Jan Wynants was born presumably in Haarlem around 1625 but little is known about this artist who became one of the greatest Dutch painters specialised in landscape painting. His first paintings dated from 1641 and the archives of the Haarlem Guild of painters listed a Jan Wynants as an art dealer though many historians believe they referred to his father as it seems difficult to admit that such a prolific painter had another occupation.
In 1646, a Jan Wynants, who had lost his wife, married Luytgens van den Ende but once again there is no proof that this man was an artist.
Wynants went to Amsterdam around 1665 and had Philips Wouverman and Adrian van de Velde as pupils. Figures in his paintings were produced by Helt Stockade, Lingelbach, A. van de Velde and Ph. Wouverman. He had many imitators such as Jan Wouverman whose works are often the object of a confusion with his paintings.
Wynants was not attracted by strange, Italianate, sunny or montainous landscapes and was not prone to paint gorgeous works like those of Claude Gele or Poussin. What interested him were the landscapes of Holland, notably those in the vicinity of Haarlem, in fact ordinary though charming places. He painted them with minute accuracy and much poetry.
As we know almost nothing about his life, except for anecdotes about his habit of frequenting places of evil repute. He was also said to have been an inveterate gambler and a man unhappily married. In fact, Wynants might have found an ideal refuge in the small forests near Haarlem where he finally felt at ease with his brush. Being so near the world of nature he most probably liked solitude above all and only a few painters, notably Ruysdael and Hobbema, managed to be his equals. Wynants, who died in Amsterdam in 1684, certainly deserved to be considered as a great master.
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