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Werner Herzog's Favorite Obscure Dutch Painter

In last year's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," Werner Herzog’s attraction to the little-known and unlikely corners of the world took him and his 3d camera to the caverns that house the world’s oldest paintings. His tastes run towards more modern art too.

In last year's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," Werner Herzog's attraction to the little-known and unlikely corners of the world took him and his 3d camera to the caverns that house the world's oldest paintings. His tastes run towards more modern art too.

Next February Herzog will be one of dozens of artists participating in the Whitney Museum's biennial, with an installation focused on Hercules Seghers, an eccentric Dutch artist from the 1600s whose fantastic landscapes and experiments with print techniques were wildly innovative for his time and made him an inspiration to Rembrandt.

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"He in my opinion is the forerunner of all modernity," Herzog said of Seghers. "It's strange because he's still unknown and he's one of the greatest ever."

Hercules Seghers. Town with four towers, 1631

Herzog's foray into museum installation began when the Whitney asked if he would contribute something Herzog-y to their bi-annual extravaganza. He suggested instead showing a "real artist," and Seghers, a favorite of his since his school days, was the obvious choice. The installation, which will include a film, is titled "Hearsay of the Soul."

The singular director and writer and erstwhile actor (he is appearing briefly as the villain in an upcoming Tom Cruise movie directed by Christopher McQuarrie) spoke to me about interviewing, the limits of appropriateness in cinema, and the slow shock of making "Into the Abyss," a grim, gripping exploration of lives in Texas tinged by terrible crime and capital punishment.

Hercules Seghers, Landscape, 1625

Not much is known about Seghers. Even his name is obscure: many, including the artist himself, spelled it Segers. But he was well-known among Flemish painters during the Dutch Golden Age. Rembrandt acquired one of Seghers landscapes, and by adding some houses, reworked it into his own version, which now hangs in the Uffizi.

Seghers' mountainous fantasy landscapes, rendered with delicacy with paint or, using innovate techniques, in colored ink, often depicted vast distances punctuated with jagged rocks, broken trees and menacing skies. The darkness of Seghers' scenes may have hinted at inner shadows: contemporary accounts described him as dying lonely, destitute and drunk. According to a colorful history by the Dutch artist Hoogstraten, he died after falling down the stairs while intoxicated.

None of Segher's paintings is dated, and no more than eleven survive. One of them was lost in a fire in 2007. The handful of paintings that do survive, says Herzog, are "beyond belief, beautiful and strange."

Stay tuned for our extended interview with Herzog tomorrow. _

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