Hercules Pieterszoon Seghers

Background

Hercules was born in 1589 in Haarlem, as the son of a Mennonite cloth merchant Pieter Seghers and Cathalijntgen Hercules, originally from Flanders, who moved to Amsterdam in 1596. Seghers' father died in 1612.

Education

Seghers studied with Gillis van Coninxloo in Amsterdam.

Career

Seghers was influenced by the work of Adam Elsheimer. His style contrasted strongly with the main aspects of the Dutch output of that period; most of his works would have been difficult to understand prior to their rediscovery in the 20th century. Early reports indicated that he was lonely and poor, though several contemporary artists, including Rembrandt, expressed admiration for his work. He owned several of Seghers’s prints and paintings and was obviously influenced by his landscapes.

The majority of Seghers’s works represented forbidding mountain scenes with jagged cliffs, desolate valleys, broken tree trunks, and scant traces of human habitation. His etchings belong to the most original and impressive experiments in the history of printmaking. He used different-colored inks and often printed on colored or dyed paper and even on canvas; the diversity of individual prints was increased by his adding accents by hand.

In 1620 Hercules bought a large house in the Jordaan on the Lindengracht for about 4,000 guilders, but by the late 1620s he was in debt, and in 1631 had to sell it. In the same year he moved to Utrecht and started to sell art. In 1633 he moved to the Hague.

Seghers’s paintings are rare; few are documented, and many forgeries exist. Art historians generally attributed 10 to 12 paintings to Seghers’s canon. When preparing for a retrospective of his work in 2016, however, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam authenticated six additional paintings from private collections, potentially expanding Seghers’s oeuvre to comprise 18 paintings.

Just as the details about Seghers’s life and work are uncertain, so too are the details about his premature death. Dates and locations vary among sources, with some contending that he died in the early 1630s in The Hague. Some later sources said that Segers took to drink towards the end of his life and died after falling down the stairs.

Achievements

• Segers became known for his print paintings: colored prints and prints on canvas. His work was extremely popular in the 17th century. It even influenced Rembrandt, who owned eight of his works.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Panoramic landscape

  • Landscape with City on a River

  • The Great Tree

  • Mountainous landscape

  • Mountain Valley with Fenced Fields

  • View of Rhenen

  • Landscape with Armed Men

  • Town with four towers

  • Landscape with overhanging fir

  • Piles of Books

  • View of Brussels from the North East

  • Mountain valley

  • Two Trees

  • Mountain Gorge Bordered by a Road

  • River valley

  • A River Valley with a Group of Houses

  • Landscape

  • Rocky landscape

Views

Hercules Segers wanted to fathom and reproduce the essence of nature and the world. He combined scenes ‘from life’ with imaginary elements.

Membership

Hercules joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, along with his peers Willem Buytewech and Esaias van de Velde.

Interests

• Artists

  Adam Elsheimer

Connections

About 1614 Hercules moved back to Amsterdam and became engaged to Anneken van der Brugghen from Antwerp, 16 years his senior. In 1615 they got married. Nothing is known about their common children. In 1635 he married for the second time.

Father:

Pieter Seghers

Mother:

Cathalijntgen Hercules

Spouse:

Anneken van der Brugghen

peer:

Willem Buytewech

peer:

Esaias van de Velde

tutor:

Gillis van Coninxloo

References

• Hercules Segers: Painter, Etcher, A Catalogue Raisonn
  2017
• Hercules Segers
  1979
• Hercules Segers - Painter Etcher (Plates)
  2016
• Hercules Seghers
  1953
• Hercules Seghers (Art and architecture in the Netherlands) 1968 hardcover edition
  1968
• Die Radierungen des Hercules Seghers: Ein Physiognomischer Versuch, mit Einer Farbigen Tafel und 41 Schwarzen Abbildungen (Classic Reprint) (German Edition)
  2018
• Hercules Seghers (Art and Architecture in the Netherlands)
  1968