Anthony van Dyck

“ With the exception of a short visit to Antwerp at the time of his father’s death in 1622, Van Dyck spent the next five years in Italy. No master from beyond the Alps ever took up a higher position than Van Dyck among the most celebrated representatives of Italian art. ”

“ This proof of Van Dyck’s personal reputation is fully confirmed (17th July) by a correspondent of the earl of Arundel, who speaks of Van Dyck as a young man of one-and-twenty whose works are scarcely less esteemed than those of his master, and adds that, his relations being people of considerable wealth, he could hardly be expected to leave his home. Van Dyck was, however, thus persuaded, for on 28th November Sir Toby Mathew mentions the artist’s departure to Sir Dudley Carleton, adding that he is in receipt of an annual pension of £100 from the king. ”

“ Born and died in Kingston, N. Y. He attended the drawing school of Archibald Robertson, and later studied under Gilbert Stuart. He painted portraits, and in 1796 went to France, where he remained some years. He painted the portraits of many distinguished men, but died poor.
Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) .
Flemish painter, born at Antwerp. After receiving his first instructions from his father, he studied under Henry van Balen and then entered the school of Rubens, and became a great portrait painter. ”

“ As a new feature we observe a kind of elegance, not entirely free from mannerism, which is often conspicuous with Van Dyck even when the technical excellence commands our warmest admiration. Inspiration, as Waagen observes, was far more limited with Van Dyck than with Rubens. His truly delicate nature led him to restrain his conceptions within the bounds of an academic evenness, generally more pleasing to the uninitiated than the strength of expression which sometimes imparts a sort of violence to the works of Rubens. ”

“ Among these early works are the “Martyrdom of St Peter” (Brussels) , the “Crowning with Thorns” (Berlin) , the “Betrayal of Christ” (Madrid and Lord Methuen) , “St Martin dividing his Cloak” (Windsor Castle) ,—a magnificent production, generally ascribed to Rubens, but easily identified through Van Dyck’s admirable sketch at Dorchester House.
It is unnecessary to dwell on a number of tales connected with Van Dyck’s early life, all of which have on closer examination proved to be apocryphal; but one story has been too frequently told to be altogether ignored. ”

“ That he was at the time a portrait painter of the rarest merit may easily be seen from the portrait of “Van der Geest” in the National Gallery (London) , and from his own likenesses of himself when still quite young and beardless, in the National Gallery, in the Pinakothek at Munich and in the Wallace Collection. In this last admirable specimen the young painter has represented himself in the character of Paris. Early paintings by Van Dyck are certainly not scarce in British galleries; at Dulwich there is his admirable Samson and Delilah, ascribed to the school of Rubens. ”

“ His father, a well-to-do merchant in Antwerp, where Van Dyck was born in 1599, gave Anthony every opportunity to follow up the art of painting. The boy was for several years a pupil of Rubens, whom he made a little jealous by his success in portrait painting. Some of his pictures were better than Rubens’. A few years in Italy gave Van Dyck a still higher position among artists. Some said he was the best portrait painter in Europe. ”

“ Santa Maria Formosa, Venice Please click here for a modern color image
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CHARLES I AND HIS HORSE Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641)
he horse in this picture of Charles I is probably the one Rubens gave to Van Dyck. It is said that Rubens gave it as a present after Van Dyck had painted a portrait of Helena Fourment, the master's second wife, and presented it to him. Van Dyck was twenty-two years younger than Rubens. You will remember that he was the master painter's favorite pupil. Having Rubens as a teacher did not make the pupil a great painter. Van Dyck was never more than a prince ”

