VADDER, Lodewijk de - b. 1605 Brussel, d. 1655 Brussel - WGA

VADDER, Lodewijk de

(b. 1605 Brussel, d. 1655 Brussel)

Flemish painter, draughtsman, engraver and tapestry designer. He was received as a master in the Brussels Guild of St Luke on 15 May 1628, probably, like his brother Hubert de Vadder, after an apprenticeship to his elder brother, Philippe de Vadder (Coeckelberghs). Lodewijk is best known as a landscape painter, although he also executed landscape engravings and drawings. He was granted a privilege to make tapestry cartoons by the Brussels city magistrate in 1644. In this capacity he worked mainly for weavers such as Jean Courdijn and Baudouin van Beveren. The latter referred to him as the best landscape painter in the country and in 1644 paid him 1000 florins for a series of designs of the Story of Diana and Pan.

A Wooded Dune Landscape
A Wooded Dune Landscape by

A Wooded Dune Landscape

Farmhouses on a Sandy Road near a Well
Farmhouses on a Sandy Road near a Well by

Farmhouses on a Sandy Road near a Well

Landscape before the Rain
Landscape before the Rain by

Landscape before the Rain

Landscape with Figures and Animals
Landscape with Figures and Animals by

Landscape with Figures and Animals

The Soignes Forest
The Soignes Forest by

The Soignes Forest

A number of Brussels artists developed an individual landscape style with which to convey the characteristic appearance of the heavily forested area around their city - the ‘Soignes forest painters’ produced large and elegant wooded landscapes using an oil painting technique recalling that of Rubens. The human figures in their paintings are customarily shown as tiny compared to the luxuriant nature that fills the compositions with large, dark bodies of trees. The leading Brussels landscape artists were Lodewijk de Vadder (1605-1655), Jacques d’Artois (1603-1686) and Lucas Achtschellinck (1626-1699). Their landscapes have something of the character of tapestries and probably had a corresponding decorative function.

Wooded Landscape
Wooded Landscape by

Wooded Landscape

Lodewijk de Vadder became a master in Brussels in 1628 and depicted the Forêt de Soignes in spontaneous atmospheric vistas of sunken roads running between sand-dunes overgrown with heavy trees.The immediate character of his depiction of nature is suggested by his loose brush strokes.

The present painting depicts a wooded landscape with figures on a path, and a village beyond.

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