Willem van de Velde
(1611 - December 13, 1693) |
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Navel Battles Art Work
| Name: |
Willem van de Velde |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Leiden, Holland, Dutch Republic |
| Nationality: |
Dutch |
| Birth: |
1611 |
| Death: |
December 13, 1693 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Navel Battles |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| The leading Dutch specialist in pen painting (pinceel schilderijen), Willem van de Velde the Elder is also noted for his direct reportage of naval actions. A gifted draftsman with a knack for recording the innumerable details of ships, he had a busy career working for the Dutch admiralty and later the English royalty. Willem the Elder forms an important link between Dutch art and the development of later English sea painting. Born in Leiden, Willem probably trained there with a still unidentified master. He married in 1631; his first two children, a daughter and his son Willem the Younger, were born in Leiden. Sometime between 1634 and 1636 the elder van de Velde moved to Amsterdam, where from 1646 until 1672 he lived near the waterfront by the Montelbaanstoren. The French invasion of Holland in 1672 prompted his move to England in late 1672 or early 1673. There he joined the employ of Charles II and then of James II. Active until the end of his life, Willem died in London in 1693. Although he probably began working in the late 1620s, we have no secure dates until 1638 appears on a drawing. Many of his drawings were made on the spot. One of the first eyewitness recorders of naval battles, Willem certainly saw his share of action. During the 1640s he sketched the Dutch fleet at Texel, at Den Helder, and near Terschelling. In 1646 he recorded the English fleet off the Dutch coast at Hellevoetsluis. Made official artist for Admiral Tromp's fleet in 1653, he witnessed the Battle of Scheveningen from a galliot. From there he saw Admiral Tromp killed on 10 August 1653. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, preserves Willem's Battle of Terheide (signed and dated 1657), which shows him recording the battle. In 1658 he was present at the Battle of the Sound against Sweden, and between 1665 and 1666 he recorded the action of the so-called second English War. His sketches of the English victory over the Dutch at the Battle of Lowestoft on 13 June 1665 are still preserved, and his drawings of Admiral de Ruyter's revenge over the English in the Four Days' Battle (11- 14 June 1666) are considered one of his grandest efforts. Between 1667 and 1669, Cardinal Leopold de' Medici and his nephew Cosimo III traveled to Amsterdam, where the noted publisher Joan Blaeu arranged their visits to the van de Velde studio. Willem the Elder once more joined de Ruyter's fleet during the Third Anglo-Dutch War of 1672, and he recorded the Battle of Solebay on 7 June. But when Louis XIV invaded Holland, van de Velde moved to England. There, he and his son had a studio in the queen's house in Greenwich, and Willem now accompanied the English fleet during the remainder of the Anglo-Dutch conflict. He saw the first and second battles of Schooneveld during May and June 1673, but was prevented from witnessing the Battle of Texel on 11 August 1673 for his safety. His principal occupations in England were to accompany the king on state occasions and to record the pageantry surrounding royal arrivals and debarkations. Credited with perfecting pen paintings on canvas or oak panels coated with a specially prepared white ground, Willem produced literally thousands of drawings from which his finished pen paintings were done. This painstaking technique, in which fine pen lines captured every detail, was ideally suited to the combining of accuracy and artistry. Willem's style remained fairly constant; he focused primarily on detailed portayals of ships and their placement in battle and had little interest in the effects of light, weather, and water. A good number of drawings bear notes on planned paintings, often executed later. His later works show a lowered horizon line and more sophisticated compositions, but his visual reportage lacked the poetry and emotion of other marine painters. In England he often collaborated with his son, Willem the Younger. The two helped establish the British school of marine painting, influencing such painters as Peter Monamy (1670-1749) and Charles Brooking (1723-59). Willem the Elder's graphic oeuvre consists of rapid, on-the-scene sketches; precise, large-scale ships' portraits (generally done in black chalk heightened with gray wash); and large frieze-like drawings of navHis highly finished panels and large canvases are an extension of his graphic work, most of which is preserved in the National Maritime Museum in London and the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam. |
Samples of Work
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