“ Lionel Cust, Anthony Van Dyck (London, 1900) , an abridgment with emendations, Van Dyck (1906) , and A Description of the Sketch-Book by Sir Anthony Van Dyck . . . at Chatsworth (London, 1902) ; Max Rooses, Chefs-d'œuvres d'Antoine van Dyck (Antwerp, 1901) ; Antoine Van Dyck (Paris, 1902) ; Frank Newbolt, Etchings of Van Dyck (London, 1906) . (H. H.; P. G. K.)
↑ Of the Cattaneo portraits, originally eight in number, seven were privately sold out of Italy in 1906, and in the following year one, a half-length “Portrait of a Man,” was acquired for the National Gallery, London, for £13,500. ”

“ Van Dyck was himself an incomparable etcher, and with the needle arrived at a degree of excellence scarcely inferior to that exhibited in his paintings. Such prints as the portraits of Vorsterman, John de Wael, Snyders, Josse de Momper, Adam van Noort, and above all his own effigy, bear witness to his prodigious knowledge of design. Print collectors pay extravagant prices For a first proof taken from the plates engraved by Van Dyck himself. Van Dyck also employed some of the best engravers of his time for the production of a gallery of illustrious heads, men and women, of different countries. ”

“ As in later years Van Dyck gives us a striking picture of the higher classes in England, so at this stage he makes us acquainted with Italian beauty and style; and at no other period is his talent more advantageously shown than in some of the glorious portraits he painted at Rome, at Florence, and, above all, at Genoa. At Rome, whither he journeyed after a prolonged stay in Venice, he resided with Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who had been papal nuncio in Flanders from 1607 to 1617. ”

“ It often requires a very discriminating eye to distinguish some of these copies from the original paintings. Nevertheless, after Van Dyck’s death many of his coadjutors produced works of undeniable merit. No school more strikingly reflects the influence of Van Dyck than the British school. ”

“ He 'would detain the persons who sat to him to dinner for an opportunity of studying their countenances and re-touching their pictures,' 'would have a sitter, sitting to him seven entire days, mornings and evenings, and would not once let the man see the picture till it pleased the painter.' Van Dyck appears to have been a man with the possibilities in him of greater things than he attained, possibilities which were baffled by his weakness and self-indulgence, leaving him with such a sense of this as spoiled his greatest successes. ”

“ From his earliest days he worshipped the great Fleming, and that the spell never left him may be gauged from his dying words: "We are all going to Heaven, and Van Dyck is of the company." Even prior to his departure for Bath, his portraits possessed many of the qualities of Van Dyck, but after arriving in the western city, then the centre of a rich and fashionable world, he had manifold opportunities of studying his favourite master. His brushwork became at once more refined, his colouring more transparent, and his method in every way more facile. ”

“ As a portrait-painter Van Dyck may lack the precision of Holbein or tender intimacy of Cornelius Janssen, the directness and amazing technical skill of Velazquez or Frans Hals, the mysterious pathos of Rembrandt; but in his own manner he reigns supreme, and his genius needs no interpreter. It is curious that in England, where his fame ranks so high, Van Dyck's works can be studied only with difficulty, since they are so widely dispersed. ”

“ Whilst we can quite imagine that Rubens would be sorry to part with so capable an assistant, there was not any evidence that he did not do everything in his power to assist him to carry out his project.
In 1623—when he was but twenty-four years of age—Van Dyck left Antwerp on his journey southward. He appears not to have got any further than a village near Brussels, where he succumbed to the attractions of a certain young lady named Annah van Ophem. At her instigation he painted two pictures for the parish church there. In one, representing St. ”

“ To estimate to the full the revolution he wrought we must compare the masters whom we found installed in favour in Flanders with the school he so soon created. The older painters being affected in so visible a degree, we can quite imagine how easily one so young and impressionable as Van Dyck would submit to the new influence. Here was a master whose art, glowing with the full-blooded vigour of Italy, yet retained the healthy freshness of his native country. Restrained and held in leash as he would be in the studio of Van Balen, we can sympathise with his yearning to migrate to that of Rubens. ”

