Description

Witness of the Past by Carl Brenders-Unframed consignment  Numbered and Signed by Artist Limited Edition of 950 Prints

Offset Lithograph on Paper Image Size 19 Inches Tall by 14.25 Inches Wide.

This painting is related to my very first trip to Yellowstone. It is difficult to describe my emotions when I saw my first buffalo herd. I felt like I had gone back in history. All the stories of the wild west in the 19th century were represented here in this impressive herd of buffalo, also known as bison.

In my imagination I saw the plains Indians hunting these mighty animals and killing just a few for food and items they needed to survive. Then I imagined the white people coming with their trains, organizing special trips to kill as many as possible –just for fun—or was there another reason? The last 600 bison to survive, those that escaped extinction, got the opportunity to increase in number to several thousand. They now live sedentary lives in the national parks and game farms.

I think there is no other animal so closely tied to the history of a country as the bison. It witnessed the decline of the red people whose wonderful culture was so closely tied to the nature they lived in.

Carl Brenders

Belgian artist Carl Brenders is an internationally recognized wildlife painter known for his exceptionally faithful and powerful rendition of nature.

Born in Wilrijk, Belgium, Carl Brenders first studied at the Fine Arts Academy of Antwerp and later at Berchem.  He made his debuts in the art world as an illustrator for well-established European publishing companies.  His illustrations of wildlife for the book series La vie secrète des bêtes (Hachette) were later published in English as Nature’s Hidden World.  These books already show what was to become Carl’s trademark: the accurate capture of his subjects and their habitat.

Nature in all its diversity is Carl Brenders’s one and only inspiration.  No subject is too humble or noble for him.  He will paint with equal love and focus a cluster of ladybugs, a clutch of ducklings, a fox, a pride of lions or a small patch of lichen growing on a branch.  Capturing nature’s wildlife in all its beauty and drama imparts Carl’s work with considerable and captivating variety.  The meticulously detailed paintings, so striking in their tactile realism, express the artist’s philosophy that nature is perfect: “This is why I paint the way I do with so much detail and so much realism – I want to capture that perfection”.

All of Carl’s paintings derive from an extensive on site study of the fauna, flora and environment.  He will personally take countless photos of the animal and its habitat, taking great care to document all the elements that will set the stage for his subject such as the vegetation at a particular time of year, the light, the relief of the landscape, the shape and color of the rocks…  Only then will Carl let his imagination kick in, “the painting takes form in my mind and I make a few sketches.”  His vision finally materializes in a detailed pencil drawing which he then projects to his illustration board making adjustments to his composition before applying color.  Although Carl has experimented twice with acrylic paint, he remains partial to the technique he has developed over the last thirty years. His paintings, typically created on illustration board, are executed in a mixed-media combination of watercolor and gouache.

The powerful renditions of wildlife in all its spectrum, the mastery of details and the tactile realism Carl creates in his paintings irresistibly draw in the viewers, confronting them to a close encounter with an elusive and, sometimes, dangerous animal.  Such vivid emotion caused by the artist’s capture of nature explains the popularity of Carl Brenders with the public and his stature in the art world.