Koekkoek, Barend Cornelis, Dutch landscape artist and son of Johannes Hermanus Barend Koekkoek (1778-1851).Barend Cornelis Koekkoek came to be known during his lifetime as the "Prince of Landscape Painting" and was by far the most applauded landscapist of his time and regarded as the founding father of Dutch romantic landscape painting. The recipient of endless awards and decorations, he counted among his clients King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Tsar Alexander II, and King Willem II of the Netherlands.By 1841 Koekkoek had earned such regard from his fellow artists that he decided to publish a book of lessons for students, Herinneringen en Mededeelingen van eenen Landschapsschilder ("Recollections and Communications of a Landscape Painter"), in which he aired the view that an artist must, above all, stay true to nature through meticulous observation and rigorous draughtsmanship. This seminal work took the form of a leisurely journey along the Rhine, pointing out to the reader various qualities of nature and landscape. The same year, by popular demand from young artists eager to receive his tuition, Koekkoek founded his own drawing academy (Zeichen Collegium), and in his footsteps, many artists travelled to the former ducal residence seeking instruction from the great master at the academy, among them Frederik Marinus Kruseman, Lodewijk Johannes Kleijn, and Johann Bernard Klombeck.