Just as happened in architecture and sculpture, Flemish painting developed clear differences with Dutch painting. This became more evident after 1609, when it was signed the 12-year truce that definitively established the separation of the former Netherlands into two groups. Contrary to Protestant Holland at the north, Flanders at the south relied politically on Spain and spiritually on Rome. The distance from Madrid allowed the court of Brussels to act as if it was an independent country, whose national characteristics, with such a marked personality, were affirmed at the pace of its economic prosperity and the beginning of the capitalist development centered in the rich city of Antwerp. It is logical that Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio (then an ecclesiastical diplomat) found the court of Brussels “more cheerful and pleasant [than that of Madrid], because of the greater freedom of the country and the mixture of people who were living there.”
These characteristics were summoned in the painting of Rubens, the dominant genius of the Flemish Baroque. His powerful artistic temperament, his sense of the vitality of form as a reflection of the opulence with which life manifests everywhere, his mastery at composition, will be detailing in an essay dedicated to him. But first, we will deal with the other painters who made up the rich ‘picture’ of Baroque painting in Flanders. Together, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Antoon van Dyck (1599-1641), and Jacob Jordaens (1593-1678) became then the leading Flemish Baroque painters of the time.
Antoon van Dyck began as a disciple of Rubens. He was born in Antwerp in 1599, the son of a wealthy silk-merchant; the seventh of 12 children. His artistic talent was evident very early and when he was 10 years old, he started his formal training as a painter. Van Dyck probably left his master’s workshop in 1615 or 1616 to set up his independent workshop before becoming a master painter. By the age of 15 he was already a highly accomplished artist, as shown by his Self-portrait (ca. 1615). He was then admitted to the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke as an independent master on Saint Luke’s day, 18 October 1617.
Within a few years Antoon became the chief assistant to Peter Paul Rubens, then the leading master painter of the whole of Northern Europe. Rubens’ influence on the young artist was immense. He referred to the 19-year-old van Dyck as “the best of my pupils”.
However, in 1620 Van Dyck made his first trip to England, at the suggestion of George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham, and was hired by the crown where he worked for King James I, with a salary of £100 a year. While in London, he had the opportunity to first saw the work of Tiziano in the collection of the Earl of Arundel, whose use of color and subtle modeling of form would greatly influence him with a new stylistic language that would enrich the compositional lessons he learned before from Rubens. “Van Dyck,” wrote the agent of the Earl of Arundel, “is parallel to Rubens, and his works begin to be as esteemed as those of his master. He is a young man of only 20 years, the son of a rich family, which is why I think it would be difficult for him to leave Antwerp, especially seeing the fortune Rubens is making there.”
This first stay in England was short-lived and the painter returned to Antwerp about four months later, but it was only to say goodbye to Rubens and to embark on a long trip through Italy in late 1621, where he remained for six years. Aware of the value of his art, before leaving his master he gave him three of his paintings. Instead, Rubens gave Van Dyck an Andalusian horse that he held in high esteem for his disciple to ride during the trip. In Italy, he studied the Italian masters while starting a successful career as a portraitist. In Rome he became famous for his elegant bearing and refined manners which annoyed the rather bohemian Northern artist’s colony in Rome. Van Dyck was unlike those foreign painters of the Baroque period that visited Rome, regular visitors to inns and brothels. Since he was accustomed in the circle of Rubens to noblemen, and being naturally of elevated mind, his gloves, his horse, even his servants were a source of ridicule. He was mostly based in Genoa, although he also travelled extensively to other cities, and stayed for some time in Palermo and Sicily.
“The gentleman painter”, when he put down his brushes, enjoyed the most distinguished social life, and, meanwhile, he consciously studied the great Venetian masters; thus his style became increasingly polished and his color palette richer and brighter. His Susanna and the Elders (ca. 1621-1622) and Madonna of the Rosary (1623-1624) belong to this Italian period.
