Stormy Navy With Ships, Matthieu Van Plattenberg (1608-Paris 1660)

Matthieu Van Plattenberg known as Platte-Montagne
(Antwerp 1608 - Paris 1660)

Stormy navy with vessels

Oil painting on canvas
84 x 140 cm.
in beautiful frame 107 X 162 cm.

This suggestive storm, with the stormy sea rushing impetuously against the ships at the mercy of the waves, is fully part of the more mature production of the Flemish Matthieu Van Plattenberg (Antwerp 1608 - Paris 1660).

We find in full the pictorial characteristics that made the author excel in the representation of storms with turbulent seas.

Van Plattenberg masterfully renders the dramatic force of the narrative, where the arrival of the storm is punctuated by the threatening sky, with large clouds chasing each other and the sea swollen with gigantic waves that envelop the hulls of ships.

The proposed scene is intensely dramatic, with a vivid light, filtering through the clouds, which accentuates and contributes to the overall sense of vigor of the painting. The brightness, with particular attention to the light tones in the waves and clouds, is aimed at transmitting a lively effect of movement, creating the realistic illusion of the breaking of the waves and the tension of the wind.

Born in Antwerp in 1608, first a pupil of Andries van Eertvelt, he spent most of his career outside Flanders, first in Italy and then in France, where he played an important role in the thematic trend of sea storms, which was widely successful in the course of the seventeenth century, since the intense drama that the stormy sea could transmit was appreciated by collectors. The growing well-being of the Dutch and Flemish merchant classes had caused a strong demand for paintings for the walls of homes or representative offices, no longer with the classic historical or religious subject, but depicting scenes more closely related to everyday life, such as urban views, landscapes and, above all, marine.