Patinir (or Patenier, or Patinier), Joachim

Patinir (or Patenier, or Patinier), Joachim (d. 1524). Netherlandish painter, a pioneer of landscape as an independent genre. Although landscape never constitutes the entire subject of his pictures, it dwarfs the figures in his religious and mythological scenes and he has been described as the first landscape specialist in European art. Nothing is known of his early life, but in 1515 he became a member of the painters' guild in Antwerp. When Dürer visited the city in 1521 he became friendly with Patinir and described him as a ‘good landscape painter’ (perhaps the first occurrence of this term). There are only a very few signed paintings, but many others have been attributed to him or his busy workshop. Patinir also painted landscape backgrounds for other artists, including his friend Quentin Massys (who after Patinir's death became guardian of his children); the most securely authenticated instance of such collaboration is the Temptation of St Anthony (Prado, Madrid), which in a 1574 inventory of the Escorial is described as having ‘the figures by Master Quentin and the landscape by Master Joachim’. Patinir's work combines naturalistic observation of detail with a wonderful sense of fantasy, forming a link between Bosch and Bruegel.