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Antoon van Dyck |
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Also Known As: |
"Anthony Van Dyke" |
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Birthdate: |
March 22, 1599 |
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Birthplace: |
Huis "Den Berendans",
Grote Markt, Antwerp, Flemish Region, Belgium |
|
Death: |
December 09, 1641 (42) |
|
Place of Burial: |
London, UK |
|
Immediate Family: |
Son of Frans van Dyck and Maria Cuypers |
|
Occupation: |
Flemish Baroque artist who became
the leading court painter in England, Flemish Artist, Painter. |
|
Grave: |
His grave in St.Paul's Cathedral
was lost during the great fire of the City of London in 1666. |
|
Managed by: |
|
|
Last Updated: |
April 26, 2022 |
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About Anthony van Dyck
https://gw.geneanet.org/luc1961?n=van+dyck&oc=&p=frans
Sir Anthony van Dyck (many variant spellings; 22
March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the
leading court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of King
Charles I of England and Scotland and his family and court, painted with a
relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English
portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and
mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draftsman, and was
an important innovator in watercolour and etching.
Education
Antoon van Dyck (his Flemish name) was born to prosperous
parents in Antwerp. His talent was evident very early, and he was studying
painting with Hendrick van Balen by 1609, and became an independent painter
around 1615, setting up a workshop with his even younger friend Jan Brueghel
the Younger. By the age of fifteen he was already a highly accomplished artist,
as his Self-portrait, 1613–14, shows. He was admitted to the Antwerp painters'
Guild of Saint Luke as a free master by February 1618. Within a few years he
was to be the chief assistant to the dominant master of Antwerp, and the whole
of Northern Europe, Peter Paul Rubens, who made much use of sub-contracted
artists as well as his own large workshop. His influence on the young artist
was immense; Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as "the
best of my pupils". The origins and exact nature of their relationship are
unclear; it has been speculated that Van Dyck was a pupil of Rubens from about
1613, as even his early work shows little trace of van Balen's style, but there
is no clear evidence for this.
Italy
In 1620, at the instigation of the Duke of Buckingham, van Dyck
went to England for the first time where he worked for King James I and James
VI, receiving Ł100. It was in London in the collection of Earl of Arundel that
he first saw the work of Titian, whose use of colour and subtle modeling of
form would prove transformational, offering a new stylistic language that would
enrich the compositional lessons learned from Rubens.
After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in
late 1621 to Italy, where he remained for 6 years, studying the Italian masters
and beginning his career as a successful portraitist. He was already presenting
himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern
artist's colony in Rome, says Bellori, by appearing with "the pomp of
Xeuxis ... his behaviour was that of a nobleman rather than an ordinary person,
and he shone in rich garments; since he was accustomed in the circle of Rubens
to noblemen, and being naturally of elevated mind, and anxious to make himself
distinguished, he therefore wore – as well as silks – a hat with feathers and
brooches, gold chains across his chest, and was accompanied by servants."
He was mostly based in Genoa, although he also travelled
extensively to other cities, and stayed for some time in Palermo in Sicily. For
the Genoese aristocracy, then in a final flush of prosperity, he developed
a full-length portrait style, drawing on Veronese and Titian
as well as Rubens' style from his own period in Genoa, where extremely tall but
graceful figures look down on the viewer with great hauteur. In 1627, he went
back to Antwerp where he remained for five years. He was evidently very
charming to his patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and
court circles, which added to his ability to obtain commissions. By 1630 he was
described as the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the
Archduchess Isabella. In this period he also produced many religious works,
including large altarpieces, and began his printmaking (see below).
London
Van Dyck had remained in touch with the English court, and had
helped King Charles' agents in their search for pictures. He had also sent back
some of his own works, including a portrait (1623) of himself with Endymion Porter, one of Charles's agents, a
mythology (Rinaldo and Armida, 1629, now in the Baltimore Museum of Art), and a
religious work for the Queen. He had also painted Charles's sister, Queen
Elizabeth of Bohemia in the Hague in 1632. In April that year, van Dyck
returned to London, and was taken under the wing of the court immediately,
being knighted in July and at the same time receiving a pension of Ł200 per
year, in the grant of which he was described as principalle Paynter in ordinary
to their majesties. He was well paid for paintings in addition to this, at
least in theory, as King Charles did not actually pay over his pension for five
years, and reduced the price of many paintings. He was provided with a house on
the river at Blackfriars, then just outside the City and hence avoiding the
monopoly of the Painters Guild. A suite of rooms in Eltham Palace, no longer
used by the Royal family, was also provided as a country retreat. His
Blackfriars studio was frequently visited by the King and Queen (later a special
causeway was built to ease their access), who hardly sat for another painter
whilst van Dyck lived.
