Janssens, Pieter Elinga (Brügge? 1623 ca. – Amsterdam 1682)

Nature morte with small monkey

Pieter Janssens Elinga. Nature morte with small monkey. Private collection

The painting ^"Natura morta con scimmietta^" oil on canvas, cm. 108,4 x 135,5, work signed by Pieter Janssens Elinga (Brügge 1623 - Amsterdam 1682), (signed at the right central part «C. P. Elinga Pbr.»).

As a painter of life styles and nature morte, his first works are characterized by soft and delicate strokes put in relief by the dark grounds and the sidelight with low visual angles as in the works of Jan van de Velde. A characterization that unites him with van de Velde is in some cases the simple composition reduced to the diminutive as well in the nature morte (limited in picturing few things, oranges, lemons, a glass, a pot) as in the interior scenes (silent environments with a few female figures usually seen from the back) where he is often confounded with Peter di Hooch. In other cases he fills up the composition with an innumerable amount of fruit and flowers but maintaining the balance between the distinct compositions by means of an almost mill metrical accuracy. Effecting that the whole composition never appears overloaded and even that it might be richly exaggerated, it preserves an astounding lightness. It is noticed how the composition of colours follows a very precise wish from the artist never making them discordant. The softness and peace that he gives the colours offer a sense of rest and tranquillity to the observer.

A curiosity that I want to emphasize is that the artist signs in three different ways: «P. Jannsens E», «P. J. E.», «C. P. Elinga», the third signature is used in works rich with flowers and fruit, different from the interior scenes and in the compositions with nature morte. Those are more simple arrangements and contain more of the Dutch style. These characteristics have strengthened the hypothesis that the two different types of compositions came from two different painters. C. Hofstede de Groot has refuted this hypothesis.

I consider this beautiful composition to be under the strong influence of paintings in the Italian era, an influence that many Dutch and Flemish artists revived during their stay in Italy. In this work by J.P.E. one can notice minor attention to particularities, of exact graphics; instead, he surrender to a more free interpretation of the nature and leaves behind the accuracy from certain Dutch works (van Kesse) in order to follow a more free painting with an immediate stroke almost like an “outflow”.

Luigi de Zucco

Bibliography:

Thieme - Becker, Allgemein Künstler Lexikon - Leipzig 1934.

N.R.A Vroom, De Schilders van het monochrome Banketje - Amsterdam 1945.

E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpeurs, ecc.- Parigi 1956.

I.   Berström, Duchi Still life Painting of the 17th century - 1956.

J.  Lassaigne - R. Delevoy, La peinture flamand Ginevra 1958.

W. Bernt, Die Niederländischen Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts  - München 1969.

C. Wright, The Dutch Painters - 100 Seventeenth Century Master - Londra 1978.