Herri met de Bles

Flemish, ca. 1510–before 1572

BiographyHerri met de Bles (a nickname meaning Herri "with the blaze," or forelock, referring to the artist's distinctive streak of white hair) was the most prolific and successful Netherlandish landscape painter working in the second quarter of the sixteenth century. Little is known about his life; he was probably born near Dinant, in southern Belgium, and is assumed to be the "Herri de Patinir" who joined the Antwerp painters' guild in 1535. He may have been a nephew of the pioneering landscape painter Joachim Patinir (ca. 1480-1524), who was apparently his teacher. In Italy, where many of met de Bles's paintings were exported even during his lifetime, he was known as "Civetta" (little owl) because of his habit of marking his paintings with an owl inserted somewhere in the landscape. The lack of dated works by met de Bles makes it difficult to establish a definitive chronology for the artist.

Met de Bles is known for his inventive "world landscapes," vast panoramas seen from an elevated bird's-eye view, and filled with minute detail. These landscapes usually included a narrative religious scene in the foreground, thereby combining late medieval piety with a new, Renaissance interest in the physical, material world.