He was an immediate success in England, rapidly painting a large
number of portraits of the King and Queen Henrietta Maria, as well as their children. Many
portraits were done in several versions, to be sent as diplomatic gifts or
given to supporters of the increasingly embattled king. Altogether van Dyck has
been estimated to have painted forty portraits of King Charles himself, as well as about
thirty of the Queen, nine of Earl of Strafford and multiple ones of other
courtiers. He painted many of the court, and also himself and his mistress,
Margaret Lemon. In England he developed a version of his style which combined a
relaxed elegance and ease with an understated authority in his subjects which was
to dominate English portrait-painting to the end of the 18th century. Many of
these portraits have a lush landscape background. His portraits of Charles on horseback updated the grandeur of Titian's
Emperor Charles V, but even more effective and original is his portrait of
Charles dismounted in the Louvre: "Charles is given a totally natural look
of instinctive sovereignty, in a deliberately informal setting where he strolls
so negligently that that he seems at first glance nature's gentleman rather
than England's King". Although his portraits have created the classic idea
of "Cavalier" style and dress, in fact a majority of his most important
patrons in the nobility, such as Lord Wharton and the Earls of Bedford,
Northumberland and Pembroke, took the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil
War that broke out soon after his death.
Van Dyck became a "denizen", effectively a citizen, in
1638 and married Mary, the daughter of Lord Ruthven and a Lady in waiting to
the Queen, in 1639-40; this may have been instigated by the King in an attempt
to keep him in England. He had spent most of 1634 in Antwerp, returning the
following year, and in 1640-41, as the Civil War loomed, spent several months
in Flanders and France. In 1640 he accompanied prince John Casimir of Poland
after he was freed from French imprisonment; he also painted the prince's portrait. He left again in the summer of 1641,
but fell seriously ill in Paris and returned hurriedly to London, where he died
soon after in his house at Blackfriars. He left a daughter each by his wife and
mistress, the first only ten days old. Both were provided for, and both ended
up living in Flanders.
He was buried in Old St. Paul's Cathedral, where the king
erected a monument in his memory.
Portraits and other works
With the partial exception of Holbein, van Dyck and his exact
contemporary Diego Velázquez were the first painters of pre-eminent talent to
work mainly as Court portraitists. The slightly younger Rembrandt was also to
work mainly as a portraitist for a period. In the contemporary theory of the hierarchy
of genres portrait-painting came well below history painting (which covered
religious scenes also), and for most major painters portraits were a relatively
small part of their output, in terms of the time spent on them (being small,
they might be numerous in absolute terms). Rubens for example mostly painted
portraits only of his immediate circle, but though he worked for most of the
courts of Europe, he avoided exclusive attachment to any of them.
A variety of factors meant that in the 17th century demand for
portraits was stronger than for other types of work. Van Dyck tried to persuade
Charles to commission him to do a large-scale series of works on the history of
the Order of the Garter for the Banqueting House, Whitehall, for which Rubens
had earlier done the huge ceiling paintings (sending them from Antwerp).
A sketch for one wall remains, but by 1638 Charles was too short
of money to proceed. This was a problem Velázquez did not have, but equally van
Dyck's daily life was not encumbered by trivial court duties as Velázquez's
was. In his visits to Paris in his last years van Dyck tried to obtain the
commission to paint the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre without success.
A list of history paintings produced by van Dyck in England
survives, by Bellori, based on information by Sir Kenelm Digby; none of these
still appear to survive, although the Eros and Psyche done for the King does. But many other
works, rather more religious than mythological, do survive, and though they are
very fine, they do not reach the heights of Velázquez's history paintings.
Earlier ones remain very much within the style of Rubens, although some of his
Sicilian works are interestingly individual.
Van Dyck's portraits certainly flattered more than Velázquez's.
