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A Winter Landscape With Skaters...
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Figures With A Horse Sledge On The Ice...
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

"Andreas Schelfout was regarded as one of the most important Dutch landscape painters of his time. His career as a painter began in 1815, after he had worked for four years in the studio of J.H.A.A. Brekenheimer, a painter of stage scenery. With his typical Dutch subjects, especially detailed winter scenes, he appealed to the strong nationalistic feeling the time. Schelfhout exhibited his work with great success in both the Netherlands and abroad. He produced a great many works and repeated himself often, but his best pieces are fresh in conception, giving evidence of technical refinement and a feeling of anecdotal detail. His paintings were executed in a careful manner until the end of his life, but in studies and drawings he could be, especially later, unexpectedly loose. Schelfhout’s moderately Romantic style had a great following. His most important students were W.J.J. Nuyen and J.B. Jongkind."

Alexandra W.M. van Smoorenburg
Dutch Art – An Encyclopedia – Sheila D. Muller (ed) Garland Publishing, Inc. New York and London, 1997.

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Andreas Schelfhout (February 16, 1787, The Hague – April 19, 1870, The Hague) was a Dutch painter, etcher and lithographer, known for his landscape paintings.

He belongs to the Romantic movement. His Dutch winter scenes and frozen canals with skaters were already famous during his lifetime. He became one of the most influential Dutsch landscape artists of his century.

He started as a house painter in the framing business of his father. He already started painting pictures in his spare time. After a well-received first exhibition in The Hague, his father sent him to receive proper training to Joannes Breckenheimer (1772-1856), a stage designer, in The Hague. He learned not only the technical aspects of painting, but also made detailed studies of the 17th-century Dutch landscapists Meindert Hobbema en Jacob van Ruisdael.

In 1815 he started his own workshop. Through his technical excellence and sense of composition and his use of naturalistic colours, he soon became famous also outside The Hague. In 1819 he was awarded the Gold Medal at the exhibition in Antwerp. In 1818 he became a member of the Royal Academy for Visual Arts of Amsterdam. He reputation continued to grow and in1822 he was given the rank of Fourth Class Correspondent of the Royal Dutch Institute. From then on, one exhibition followed after another.

Initially he painted mainly summer scenes, beach scenes, and animal paintings. But as his initial winter scenes even had more success, he began to include them in his exhibitions. He was mainly a studio artist, relying on his sketches done en plein air. His sketchbook Liber Veritatis (Book of Truth) shows that he made about twenty paintings a year, among them a few foreign views. This indicated that he travelled abroad around 1825. In later years he visited France in 1833, England in 1835 (especially to study the works of Constable) and Germany.

He provided training to several painters who would become famous in their own right : Johan Hendrik Weissenbruch, Johan Jongkind (one of the forerunners of the Impressionists), Charles Leyckert, Jan Willem van Borselen, Nicholas Roosenboom, Willem Troost, the American Hudson River School Painter Louis Rémy Mignot and his son-in-law Wijnand Nuyen.

At the end of his career he put together a series of eighty landscape drawings, mainly recordings of previous paintings and watercolours. They were drawn in chalk and lightly coloured.

His death marked the end of the Romantic period in Holland. He is considered a precursor of the Hague School

His paintings are on display in several top museums :

* Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
* Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam
* Dordrechts museum, Dordrecht
* Teylers Museum, Haarlem,
* Museum Jan Cunen, Oss
* KMSK, Antwerp
* MSK, Gent
* Groeningemuseum, Brugge
* National Gallery, London
* The Wallace Collection, London
* Tyne and Wear Museums

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from:
http://www.burlington.co.uk/cgi-bin/biography.pl?artistID=251

Andreas Schelfhout
1787 - 1870

Andreas Schelfhout was one of the most important and influential Dutch landscape artists of the 19th Century. Born in The Hague on 16th February, 1787, he worked for his father in a gilding and picture framing business until he was 24 years old. He worked there as a house-painter, painting pictures in his spare time. In 1811 Schelfhout made his debut in The Hague at an exhibition of painters and amateurs with three small landscapes. These pictures were well received and his parents began to realise Schelfhout's artistic potential. They sent him to study in The Hague under J.A.A.H. Breckenheimer who was a stage designer. Here he learnt to paint motifs such as city scenes and landscape but also the technical aspects of painting such as perspective and paint preparation. Schelfhout made detailed studies of the great 17th Century Masters and also sketched en plein air in the countryside. The artist stayed with Breckenheimer until 1815 and his development as an artist during this time was enormous. He began to exhibit his works more regularly and they were well received. Interest in his paintings was initially confined to The Hague but by 1816 his name was known in Belgium and from then onwards the artist's rise to fame was rapid. He exhibited four works in Amsterdam (the four seasons) which were highly acclaimed and he received a Gold Medal at the exhibition in Antwerp in 1819. Schelfhout's acute sense of observation ensured that he could recreate fleeting moods very naturally. His success continued to mount and when Amsterdam's Royal Academy for Visual Arts was instituted in 1818 Schelfhout was immediately made a member. In 1822 he was named Fourth Class Correspondent of the Royal Dutch Institute and from that moment on his reputation was ensured. Schelfhout exhibited many more summer landscapes than winter ones in the Exhibition of Living Masters as the winter scene was not yet a recognised form in Holland at that time. However, as the winter scenes grew in popularity he began to include them in the exhibitions. His choice of motif between the years 1825 and 1828 was very varied: summer and winter landscapes, beach scenes, moonlight subjects and some animal paintings. He was deeply awed by the violence in nature and he once went to Scheveningan during a terrible storm, just to witness and record the event. He was one of the first of the 19th century artists to contemplate this theme which was later taken up in earnest by the artists of the Hague School. During this period Schelfhout recorded his paintings with sketches in a book. This LiberVeritatis would suggest that the artist's output was about twenty painting per year. The sketches are accompanied by details of the purchasers of the paintings and these included private and royal collectors. Of the 79 works recorded in the book, 33 are Dutch landscapes, 24 are winter landscapes, 7 are beach scenes and 12 are foreign views. This last fact suggests that Schelfhout first travelled abroad around 1825.

Schelfhout continued to exhibit his works and his fame increased. However, his personality and his feelings of self-worth kept him open to new subjects and developments. Around 1834 the artist realised that his palette was greener than other contemporary artists such as Nuyen and Isabey. He decided to travel again to increase his awareness of nature and other artistic trends. Consequently he visited France in 1833, England in 1835 (to acquaint himself with the works of Constable) and Germany. His palette became warmer and his choice of motifs became more varied after these trips. The panorama theme continued to develop and became increasingly important in his work. From 1830 he regularly chose the Dunes near Haarlem as a motif and he became increasingly inspired by the achievements of the Industrial Revolution.

Schelfhout died on 23rd April, 1870. He was buried in the Eik en Duinen Cemetery in The Hague. His death made a deep impression on the art-loving city and numerous influential figures followed the funeral procession. His death marked the end of the era we now call Romanticism.
Burlington Paintings.

Figures in a winter landscape
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Moored on the Beach
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Peasants In A Cornfield
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Skaters On A Frozen River
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Winter: a huntsman passing woodmills...
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Travellers In An Extensive Landscape
courtesy of Art Renewal Center

Links:

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/schelfhout_andreas.html

http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Schelfhout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Schelfhout

http://the-athenaeum.org/art/by_artist.php?id=1070

http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/art.asp?aid=483

images used with permission from the Art Renewal Center (ARC).