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Jonghe, Jean-Baptiste de
(b Courtrai, 8 Jan 1785; d Brussels, 14 Oct 1844). Flemish painter and lithographer. He was a student at the Courtrai Academie and then at the Antwerp Academie where, under the direction of Balthasar-Paul Ommeganck, he discovered his talent for landscape. In 1812 he received a first prize in Ghent for Approach of a Storm (1812; Ghent, Mus. S. Kst.). From then on he assiduously submitted works to all the Salons in the north of France and the Netherlands. Little is known about his travels; he must have been to France, England and Scotland, and probably also Italy. Most of his canvases depict his local landscape, views of Flanders or the Ardennes, and are inspired by the 17th-century Dutch school, elements of which he transformed into a 19th-century language. De Jonghe shared with the 17th-century Brabant landscape painters a predilection for forest scenes, in which he often placed wild and domestic animals and, more rarely, human figures (usually added by Eugène Verboeckhoven). His paintings are particularly reminiscent of the works of Jan van Goyen and Jacob van Ruisdael, but they also express a new perception of nature dictated by a concern for objectivity. In such works as Ardennes Landscape (Liège, Mus. A. Mod.), each detail is treated with an almost obsessive meticulousness, quite unlike earlier Dutch landscapes, in which leaves, plants and trees are merged together. Around 1823 de Jonghe was involved in illustrating a Collection historique des vues principales des Pays-Bas (published in Tournai). Half of the lithographs in this collection are by him and reveal in particular his knowledge of Gothic architecture. At the end of his career he produced more markedly romantic canvases, such as View of the Ruins at Villiers-la-Ville (1834; Brussels, Belg. Col. Royales). Other notable paintings by de Jonghe include View from the Outskirts of Tournai (1834; Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.) and In the Ardennes (n.d.; Antwerp, Kon. Mus. S. Kst.). Recognized as a specialist in landscape, in 1826 he was appointed to the teaching staff at the Academie in Courtrai. At this time he published, doubtless with his students in mind, his Principes de paysages dessinés d’après nature et exécutés sur pierre. In 1841 he succeeded Ommeganck as professor at the Academie in Antwerp.
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