About Dionijs Verburgh
 

Dutch painter

Rotterdam circa 1650 – 1722 Rotterdam
 

His name is sometimes spelt “Dionys Verburg”.
 

Landscape painter. 

Painter of panoramic Rhine landscapes.
 

Verburgh is a typical, be it late, exponent of the Rotterdam school, where several painters specialized in these kinds of Rhine landscapes from the middle of the 17th century onwards. With the Peace of Westphalia, which ended both the Eighty Years’ War and the Thirty Years’ War, travelling to the bucolic borders of the Rhine had now become safe. 

It all started with Rotterdam-born Herman van Saftleven (1609 – 1685) who, although he had already moved to Utrecht in 1632, maintained exercising a big influence in Rotterdam. His Rhine landscapes with a high viewpoint especially influenced Gerrit Battem (circa1636 - 1684), who often incorporated a few genre-like figures in the foreground. In his turn Battem was followed by our Dionijs Verburgh. 

Amsterdam-born Jan Griffier (1645/52 – 1718) romanticized the Rhine even more.

Verburgh, like his fellow townsmen, often repeated the same elements to create a peaceful and poetic atmosphere: in the foreground a sandy-road populated by genre-like figures, a ruined castle and a few trees, as a ‘repoussoir’ to increase depth. In the background on the meandering river the typical long Rhine ships navigate between the idyllically set villages and towns, the view closed by a dramatic mountainous landscape. 

These paintings do indeed remind of the borders of the Rhine and of the Mosel, but one should not forget that prior to the 19th century (the School of Barbizon and then the Impressionists) painters in nature only made realistic drawn sketches. In their studio, in painting, they later recreated their own perfect reality. 

Two of Dionijs’ Verburgh’s sons (he had twelve children), Rutger and Jan, became painters. Rutger (1678 – 1727) specialized in winter landscapes with ice skaters.