Biography
Barent Gael was a Dutch Golden Age painter predominantly known for rural landscapes populated by travellers, villagers, horses and tradespeople, often gathered around an inn, farmstead or stopping place.
Born in Haarlem between about 1630 and 1635, he was the third son of Cornelis Adriaensz Gael and Aeltgen Jacobsdr Noorman. He belonged to a family with artistic connections and spent the first substantial part of his career in Haarlem before settling in Amsterdam, where he remained until his death in 1698.
Gael's paintings belong unmistakably to the world of 17th-century Dutch landscape painting, yet landscape alone rarely seems to be their true subject. Roads lead towards buildings, horses have stopped rather than galloped onwards, travellers dismount, villagers gather outside cottages, traders arrange their wares and dogs wander among the activity. These are landscapes concerned with pauses in journeys and the everyday encounters they produce.
The influence of the celebrated Haarlem painter Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668) is fundamental. Arnold Houbraken, writing in the early 18th century, described Gael as Wouwerman's pupil and remarked upon his ability to imitate his master's manner. Although documentary evidence for a formal apprenticeship has not been found, the artistic relationship is readily apparent, particularly in Gael's fondness for horses, travellers, military or roadside encampments and pleisterplaatsen - places at which people and horses stopped to rest. Modern cataloguing also identifies influences from Klaes Molenaer and Roelof van Vries.
Yet Gael's pictures tend to bring these themes down to earth. A white horse may provide a brilliant focal point, but around it everyday life continues. Someone tends an animal; another rests beside a building; women prepare or sell food; children linger nearby; a traveller approaches along a road. Chickens, dogs, baskets, barrels and carts complete the impression of a place being genuinely inhabited.
His buildings are equally important. Weathered brickwork, sagging roofs, timber extensions and irregular windows frequently occupy a substantial part of the composition. Gael evidently enjoyed the picturesque character of structures altered by use and age. Set beside expanses of pale blue sky and carefully placed trees, these humble buildings acquire an unexpected monumentality.
This balance between architecture, landscape and human activity gives his best works their charm. They are busy without being theatrical. Rather than depicting a single dramatic event, Gael encourages the eye to wander through numerous minor incidents. The viewer becomes another traveller arriving at the scene and gradually discovering what everyone is doing.
Gael also worked collaboratively. He is known to have supplied figures and animals for landscapes by Jan Wynants, and a 19th-century attribution also associates his staffage with paintings by Meindert Hobbema, although no documentary evidence of collaboration with Hobbema has been discovered. The National Gallery of Art notes the close similarity between figures and horses in such works and those found in established paintings by Gael.
By the early 1670s, Gael had moved from Haarlem to Amsterdam. The RKD records him there from 27 March 1673 onwards, and he remained in the city for the rest of his life. His surviving oeuvre is extensive, although dated works are comparatively uncommon.
Fortunately, Gael also left us something rarer than a date: a reputation for being difficult. Houbraken described him as decidedly headstrong and related an entertaining encounter with one of his patrons. A gentleman arrived at Gael's home hoping to inspect a painting he had commissioned. Gael simply did not wish to receive him and instructed that the visitor be told he was not at home - loudly enough, apparently, for the unfortunate man to hear.
The patron remembered. When Gael later arrived with the completed painting, the gentleman appeared at his window and announced that he was not at home. Gael protested that he could plainly see him standing there, but his customer reminded him of their previous encounter and refused to receive the picture.
It's difficult to know how much Houbraken embellished such stories for the amusement of his readers, but the anecdote has followed Gael for three centuries. Rather wonderfully, an artist whose paintings are filled with inns, travellers and people being welcomed at stopping places became remembered as the man who refused to answer his own door. Houbraken believed this stubborn independence ultimately worked to Gael's disadvantage.
Today, however, it is the quieter humanity of his paintings that endures. Gael recorded an ordinary 17th-century world of journeys interrupted: horses needing attention, travellers needing refreshment, villagers earning a living and strangers briefly occupying the same patch of road. His paintings transform these unremarkable pauses into engaging little theatres of everyday Dutch life.
Known For
Dutch Golden Age landscapes, particularly village scenes, roadside inns, farmyards, markets and pleisterplaatsen populated by horses, travellers and peasants.
Student Of
- Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668).
- Gael may also have received instruction within his own artistic family; his father was Cornelis Adriaensz. Gael I.
Lived In
- Haarlem - c.1630/35 to the later 17th century; active there until approximately 1669.
- Amsterdam - documented there from 1673 and remained until his death in 1698.
Public Collections
- Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
- National Trust, United Kingdom
His work can also be found in other European museum collections and historic collections.
Timeline
c. 1630-1635
Born in Haarlem, the third son of Cornelis Adriaensz. Gael I and Aeltgen Jacobsdr Noorman.
c. 1645-1650
He was active in Haarlem from approximately this period according to RKD chronology.
Mid-17th century
According to Arnold Houbraken, he studied under Philips Wouwerman.
1660s
Developed his characteristic repertoire of rural landscapes populated by horses, travellers and villagers. Inns, farmsteads, roads and stopping places became recurring motifs.
1663
The earliest dated painting currently noted by the RKD dates from this year.
1660s-1670s
Supplied figures and animals for landscapes by Jan Wynants. Such collaboration between specialist painters was a familiar feature of Dutch artistic practice.
By 1669
His period of activity in Haarlem appears to have drawn to a close.
27 March 1673
Recorded in Amsterdam. He subsequently remained there for the rest of his life.
1679
A dated work from this year is among the latest firmly dated paintings associated with his oeuvre.
17 October 1698
Buried in Amsterdam.