Charles Leickert artwork • painting • previously for sale A river landscape at dusk

The appeal of Charles Leickert's paintings is mainly determined by the light and strongly narrative details. He was a true craftsman, who was able to represent the right mood in a clever way and thus sensed the taste of the audience. His winters are really cold, his summers sunny and green. Leickert starts his education at the Haagsche Teekenacademie and at the same time works in the studio of Bart van Hove, painter of cityscapes and stage sets. After completing the Teeken Academy, Leickert continues his studies in the studio of Wijnand Nuijen. After his death – he was only 26 years old – Leickert continued his studies with Andreas Schelfhout, where he increasingly devoted himself to painting landscapes, in particular winters. In 1850 Leickert left for Amsterdam and from then on his subjects became more and more varied. While the towers of Dordrecht, Woudrichem and Schiebroek, under the influence of Nuijen, were a frequent motif in his earlier work, he now often paints on the waterfront, along the beach and rivers – in places with a lot of activity. There is plenty of room for portraying the beauty of nature; a layered sky, which seems to herald an approaching snowstorm and a blue-gray frozen river with a beautiful light halfway the horizon. Leickert's 'homesick' paintings offered guidance to people who had difficulty with the rapidly changing society. Contemporary motifs such as trains and steamships, as used by Schelfhout, do not appear in his paintings. He preferred to capture a timeless landscape that reflects the beauty of nature.