About this item

"[Segers] painted landscapes in a state of bliss." -- Werner HerzogHercules Segers (sometimes spelled Seghers) may be art history's greatest unknown artist. Active in early 17th-century Holland just before Rembrandt, he created otherworldly landscapes of astonishing originality which today are viewed as radical anticipations of modernism. Using an array of innovative techniques that still puzzle scholars (including his famous sugar lift etching method) , Segers created extraordinarily resonant, melancholic landscapes characterized by luscious, soft lines, that resemble nothing by his contemporaries and little that has followed since.Segers rejected the notion that prints from a single plate should be identical, instead freely deploying varied color schemes, then adding lines or cutting down the plate and sometimes printing on cloth.