Karel Dujardin (Getty Museum)(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-31)
The artistic training of KarelDujardin, a fat-renderer's son, remains a mystery.
Dujardin is famous principally for his finely detailed Italianate landscapes, which are usually lit by a bright summer sun.
Dujardin's more idealized and flamboyant society portraits and history paintings of the 1660s show that he fully embraced the tenets of this classicizing manner.
In many ways KarelDujardin is the most Dutch of the Italianate painters.
Dujardin was apprenticed to Berchem and probably travelled to Italy in the late 1640s or early 1650s, but like so many other Dutch Italianate artists of his generation this early trip south cannot be substantiated.
During this phase it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the hand of Potter from Dujardin's.
Dujardin was a student of Nicholas Berchem in Amsterdam.
Dujardin's specialty was Italian landscape painting, but he also executed a few religious works of which this is a fine example.
The dramatic moment of Peter's denial, and the woman's challenge is shown close-up so that the interchange seems completed by the viewer, who stands in front of the painting.
For example, the porphyry Roman sarcophagus was inspired by the very famous one that was then in the Pantheon (it was moved in the eighteenth century to St. John Lateran to contain the remains of Pope Clement XII).
In this composition, KarelDujardin is working in the "bambocciata" style popular with artists like Sébastien Bourdon and Jan Miel.
But although Dujardin uses the dark colors typical of this genre, his Caravaggio-style chiaroscuro has enormous power, giving the figures a sculptural presence which is rather rare in his work.
KarelDujardin made this eloquent view of an Italian landscape in 1653.
The date and Dujardin's signature can be seen in the top righthand corner of the etching
Dujardin lived and worked in Holland, but may have travelled to Italy as a young man. His depiction of the Mediterranean countryside is certainly convincing.