“ Everybody is made to pose before posterity; each sitter has the smile to give his or her descendants the most exalted idea of his or her station and manners. Not one is vulgar, not one dares to show himself in his ordinary work, or in the careless good nature of daily life. Nothing alters their immutable serenity; nothing troubles the unalterable placidity of their physiognomy. Let others paint the people of taverns, the world of kermesses and peasants! Van Dyck wished to be and to live for ever the painter of aristocracy. ”

“ The plague drove Van Dyck from Italy back to Flanders, where he painted for a time, and presented his picture of the 'Crucifixion' to the Dominicans as a memorial gift in honour of his father, but in Flanders Rubens' fame overshadowed that of every other painter, and Van Dyck, recalling an invitation which he had received from the Countess of Arundel while still in Italy, came a second time to England, in 1630, when he was about thirty years of age, and lodged again with a fellow-countryman and painter named Gildorp. ”

“ XVI PORTRAIT OF VAN DYCK
The painter Van Dyck was the son of a rich merchant of Antwerp, and lacked no opportunities for the training of his artistic gifts. He was fortunate also in meeting ready appreciation wherever he went. In Italy, in Flanders, and finally in England, his paintings were highly valued. His life was passed amid luxurious surroundings, in the society of noblemen and princes. His was a brilliant and successful career. ”

“ There never was a time in the history of the English Court when such opportunities for advancement were presented to an artist possessing the genius of Van Dyck as during the reign of Charles I. He was one of the few monarchs of England who recognised the civilising influence of art on the nation and encouraged it in a manner quite beyond his means. ”

“ At the close of these six years of Antwerp work a new world opened to him. His first visit to England seems to have been unfruitful, but in 1632 he became one of the court painters of Charles I. Success and honor now crowned the new works of Van Dyck. He received a salary of £200 a year as principal painter to the Stuart court, and was knighted by the king. Nothing succeeds like success, and we find Van Dyck sought after by the nobility and gentry of England, and at once installed as a fashionable portrait painter. ”

“ His etchings show various modes of treatment, according to the character of the sitter, and it would be difficult to speak of the development of his art, since, by the grace of God, he seems to have been a born etcher.
Van Dyck’s Portrait of Himself naturally interests us most, on account of its subject. So far as Van Dyck has seen fit to carry it, it is a perfect work of art, not the least remarkable feature being the splendid placing of the head upon the plate. ”

“ It is true that some few of the men who are living to-day are equipped almost, if not quite, as well technically as the great majority of the old masters. In a word, they could meet them on nearly equal terms as painters, but they lack invention and conception in which to bring their powers into legitimate play, and consequently they cannot rank with them as artists.
It was in the possession of these very qualities that Van Dyck surpassed Rubens. ”

“ Even his own wealth could not cope with the extravagance of his living, and save him from haggling with the king about his ill-paid pension, or driving hard bargains with his lady sitters. At last the king and queen found him a wife among the ladies of the court, Mary, daughter of Patrick Ruthven, granddaughter of the Earl of Gowrie, and related to some of the ruling families in the land. Van Dyck agreed willingly to the marriage, which took place in 1640, much to the anger of his mistress, who is said to have tried to mutilate his right hand, with which he painted. ”

“ When the portrait neared its finish he went over the whole himself, and it is therefore difficult, in the case of many versions of the same portrait of equal excellence, to declare that any one is actually the original. Many of Van Dyck's drawings of this kind are to be found in the British Museum, the Louvre, and other public collections. He is said always to have received his sitters richly dressed himself. Throughout his life in England Van Dyck lived a life of wealth and luxury. ”

“ Upon his return to Antwerp, the six succeeding years gave him the opportunity to work out his own individuality. Some noble altar-pieces were produced in these years. Pleasant reminiscences of Titian still appear in such work, as in the often-used motif of baby angels; but in the subjects of the Crucifixion and the Pietà, he stands quite apart. These works are distinctly his own, and show genuine dramatic power.
During this Flemish period Van Dyck was appointed court painter by the Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia, Spanish Regent of the Netherlands. ”