Francisco Collantes

In this brooding scene from the Old Testament, Hagar and her son Ishmael, banished from the home of Abraham, are confronted by an angel as they rest below a blasted tree on the bank of a raging river. The artist, Francisco Collantes, was unusual among Spanish landscape painters, as he subjected religious narratives to the drama of the natural world, literally bringing them down to earth. He places the encounter of the figures at the center of this composition, allowing the tumultuous landscape to magnify the story’s emotional content.

The Spanish painter Collantes specialized in landscapes and in biblical and mythological subjects. A successful painter of large figures, he also devised compositions that included small expressive figures set against masses of trees in wide, luminous landscapes. In Hagar and Ishmael the setting dominates the composition, dwarfing and threatening Hagar and her child as they rest of their flight. This representation contrasts dramatically with Adriaen van der Werff’s interpretation of the story, which focuses on the figures of Hagar and Ishmael at the moment when they are banished by Abraham.