Sir Anthony Van Dyck

b. 1599 and died 1641

Anthony van Dyck was born in Antwerp to a prosperous family. The Flemish Baroque artist is defined by the relaxed elegance of his painterly brush and is noted for assistance to the great Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens, as well as the patronage of King Charles I. Van Dyck spent six months in London in 1620. It was here that Van Dyck discovered the work of Titian within the collection of the Earl of Arundel. Titian’s implementation of subtle color and modeled forms enhanced the compositional lessons the young artist had learned from Rubens. Van Dyck slowly developed his own style,: a full length portrait style which clearly displayed influences from Veronese, Titian, and the masters in which her had studied in his pilgrimage to Italy. Upon returning to Italy, Van Dyck was embraced as the new portraitist of the aristocracy. The leading English-born artists, such as Robert Peake, painted in a comparatively linear, non-naturalistic style. They produced somber, serious images of their aristocratic clients. The monarchy began commissioning the artist for royal portraits; his cavalier portrait of King Charles on horseback updated the grandeur of Titian’s Emperor Charles the V, giving the king a new natural look of distinctive sovereignty. In addition to the portraiture that was so prominent during the time, Van Dyck also depicted biblical and mythological subjects within many of his paintings, displayed outstanding facility as a draftsman, and was an important innovator in watercolor and etching. With the onset of the English Civil War, the artist spent time in Antwerp, Flanders, and France until passing in the winter of 1641.