City On Fire Or Parable Of The Burning Of Rome – Daniel Van Heil (1604 – 1662)

Oil on canvas. Flemish School, 17th century, attributed to Daniel van Heil.
So realistic is the scene and so intense is the drama, pushed to its peak, that the viewer can almost hear the flames crackling as they devour the houses and smell the acrid odor of smoke pervading the air. At first glance, because fire scenes made his reputation, one inevitably thinks of Daniel van Heil. And upon closer examination of the composition, his style becomes evident, and his figures are recognizable by their distinctive typology. A multitude of figures are busy in the foreground, some with buckets to extinguish the fire, others trying to save what they can. To the right and left, women raise their arms to the heavens, invoking the divine to protect them from this calamity. The presence of a classical temple at the center of the composition inevitably evokes the famous fires of Antiquity, such as the fire of Troy caused by the Greek invasion or the fire of Rome, for which Emperor Nero is often blamed.

The painting is set in a blackened wood frame with guilloché engraving.
Dimensions: 77 x 64 cm – 92 x 80 cm with frame.

Biography:
Daniel van Heil (Brussels 1604 – Brussels 1662) was a Flemish artist. Nothing is known of the apprenticeship of the painter's son, Leo van Heil, but it is known that he was admitted as a master to the Guild of Saint Luke in Brussels in 1627. Of the six pupils trained in his workshop, four became masters themselves. His brothers, Leo and Jan-Baptist, and his son, Theodore, were also painters. Praised during his lifetime, Daniel is known for his compositions depicting fires, snowy landscapes, or landscapes with ancient ruins, which he used as pretexts to illustrate mythological scenes (the Fall of Troy, the Flight of Aeneas with his father) in which he delighted in creating vivid contrasts of light. His landscapes are often winter scenes where he liked to contrast the white of the snow with the ochre tones of the earth. He did the same by contrasting the cold grays of night with the orange-yellows of the flames in his nocturnal fire scenes. The various genres explored by Daniel van Heil demonstrate a clear sense of composition and meticulous craftsmanship.

Bibliography:
- BROWN Christopher, Dutche Landscape, the early years, Haarlem and Amsterdam 1590 – 1650, National Gallery, 1986.
- THIERY Yvonne, Les Peintres flamands de paysage au XVIIe siècle, le Baroque anversois et de l'école bruxelloise.
- DE MAERE Jan, WABBES M, Illustrated dictionary of 17th century Flemish painters, La Renaissance du livre, 1994
- Collective work, Die Flämische Landschaft 1520 – 1700, catalogue of the exhibition at the Kulturstiftung Ruhr museum in Essen (23.08 to 30.11.2003) then at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna (23.12.2003 to 12.04.2004).
- TAPIE Alain, WEEMANS Michel, Fables of the Flemish Landscape, (exh. cat. Lille, Palais des beaux-arts, 6 October 2012-14 January 2013), Paris, Somogy, 2012.
- GIBSON Walter S., Mirror of the Earth: the World Landscape in Sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1989.