Some critics have blamed van Dyck for diverting a nascent tougher English
portrait tradition, of painters such as William Dobson, Robert Walker and Issac
Fuller into what certainly became elegant blandness in the hands of many of van
Dyck's successors, like Lely or Kneller. The conventional view has always been
more favourable: "When Van Dyck came hither he brought Face-Painting to
us; ever since which time … England has excel'd all the World in that great
Branch of the Art’ (Jonathan Richardson: An Essay on the Theory of Painting,
1715, 41). Thomas Gainsborough is reported to have said on his deathbed
"We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the Company."
A fairly small number of landscape pen and wash drawings or
watercolours made in England played an important part in introducing the
Flemish watercolour landscape tradition to England. Some are studies, which
reappear in the background of paintings, but many are signed and dated and were
probably regarded as finished works to be given as presents. Several of the
most detailed are of Rye, a port for ships to the Continent, suggesting that
van Dyck did them casually whilst waiting for wind or tide to improve.
Printmaking
Probably during his period in Antwerp after his return from
Italy, van Dyck began his Iconography, eventually a very large series of prints
with half-length portraits of eminent contemporaries. Van Dyck produced
drawings, and for eighteen of the portraits he himself etched with great
brilliance the heads and the main outlines of the figure, for an engraver to
work up: "Portrait etching had scarcely had an existence before his time,
and in his work it suddenly appears at the highest point ever reached in the
art".
However for most of the series he left the whole printmaking
work to specialists, who mostly engraved everything after his drawings. His own
etched plates appear not to have been published commercially until after his
death, and early states are very rare. Most of his plates were printed after
only his work had been done; some exist in further states after engraving had
been added, sometimes obscuring his etching. He continued to add to the series
until at least his departure for England, and presumably added Inigo Jones
whilst in London.
The series was a great success, but was his only venture into
printmaking; portraiture probably paid better, and he was constantly in demand.
At his death there were eighty plates by others, of which fifty-two were of
artists, as well as his own eighteen. The plates were bought by a publisher;
with the plates reworked periodically as they wore out they continued to be
printed for centuries, and the series added to, so that it reached over two
hundred portraits by the late 18th century. In 1851 the plates were bought by
the Calcographie du Louvre.
The Iconography was highly influential as a commercial model for
reproductive printmaking; now forgotten series of portrait prints were
enormously popular until the advent of photography: "the importance of
this series was enormous, and it provided a repertory of images that were
plundered by portrait painters throughout Europe over the next couple of
centuries". Van Dyck's brilliant etching style, which depended on open lines
and dots, was in marked contrast to that of the other great portraitist in
prints of the period, Rembrandt, and had little influence until the 19th
century, when it had a great influence on artists such as Whistler in the last
major phase of portrait etching. Hyatt Mayor wrote: "Etchers have studied
Van Dyck ever since, for they can hope to approximate his brilliant directness,
whereas nobody can hope to approach the complexity of Rembrandt's
portraits".
Studio
His great success compelled van Dyck to maintain a large
workshop in London, a studio which was to become "virtually a production
line for portraits". According to a visitor to his studio he usually only
made a drawing on paper, which was then enlarged onto canvas by an assistant;
he then painted the head himself. The clothes were left at the studio and often
sent out to specialists. In his last years these studio collaborations
accounted for some decline in the quality of work.[28] In addition many copies
untouched by him, or virtually so, were produced by the workshop, as well as by
professional copyists and later painters; the number of paintings ascribed to
him had by the 19th century become huge, as with Rembrandt, Titian and others.
However most of his assistants and copyists could not approach the refinement
of his manner, so compared to many masters consensus among art historians on
attributions to him is usually relatively easy to reach, and museum labelling
is now mostly updated (country house attributions may be more dubious in some
cases). The relatively few names of his assistants that are known are Dutch or
Flemish; he probably preferred to use trained Flemings, as no English
equivalent training yet existed. Adriaen Hanneman (1604–71) returned to his
native Hague in 1638 to become the leading portraitist there. Van Dyck's
enormous influence of English art does not come from a tradition handed down
through his pupils; in fact it is not possible to document a connection to his
studio for any English painter of any significance.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Anthony van Dyck
Anthony van Dyck
Sir Anthony van Dyck(Dutch pronunciation: [v%C9%91n
ˈdɛi̯k], many variant spellings;[2] 22 March 1599 – 9 December
1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in
England, after enjoying great success in Italy and Flanders. He is most famous
for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted
with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English
portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and
mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draughtsman, and was
an important innovator in watercolour and etching.
