Flanders 19th century
Hendrik Frans de Cort was a Flemish landscape painter and draughtsman. In 1770 he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke. His early landscapes from the time before he moved to England were often made in collaboration with other Flemish artists. De Cort is known for his topographical views of English and Welsh landscapes. These were painted in an Italianate idiom indebted to the style of Gaspar Dughet. He often painted on specially prepared mahogany panels.
Louis Victor Antonio Artan de Saint-Martin was a Belgian marine painter. His work was influenced by the Barbizon School and the French marine painter Eugène Boudin. A convinced realist, he confined himself to the familiar North Sea, which he studied every day. He was fascinated by dramatic effects and exceptional atmospheric conditions. Just as in the paintings of the Tervuren school, his painting, created by the use of large quantities of pigment applied in copious layers or large masses skilfully distributed and then worked with a trowel, gives the work an appearance of breadth and immediacy.
Saint-Martin was one of the sixteen co-founders of the Société Libre des Beaux-Arts, an association opposed to the stylistic hegemony of the academies and salons. After 1880 he worked in a more impressionist style, and in 1881 he became a Chevalier de l'Ordre de Léopold. Two years later, the artist was awarded a gold medal at the International Colonial and Export Exhibition in Amsterdam.
Willem Jacob Herreyns, the Younger, was a Flemish painter of history subjects and portraits. He is regarded as one of the last painters in the tradition of the Flemish Baroque and the last follower of Peter Paul Rubens. Herreyns’ work was very highly regarded in his time. His religious compositions stand in the Rubens tradition. Herreyns is considered a draughtsman with a precise line, but his work shows a certain coldness and lacks originality.
Jan Baptist Lodewyck Maes was a Belgian genre painter active in Italy. Maes studied at the Academy of Ghent. He exhibited for the first time at that city's fair in 1810. He won prizes in all the competitions he entered and in 1820 received a grant from the city of Ghent. Thanks to the Belgian Rome Prize received in 1821, he first visited Paris and then went on to Italy. In 1822 he copied works by old masters in the Uffizi Museum. In 1824 he settled in Rome. Maes kept in touch with his hometown and regularly sent works to Belgian salons. He was a corresponding member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences.
Ignatius Josephus van Regemorter was a Flemish historical, landscape, and genre painter and engraver. He studied under his father, Petrus Johannes, also in Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent.
