JOACHIM GOVERTSZ. CAMPHUYSEN | HILLY LANDSCAPE WITH TREES

Camphuysen’s landscapes are rendered in tonal greens and browns, and reflect a distinctive preoccupation with the depiction of trees - pictured in all seasons - as the protagonists in many of his works. His delight in differentiating between foliage and leafless trunks is evident in this poetic work, which is suffused with golden light and features a remarkably bright sky against which the silhouettes of the trees are all the more dramatic.

Jochem Camphuysen was part of a dynasty of 17th-century Dutch landscape and animal painters, the nephew of Dirk Rafalesz. Camphuysen and brother of Rafaël Govertsz. Camphuysen. Growing up in Gorinchem, not far from Dordrecht, Camphuysen would also have absorbed the examples of the Mannerist landscapes of artists such as Alexander Keirincx. His sister, Lysbeth, married the great landscapist, Aert van der Neer, whom Camphuysen is believed to have taught.