of the Campidoglio, Rome

This painting depicts the Campidoglio following the implementation of Michelangelo’s extensive plans for the remodeling of the piazza, largely completed in 1549. Though an imagined column, perhaps intended as Trajan’s Column, has been added upper left, the view is otherwise faithful. Michelangelo’s distinctive paving design was not, in fact, laid until the 1940s.

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Capriccio View of Venice with the Bucintoro

The Bucintoro was the state galley of the doges of Venice. It was used every year on Ascension Day up to 1798 to take the doge out to the Adriatic Sea to perform the “Marriage of the Sea” - a ceremony that symbolically wedded Venice to the sea every year on the “Festa della Sensa” (Ascension Day).

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Crucifixion

Louis de Caullery was a significant genre painter, but his religious compositions are also important, particularly his Calvary pictures, repeated countless times in many variations.

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Elegant Figures Strolling in a Renaissance Town

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The Five Senses

The most interesting part the repertoire of Louis de Caullery, who became a master in Antwerp in 1602, consists of allegorical representations, such as the present Five Senses, illustrated by elegant courting couples in a palace. In the characterization of his figures, more specifically in their facial expression and jet-black eyes, there is a certain affinity with the work of Frans Francken II. The suggestion of space is Mannerist and artificial.

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