WEBVTT - Anthony van Dyck 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.920 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.640 And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So we haven't had an 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:19.919 art episode in a minute, so I was having a 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:23.280 jones about it. Yeah, when I first read this outline 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:24.880 and it said that, I was like, haven't we And 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:27.720 then I went, oh, no, we really haven't. I always 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:31.000 feel guilty because I'll sometimes do a couple clumped together 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.080 and then I'm like, I shouldn't only talk about artists, 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:36.760 and then I will shy away from them for a 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:38.680 little while. But it's been on minutes, so I feel 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.159 okay about it. So today we are going to talk 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.879 about Anthony van Dyck, and right out of the gate, 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:46.480 I feel like we have to talk about his name 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.240 because you'll see it written a million different ways. There 0:00:50.320 --> 0:00:58.400 is a reason for that, and also pronounced right slightly differently. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.480 I feel like I looked at him million videos of 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:06.320 like art curators and art historians, and they all kind 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:12.360 of default to the anglicized Anthony van Dyke. But you'll 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:14.600 see like van Dyke written with a J in it 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:21.080 or with a W in it in a very Italian style, 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:25.120 where it's Antonio written Italian style spelling, and then Van 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:29.480 Dyke is one word run together with no differential of 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.720 capital letters to separate Van and Dyke. It's like one 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:38.480 big thing, even Van Dyke with a B, etc. There 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:39.920 are a lot of different ways, and the reason is 0:01:39.959 --> 0:01:42.040 he moved around a lot, and he didn't seem especially 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:44.600 hung up on there's one correct way to do my name. 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.520 Even when he got accolades in various countries, he would 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.040 be like, no, just do it this way, which I 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:54.280 find really really interesting about him. I also feel like 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:56.840 we should mention we'll talk about the names of his 0:01:57.000 --> 0:02:00.400 paintings in this but these are names that the most 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:03.840 part were attributed well after he made them, and sometimes 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.160 they're just a way that various art historians have identified 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:11.400 the painting, usually by the contents of the painting. He 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:13.880 wasn't out there, to the best of our knowledge, giving 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.600 them any kind of naming convention that we're not privy to. 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.720 I really really like his work, and so he's been 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:24.480 on my list for a long time. I think he's 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.120 a genius and I love him, and I also just 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:31.320 think he's an interesting guy because he seems kind of 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:35.240 relaxed in some ways, and he's tied to a lot 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.040 of interesting things in art history, so that's what you 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:38.680 get today. 0:02:39.600 --> 0:02:42.359 We'll start, of course, at the beginning. Anthony van Dyke 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.120 was born on March twenty second, fifteen ninety nine, in Antwerp. 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.040 At the time, Antwerp was part of the Spanish Netherlands. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.440 His father, Franz, was a successful silk merchant, and his mother, 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.000 Maria Kuiper's, was Franz's second wife. There were a dozen 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.560 children in this family. Anthony was the seventh of them. 0:03:01.960 --> 0:03:06.200 The family lived on Growth Market, which is Antwerp's central square, 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.600 until they moved to a bigger house in sixteen oh seven. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.000 But just a few weeks after they made that move 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.600 to their bigger house, his mother Maria died, and from 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.919 that moment that privileged, comfortable life that the Van Dykes 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:24.320 had enjoyed kind of began to unravel. Franz, his father, 0:03:24.440 --> 0:03:27.120 did not remarry, though he did have other relationships, and 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:29.880 it seems as though without a mother to care for 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.680 them full time, the kids were left largely to their 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:37.600 own devices. Simultaneously, Franz started to really struggle with the 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.600 business side of his life as well as his personal life. 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.120 When Anthony was ten, he started to formally study painting 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.200 under Hendrik von Balin at the Antwerp Artist Guild. He 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.120 didn't stay with Van Balen for very long, though, and 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:55.760 it's not clear when their teaching arrangement ended. The oldest 0:03:55.840 --> 0:03:59.560 surviving Van Dyke painting was made when the artist was 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:03.520 only four team in sixteen thirteen. This is sometimes called 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:07.840 portrait of a man, or the slightly more descriptive portrait 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.520 of an old man, sometimes portrait of an unknown seventy 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.000 year old man. This is a bust up rendering of 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:20.400 a man in a stiff Elizabethan style rough collar. He 0:04:20.520 --> 0:04:24.600 has a robust white mustache and appointed goateee. Today this 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:26.560 is part of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.919 Belgium's collection, and it serves as an early example of 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.920 the way Van Dyke's career trajectory always seemed to be 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.799 destined for portraits, although that was not the only style 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.400 of painting he was interested in. 