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 :. | Imagine in the cities and towns the Arc de Triomphe | Fantasy buildings | View of a Small Town Square | Canal and Church of the scenic West | Baroque palaces and the Cathedral |
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Louise Moillon
(1610-1696) was a French painter in the Baroque era. She became known as one of the best female still life painters during her time, and worked for King Charles I of England, as well as the French nobility. Moillon came from a strict Calvinist family. Her father, brother Isaac, and stepfather were both paint dealers and artists themselves. According to the RKD, Louise (also known as Louisa) learned to paint from her father Nicolas Moillon and Francois Garnier. She gained her particular style of still life painting from the Academie de Saint-Germain-des-Pres. She usually signed her paintings with Louyse Moillon. Moillon lived and worked in France her whole life.
ZUCCHI, Jacopo
Italian Painter, ca.1540-1596. Jacopo Zucchi was an Italian painter of the Florentine school. Italian painter and draughtsman. He was trained in the studio of Vasari, whom he assisted in the decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, as early as 1557. He accompanied Vasari to Pisa in 1561, from when dates his earliest known drawing, Aesculapius (London, BM). Between 1563 and 1565 he was again in Florence and is documented working with Vasari, Joannes Stradanus and Giovan Battista Naldini on the ceiling of the Sala Grande (Salone dei Cinquecento) in the Palazzo Vecchio; a drawing of an Allegory of Pistoia (Florence, Uffizi) is related to the ceiling allegories of Tuscan cities. In 1564 Zucchi entered the Accademia del Disegno and contributed to the decorations erected for the funeral of Michelangelo. He travelled to Rome with Vasari and was his chief assistant on decorations in the Vatican in 1567 and 1572,
VOS, Cornelis de
Flemish painter (b. 1584/85, Hulst, d. 1651, Antwerpen) Flemish portrait and figure painter. He was a contemporary of Rubens, who sent many sitters to him. Although of the school of Rubens, Vos developed an individual style of portraiture in which cool grays predominate. His representations of children were particularly successful. An example of his many portraits is that of Abraham Grapheus (Antwerp). His brother, Paulus de Vos, c.1596 C1678, was an excellent painter of animals and hunting scenes. His paintings show the influence of his brother-in-law, Frans Snyders.