VAN DYCK, ANTHONY (1599–1641)

VAN DYCK, ANTHONY (1599–1641), Flemish painter. Born in Antwerp, Anthony van Dyck divided his career between his native Southern Netherlands, Italy, and England. Before he died at the age of forty-two, he had become the most influential portraitist in Europe. His portraits evoke the sitters' actual or desired rank as well as a sense of individuality, despite their idealization. Although he remains best known for his portraits, Van Dyck's ambition and talent extended to more prestigious history subjects, including religious and secular narratives in which he emphasized psychological states and relationships (for example, The Mystic Marriage of the Blessed Herman Joseph, 1630, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). Throughout his career Van Dyck departed from gender stereotypes more often than other artists, favoring subjects with passive men, and innovatively portrayed several women as glancing down at the viewer (for example, Marchesa Elena Grimaldi, 1623, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.).

The son of a silk merchant, Van Dyck began his professional training at the age of ten with Hendrik van Balen, the most expensive figure painter in Antwerp. While still in his teens he produced accomplished works and apparently even ran his own studio at the age of sixteen before officially becoming a master in the Guild of St. Luke. Because the young Van Dyck shifted easily between different styles, the dating of his early works remains disputed. He could adapt to the style of the older Rubens, in whose studio he worked as an assistant helping in the execution of such works as the cartoons for tapestries illustrating the history of the Roman general Decius Mus. In such cases he applied paint smoothly and depicted massive, muscular figures in a more ambiguous space than was typical of Rubens. Spatial ambiguity remained a stylistic characteristic throughout Van Dyck's career as a means of intensifying his emphasis on psychological rather than corporeal presence. Early paintings done in his own style, with oil paint applied in broader, looser strokes, reveal his lifelong admiration for the work of Titian (Betrayal of Christ, Prado, Madrid). Multiple versions exist of several early narrative subjects, the betrayal of Christ being a case in point. In planning such compositions, he made drawing after drawing to test alternative possibilities.

Portraits painted in Antwerp before 1620 (and again in 1628–1632) tend to be three-quarter length or smaller, a size suitable for the dwellings of Flemish burghers (Frans Snyders, The Frick Collection, New York). Props such as columns and flowing drapes, however, evoke the palatial settings of nobility, a status to which many of his fellow citizens aspired.

By the time Van Dyck left Antwerp in 1620, his works were as highly valued as Rubens's. He first went to England but by the end of 1621 had moved to Italy, remaining there for seven years and traveling extensively. His sketchbook (London, British Museum) records that he paid special attention to Titian. In Genoa, where he spent the most time, Van Dyck portrayed the city's nobility, such as Marchesa Elena Grimaldi (1623, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Often shown full-length, they look down at the viewer, increasing the sense of elevated rank suggested by their reserved demeanor. Faces and hands stand out against the tonalities dominated by rich reds and blacks.

In 1628 Van Dyck resettled in his native Antwerp. Visitors to his house mention a "Cabinet de Titian" in which he displayed originals by and copies after Titian. Working with softer value contrasts, Van Dyck expanded his repertoire of portrait poses for compositional reasons and to characterize sitters more fully. This is especially evident in the Iconography, a print series portraying selected European notables, including heads of state, military leaders, scholars, and, unprecedentedly in such a prestigious context, fellow artists such as Jan Brueghel the Elder. At first Van Dyck etched the portraits himself, but had the prints made by engravers after his models.

In 1632 Van Dyck moved once again to England, where art patronage now flourished at a court ruled by Charles I, a discriminating and avid art collector. The king appointed Van Dyck his "principalle" painter and knighted him, raising the artist's status closer to that of the nobility he portrayed as well as entertained. The English portraits (Portrait of King Charles I, 1635, Louvre) differ from their Genoese counterparts in having a brighter palette, a tendency to more relaxed poses, and occasional pastoral associations. They were to have an enormous influence on later English painting. In 1634–1635 Van Dyck considered resettling permanently in Antwerp but returned to England, where he lived the rest of his short life. His works remain as integral to the history of painting in England and in Italy as in his native Southern Netherlands.

VAN DYCK, ANTHONY (1599–1641)

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