FLORIS G ERRITSZ VAN SCHOOTEN Recent Years Have Seen An

FLORIS G ERRITSZ VAN SCHOOTEN POUL GAMMELBO Recent years have seen an interest in Floris Gerritsz van Schooten, the still life painter, whose works are here subjected to a close study, which seems to place him as an important Haarlem still life painter. He has passed through nearly all phases within this special genre. The artist must have been active in Haarlem all his life. He is often mentioned in literary sources between 1612, the year in which he married, and 1655. His great productivity is confirmed by these sources and by the fact that we know at least one hundred of his works. As a still life painter he preferred subjects such as markets and kitchens, still lifes with kitchen utensils, breakfast pieces and fruit stilllifes. The monumental market and kitchen scenes, created as a type by Pieter Aert- sen and Joachim Beuckelaer, were painted also by Pieter Aertsen's sons, Pieter and Aert, in Amsterdam and Haarlem. Through Comelis Comelisz van Haar- lem, himself a disciple of Pieter Pietersz, the type was passed on to Comelis J acobsz Delff and Comelis Engelsz Verspronck, who are mentioned as his disciples. Delff's father, Jacob Willemsz Delff, is said to have been the teacher also of Pieter Comelisz van Ryck, who, like C. J. Delff, spent some years in Italy. Vincenzo Campo's markets and kitchens resemble the representations of some of these painters fairly closely. In Haarlem several of the painters mentioned lent to the type a characteristic of their own, and with his dry, but very individual style, Floris van Schooten gave a significant contribution to the market and kitchen still life. While C. J. Delff and Verspronck emphasize the mobility of the figures and the interplay of figures, foreground and background, the figures of Floris van Schooten are immobile, almost rigid, and space is built up by abrupt contrasts of surfaces. Some early, very large-sized pictures have maintained the motif of Christ and his disciples at Emmaus; it is sharply separated from the rest of the picture (nos. I, 2 and 3). Around the middle of the second decade of the century, Floris van Schooten 105 POUL GAMMELBO painted a richly coloured kitchen piece, almost a genre picture, free of all traces of academism (no. 5). The national character becomes predominant. With the kitchen piece from 1620 (no. II) he created a prototype of the kitchens of the 1620'S, in which, unlike the kitchen of no. 5, the suggestion of space is increased by the further perspective of a vista into other rooms or the view of a landscape. The artist's markets and kitchens from the 1630's (nos. 21, 22 a.o.) tend towards greater space illusion, the number of figures being steadily increased. In a late representation of Christ with Martha and Mary, the narrative element even thrusts the objects into the background (no. 4). Gerrit Donck's markets from the end of the 1630's are influenced by Floris van Schooten's dry mode of painting dating a few years back (1634, see no. 24). Iconographically, the types of still lifes painted by Floris van Schooten are based on the kitchen or the market scenes. A number of simple still lifes with few kitchen utensils were painted prior to 1630; later on the composition becomes more luxuriant, the colouring richer, while a concern for increased spatial effects is noticeable from the middle of the 1630'S. Suggestion of space is obtained by means of surfaces in high light and deep shades. almost reminis- cent of props. C. J. Delff paints in the same style, and often has details practically identical to those of Floris van Schooten. The latter artist's fruit compositions from before and around 1630 show a rare sensibility to light and colour. Roelof Koets and Gillis de Bergh were influenced by this pictorial quality. Nicolaes van Heussen's market from 1630 should be mentioned here, also because it has traits in common with Floris van Schooten's market from 1634. The breakfast pieces from the artist's early period, painted shortly after 1600, have a high horizon, strict symmetry, and vivid local colouring, typical of that period. Nicolaes Gillis and Floris van Dyck also painted this type in Haarlem, while in Antwerp it was practised in a similar style by Osias Beert, Jacob van Hulsdonck, Frans Ykens, and Jacob van Es, perhaps through the intermediacy of Clara Peeters, who visited Amsterdam in 1612. Later still lifes painted by the latter resemble the pictures of Floris van Schooten so closely that the works of these two artists could easily be mistaken for one another. Floris van Schooten passes through all phases of the breakfast piece, from the magnificent composition painted in 1617 (no. 56) till, in the early 1640's, he creates a type of his own, adapted to the artistic demands of that period. Pieter Claesz and Roelof Koets, his fellow-townsmen, were probably a little younger. The earliest known breakfast piece by Claesz is from 1621, and as to 106 .

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