The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (151 page)

Duyster , Willem Cornelisz
.

(1599–1635).
Dutch painter of
genre
scenes and portraits, active mainly in his native Amsterdam. Most of his paintings depict soldiers, sometimes in action, but more usually drinking, gaming, or wooing. His delicate skill at painting textiles, his ability to characterize individuals, and his power to express subtle psychological relationships between them, suggest that if he had not been carried off by the plague in his mid 30s he might well have rivalled
Terborch
. There are two examples of his fairly rare work in the National Gallery, London.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1806–64).
Scottish painter, designer, and art educationalist. He made several visits to Italy and was deeply impressed by Renaissance painting, notably that of
Raphael
, and stimulated by the problem of fresco in relation to its architectural setting. He also came into contact with the
Nazarenes
, whose Christian primitivism he tried to acclimatize in Scotland. Dyce was widely talented; he was an accomplished musician and wrote a prizewinning paper on electromagnetism, but for some time he was successful mainly as a rather conventional portraitist and it was not until after 1840 that he was able to devote himself to more ambitious work, producing decorative schemes for the Houses of Parliament, several churches, and the royal residences Buckingham Palace and Osborne on the Isle of Wight (he was a favourite of Prince Albert ). His importance extended beyond his own work, for ‘there was no major [artistic] undertaking in mid nineteenth-century Britain in which he did not play either an executive or advisory role’ (David and Francina Irwin ,
Scottish Painters at Home and Abroad
, 1975). He was commissioned by the Council of the newly founded Government School of Design, which included
Eastlake
,
Chantrey
, and
Callcott
, to investigate state schools in France, Prussia, and Bavaria, and was appointed Director in 1840 on his return. His ideas on design were much respected, and although he had little influence on manufacturers, his training of teachers was important. As a painter he was versatile, for as well as portraits and history pictures he painted works as varied as the delightfully sentimental
Titian's First Essay in Colour
(Aberdeen Art Gallery, 1856–7) and
Pegwell Bay, Kent
(Tate, London, 1859–60), one of the most remarkable of all Victorian landscapes. His bright colours and naturalistic detail formed a bridge between the Nazarenes and the
Pre-Raphaelites
, but his design is usually stronger and his highmindedness more convincing than in the works of either.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

(1599–1641).
Apart from
Rubens
, the greatest Flemish painter of the 17th cent. In 1609 he began his apprenticeship with Hendrick van
Balen
in his native Antwerp and he was exceptionally precocious: on his earliest dated painting (
An Elderly Man
, Musées Royaux, Brussels, 1613) he has proudly inscribed his own age (14) as well as that of the sitter. Although he did not become a master in the painters' guild until 1618, there is evidence that he was working independently for some years before this, even though this was forbidden by guild regulations. Probably soon after graduating he entered Rubens's workshop. Strictly speaking he should not be called Rubens's pupil, as he was an accomplished painter when he went to work for him. Nevertheless the two years or so he spent with Rubens were decisive and Rubens's influence on him is unmistakable, although van Dyck's style was always less energetic and more highly strung. In 1620 van Dyck went to London, where he spent a few months in the service of James I, then in 1621 to Italy, where he stayed until 1627, toning down the Flemish robustness of his early pictures to create the refined and elegant style which remained characteristic of his work for the rest of his life. He travelled a good deal in Italy, but worked mainly in Genoa, where he painted a series of grand portraits of the nobility in which he established a distinctive aristocratic type, with proud mien and slender figure. A superb example is the full-length
Marchesa Elena Grimaldi
(NG, Washington, 1623), of which Sir David Piper wrote (
Van Dyck
, 1968): ‘this is how one imagines any feminine aristocrat worthy of her rank must feel herself essentially to be, yet did not know it till van Dyck showed her—aloof and formally regal, but endowed with an elegance and grace that are infinitely seductive’.
After leaving Italy, van Dyck worked mainly in Antwerp for the next few years, 1628–32. From 1632 until his death he lived in England—except for visits to the Continent—as painter to Charles I, from whom he received a knighthood. Perhaps the strongest evidence of his power as a portraitist is the fact that today we see Charles and his court through van Dyck's eyes. Many of his portraits of the king and his family are still in the royal collection; among the others the most famous is probably the huge equestrian portrait of Charles (
c.
1637) in the National Gallery, London. It is customary to accuse van Dyck of invariably flattering his sitters, but not all his patrons would have agreed. When the Countess of Sussex saw the portrait (now lost) van Dyck painted of her she felt ‘very ill-favourede’ and ‘quite out of love with myself, the face is so bige and so fate that it pleases me not at all. It lokes lyke on of the windes puffinge—but truly I think tis lyke the originale.’ Van Dyck's influence on English portraiture has been profound and lasting:
Gainsborough
, in particular, revered him, but he was an inspiration to many others until the early 20th cent., when society portraiture ceased to be a major form of artistic expression. He also painted religious and mythological subjects, however, and a surprising facet of his activity is revealed by his landscapes in watercolour (BM, London). His
Iconography
(1645) is a series of etchings or engravings of his famous contemporaries. Van Dyck etched some of the plates himself, and many more were engraved after his drawings and oil sketches.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search

Dying Gaul
.

Marble statue in the Capitoline Museum, Rome, showing a wounded warrior supporting himself wearily on one arm. First recorded in Rome in 1623, it soon became one of the most celebrated and copied of
antique
works. It is a Roman copy of a Greek work in the
Pergamene
style of the late 3rd cent. BC. The statue is sometimes called the ‘Dying Gladiator’, but this is a misnomer as the hairstyle and accessories are scrupulously Gallic. It was among the works removed from Italy by Napoleon and was in Paris from 1798 to 1815. Unlike many once famous antique statues, the
Dying Gaul
is still an admired work, particularly for its sense of pathos.

 
Back
  -  
 
New Search