These two canvases, among many others, already show what would be his style, characterized by an elegant formal nervousness. In both we can also appreciate the influence that Tiziano and the Venetian painters had on him. From this period there are numerous portraits, such as Cardinal Bentivoglio (ca. 1625) and various figures of the nobility of Genoa: Doria (1626-1627), Pallavicini (1621), Cattaneo (ca. 1623), etc. Particularly for the Genoese aristocracy, Van Dyck developed a full-length portrait style, taking as inspiration the works of Veronese and Tiziano as well as the style of Rubens, depicting extremely tall but graceful figures that look down on the viewer with great pride and arrogance.
Van Dyck returned to Antwerp in 1627, where he remained for five years establishing there his workshop, where he executed the commissions he received from all over, particularly more affable portraits which still made his Flemish patrons look as stylish as possible.
King Charles I of England was a passionate collector of art, seeing painting as a way of promoting his elevated view of the monarchy. Charles was very short, less than 1.5 m tall, which presented challenges to a portrait artist. Meanwhile, Van Dyck remained in touch with the English court and helped King Charles’s agents in their search for paintings in the Netherlands. He sent some of his own works, and in April of 1632, van Dyck returned to London and was immediately taken under the wing of the court, being knighted in July and at the same time receiving a pension of £200 a year, with the title of principalle Paynter in ordinary to their majesties (chamber painter to Charles I). This monarch, chivalrous and elegant, necessarily had to get along with Van Dyck, the artist of the finest distinction. He therefore assigned him a splendid salary and put at his disposal a house on the River Thames at Blackfriars then just outside the city of London and a suite of rooms in Eltham Palace, no longer used by the royal family, as a country retreat. His studio in Blackfriars was frequently visited by the King and Queen, who hardly sat for another painter while van Dyck lived.
Charles I, who never tired of demonstrating his sympathy towards the painter, even married him to the young Mary Ruthwen, a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. For his part, Van Dyck painted wonderful portraits of Charles I. The most famous is one in the Louvre (ca. 1635), in which the king has just dismounted from his hunting horse, and with an indefinable look and a gesture of those that only a great artist can capture, he turns towards the viewer. Van Dyck also painted countless portraits of the royal princes, which were sent by Charles I, as a gift, to the other courts of Europe. He painted portraits of the queen and the English lords, with whom he maintained the most cordial relations. A painting from the Prado Museum (1632-1641) represents van Dyck, dressed gracefully in black, next to the knight Endymion Porter, a palace nobleman who had introduced him to King Charles I. In another portrait from the Louvre (ca. 1640) we already notice the passing of the years, but without losing his somewhat tender, almost childlike appearance.
However, it seems a fatal law that no one is content with the gifts nature had bestow upon him, and Van Dyck being a prodigious portrait painter, proposed to the king to decorate the Banqueting House at Whitehall with paintings related to the history of the Order of the Garter. Charles I, who at that time began to struggle with political difficulties and the shortage of public finances that ultimately lead him to the scaffold, could not carry out Van Dyck’s magnificent project. Van Dyck, displeased, went to Antwerp in 1634 and, after a brief return to England, he continued to Flanders and Paris (1640-1641), to propose other decorative projects to the king of France, like a commission to paint the Grande Gallerie of the Louvre Palace, which never took place. There he fell ill and died in his Blackfriars residence in 9 December 1641 just after returning to London, where he was later buried on 11 December in old St. Paul’s Cathedral. His mortal remains and tomb (erected by the king himself) were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.
This painter, Flemish by origin, but educated in Italy, seemed truly destined to get along with the English temperament. The best and most aesthetic part of the England of the time was revealed by his portraits, whose colors are harmonious, without going to extremes in luxurious ranges, like those of Tiziano or the Italians. His work is delicate, fine, finished, without being monotonous. Some of his paintings have a spicy flavor of subtle snobbery. Apart from the mentioned portraits of Charles I and other figures of the royal family, are worth to appreciate those of Lord Wharton, called “The Man with the Cane” (1632), of the Duke of Lennox and Richmond (1633-1635), and those of aristocratic or flirtatious ladies like Mary Ruthwen (ca. 1640).
England, which would hardly ever get along with the naturalism lusciously depicted by Rembrandt, had to fall in love with Van Dyck’s style, more methodical and serene. This is an artist who may have a few great fans, but also no detractors and enemies.