The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (108 page)

(d.
c.
1526).
Netherlandish painter, perhaps to be identified with a ‘Jan van Leyden’ who became a master in the Antwerp guild in 1520. Although he is a shadowy figure and the reconstruction of his
œuvre
is controversial, he is noteworthy as one of the earliest followers of
Bosch
, his penchant seemingly being small pictures of hermits and saints in weird landscapes. He had two artist sons,
Matthys
(
c.
1509–48) and
Hieronymus
or
Jerome
(
c.
1510–70), both of whom worked in Antwerp. Matthys was renowned in his day as a landscapist and is mentioned by
Vasari
as well as van
Mander
, but little is known for certain of his work. Jerome was an engraver, printer, and editor who ran a print-selling business, ‘Aux Quatre Vents’ (At the Sign of the Four Winds), that became internationally renowned. Pieter
Bruegel
was much employed by Cock in the earlier part of his career, when he excelled at prints in the tradition of Bosch.

 
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Codazzi , Viviano
.

See
LAER
.

 
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(1599–1678).
Dutch
genre
and portrait painter of the fashionable world and barrack-room life, active in Amsterdam. His best works are usually on a small scale, marked by subtle silvery-grey tonalities, but he achieved one memorable feat on a much larger scale. In 1637 he was called upon to finish the group portrait of the Amsterdam Civic guards known as the
Meagre Company
(Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) that Frans
Hals
began in 1633 and refused to finish because he would not come to Amsterdam for sittings, and Codde succeeded so well in capturing Hals's spirit and the touch of his brush that experts still disagree where the work of the one ends and the other begins. Codde also wrote poetry.

 
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(1502–50).
Netherlandish painter, architect, sculptor, designer of tapestries and stained glass, writer, and publisher. A pupil of Bernard van
Orley
, he entered the Antwerp Guild in 1527. Some time before then he had been to Rome and in 1533 he visited Constantinople. His mission to gain business there for the Brussels tapestry works was unsuccessful, but the drawings he made on his journey were later published by his widow Mayken Verhulst as woodcut illustrations in
Les Mœurs et Fachons de Faire des Turcz
(The Manners and Customs of the Turks, 1553). He ran a large workshop and was regarded as one of the leading Antwerp painters of his day, but his work is fairly run-of-the-mill and he is generally more important for his publishing activities. Like his paintings, his books are saturated in Italian influence, and the translation of the architectural treatise of Sebastiano Serlio that he issued from 1539 played a large part in spreading
Renaissance
ideas in the Netherlands (it was from the Dutch edition, too, rather than from the Italian original, that the English translation of 1611 was made). Pieter
Bruegel
the Elder was his son-in-law, and, according to van
Mander
, his pupil, but there is no trace of Coecke's influence in his work.

 
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(1642–93).
Spanish painter, the last important master of the Madrid school of the 17th cent. In 1686 he succeeded
Carreño
as court painter, and worked in Madrid and at the
Escorial
. His masterpiece,
Charles II Adoring the Host
(Escorial, 1685–90), combines a mystical religious subject with realistic portraiture and is an outstanding example of
Baroque
illusionism
, mirroring the architecture of the sacristy in which it hangs. He had other noteworthy successes, particularly in work he carried out for Toledo Cathedral, but he died a disappointed man because he was passed over in favour of the Italian Luca
Giordano
for the commission to carry out a huge programme of decoration at the Escorial. Coello had travelled to Italy as a young man and also studied the work of
Titian
in the royal collection, and his skill as a colourist and painterly brushwork reflect the influence of the great Venetian masters.

 
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