Jan Davids de
Hem

Jan Davidsz de Heem (niderl. Jan Davidsz. de Heem; April 1606, Utrecht — 1683/1684 Antwerp), was a Dutch painter and son of artist David de Hay. Presumably a pupil of Balthasar van der ASTA.

The artist worked in Leiden in 1635 he joined the Antwerp Guild of artists and the following year became a citizen of Antwerp. About 1667 he returned to Utrecht, where he was born, and in 1672 he fled to Antwerp from the French, seized the city.

De hem received acclaim for his images of flowers and fruit.

HEM, Jan Davidsz de (Heem, Jan Davidsz de)

1606, Utrecht — 1684, Antwerp. The Dutch painter. Master of still life. Studied at B. van der ASTA in Utrecht. He worked in Leiden (1625-1636), Antwerp, where he lived in 1636-1658 and after a brief stay in Utrecht in 1669-1672 again in 1672-1684. Susceptible to the influence of various artistic movements, de hem created paintings in the spirit of the original elaborate archaic floral and fruit still lifes B. van der ASTA, then in Leiden turned to the genre of Vanitas still-life (allegory of transience) in the manner of a group of artists who was influenced by Rembrandt. In Antwerp, winning fame, was approached with the traditions of the Flemish still life F. Snyders and maker of flower garlands Daniel finally, there. Paintings by de Hema large horizontal format depicting holiday tables, architecture and abstract landscape crowded with expensive furniture and items generous meal. Typical Dutch masters of still-life understanding of the unity of black and white and scenic environment (P. Claes, V. head) joined purely Flemish attraction to wealth and luxury worldly goods (still life of dessert, 1640, Paris, Louvre; still life with ham, lobster and fruit, approx. 1660, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum). It works primarily to create a spectacle was not enough, however, so typical of Flemish painting of the feeling natural fullness of life. The combination of ornamental splendor and dry rationalism distinguishes glorified de Hema floral still lifes that connect in a complex, skillfully constructed composition different plants flowering at different times of the year, with carefully depicted details, including all sorts of insects — flies, butterflies, caterpillars, dragonflies, etc. Endowed with a fine sense of color, luxurious bouquets de Hema not only gave aesthetic pleasure, but also immerse the modern viewer in the world of multivalued symbolic images associated with the idea of impermanence, of the transience of all earthly things, flowering and withering, of life and death (Fruit and vase with flowers; Memento Mori, a skull and a bouquet of flowers, both Dresden gallery; Fruits and vase of flowers, 1655, flowers in a vase, both of St. Petersburg, GOS. The Hermitage). High culture of floriculture in the Netherlands, the love of flowers and their hidden religious and secular language of allegories contributed to the exceptional success of the genre in various circles of society; works de Hema, his disciples and followers who wrote the pattern based on sketches of the master, widely spread in the artistic centers in the Netherlands and Flanders.