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拍品专文
This is one of only a few known dated works by the enigmatic Dutch Caravaggist painter Gerard van Kuijl. Sometimes confused with a Gysbert van der Kuyl from Gouda, the artist was in fact from Gorinchem and is first recorded in Utrecht in 1625 as a witness to the will of Sophia Coopmans, the wife of the painter Gerrit van Honthorst. It has therefore been presumed that van Kuijl trained under Honthorst and he soon followed in his master’s footsteps by travelling to Italy. In 1629, he is recorded in Rome as ‘Gerardo fiammingo’, living with the French painter Jean Ducamps in the Via Margutta. He remained there as a member of the Bentveughels until 1632 before travelling back home.
Painted in 1647, well after his return from Rome, probably in Utrecht, the present work nonetheless speaks clearly of van Kuijl’s years in Italy and the all-pervading influence of Caravaggio; his detached, long haired protagonist, shown in contrapposto, is reminiscent of Caravaggio’s Narcissus or David and Goliath, for example, both works which van Kuijl might have encountered in Rome (now respectively Rome, Galleria Nazionale; and Madrid, Museo del Prado).
Philoctetes was a highly original choice of subject, apparently without any known pictorial precedent (see J. Davidson Reid, op. cit.). The son of Poeas, King of Malius, Philoctetes was the only one present at the death of Heracles and from him received his bow and arrows. As one of Helen’s unsuccessful suitors, Philoctetes joined the Greek expedition to Troy but on the voyage was bitten on his foot by a snake. The wound became infected and its stench and his agonised cries drove his companions to put Philoctetes ashore on the deserted island of Lemnos. For ten years he remained on Lemnos suffering terrible pain and loneliness.
An image of stoic isolation, Philoctetes is depicted by van Kuijl on Lemnos tending his wound by a stream with the bow of Heracles by his side. The Greek hero is cast as an outsider, cut off from the outside world and fighting for survival - a notion which might have appealed to a struggling artist like van Kuijl. This connection between the cast away and the ‘outsider artist’ saw the subject grow in popularity in the late-eighteenth century and was adopted by a host of Romantic artists such as Nicolai Abildgaard, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, James Barry and William Blake.
Painted in 1647, well after his return from Rome, probably in Utrecht, the present work nonetheless speaks clearly of van Kuijl’s years in Italy and the all-pervading influence of Caravaggio; his detached, long haired protagonist, shown in contrapposto, is reminiscent of Caravaggio’s Narcissus or David and Goliath, for example, both works which van Kuijl might have encountered in Rome (now respectively Rome, Galleria Nazionale; and Madrid, Museo del Prado).
Philoctetes was a highly original choice of subject, apparently without any known pictorial precedent (see J. Davidson Reid, op. cit.). The son of Poeas, King of Malius, Philoctetes was the only one present at the death of Heracles and from him received his bow and arrows. As one of Helen’s unsuccessful suitors, Philoctetes joined the Greek expedition to Troy but on the voyage was bitten on his foot by a snake. The wound became infected and its stench and his agonised cries drove his companions to put Philoctetes ashore on the deserted island of Lemnos. For ten years he remained on Lemnos suffering terrible pain and loneliness.
An image of stoic isolation, Philoctetes is depicted by van Kuijl on Lemnos tending his wound by a stream with the bow of Heracles by his side. The Greek hero is cast as an outsider, cut off from the outside world and fighting for survival - a notion which might have appealed to a struggling artist like van Kuijl. This connection between the cast away and the ‘outsider artist’ saw the subject grow in popularity in the late-eighteenth century and was adopted by a host of Romantic artists such as Nicolai Abildgaard, Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, James Barry and William Blake.