Life and work
Education
Antoon van Dyck (his Flemish name) was born to prosperous
parents in Antwerp. His talent was evident very early, and he was studying
painting with Hendrick van Balen by 1609, and became an independent painter
around 1615, setting up a workshop with his even younger friend Jan Brueghel
the Younger.[3] By the age of fifteen he was already a highly accomplished
artist, as his Self-portrait, 1613–14, shows.[4] He was admitted to the Antwerp
painters' Guild of Saint Luke as a free master by February 1618.[5] Within a
few years he was to be the chief assistant to the dominant master of Antwerp,
and the whole of Northern Europe, Peter Paul Rubens, who made much use of
sub-contracted artists as well as his own large workshop. His influence on the
young artist was immense; Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as
"the best of my pupils".[6] The origins and exact nature of their
relationship are unclear; it has been speculated that van Dyck was a pupil of
Rubens from about 1613, as even his early work shows little trace of van
Balen's style, but there is no clear evidence for this.[7] At the same time the
dominance of Rubens in the small and declining city of Antwerp probably
explains why, despite his periodic returns to the city, van Dyck spent most of
his career abroad.[7] In 1620, in Rubens's contract for the major commission
for the ceiling of the Carolus Borromeuskerk, the Jesuit church at Antwerp
(lost to fire in 1718), van Dyck is specified as one of the
"discipelen" who was to execute the paintings to Rubens' designs.[8]
Italy
In 1620, at the instigation of George Villiers, Marquess of
Buckingham, van Dyck went to England for the first time where he worked for
King James I of England, receiving Ł100.[7] It was in London in the collection
of the Earl of Arundel that he first saw the work of Titian, whose use of
colour and subtle modeling of form would prove transformational, offering a new
stylistic language that would enrich the compositional lessons learned from
Rubens.[9]
After about four months he returned to Flanders, but moved on in
late 1621 to Italy, where he remained for 6 years, studying the Italian masters
and beginning his career as a successful portraitist. He was already presenting
himself as a figure of consequence, annoying the rather bohemian Northern
artist's colony in Rome, says Bellori, by appearing with "the pomp of
Zeuxis ... his behaviour was that of a nobleman rather than an ordinary person,
and he shone in rich garments; since he was accustomed in the circle of Rubens
to noblemen, and being naturally of elevated mind, and anxious to make himself
distinguished, he therefore wore—as well as silks—a hat with feathers and
brooches, gold chains across his chest, and was accompanied by
servants."[10]
He was mostly based in Genoa, although he also travelled
extensively to other cities, and stayed for some time in Palermo in Sicily. For
the Genoese aristocracy, then in a final flush of prosperity, he developed a
full-length portrait style, drawing on Veronese and Titian as well as Rubens'
style from his own period in Genoa, where extremely tall but graceful figures
look down on the viewer with great hauteur. In 1627, he went back to Antwerp
where he remained for five years, painting more affable portraits which still
made his Flemish patrons look as stylish as possible. A life-size group
portrait of twenty-four City Councillors of Brussels he painted for the
council-chamber was destroyed in 1695.[11] He was evidently very charming to his
patrons, and, like Rubens, well able to mix in aristocratic and court circles,
which added to his ability to obtain commissions. By 1630 he was described as
the court painter of the Habsburg Governor of Flanders, the Archduchess
Isabella. In this period he also produced many religious works, including large
altarpieces, and began his printmaking (see below).
London
King Charles I was the most passionate and generous collector of
art among the British monarchs, and saw art as a way of promoting his elevated view
of the monarchy. In 1628, he bought the fabulous collection that the Gonzagas
of Mantua were forced to dispose of, and he had been trying since his accession
in 1625 to bring leading foreign painters to England. In 1626, he was able to
persuade Orazio Gentileschi to settle in England, later to be joined by his
daughter Artemisia and some of his sons. Rubens was an especial target, who
eventually came on a diplomatic mission, which included painting, in 1630, and
later supplied more paintings from Antwerp. He was very well-treated during his
nine-month visit, during which he was knighted. Charles's court portraitist,
Daniel Mytens, was a somewhat pedestrian Dutchman. Charles was very short (less
than 5 feet (1.5 m) tall) and presented challenges to a portraitist.
