Wilhelm
Bemmel

Son of Gerrit (Gerhard), city mayor. Died Nuremberg November 26, 1662 Agnes (born November 30, 1641 - buried March 3, 1710, living at the Veste), daughter of Gottfried Pisanus, furrier and named, five sons, six daughters, three sons (Wolf Hieronymus, Johann Georg and Peter) and one daughter survive. Bemmel was of the Protestant Reformed faith and came from a wealthy Utrecht family. Sandrart was the first biographer to praise him in 1675 and in 1683 described him as a teacher of the Germans who conveyed a new idea of ​​the beauty of the landscape. Bemmel began his apprenticeship at a very young age and was a student of Hermann Saftleven in Utrecht, where he was probably also influenced by Jan Both. There are contradictory accounts of his years of travel. In 1647 he is said to have visited Venice. In 1650 he painted a “church village” in the Dutch tradition, and in 1652/53 he painted views of the Rhine near St. Goar for Landgrave Ernst of Hesse. In 1654 he painted a series of etchings (tree depictions) in the style of H. Saftleven. Based on several works, it can be assumed that he drew motifs in the area around Rome between 1655 and 1660. There is no archival evidence of a trip to England, but it was mentioned in the biographies written by Georg Christoph Gottlieb II. Bemmel. After a short stay in Augsburg, where he met Joachim von Sandrart, he came to Nuremberg in 1662 and settled in the suburb of Wöhrd, where he lived until the end. Bemmel was exclusively a landscape painter. His oeuvre includes Italianate landscapes, waterfalls, mountain and forest landscapes, grotto halls, sea coasts and, more rarely, city vedute. The ideal compositions are based on natural laws, which are also strictly observed in the atmospheric phenomena. He often created paintings based on contrasts in the moods of nature. His own style is expressed in the pastoral landscapes from his Nuremberg period. The staffages are mostly by Johann Franz Ermels (Nbg.) and Johann Heinrich Roos (Frankfurt/Main), as well as by Johann Philipp Lemke, Johann Murrer, and from the 1680s also by his son Johann Georg. From the 1690s onwards he cultivated an imaginative late style with increasing participation in the workshop, the formats reaching up to 164 x 264 cm. His pictures served as models for etchers and engravers up to the early Romantic period in Dresden, including Johann Georg Wagner and Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich. Bemmel did not acquire Nuremberg citizenship. In 1679 he and Ermels were arrested for fornication with women of bad repute. By council resolution of May 12, 1679, Bemmel was released on the intercession of his wife. A work of art that he had offered to the council was to be placed in the town hall. Perhaps this work by Bemmel is identical to a painting that Georg Jacob Lang described in his town hall inventory of 1711 as "a very beautiful large landscape by the old Wilhelm von Bemmel" (Ernst Mummenhoff: Das Rathaus in Nürnberg, Nürnberg 1891, p. 293); Murr also mentions this painting in 1778 (Christoph Gottlieb von Murr: Beschreibung der vornehmsten Merkwürdigkeiten in das H. R. Reichs freyen Stadt Nürnberg und auf der hohen Schule zu Altdorf, Nürnberg 1778, p. 401). In addition, the presbytery of the Reformed congregation initiated church disciplinary proceedings against the painter and Bemmel was temporarily excluded from his congregation. On November 19, 1679, he was "sharply discussed". He repented of his misdeed and promised serious improvement, whereupon he was readmitted to the community according to the minutes book. Bemmel became the progenitor of a large family of artists. Panzer recorded his portrait. Lit.: Wolf Eiermann: Willem van Bemmel (1630-1708). Monograph with critical catalogue raisonné of the paintings, Petersberg 2007