The Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra offers you this week a new guided tour of a particular artwork from the exhibition “INFLUENCERS in Art. From Van Goyen to Pop Art“, which you can listen to from home.
Today, the Museu Carmen Thyssen Andorra invites you to discover ” Landscape with a Drove of Cattle “, 1859, by the artist Carlos de Haes, which is part of the Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza collection.
Born in Brussels on 25 January 1829 and died in Madrid on 17 June 1898, Carlos de Haes is one of the most recognised landscape artists of the second half of the 19th century. In 1835, when he was only six years old, he left his native Belgium with his family and moved to Malaga, where he took his first steps in the world of art. He did not return to the Belgian capital until the age of 21, in 1850, to continue his training. This journey marked a key moment in the young artist’s career, as he discovered the landscape work of the Flemish masters on the one hand and the avant-garde on the other. He will also and above all be taught by the artist Joseph Quinaux, who will encourage him to work in front of nature.
Becoming a great representative of realism, Carlos de Haes took a stand against the romantic tendency, representing nature through his sketches made in the open air, which he then reproduced in his studio. His aim is not to represent idealized landscapes, but the objective and direct reality of his environment. As a great traveller, de Haes leaves a wide range of representations to posterity, illustrating many European landscapes and undeniably proving his pictorial mastery in the face of the diversity of the continent’s reliefs and atmospheres.
The artist’s return to Spain marks a step forward in the country’s landscape tradition. De Haes encouraged his students at the School of Fine Arts in Madrid, just as his master had done, to work in front of nature and inspired, through his touch, the future Impressionist movement.