Van Dyck had remained in touch with the English court, and had
helped King Charles's agents in their search for pictures. He had also sent
back some of his own works, including a portrait (1623) of himself with
Endymion Porter, one of Charles's agents, a mythology (Rinaldo and Armida,
1629, now in the Baltimore Museum of Art), and a religious work for the Queen.
He had also painted Charles's sister, Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia in the Hague
in 1632. In April that year, van Dyck returned to London, and was taken under
the wing of the court immediately, being knighted in July and at the same time
receiving a pension of Ł200 per year, in the grant of which he was described as
principalle Paynter in ordinary to their majesties. He was well paid for paintings
in addition to this, at least in theory, as King Charles did not actually pay
over his pension for five years, and reduced the price of many paintings. He
was provided with a house on the river at Blackfriars, then just outside the
City and hence avoiding the monopoly of the Painters Guild. A suite of rooms in
Eltham Palace, no longer used by the Royal family, was also provided as a
country retreat. His Blackfriars studio was frequently visited by the King and
Queen (later a special causeway was built to ease their access), who hardly sat
for another painter while van Dyck lived.[7][12]
He was an immediate success in England, rapidly painting a large
number of portraits of the King and Queen Henrietta Maria, as well as their
children. Many portraits were done in several versions, to be sent as
diplomatic gifts or given to supporters of the increasingly embattled king.
Altogether van Dyck has been estimated to have painted forty portraits of King
Charles himself, as well as about thirty of the Queen, nine of Earl of
Strafford and multiple ones of other courtiers.[13] He painted many of the
court, and also himself and his mistress, Margaret Lemon.
In England he developed a version of his style which combined a
relaxed elegance and ease with an understated authority in his subjects which
was to dominate English portrait-painting to the end of the 18th century. Many
of these portraits have a lush landscape background. His portraits of Charles
on horseback updated the grandeur of Titian's Emperor Charles V, but even more
effective and original is his portrait of Charles dismounted in the Louvre:
"Charles is given a totally natural look of instinctive sovereignty, in a
deliberately informal setting where he strolls so negligently that he seems at
first glance nature's gentleman rather than England's King".[14] Although
his portraits have created the classic idea of "Cavalier" style and
dress, in fact a majority of his most important patrons in the nobility, such
as Lord Wharton and the Earls of Bedford, Northumberland and Pembroke, took the
Parliamentarian side in the English Civil War that broke out soon after his
death.[15]
The King in Council by letters patent granted Van Dyck
denizenship in 1638, and he married Mary, the daughter of Patrick Ruthven, who,
although the title was forfeited, styled himself Lord Ruthven.[16] She was a
Lady in waiting to the Queen, in 1639-40; this may have been instigated by the
King in an attempt to keep him in England.[7] He had spent most of 1634 in
Antwerp, returning the following year, and in 1640–41, as the Civil War loomed,
spent several months in Flanders and France. In 1640 he accompanied prince John
Casimir of Poland after he was freed from French imprisonment.[17] He left
again in the summer of 1641, but fell seriously ill in Paris and returned
hurriedly to London, where he died soon after in his house at Blackfriars.[8]
His widow later married Sir Richard Pryse, 1st Baronet of Gogerddan.[18] Van
Dyck left a daughter each by his wife and mistress, the first only ten days
old. Both were provided for, and both ended up living in Flanders.[19] He was
buried in Old St. Paul's Cathedral, where the king erected a monument in his
memory: Anthony returned to England, and shortly afterwards he died in London,
piously rendering his spirit to God as a good Catholic, in the year 1641. He
was buried in St. Paul's, to the sadness of the king and court and the
universal grief of lovers of painting. For all the riches he had acquired,
Anthony van Dyck left little property, having spent everything on living
magnificently, more like a prince than a painter.[20] In 1666, the Great Fire
of London destroyed Old St. Paul's Cathedral, and with it van Dyck's tomb. His
name is listed on a modern memorial in the crypt which lists important graves
lost in the fire.
