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Coinciding with the 1999 exhibitions of his paintings in Antwerp and London, Anthony van Dyck: 1599-1641 celebrates the 400th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated Flemish painter. Van Dyck is perhaps best known for his religious paintings, which are outstanding examples of the Baroque style, and he is also considered one of the greatest portrait painters in an age of exceptional portraitists. He revolutionized royal portraiture in England by introducing more dynamic compositions, often incorporating the dramatic presence of a draped curtain leading out into a natural vista and open skies. Born in Antwerp to a wealthy merchant family, van Dyck began to paint at the age of 10 and had already earned the privilege of studying with Peter Paul Rubens by the time he was a teenager. He shared a workshop with Jan Brueghel the Younger, and his contemporaries included Poussin, Lorrain, and Velázquez. Later he would become court painter for King James of England, as well as for Charles I, and he immortalized their key subjects during the charged era of the English Civil War. He had a special talent for depicting his regal subjects with a relaxed elegance not seen in the more formal portraiture that had preceded him. And his ability to paint sumptuous fabrics is almost unparalleled.

This large, stately, cloth-covered hardback contains over 100 of van Dyck's masterpieces, including rarely seen works. Its 359 pages are lavishly illustrated with quality full-color reproductions, including painting details and preliminary drawings. A chronology, descriptions of each work, and essays by prominent scholars in the field make this the most authoritative volume on the artist to date. --A.C. Smith ... Read more

Reviews (1)

an incredible painter, a fantastic exhibition.
One of the greatest painters of all time is well represented by his greatest paintings in this exhibition and hence - this catalog. Be prepared to be amazed by a painter of prodigious talent. ... Read more

Book Description

This superb new biography provides the fullest narrative of Van Dyck's life and personality to appear in English. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Highly recommended for students of portraiture.
Robin Blake's Anthony Van Dyck could also have been featured in our arts section but is a powerful biographical sketch which should not be missed by any interested in biographical history. Van Dyck was a portrait painter whosaw his own works passed over in favor of his contemporaries, although theywere compared to Titian and Rubens. Blake examines Van Dyck's life and artwith an eye to revealing the underlying influences on his works; in theprocess imparting a fine bit of history. Recommended for any student ofportraiture.

Diane C. Donovan Reviewer

Brilliant!
This is by far the best bio on van Dyck in print today. I purchased it a year ago, from Amazon UK, and am very glad to see it available in the States. If you have the catalog from either the recent show in London or the Washington DC show from '90, use the images from that to go withRobin's text and you're in for a real treat. Bravo Robin! ... Read more

Book Description

Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641) is among the greatest portrait painters of all time. The 1990s opened and closed with major exhibitions devoted to his work, and now the long-awaited catalogue raisonné of his painted oeuvre is complete.

A native of Antwerp, Van Dyck also lived and worked for long periods in Italy and England, where his brief, productive life ended.He is best known for his work at the court of Charles I. His full-length portraits of aristocrats in the Caroline court and in Genoa, Antwerp, Brussels, and The Hague influenced the history of Western portraiture into the twentieth century in the work of John Singer Sargent. Handsomely designed and illustrated, the volume includes a reproduction of every known authentic painting by the artist as well as the provenance and the significant facts and literature on each. This catalogue raisonné is, fittingly, the collaborative work of an international team devoted to the study of this major international artist.

Susan J. Barnes, an independent art historian, co-curated a Van Dyck exhibit in Washington, D.C., 1990.Nora De Poorter is director of the Rubenianum, Antwerp. Oliver Millar, Surveyor Emeritus of The Queen’s Pictures, organized an exhibition of Van Dyck’s English work at the National Portrait Gallery, London, 1982–83. Horst Vey, former director of the Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, is author of the standard work on Van Dyck’s drawings.

Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art



September Art
672 pp.450 b/w + 150 color illus.9 3/4 x 12
ISBN 0-300-09928-2 $175.00sc

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Book Description

Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641) introduced a new type of costume in his portraits during his second English period (1632-1641), one that blurred the margins of fact and fancy. He used costume to forge a complex and memorable image of his English patrons, the Caroline courtiers, one that captured their ideals and yet had resonance for many years after his death. Van Dyck established new conventions for the representation of dress in portraits that held sway until the end of the seventeenth century. Later generations of English, Dutch, and French painters, used Van Dyck´s innovations as a touchstone for a new manner of dressing sitters, one that was partially fictional, and much more casual and unbuttoned than had ever been represented before. This book shows that an understanding of dress can offer a new way of revealing the associations and ideals that a portait mayhave projected, and that the history of costume provides a unique set of tools with which to analyze the creativity and contributions of Van Dyck. ... Read more

Book Description

This book will be the first serious monograph on Thomas Willeboirts Bosschaert,a somehow forgotten seventeenth century painter. Although Van Dyck's influence is obvious, Willeboirts develops his own artistic personality. The second part of this book contains a comprehensive 'catalogue raisonné' with more than 100 painting, drawings and studies with oil. A complete index with technical, historical and iconographical information makes this book an invaluable tool for scholars in art history in general and 17th-century Flemish painting in particular. ... Read more

Book Description

During his first visit to London, Anthony van Dyck produced his portrait of Thomas Howard.It marked the beginning of van Dyck's brilliant international career.Thomas Howard, a prominent member of the court of James I, was to become one of the greatest and most enlightened collectors and patrons England has ever known.In this probing study, White provides a history both of Howard, and of van Dyck, whose canvases established the grand tradition of portraiture both in England and on the Continent.This volume in the Getty Museum Studies in Art series offers not only a complete study of a great painting but also a primer on how great collections are formed and great careers are launched. ... Read more

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Child Life, published by Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, Inc. on April 1, 2000. The length of the article is 1928 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Antonio Van Dyck and His Master Rubens.(an episode from the life of Van Dyck, as a student)
Author: Mary Newlin Roberts
Publication: Child Life (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2000
Publisher: Benjamin Franklin Literary & Medical Society, Inc.
Volume: 79Issue: 3Page: 4

Article Type: Biography

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This painstakingly thorough examination of van Dyck's extensive use of prints--including etchings, engravings, and aquatints--is the companion catalog to an exhibition in Antwerp celebrating the artist's birth 400 years ago, in 1699. Though he is best known for his paintings, van Dyck's prints influenced artists well into the 18th century and have always been prized by collectors and students of the history of printmaking. The book's introduction expresses the authors' hopes that it will prove accessible to the ordinary reader--and there are many sections that are fascinating. The descriptions of the 17th-century practice of ordering copper plates--which when delivered still bore hammer marks from the metalsmith who had created them, so that before beginning an etching the artist (or more likely his apprentices) had to make the surface flat--are just one example. Another is a description of the printmaking processes of the time that points out the "clots and pumples" on a plate that has been heated too rapidly, as a contemporary translator described the little bumps that appear in such well-known images as Rembrandt's Deposition, with its speckled ground. There is also a stunning array of images in various states, including preparatory drawings, proofs, corrected proofs, final prints, later engravings, and similar types of prints created in other ateliers of the time.

Van Dyck acquainted himself with printmaking in Rubens's workshop, and that artist's flair is evident throughout van Dyck's fluid, flashy, finely observed portraits. Van Dyck was not Rubens, however, or Rembrandt--both of whom employed printmaking as simply another medium to bend to their incomparable vision. His prints seem to have been executed mainly as advertisements, but the artist is so accomplished that it is surprising how little his work is discussed today. This scholarly, carefully produced book is filled with large color plates, and its type is set, blessedly, in such a way as to make its brilliantly detailed text highly legible, unlike many tomes of this type. With the exception of the slightly confusing captions, which often omit dates, it is a book that will go far in correcting contemporary neglect of this important artist. --Peggy Moorman ... Read more