Adriaen van de Velde
(November 30, 1636 - January 21, 1672) |
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Landscape, Genre Subjects, Animals Art Work
| Name: |
Adriaen van de Velde |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Amsterdam |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
November 30, 1636 |
| Death: |
January 21, 1672 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Landscape, Genre Subjects, Animals |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Son and brother to two eminent marine painters, Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van de Velde the Younger, Adriaen van de Velde had a brief career (he died at age thirty-six) during which he showed himself to be a multitalented painter whose landscapes, particularly his beach scenes, are celebrated. Sometimes grouped with exponents of the monumental approach to landscape developed by Jacob van Ruisdael, Aelbert Cuyp, and others, Adriaen developed his own distinctive and diverse approach to landscape subject matter. His various other subjects have prompted much discussion of his many artistic sources. Pupil most likely of his father in Amsterdam, Adriaen also studied (according to Houbraken) with Jan Wijnants in Haarlem, probably in the late 1640s or early 1650s. Dated paintings by Adriaen are known from 1654; by 1657 he married (a Catholic) and settled in Amsterdam, where he probably spent the rest of his life. Scholars have suggested a trip to Italy on the basis of an Italianate feeling in some of his paintings, but that may simply be one of Adriaen's many responses to other sources. Adriaen had his six children baptized (between 1658 and 1670) in Roman Catholic churches that were then hidden in Amsterdam. Numerous documents reflect his activity in Amsterdam; in 1666 a document records a contract for Adriaen to teach drawing and painting to Johannes Innevelt; in 1667 he is noted settling a dispute over drawings and prints with Jan HackaerL* We know that by 1671 he had become a Catholic. Early in his career Adriaen produced works with figures and animals, reflecting his interest in Paulus Potter* (e.g., Farm with Dead Tree, signed and dated 1658, London, National Gallery). By 1656 Adriaen was also producing winter scenes. An example from that year (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Johnson Collection) reflects Salomon van Ruysdael's windblown clouds and the crisp and distinct figures found in Salomon and Aert van der Neer at that time. Two years later Adriaen produced the first of his five extraordinary beach scenes, Beach at Scheveningen (Kassel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen), which uses devices (like the dark cart and other dark forms) adapted from the earlier works but sets them and numerous other figures in a back!it, lightly colored, deeply receding space. The plein-air effect thus achieved anticipates ninteenth-century beach painters such as Boudin. The last known example of Adriaen's beach scenes appeared in 1670 and is now in the Carter collection, Los Angeles. During the 1660s Adriaen also began to concentrate on Italianate themes, as can be seen in his Woman Milking a Goat outside a Barn (signed and dated 1666, London, Royal Collection), which shows the strong influence of Jan Both. In the same year Adriaen produced The Farm (signed and dated 1666, Berlin, Staatliche Museen, Gemaidegalerie), an unusually detailed and bucolic depiction of majestic trees surrounding a farmyard. For years in an English collection, this work was of singular importance to the development of nineteenth-century English landscape painters such as Constable, Crome, and Gainsborough. A less well known aspect of Adriaen's work was his depiction of biblical subjects. Between 1664 and 1667 he probably executed a series of five scenes from Christ's Passion (a sixth scene may have been painted for the series: an especially luminous Annunciation, signed and dated 1667, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) for the Roman Catholic Church De Ster (The Star), which was in the attic of the shop of the cloth merchant Jacob van Loon. The pictures were later moved to the Spinhuis church. Adriaen's histories show him to be a master of figure painting in the tradition of Haarlem masters Pieter de Grebber and Jan de Bray. Adriaen's gifts at figure painting prompted other painters to ask him to supply staffage. Among his clients were Hackaert, van der Heyden, Hobbema, Koninck, de Moucheron, Ruisdael, and Wijnants. No matter what subject he painted, Adriaen had an uncanny sense for instilling a mood through his subtle applications of tonality. His airy and sunny landscapes were, as one scholar puts it, full of "Sunday atmosphere"; there is a feeling of grandness tempered by specificity. Though he was active only for about twenty years, his output (which includes etchings and numerous drawings that reflect a rather methodical preparatory approach to his paintings) was prodigious. Not easily classified, Adriaen was nevertheless, a significant and still underappreciated master. Johannes van der Bent, Dirck van Bergen, and Jacob and Simon van der Does are considered his followers. |
Samples of Work
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