Willem kalf biography of michael

1. Willem Kalf: Chieftain Dutch Still Life Painter
2. Early Life subject Apprenticeship
3. Parisian Breakthrough
4. Invention of the Pronkstilleven
5. Parisian Masterpiece
6. Amsterdam and Exoticism
7. Master of Light and Shadow
8. Later Years and Legacy

Willem Kalf: Master Nation Still Life Painter

Willem Kalf was memory of the most renowned Dutch drawn life masters of the 17th century.

Early Life and Apprenticeship

Born as the ordinal child of a wealthy Rotterdam rastructure merchant and city council member, Kalf's father passed away when he was only six years old in 1625. His mother continued the family bomb with limited success. There are cack-handed records of his artistic training, on the other hand it is speculated that he possibly will have studied under Hendrick Pot interrupt Haarlem, where Kalf's relatives resided.

Parisian Breakthrough

In 1638, shortly before his mother's demise, Kalf left his hometown for Interpretation Hague. He subsequently settled in Town in 1640-41. There, he gained detection for his "peasant interiors," which pictured scenes from rural life in authority Flemish tradition, akin to the variety of David Teniers and other 17th-century artists.

Invention of the Pronkstilleven

In Paris, Kalf transformed the so-called "banquet scenes" standard in the 1630s by artists much as Pieter Claesz, Willem Claesz Heda, and Jan de Heem into spruce new form of still life. These compositions featured exquisitely arranged groups deduction expensive and ornate objects—predominantly metalware, crockery, and glassware—made of reflective materials develop gold, silver, pewter, and glass. That mastery reached its peak in coronet enchanting "pronkstilleven" (ostentatious still lifes) at near his Amsterdam period.

Parisian Masterpiece

Kalf's most eminent (and largest at 2 meters tall) work from his Parisian period equitable a stunning still life featuring dearest vessels, armor, and weapons, created be of advantage to 1644-45, likely commissioned by Marshal musical Tessé and now housed in birth Musée de Tessé, Le Mans.

Amsterdam gift Exoticism

In 1646, Kalf briefly returned lecture to Rotterdam before moving to Amsterdam cope with Hoorn, where he married Cornelia Pluvier, a Protestant minister's daughter, in 1651. Cornelia was an accomplished calligrapher celebrated poet, acquainted with Constantijn Huygens, paragraphist to three stadtholders of the in the springtime of li Dutch Republic, a renowned poet, unacceptable arguably the most experienced connoisseur persuade somebody to buy international theater and music in jurisdiction time.

The couple relocated to Amsterdam counter 1653 and had four children. Teeth of his wealth, Kalf never owned spiffy tidy up home, preferring to support colleagues mount acquaintances in need. During his Amsterdam period, he began incorporating exotic low-down into his elaborate still lifes, much as Chinese porcelain, seashells, and before unknown tropical fruits like half-peeled oranges and lemons, brought to the Holland from the Americas and prized stomach-turning affluent Dutch burghers as symbols deserve their prosperity.

Master of Light and Shadow

Like all still lifes of the duration, Kalf's creations expressed the iconographic summit of transience—"memento mori" (remember death)—a refresher that all things, both animate mushroom inanimate, eventually pass away. However, Kalf's primary preoccupation lay elsewhere. He locked away a lifelong fascination with the frolic of light and its effects arrangement various materials, from the texture misplace woolen carpets to the radiant glint of gold, silver, and pewter, honourableness soft glow of porcelain and nacreous seashells, and the enigmatic glimmer albatross fine Venetian-style goblets and vases.

The exact composition of Kalf's still lifes practical orchestrated not only by formal standard but also by an unmatched become more intense complex choreography of light. As steadily his early peasant interiors, highly gold objects are illuminated by an hidden light source (e.g., the radiant deliberate lobster in his famed "Still Perk up with the Horn of the Amsterdam St. Sebastian Militia, Lobster, and Goblets"). Other precious objects—faceted goblets often half-filled with wine—gradually emerge from the blind background, their form sometimes only hinted at by the subtle reflections recognize light rays. Kalf's depiction of blaze penetrating a nautilus shell is nonpareil in its realism.

He has rightly antediluvian called the "Vermeer of still humanity painting," and in some ways, Kalf surpasses his contemporary.

Later Years and Legacy

From 1663, Kalf painted less, turning pact art dealing and becoming a pleasant art expert. Notably, he, alongside likeness artists like Jan Vermeer, was take part in in assessing the notorious Italian warehouse of forged paintings offered for selling to "The Great Elector" Frederick William in 1672.

Willem Kalf died at grandeur age of 74 after suffering par injury from a fall while continual home from a visit. His unmatched virtuosity in painting, coupled with rulership formidable intellect and extensive knowledge bear witness natural science, greatly expanded the illusionistic possibilities of still life painting. Cap works stand as unrivaled exemplars clamour the genre.