Portraits and other
works
Samson and Delilah, ca. 1630, a strenuous history painting in
the manner of Rubens; the use of saturated colours reveals van Dyck's study of
Titian
With the partial exception of Holbein, van Dyck and his exact
contemporary Diego Velázquez were the first painters of pre-eminent talent to
work mainly as Court portraitists. The slightly younger Rembrandt was also to
work mainly as a portraitist for a period. In the contemporary theory of the
hierarchy of genres portrait-painting came well below history painting (which
covered religious scenes also), and for most major painters portraits were a
relatively small part of their output, in terms of the time spent on them
(being small, they might be numerous in absolute terms). Rubens for example
mostly painted portraits only of his immediate circle, but though he worked for
most of the courts of Europe, he avoided exclusive attachment to any of them.
A variety of factors meant that in the 17th century demand for
portraits was stronger than for other types of work. Van Dyck tried to persuade
Charles to commission him to do a large-scale series of works on the history of
the Order of the Garter for the Banqueting House, Whitehall, for which Rubens
had earlier done the huge ceiling paintings (sending them from Antwerp).
A sketch for one wall remains, but by 1638 Charles was too short
of money to proceed.[7] This was a problem Velázquez did not have, but equally
van Dyck's daily life was not encumbered by trivial court duties as Velázquez's
was. In his visits to Paris in his last years van Dyck tried to obtain the
commission to paint the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre without success.[21]
A list of history paintings produced by van Dyck in England
survives, by Bellori, based on information by Sir Kenelm Digby; none of these
still appear to survive, although the Eros and Psyche done for the King (below)
does.[7] But many other works, rather more religious than mythological, do
survive, and though they are very fine, they do not reach the heights of
Velázquez's history paintings. Earlier ones remain very much within the style
of Rubens, although some of his Sicilian works are interestingly individual.
Van Dyck's portraits certainly flattered more than Velázquez's;
when Sophia, later Electoress of Hanover, first met Queen Henrietta Maria, in
exile in Holland in 1641, she wrote: "Van Dyck's handsome portraits had
given me so fine an idea of the beauty of all English ladies, that I was
surprised to find that the Queen, who looked so fine in painting, was a small
woman raised up on her chair, with long skinny arms and teeth like defence
works projecting from her mouth..."[7]
Some critics have blamed van Dyck for diverting a nascent,
tougher English portrait tradition—of painters such as William Dobson, Robert
Walker and Isaac Fuller—into what certainly became elegant blandness in the
hands of many of van Dyck's successors, like Lely or Kneller.[7] The
conventional view has always been more favourable: "When Van Dyck came
hither he brought Face-Painting to us; ever since which time ... England has
excel'd all the World in that great Branch of the Art’ (Jonathan Richardson: An
Essay on the Theory of Painting, 1715, 41). Thomas Gainsborough is reported to
have said on his deathbed "We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of
the Company."[22]
A fairly small number of landscape pen and wash drawings or
watercolours made in England played an important part in introducing the
Flemish watercolour landscape tradition to England. Some are studies, which
reappear in the background of paintings, but many are signed and dated and were
probably regarded as finished works to be given as presents. Several of the
most detailed are of Rye, a port for ships to the Continent, suggesting that
van Dyck did them casually whilst waiting for wind or tide to improve.[23]
Printmaking
Probably during his period in Antwerp after his return from
Italy, van Dyck began his Iconography, eventually a very large series of prints
with half-length portraits of eminent contemporaries. Van Dyck produced
drawings, and for eighteen of the portraits he himself etched with great
brilliance the heads and the main outlines of the figure, for an engraver to
work up: "Portrait etching had scarcely had an existence before his time,
and in his work it suddenly appears at the highest point ever reached in the
art".[24]
However, for most of the series he left the whole printmaking
work to specialists, who mostly engraved everything after his drawings. His own
etched plates appear not to have been published commercially until after his
death, and early states are very rare.[25] Most of his plates were printed
after only his work had been done; some exist in further states after engraving
had been added, sometimes obscuring his etching. He continued to add to the
series until at least his departure for England, and presumably added Inigo
Jones whilst in London.
The series was a great success, but was his only venture into
printmaking; portraiture probably paid better, and he was constantly in demand.
