Joachim Beuckelaer
1534-1574
Joachim Beuckelaer was Flemish Northern Renaissance painter of large still lives, market and kitchen pieces. He was active in Amsterdam and in Antwerp.
A native of Antwerp, he studied under his uncle, Pieter Aertsen. He followed his uncle's preference for scenes in which a religious subject is relegated to the background by the still life or genre content. Many of his paintings contain scenes of kitchen and markets. He seems to have been the first painter to depict fish stalls.
His Four Elements series exemplifies this theme on a large scale. Water, for example, shows a fish market selling twelve kinds of fish, representing the twelve disciples of Jesus. Through an archway in the background we can see Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee after his resurrection, making fish appear miraculously in empty nets.
Beuckelaer's work was influential on painters in Northern Italy, particularly Vincenzo Campi.
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