Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem (1 October 1620 – 18 February 1683) was a highly esteemed and prolific Dutch Golden Age painter of pastoral landscapes, populated with mythological or biblical figures, but also of a number of allegories and genre pieces.

Biography

Born in Haarlem

Haarlem

Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...

, he received instruction from his father Pieter Claesz

Pieter Claesz

Pieter Claesz was a Dutch Golden Age still life painter.-Biography:He was born in Berchem, Belgium, near Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1620. He moved to Haarlem in 1621, where his son, the landscape painter Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem was born...

, and from the painters Jan van Goyen, Pieter de Grebber

Pieter de Grebber

Pieter Fransz de Grebber was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Life:De Grebber was the oldest son of Frans Pietersz de Grebber , a painter and embroiderer in Haarlem, and the brother of the painters Maria and Albert. He learned to paint from his father and from Hendrick Goltzius...

, Jan Baptist Weenix

Jan Baptist Weenix

Jan Baptist Weenix , a painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Despite his relatively brief career, he was a very productive and versatile painter. His favourite subjects were Italian landscapes with large figures among ruins, seaside views, and, later in life, large still life pictures of dead game or dogs...

, Jan Wils and Claes Cornelisz. Moeyaert. According to Houbraken, Carel de Moor

Carel de Moor

Carel de Moor was a Dutch Golden Age etcher and painter. He was a pupil of Gerard Dou.-Biography:Carel de Moor was born in Leiden. According to Houbraken, his father was an art dealer who wanted him to study languages and only allowed him to study art when his talent for drawing surfaced at a...

 told him that Berchem got his name from two words "Berg hem" for "Save him!", an expression used by his fellows in Van Goyen's workshop whenever his father chased him there with the intent to beat him. No trip or Grand Tour by Berchem was documented by Houbraken though he mentioned another story about the "Berg hem!" nickname which came from Berchem's conscription as a sailor; the man in charge of impressment

Impressment

Impressment, colloquially, "the Press", was the act of taking men into a navy by force and without notice. It was used by the Royal Navy, beginning in 1664 and during the 18th and early 19th centuries, in wartime, as a means of crewing warships, although legal sanction for the practice goes back to...

 knew him and sent him ashore with the words "Save him!". Today his name is assumed to come from his father's hometown of Berchem, Antwerp. According to the RKD he traveled to Italy with Jan Baptist Weenix

Jan Baptist Weenix

Jan Baptist Weenix , a painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Despite his relatively brief career, he was a very productive and versatile painter. His favourite subjects were Italian landscapes with large figures among ruins, seaside views, and, later in life, large still life pictures of dead game or dogs...

, whom he called his cousin, in 1642-5. Works by him are signed both as "CBerghem" and "Berchem".

In 1645 he became a member of the Dutch reformed church and married the year after. According to Houbraken he married the daughter of the painter Jan Wils, who kept him on a short allowance, but to finance his collection of prints he would borrow money from his pupils and colleagues and pay them back from the proceeds of paintings that he didn't tell her about. Around 1650 he travelled to Westphalia

Westphalia

Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...

 with Jacob van Ruisdael, where a dated piece showing Bad Bentheim

Bad Bentheim

Bad Bentheim is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany lying in the district of Grafschaft Bentheim on the borders with North Rhine-Westphalia and the Netherlands roughly 15 km south of Nordhorn and 20 km northeast of Enschede. It is also a state-recognized thermal brine and sulphur spa town,...

 is recorded. Maybe Berchem went to Italy after this trip and before he moved to Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 - he is not clearly documented in the Netherlands between 1650 and 1656. Around 1660 he worked for the engraver Jan de Visscher

Jan de Visscher

Jan de Visscher , was a Dutch Golden Age engraver who became a painter in later life.-Biography:...

 designing an atlas. In 1661-1670 he is registered in Amsterdam and in 1670 he moved back to Haarlem, but was living back in Amsterdam by 1677, where he died in 1683.

He was a popular teacher and his pupils were Abraham Begeyn

Abraham Begeyn

Abraham Begeyn , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:Begeyn was born in Leiden. Though perhaps known mostly for his Italianate landscapes and cattle in the manner of Nicolaes Pietersz Berchem, Begyn was a highly skilled painter active in many genres, who traveled widely...

, Johannes van der Bent

Johannes van der Bent

-Biography:According to Houbraken he was a student of Philips Wouwerman and Adriaen van de Velde. His birthdate is uncertain, but he was judged to be about forty when he died of tuberculosis. Houbraken thought he caught the disease from melancholy resulting from losing a large sum of money , which...

, his son Nicolaes, Isaack Croonenbergh, Simon Dubois, Karel Dujardin

Karel Dujardin

Karel Dujardin was a Dutch painter.-Biography:Karel Dujardin was a Dutch painter and etcher, born in Amsterdam in 1622. Although active as a portrait and history painter, he is best known for his Italianate landscapes. Typical of his landscape paintings is Farm Animals in the Shade of a Tree...