At his death there were eighty plates by others, of which fifty-two were of
artists, as well as his own eighteen. The plates were bought by a publisher;
with the plates reworked periodically as they wore out they continued to be
printed for centuries, and the series added to, so that it reached over two
hundred portraits by the late 18th century. In 1851, the plates were bought by
the Calcographie du Louvre.[25] The Iconography was highly influential as a
commercial model for reproductive printmaking; now forgotten series of portrait
prints were enormously popular until the advent of photography: "the
importance of this series was enormous, and it provided a repertory of images
that were plundered by portrait painters throughout Europe over the next couple
of centuries".[22] Van Dyck's brilliant etching style, which depended on
open lines and dots, was in marked contrast to that of the other great portraitist
in prints of the period, Rembrandt, and had little influence until the 19th
century, when it had a great influence on artists such as Whistler in the last
major phase of portrait etching.[24] Hyatt Mayor wrote:
Etchers have studied Van Dyck ever since, for they can hope to
approximate his brilliant directness, whereas nobody can hope to approach the
complexity of Rembrandt's portraits".[26]
Studio
His great success compelled van Dyck to maintain a large
workshop in London, a studio which was to become "virtually a production
line for portraits". According to a visitor to his studio he usually only
made a drawing on paper, which was then enlarged onto canvas by an assistant;
he then painted the head himself. The clothes were left at the studio and often
sent out to specialists.[22] In his last years these studio collaborations
accounted for some decline in the quality of work.[27] In addition many copies
untouched by him, or virtually so, were produced by the workshop, as well as by
professional copyists and later painters; the number of paintings ascribed to
him had by the 19th century become huge, as with Rembrandt, Titian and others.
However, most of his assistants and copyists could not approach the refinement
of his manner, so compared to many masters consensus among art historians on
attributions to him is usually relatively easy to reach, and museum labelling
is now mostly updated (country house attributions may be more dubious in some
cases). The relatively few names of his assistants that are known are Dutch or
Flemish; he probably preferred to use trained Flemings, as no English
equivalent training yet existed.[7] Adriaen Hanneman (1604–71) returned to his
native Hague in 1638 to become the leading portraitist there.[28] Van Dyck's
enormous influence on English art does not come from a tradition handed down
through his pupils; in fact it is not possible to document a connection to his
studio for any English painter of any significance.[7]
Influences in other
fields
This triple portrait of King Charles I was sent to Rome for
Bernini to model a bust on Van Dyck painted many portraits of men, notably
Charles I and himself, with the short, pointed beards then in fashion;
consequently this particular kind of beard was much later (probably first in
America in the 19th century) named a vandyke or Van dyke beard (which is the
anglicized version of his name). During the reign of George III, a generic
"Cavalier" fancy-dress costume called a Van Dyke was popular;
Gainsborough's 'Blue Boy' is wearing such a Van Dyke outfit. The oil paint
pigment van Dyck brown is named after him, and Van dyke brown is an early
photographic printing process using the same colour.
Collections
The British Royal Collection, which still contains many of his
paintings of the royal family and others, has a total of twenty-six
paintings.[29] The National Gallery, London (fourteen works), The Museo del
Prado (Spain) (twenty-five works), The Louvre in Paris (eighteen works), The
Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the
Frick Collection have examples of his portrait style. Wilton House still holds
the works he did for one of his main patrons, the Earl of Pembroke, including
his largest work, a huge family group portrait with ten main figures.
Tate Britain held the exhibition Van Dyck & Britain in
2009.[30]
References
Jump up ^ "Trinity College, University of Cambridge".
