MADRID, SPAIN.-The Museo del Prado presents the first exhibition devoted to this enigmatic Flemish artist, considered the forerunner of landscape painting. Featuring a total of 48 paintings, 22 by Patinir and the remainder by his most important predecessors and followers, the exhibition will offer visitors the first opportunity to see most of this unique painter’s work together. Patinir is little known to the wider public, possibly due to his small oeuvre and the fact that few collections contain a sizeable group of his paintings. This has made the study of his art difficult up to now, even for specialists.

Arising from the research carried out in the preparation of this exhibition, its curator is also responsible for the publication of a catalogue raisónne of Patinir’s work, which aims to become the principal source of reference on this subject for specialists in Flemish art.

This July the Museo del Prado will be presenting the first exhibition devoted to the painter Joachim Patinir. This 16th-century Flemish artist and contemporary of Bosch can be considered the father of landscape. Aside from his important role within the history of art as the inventor of that genre, Patinir is an exceptionally appealing artist due to his poetic and enigmatic vision of nature. In addition, his small surviving oeuvre and the little that is known about his life make him an interesting and mysterious figure. The exhibition brings together 22 of the 29 paintings which the curator, Dr Alejandro Vergara, Chief Curator of Flemish Painting at the Museo del Prado, has attributed to the artist and a further 27 paintings and works on paper by predecessors and followers of his style.

The exhibition will bring together the largest group of the artist’s works to date. Most have very rarely or never been previously loaned due to the particular conservation problems associated with oils on panel. Among the paintings by Patinir to be included in the exhibition, six come from Spanish collections (four from the Prado, one from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and one from the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial). Patinir is particularly well represented in Spain and almost a quarter of his entire oeuvre is now to be found in the region of Madrid.

This is the most ambitious exhibition that the Museum is devoting to the work of a 16th-century Flemish artist and the Prado, which houses one of the best collections of 15th- and 16th-century Netherlandish painting worldwide, is paying tribute to this great figure, the first Flemish artist to make landscape the principal subject of a painting. In addition, with the four works mentioned above, the Prado has the largest collection of Patinir’s works in any collection. With the present exhibition in mind, the Museum has restored these four oil paintings over the last three years.

Among the most important works loaned for the exhibition are The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine and The Baptism of Christ from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; the Triptych with the penitent Saint Jerome from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York which has never travelled before; the small but beautiful Landscape with the Flight into Egypt from the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp; and the spectacular Landscape with Saint Christopher from El Escorial.

Patinir and his predecessors - Joachim Patinir’s date of birth is unknown, but he was probably born in modern-day south-east Belgium between 1480 and 1485. It is generally thought that from 1515 he worked as a painter in Antwerp and that he died there in 1524. The present exhibition intends to shed light on his biography and career and above all to draw the public’s attention to some of the most evocative and mysterious landscapes ever painted. With the exception of some works that cannot travel for conservation reasons, the exhibition Joachim Patinir brings together all the works considered to be by the artist and his studio, including some recent attributions.

Described by Dürer at the outset of the Renaissance as “the good painter of landscapes”, Patinir was considered the first modern painter to specialise in this genre. The exhibition opens with a selection of works by forerunners of the artist in which a growing interest in the natural setting is evident. Nonetheless, neither Bosch, Robert Campin, Hans Memling or Dirk Bouts, among other forerunners of the artist, went on to specialise in landscape despite their evident influence on this genre. The exhibition examines the work of some of these predecessors of Patinir in whose painting landscape ceased to act as a mere background to the figures and became a setting in which the actions depicted took place.

Patinir’s success cannot be understood without the earlier example of these figures, who by endowing the natural setting with a new importance laid the way for the process of artistic investigation on which Patinir embarked. The artist thus became the earliest forerunner of landscape painting as an independent genre. Among the reasons for the spectacular rise of this genre the geographical context was important. Antwerp was the leading art market of Europe and in contrast to other major European cities, the range of works produced there was enormous and was controlled by the artists themselves rather than by the Church. Within this context of economic growth and a competitive market, Patinir gained a pre-eminent role in which the combination of detailed observation from life and imaginative and fantastical interpretation brought him close to the work of other Flemish painters known for their striking styles, such as Bosch and Pieter Bruegel.

The Core of the Exhibition - The principal section of the exhibition is devoted to 22 paintings by Patinir and is the largest groups of his works ever to be brought together. These were produced at a time when it was normal for painters to work in collaboration with their studio and the exhibition has consequently aimed to establish which were painted by Patinir himself and which by his pupils. In addition, two new works are included which seem to indicate the artist’s own hand or that of his studio: the Triptych with the penitent Saint Jerome and Landscape with the Crucifixion, both from private collections.

The display of works combines a chronological and stylistic ordering. Three rooms devoted to Patinir reveal not only the originality of his style but also pay attention to stylistic and attributional issues. The paintings are grouped according to the similarities evident in the different versions of a particular subject, such as the religious subjects with Saint Jerome or the Rest on the Flight into Egypt. Patinir’s progressive mastery of landscape as an increasingly important element culminates in his large, late paintings. Three of them form the core of the exhibition: Landscape with Saint Christopher from the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial; Charon Crossing the Styx, and The Temptations of Saint Anthony, both from the Museo del Prado.

Patinir’s Influence - The exhibition closes with a room of works that reveal the enormous impact of Patinir’s work on that of his contemporaries. These artists include Quinten Massys (1466-1530), Bernard van Orley (ca.1488-1541), and Joos van Cleve (died in 1540/1541), as well as artists of the next generation such as Herri Met de Bles (ca.1510-after 1550), and Jan van Amstel (ca.1500-ca.1542).

Special publications - The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue raisonné. In addition to the 22 works in the exhibition it includes 8 more paintings by Patinir which have been attributed to the artist on the basis of the research undertaken in relation to the present exhibition.