1637-1712 Dutch Jan Van Der Heyden Gallery Van der Heyden grew up in Gorcum, but the family moved to Amsterdam around 1650. They lived on Dam Square. As a young guy he witnessed the fire in the old townhall which made a deep impression on him. He later would describe or draw 80 fires in almost any neighborhood of Amsterdam. When he married in 1661 the family was living on Herengracht, the most fashionable canal in Amsterdam. In 1668 Cosimo II de' Medici bought one of his paintings, a view of the townhall with a manipulated perspective. Van der Heyden often painted country estates, like Goudestein, owned by Joan Huydecoper II. He was not good in drawing figures and used for his paintings a metal plate for bricks, a sponge or moss for the leaves. Johannes Lingelbach, Adriaen van de Velde und Eglon van der Neer assisted him drawing the figures. Jan van der Heyden also introduced the lamp post and in 1672 impoved the design of the fire engine. He died in wealth as the superintendent of the lighting and director of the (voluntary) firemen's guild at Amsterdam. Van der Heyden was a contemporary of the landscape painters Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael, with the advantage, which they lacked, of a certain professional versatility; for, whilst they painted admirable pictures and starved, he varied the practice of art with the study of mechanics. Until 1672 he painted in partnership with Adriaen van de Velde. After Adrian's death, and probably because of the loss which that event entailed upon him, he accepted the offices to which allusion has just been made. At no period of artistic activity had the system of division of labour been more fully or more constantly applied to art than it was in Holland towards the close of the 17th century. Van der Heyden, who was perfect as an architectural draughtsman insofar as he painted the outside of buildings and thoroughly mastered linear perspective, seldom turned his hand to the delineation of anything but brick houses and churches in streets and squares, or rows along canals, or "moated granges," common in his native country. He was a travelled man, had seen The Hague, Ghent and Brussels, and had ascended the Rhine past Xanten to Cologne, where he copied over and over again the tower and crane of the great cathedral. But he cared nothing for hill or vale, or stream or wood. He could reproduce the rows of bricks in a square of Dutch houses sparkling in the sun, or stunted trees and lines of dwellings varied by steeples, all in light or thrown into passing shadow by moving cloud. He had the art of painting microscopically without loss of breadth or keeping. But he could draw neither man nor beast, nor ships nor carts; and this was his disadvantage. His good genius under these circumstances was Adrian van der Velde, who enlivened his compositions with spirited figures; and the joint labour of both is a delicate, minute, transparent work, radiant with glow and atmosphere.  Related Paintings of Jan van der Heyden :. | Forest landscape | Jan van der Heyden | Wooded landscape | Old Palace landscape | Amsterdam, Dam Square with the Town Hall and the Nieuwe Kerk |
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Philipp Hieronymus Brinckmann
(or Brinkman,) a German painter and engraver, was born at Spires in 1709. He was a pupil of J. G. Dathan. His favourite subjects were landscapes, but he also painted historical subjects and portraits; in some of the latter he imitated the force and colouring of Rembrandt. He was painter to the Court, and keeper of the Gallery at Mannheim, where he died in 1761. In the Städel at Frankfort is a 'Swiss Landscape' signed P. H. Brinckmann fecit, 1745. He etched some plates in a picturesque and spirited style.
Giulio Carpioni
(1613 - 29 January 1678) was an Italian painter and etcher of the early Baroque era. Born probably in Venice, Carpioni studied under Alessandro Varotari (il Padovanino) and was also influenced by the work of Simone Cantarini, Carlo Saraceni and Jean Leclerc. He came into contact with Lombard art after a brief visit to Bergamo in 1631. In 1638 he settled in Vicenza and executed most of his work there. He painted history and bacchanals, and also sacred subjects of a small size, many of which are to be seen in the churches in the Venetian states. Paintings by him may be seen in the Galleries of Augsburg, Dresden, Vienna, Modena, and Florence. He was also an etcher; his best plates being St. Anthony of Padua, Christ on the Mount of Olives, The Virgin reading, and The Virgin with Rosary. He died at Verona. Carlo Carpioni, his son, was also a painter. Among his important works are the Apotheosis of the Dolfin family (1647) and the Allegory of the Grimani Family (1651), and altarpiece of Sant'Antonio da Padova, a Virgin and two saints, and a Triumph of Silenus in the Gallerie dell Accademia of Venice. He painted a series of canvases for the Oratory of San Nicola da Tolentino in Vicenza.
Jan Verhas
(9 January 1834-31 October 1896) was a genre painter and is considered the founder of the School of Dendermonde, best known for his paintings of children of the Belgian bourgeoisie, in a classical style but with a natural feeling to them. Born in Dendermonde as the younger brother of painter Frans Verhas, he studied at the Academy of Dendermonde and the Academy in Antwerp, finishing with the Belgian Prix de Rome in 1860. The Belgian government commissioned him to travel to Venice where he made the painting "Velleda et la Bataille de Callao" in 1862. The next four years, he lived in Binche, where he married. He then moved to Brussels. Verhas was a regular of the Salons of the time, winning a second class medal in the Paris Salon Exposition of 1881, and a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. He was made a Chevalier in the Legion of Honor in 1881. Jan Verhas died in Schaarbeek in 1896. Paintings by Jan Verhas can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp and the City Hall of Dendermonde.