, Johannes Glauber

Johannes Glauber

Johannes Glauber , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken he became a painter against the wishes of his father, the chemist Johann Rudolph Glauber , and became a pupil of Nicolaes Berchem on his own, living with Gerrit van Uylenburgh and working on copies of Italianate...

, Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch

Pieter de Hooch was a genre painter during the Dutch Golden Age. He was a contemporary of Dutch Master Jan Vermeer, with whom his work shared themes and style.-Biography:...

, Jacob van Huchtenburg, Justus van Huysum

Justus van Huysum

Justus van Huysum, also spelled Huijsum, was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:He was the son of the decorative painter Jan van Huysum I and the brother of the engraver Caspar van Huysum...

, Dirk Maas

Dirk Maas

Dirk Maas , was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken he was first a pupil of Hendrick Mommers, a Haarlem painter of vegetable market scenes, and then took lessons from Nicolaes Berchem, who he probably met through Mommers.. Maas became a follower of Berchem's...

, Hendrick Mommers

Hendrick Mommers

Hendrick Mommers , was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken he was a Haarlem painter of vegetable market scenes, who was the first teacher of the young painter Dirk Maas, who later took lessons from the more famous landscape painter Nicolaes Berchem. Mommers died...

, Jacob Ochtervelt

Jacob Ochtervelt

Jacob Ochtervelt , was a Dutch Golden Age painter.-Biography:According to Houbraken "Jakob Ugtervelt" was a pupil of N...

, and Willem Romeyn

Willem Romeyn

Willem Romeyn , was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.-Biography:first a pupil of Karel Dujardin along with Johannes Lingelbach...

. He was the uncle of Govert van der Leeuw

Govert van der Leeuw

Gabriel, or Govert van der Leeuw , was a Dutch Golden Age landscape painter.-Biography:He was the brother of Pieter van der Leeuw, and they learned to paint from their father, the painter Bastiaan Govertsz van der Leeuw , who had been a pupil of Jacob Gerritsz Cuyp. As a young man he traveled to...

 and his brother Pieter.

He was a member of the second generation of "Dutch Italianate landscape" painters. These were artists who travelled to Italy, or aspired to, in order to soak up the romanticism of the country, bringing home sketchbooks full of drawings of classical ruins and pastoral imagery.
His paintings, of which he produced an immense number, (Hofstede de Groot claimed around 850, although many are misattributed), were in great demand, as were his 80 etchings and 500 drawings. His landscapes, painted in the Italian style of idealized rural scenes, with hills, mountains, cliffs and trees in a golden dawn are sought after. Berchem also painted inspired and attractive human and animal figures (staffage

Staffage

In painting, staffage, pronounced "staffarge" as in French, are the human and animal figures depicted in a scene, especially a landscape, that are not the primary subject matter of the work. Before the adoption of the word into the visual arts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,...

) in works of other artists, like Allaert van Everdingen, Jan Hackaert

Jan Hackaert

-Biography:He travelled in Germany and Switzerland, and painted and sketched mostly landscapes. He would sketch miners at work in the mountains, and on more than one occasion this caused him trouble because the workers couldn't understand what he was doing. They felt he was either a spy or hexing...

, Gerrit Dou, Meindert Hobbema

Meindert Hobbema

Meindert Hobbema , was a landscape painter of the Dutch school.-Life:The facts of his life are somewhat obscure. His chronology and signed pictures substantially contradict each other...

 and Willem Schellinks

Willem Schellinks

-Biography:He traveled to France with Lambert Doomer in 1646. After that he undertook another journey in 1661-1665 as the guide of Heere Jakob Thierry de Jong, a young gentleman on his Grand Tour. According to Houbraken, Schellinks compiled his drawings and notes about this last journey in three...

. The French Rococo painter Jean-Baptiste Pillement

Jean-Baptiste Pillement

Jean-Baptiste Pillement was a painter and designer, known for his exquisite and delicate landscapes, but whose importance lies primarily in the engravings done after his drawings, and their influence in spreading the Rococo style and particularly the taste for chinoiserie throughout...

 was influenced by his works, as was the Dutch 'Cleves Romanticism' landscape painter, Barend Cornelis Koekkoek

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek

Koekkoek, Barend Cornelis Dutch landscape artist and father of Johannes Hermanus Barend Koekkoek.-Life:...

.

External links

• Works by Nicolaes Berchem at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
• http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/aria/aria_artists/00017856?lang=en
• http://www.emslandgeschichte.de/Seiten/Biographien/Texte/Berchem.html
• Berchem in Italy: notes on an unpublished painting