Patinir, Joachim

(c. 1480-1524)

   Flemish painter, the first in history to have specialized in landscapes. Patinir was from Bouvignes and by 1515 he was an independent master enrolled in the painter's guild of Antwerp. Nothing is known of his training, though it has been suggested that he apprenticed either with Gerard David or Hieronymus Bosch. Albrecht Dürer mentioned in his journal that he traveled with Patinir to the Netherlands in 1521 and commented on the artist's abilities as a landscapist.

   Patinir's Baptism of Christ (c. 1515-1520; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) is a signed work. It presents a panoramic landscape with rock formations in the middle ground that serve to enframe the central scene. On the left, in the distance is St. John the Baptist preaching, this episode and the baptism of Christ united through the repetition of colors. Patinir's Passage to the Infernal Regions (c. 1520-1524; Madrid, Prado) presents a Bosch-like representation of hell with Charon, a character from Dante's Inferno, transporting a soul to the underworld that is guarded by Cerberus, the three-headed dog. On the river's left bank, angels escort other souls who await their fate, the atmospheric and light effects on the sky and water surface lending particular visual interest to the work. His Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1520-1524; Madrid, Prado) shows the Madonna nursing. On the right, peasants cut the wheat that, according to the Apocrypha, the Christ Child caused to grow to prevent his capture and premature death. On a rock sits a sphere upon which sculpture fragments rest as another apocryphal reference, in this case that of the fall of idols as Christ and his family traveled to Egypt.

   Patinir's panoramic landscape constructions, composed of earth tones for the foreground, greens for the middle ground, and blues for the background, united by transitional hues and broad lighting and charged with atmospheric effects, were widely copied. This has caused an unfortunate overattribution to Patinir of any work that utilizes this formula, complicating the reconstruction of the master's career. Clear is the fact that Patinir was the first to give predominance to nature and to relegate the figures to a subordinate position, and the first to emphasize the sacredness of nature as God's creation, thereby enhancing the spiritual content of the religious scenes portrayed within it.