Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803-1862)

Landscape painter Barend Cornelis Koekkoek is seen as the most important 19th century painter among the Dutch romantics. He reaped fame throughout Europe for his meticulously painted views of woods and hill-covered landscapes. Barend Koekkoek was a pupil of his father, Johannes Hermanus, a painter of seascapes. He also studied at the Middelburg drawing academy and at the Royal Academy in Amsterdam. From 1836 to his death in 1862, he lived in Kleef from where he took off on many educational travels through Germany and Belgium. More than once, he won a gold medal at the Salons in Paris, and various rulers had him knighted. Koekkoek had many pupils including Marinus Adrianus (his brother), Johann Bernard Klombeck, Paul Gabriel and Louwrens Handedoes. The contrast between the transitory nature of man and the ageless beauty of nature is what makes Koekkoek such an impressive romantic painter, drawer and lithographer. In certain geographically precise paintings, he included idealistic visual elements that combined to create an ideal landscape. These landscapes were (and still are) very much admired by the art-loving public.