Crossing the River Styx

mythological

Patenier, working in Antwerp, was a landscape specialist, often providing the backgrounds to the figures of other masters such as Massys or Isenbrandt. In his own work the landscape becomes the dominant element, so that the figure subject which justifies it becomes sometimes no more than a tiny incident in the foreground. The impression is sought of vast panoramic vistas, which are seen not from a natural but from an artificially high viewpoint.

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About the Artist

Joachim Patenier

1480 – 1524

Netherlandish painter, a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre. Nothing is known of his early life, but in 1515 he became a member of the Antwerp Guild. In 1521 he met Dürer, who made a drawing of him and described him as a "good landscape painter". There are only a very few signed paintings, but a great many others have been attributed to him with varying degrees of probability. Patenier also painted landscape backgrounds for other artists and The Temptation of St Anthony (Prado, Madrid) was done in collaboration with his friend Quentin Massys (who after Patenier's death became guardian of his children). Although landscape never constitutes the subject of his pictures, Patenier was the first Netherlandish artist to let it dwarf his figures in religious and mythological scenes. His style combines naturalistic observation of detail with a marvellous sense of fantasy, forming a link between Bosch and Bruegel.

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