ROELOF VAN VRIES (Haarlem 1630/31 – Amsterdam [?] after 1681)
The Old Oak Tree
signed in the lower right R. vries f.
oil on panel
14 ¼ x 10 ¾ inches (36 x 27.5 cm.)
PROVENANCE
Otto Naumann Ltd., New York from whom acquired by
Private Collection, Washington, D.C.
Roelof van Vries was a landscape painter who specialized in depicting river views, country scenes, wooded and dune landscapes. Stylistically his work is indebted to Jacob van Ruisdael as is evident in The Old Oak Tree, as well as Meindert Hobbema. Van Vries’ paintings often closely resemble the works of Cornelis Decker, Claes Molenaer and Salomon Rombouts. Occasionally Adriaen van de Velde and Johannes Lingelbach supplied staffage to his compositions. Recorded dates in the artist’s history include his entry into the Guild of St. Luke in Leiden in 1653 and the Guild of St. Luke in Haarlem in 1657. In 1658 his age is documented as twenty-eight at which time he is married in Amsterdam. He is last mentioned in Amsterdam in 1681.[1]
Van Vries’ output was substantial and the numbers of museums that own works by the artist are rather remarkable. They include among others those of Amiens, Amsterdam, Bath, Bonn, Bordeaux, Brussels, Budapest, Cambridge, Copenhagen, Dartmouth, Detroit, Dublin, Frankfurt, The Hague, Liège, London, Munich, New York, Oslo, Oxford, Philadelphia, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm and Turin.[2]
In this panel a stricken oak tree with exposed roots and few remaining branches lists into the center foreground. To the left of the center tree stands an upright oak backed by another rotten one and a towering rock formation. In the center foreground is a leaping dog and a pipe-smoking seated angler by a stream. On the other side of the stream is a field with a rustic pointing to a seated companion off to his left. Two other figures in the distance walk towards a densely wooded area that encloses the right side of the panel. Ominous skies of bluish-grey streaked with pink and dotted with four black birds loom overhead.
The dramatic use of decaying tree trunks in Van Vries’ compositions was a touchstone for the artist, and other examples can be found in the museums of Budapest, Dartmouth, and Dublin. The message of the panel is suggested by the pipe-smoking angler. Smoking in the seventeenth century was viewed as unhealthy, costly and at best a fleeting pleasure. Smoke as a vanitas emblem stemmed directly from Psalm 102:3 “For my days pass away like smoke.”[3] The juxtaposition of healthy and rotten trees was commonly found in Dutch seventeenth century emblem books as a metaphor for the transitoriness of life. Oaks in particular were the traditional symbol for steadfastness, strength and power as well as pride, arrogance and overbearance. By the employment of such vanitas imagery the viewer is made aware of the impermanence of life, but also its ceaseless renewal.[4]
[1] Biographical information taken from Walther Bernt, “Roelof van Vries” in Die Niederländischen Maler des 17. Jahrhunderts, volume III, Verlag F. Bruckmann, Munich, 1960, unpaginated; Homan Potterton, “Roelof van Vries” in Dutch Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, Criterion Press Ltd., Dublin, 1986, p. 171; and Walter Liedtke, “Roelof van Vries” in Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, volume II, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2007, p. 934.
[2] Biographical information taken from Thieme-Becker, “Roelof Jansz. van Vries” in Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler, volume XXXIV, Veb E. A. Seeman Verlag, Leipzig, 1940, p. 579; E. Benezit, “Roelof van Vries” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Librairie Gründ, Paris, 1976, p. 585; Peter Sutton, Dutch Art in America, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, p. 349; and Liedtke, op.cit., p. 934.
[3] Raymond J. Kelly, III, To Be, or Not to Be, Four Hundred Years of Vanitas Painting, exhibition catalogue Flint Institute of Arts, Flint Michigan, 2006, p. 22.
[4] Peter C. Sutton, “Jacob van Ruisdael, Oaks Beside a Pool” in Masters of 17th- Century Dutch Landscape Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, February 3 – May 1, 1988, pp. 457 – 458.