Farms
| Price: On request |
| Painter: Peter van den Braken |
| Dimensions: 74 x 55 inclusief lijst, in goede staat |
| Signature: rechtsboven, gedateerd 1932, artwork was auctioned by Christie’s |
| Technics: Olieverf op board |
Description
Avant-garde work by Peter van den Braken, who in his early period, thanks to his love for Van Gogh, could work under ‘French’ semi-Fauvist influence. The farms run into and embrace each other in long lanes through colors. This makes them more powerful, more loveable and voluminous. Color content and perspective of the farms are aligned. Together with the road and the greenery, they merge into one stylish, decorative whole. The pasty use of paint contributes to this.
Modernist painting is powerful, has vision, its own ‘personality’. Through this approach, the painting proves a surprising outcome: the more ‘unrealistic’, the more natural and self-evident the artistic vision behind the artwork on the canvas turns out. That idea challenges the truth of the simple realistic premise of visible reality. Even so, the creative added value of this transformation is convincing. By passing colorfully into each other in this authentic way, the objects gain in common strength.
It is a major discovery. And Van den Braken’s work is also made with a lot of guts. He turns out to be a painter of stature. With this kind of semi-abstract work he gave Dutch painting an authentic direction.
Biography
Peter van den Braken was born in 1896 in Eindhoven as the son of Poulus Catharina (Pauw) van den Braken (1868-1963) and Maria Elisabeth Cecilia van Bakel (1894-1980). He was the childhood friend of Antoon Coolen, who also became nationally mainly as a regional novelist of Brabant life. Van den Braken was an admirer of Vincent van Gogh. In the painting village of Heeze, the painter Jan Kruysen was his teacher and had contact with his son Antoon Kruysen.
Van den Braken has lived in many places and he has also traveled a lot. Already at the age of twelve he decided to leave Brabant to travel the world with his painting supplies.
In his younger years he worked in Brussels, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Amsterdam, Kortenhoef, Paris, London and Rome. Early in life he also worked in Switzerland, France and Portugal. Later some time in Finland, Norway, North America. in Canada (Montreal and Toronto), Palm Beach in Florida and in Mexico City.
.