page_title: Gerard Seghers
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Gerard Seghers / Work
caption_attribution_description: English: The Denial of St. Peter. circa 1620-1625. Gerard Seghers. Oil on canvas.62 x 89 1/2 in. (157.5 x 227.3cm). North Carolina Museum of Art via Google Cultural Institute
context_page_description: Gerard Seghers was a Flemish painter, art collector and art dealer. After a period of study and residence in Rome, he returned to Flanders where he became one of the leading representatives of the Flemish Caravaggisti movement. In his later career he abandoned the Caravaggist style and genre motifs to become an important painter of large altarpieces for local churches.
context_section_description: Seghers is known mainly for his monumental genre paintings and large religious and allegorical works. He completed many altarpieces for churches in the Southern Netherlands. Most of his works are executed in a characteristic landscape (horizontal) format.
  Stylistically and thematically, Seghers was initially strongly influenced by Caravaggio and in particular the work of Bartolomeo Manfredi, a follower of Caravaggio, who championed an idealised form of Caravaggism. Caravaggism, both in history and monumental genre paintings, continued to mark Seghers's work after his return to Antwerp. In contrast to Caravaggio, Seghers preferred a more idealised treatment of his subjects. The influence of the Caravaggisti is seen in his reliance on chiaroscuro, close-ups and an exaggerated expression for dramatic effect. He often used figures to obscure the light source (often candlelight) for dramatic effect. A work from this early period is his Judith with the Head of Holofernes in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome as well as The Denial of Saint Peter in the North Carolina Museum of Art. Favourite themes were scenes of music making and card playing.
  The theme of the Denial of Saint Peter seems to have been particularly dear to him as at least 10 versions by his hand are known. The theme lent itself easily to genre treatment. Seghers was mainly interested in depicting people of flesh and blood, preferably in a moment of crisis which allowed the artist to paint their various facial expressions. The masked candle he used heightened the expressiveness and added a spiritual dimension. Many copies of his versions of this theme were produced by himself and his studio. The Flemish painter Michael Angelo Immenraet repeated one of Seghers' variation on the theme in his programme of decorative paintings on biblical themes he painted for the Unionskirche, Idstein in Germany.
  After 1630, his palette lightened up considerably and the dark background was replaced by architectural motifs, clouds and landscape elements. The realistic facial expressions became more Classicist and he used more variations of colour. These changes reflected the influence of Peter Paul Rubens with whom Seghers closely collaborated during the 1630s. This influence went even so far that in his painting the Adoration of the Magi (1630, Church of Our Lady, Bruges) he adopted Rubens' composition for his treatment of the same subject. It is with this style that he achieved his greatest success in his career. His most important and most characteristic works were painted between 1630 and 1640. Afterwards, he changed to a more gracious and elegant, but also less monumental style. His colours became weaker and the draperies more linear.
  While Seghers typically worked on a large scale, he also produced various works on a small scale and on copper for the export market or private use. These smaller works were often reduced copies or variations of his own works. Many of Seghers' compositions were engraved by the Antwerp engravers such as Jacob Neefs, Paulus Pontius and Schelte a Bolswert. These prints have assisted in attributing a number of paintings that were deemed lost to Gerard Seghers.
caption: The denial of Saint Peter
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