BBC Your Paintings. Jump up ^ Originally "van Dijck", with the
"IJ" digraph, in Dutch. Anthony is the English for the Dutch Anthonis
or Antoon, though Anthonie, Antonio or Anthonio was also used; in French he is
often Antoine, in Italian Anthonio or Antonio. In English a capitalised
"Van" in Van Dyck was more usual until recent decades (used by
Waterhouse for example), and Dyke was often used during his lifetime and later
Jump up ^ Brown, Christopher: Van Dyck 1599-1641. Royal Academy Publications,
1999. p. 15. ISBN 0-900946-66-0 Jump up ^ Vlieghe, Hans. Flemish Art and
Architecture, 1585–1700, Yale University Press, 2004, p. 124. ISBN 0-300-10469-3
Jump up ^ Martin, Gregory. The Flemish School, 1600-1900, National Gallery
Catalogues, p. 26, 1970, National Gallery, London, ISBN 0-901791-02-4 Jump up ^
Brown, p. 17. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j k Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in
Britain, 1530-1790, 4th Edn, 1978, pp. 70-77, Penguin Books (now Yale History
of Art series) ^ Jump up to: a b Martin, op and page cit. Jump up ^ Brown, page
19. Jump up ^ Levey, Michael, Painting at Court, Weidenfeld and Nicholson,
London, 1971, pp. 124-5 Jump up ^ DNB accessed May 14, 2007 Jump up ^ DNB ret 3
May 2007 (causeway, and Eltham) Jump up ^ Gaunt, William, English Court
Painting Jump up ^ Levey p. 128 Jump up ^ DNB ret. 3 May 2007 Jump up ^
Cokayne, G. E., et al, The Complete Peerage, vol.iv, London, 1916, p. 385n Jump
up ^ "Portret królewicza". Treasures... (in Polish). Retrieved 29
August 2008. Jump up ^ Welsh Biography Online - Pryse Family of Gogerddan Jump
up ^ Grove Art Online, accessed 13 May 2007, DNB 14 May 2007 Jump up ^ Brown,
page 33. Jump up ^ Levey, op cit p. 136 ^ Jump up to: a b c DNB accessed 14 May
2007 Jump up ^ Royalton-Kisch, Martin. The Light of Nature, Landscape Drawings
and Watercolours by Van Dyck and his Contemporaries, British Museum Press,
1999, ISBN 0-7141-2621-7 ^ Jump up to: a b Arthur M. Hind, A History of
Engraving and Etching, p. 165, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1923 (in USA), reprinted
Dover Publications, 1963 ISBN 0-486-20954-7 ^ Jump up to: a b Becker, D. P., in
KL Spangeberg (ed), Six Centuries of Master Prints, Cincinnati Art Museum,
1993, no. 72, ISBN 0-931537-15-0 Jump up ^ Mayor, Alpheus Hyatt. Prints and
People, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Princeton, 1971, no. 433-35, ISBN
0-691-00326-2 Jump up ^ Brown, pp. 84-6. Jump up ^ Rudi Ekkart and Quentin
Buvelot (eds), Dutch Portraits, The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals,
Mauritshuis/National Gallery/Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, p. 138 QB, 2007, ISBN
978-1-85709-362-9 Jump up ^ Royal Collection Paintings by Van Dyck Jump up ^
Karen Hearn (ed.), Van Dyck & Britain, Tate Publishing, 2009. ISBN
978-1-85437-795-1.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Anthony van Dyck. 579
Paintings by Anthony van Dyck at the BBC Your Paintings site
"Van Dyck,
Anthony". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
1885–1900. Anthony van Dyck Biography, Style and Artworks The National Portrait
Gallery: Van Dyck: A masterpiece for everyone The National Gallery: Van Dyck
Sir Anthony Van Dyck by Peter Paul Rubens at the Royal Collection. Vermeer and
The Delft School, a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, which has material on Anthony van Dyck
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Van_Dyck,_Anthony_(DNB00)
Sir Anthony van Dyck (Anthonis van Dyck) (ejtése hollandosan:
[ant%C3%B3nisz fan dejk], angolosan: [entoni ven dájk]), (Antwerpen, Private
User. m%C3%A1rcius 22. – London, Private. december 9.) flamand festő. Peter Paul Rubens tanítványa és
segítőtársa, majd udvari portr%C3%A9festő I. Károly angol király udvarában.
Keresztnevének ismert változatai: az angolos Anthony [entoni],
a latinos Anthonis [ant%C3%B3nisz], a franciás Anthonie [antoni],
a németes Anton [Anton] és az eredeti flamand Antoon [ant%C3%B3n].
Anthony van Dyck's
Timeline
|
1599 |
March 22, 1599 |
Huis "Den Berendans",
Grote Markt, Antwerp, Flemish Region, Belgium |
|
|
March 23, 1599 |
Cathedraal, Antwerpen, Antwerp,
Vlaams Gewest, Belgium |
||
|
1622 |
1622 |
Birth of Maria Theresa van Dyck Antwerpen, Vlaams Gewest, België
(Belgium) |
|
|
1641 |
January 12, 1641 |
London, Greater London, UK |
|
|
December 9, 1641 Age
42 |
Death of Anthony van Dyck at Blackfriars Blackfriars, London, Greater
London, UK |
||
|
December 11, 1641 Age
42 |
St Paul's Cathedral, London, UK |