HENDRIK FRANS VAN LINT (1684-1763)

A Classical landscape with figures in front of a temple (1748)

Oil on canvas: 48 x 72 cm

Private collection

Hendrik Frans van Lint was born in Antwerp, the son of the history painter Pieter van Lint. As his father died when he was only 6 years old he became an apprentice to the painter Peeter van Bredael in 1696. Van Lint did not finish his apprenticeship, around 1697 or 1700 he left for Rome. He would stay there for the remainder of his life. He was quite famous among the Flemish painters living in Rome for his meticulous technique. He was in the habit of making detailed drawings in pencil, pen and wash. He would go frequently on expeditions for up to a few weeks to the countryside around Rome. Van Lint used his detailed preparatory sketches for his large compositions on canvas and often added some ruins or classical buildings to create picturesque landscapes.

Van Lint had a successful career and his patrons included distinguished visitors to Rome and aristocrats on their Grand Tour, as well as some of the great Roman patrician families like the Colonna, Pamphili, Sachetti and Soderini. His landscapes fell into two categories: the Arcadian or Picturesque which were the product of his fantasy and the vedute or topographical views which reflected reality. His ideal was Claude Lorrain, whose work he could admire in the great Roman collections.

This painting was commissioned by an Englishman as a companion of Vanvitelli’s Capriccio of Rome and Naples. Quite different in feel, it is a completely imaginary Italian rural landscape and as such belongs to the category of “Arcadian landscapes”. Van Lint has followed certain conventions worked out by Claude Lorrain: a dark foreground frames the picture, further into view clumps of feathery trees on the left are balanced by a smaller group on the right; in the middle distance is a classical temple; and, leading the eye into the painting a pale sunlit plain bordered by the water of a lake or a river. On the horizon, in the faintest tones of blue and mauve rise the mountains.