Aernout SMIT (1641-1710)

Marine

oil on canvas

Little is known about Smit’s life, and the few scraps of knowledge we can glean derive from references in archival documents. In a document dating from 1667, Smit explained that he had painted for some time in an attic rented by the art dealer Laurens Cornelisz. de Coninck in a house on the Singel canal. It is assumed that Smit took commissions from this art dealer after completing his training. A year earlier, his teacher Blanckerhoff had left the capital, after living there for seven years. Smit was married to Marietie Jans Weema, who ran a grocery shop. The first time his name appears in the membership list of the St Luke’s Guild in Amsterdam is in 1688. He specialised in seascapes, but he also painted landscapes and beach scenes.

The dramatic play of light in Ships on a stormy sea immediately evokes the atmosphere of a Backhuysen, it displays the contrast between a dark foreground and brightly illuminated rocks that is so characteristic of that artist’s work. Around the 1660s, Backhuysen’s fashionable style was emulated by other seascape painters, and it seems that Smit too adopted it at an early stage. It is difficult to demonstrate the development of his oeuvre, however, since Smit very rarely dated his work; there is no year on the painting discussed here. Smit did not shrink from painting large-scale, monumental scenes with imposing cloudy skies. His ships are depicted convincingly and reflect a sound understanding of shipbuilding.