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:44.039 At the age of fifteen or possibly sixteen, Anthony painted 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.520 a self portrait. This is once again a bust and 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.360 head image, with the artist seen from the side and 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.359 his head is turned to face the viewer. It is 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.320 overall a dark composition. He has reddish, curly hair, his 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:01.719 face is very pale and tinged pink, and his reddish 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.040 lips foremost very sharp contrast to the background. In his clothes, 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:09.480 there's also a line of white that peeks out above 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.719 his collar. It's his undershirt, but that line of white 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:16.279 creates this sort of diagonal bisecting of the overall piece. 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.640 At this point, Van Dyke appears to have left the 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:24.160 tutelage of Van Balen and was working as an independent artist. 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:28.719 But that's odd. Per the guild rules of Antwerp, he 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.440 should not have been able to establish himself as a 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:36.680 professional artist before being granted membership in that guild. He 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.000 was too young to do that at this point. He 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.080 didn't become a member of the guild until sixteen eighteen. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:45.480 That is also the year that Van Dyke began to 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:49.120 study under Peter Paul Rubens, and at this time Rubens 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.520 was forty one and he had gained a reputation as 0:05:51.560 --> 0:05:56.000 one of Antwerp's best artists. This association would link the 0:05:56.040 --> 0:06:00.880 two men forever Historically, in sixteen seventy two, Giovanni Pietro 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:06.080 Bellori published the work Levite di petori sculptori at architeti 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.880 Moderni Those are the Lives of the modern painters, sculptors 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.360 and Architects, And in this work he described the two 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:16.040 men meeting in a rather romanticized way, saying that Van 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.039 Dyke just sort of showed up at Peter Paul Rubin's 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.560 school as a quote young man possessed of such noble 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.640 generosity of manners and so fine a talent for painting 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.360 that then it goes on to say that, of course 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.400 Rubens recognized that having this young man as a student 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:36.120 was going to bring honor to his school. But that's 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.440 really a speculative take on this meeting. We don't know 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.000 much at all in the way of specifics about the 0:06:42.040 --> 0:06:46.800 earliest associations of these two men. Art historian Christopher White's 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:50.640 twenty twenty one biography of Van dyke speculates that although 0:06:50.720 --> 0:06:54.880 Rubens and Van Dyke were very different personalities, Rubens may 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.680 have recognized some similarities in their backgrounds and their turbulent 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:02.160 family lives, and that may have been part of him 0:07:02.279 --> 0:07:05.920 deciding to become a mentor. We truly don't. 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.520 Know, though, but Van Dyke, we do know, became not 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:13.040 only a student of Rubens but also an assistant, giving 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:16.520 up his independent career status to do so, and at 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.320 some point he started living with Rubens, although the exact 0:07:19.400 --> 0:07:22.880 date that happened is unknown, He's mentioned as being there 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.600 and working on pieces with the master in letters and 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.240 notes of various people in sixteen twenty. We're going to 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.680 talk more about the nature of their friendship and relationship 0:07:32.720 --> 0:07:34.960 in a bit, but this living situation, to be clear, 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.200 was not indicative of anything in particular other than that 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.320 Van Dyke was working closely with the senior artist. It 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:42.520 would not have been. 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.960 Uncommon for an assistant to do so and move in. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.760 In the early years of his professional career, Van Dyke 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:53.000 painted a lot of portraits of Belgian aristocracy. Most of 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:55.800 these portraits are from the bust up, although some go 0:07:55.920 --> 0:07:58.840 down to the knees. The poses all tend to be 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.080 pretty similar, with the subject holding some kind of accessory. 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:06.600 It quickly became apparent that he was incredibly skilled in 0:08:06.680 --> 0:08:10.960 painting fabrics. Sometime in sixteen eighteen or sixteen nineteen he 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:14.680 painted portrait of a man drawing on his glove and 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.640 a married couple, both of them echo paintings by sixteenth 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.400 century Flemish artists. 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.320 Yeah, there have been some really interesting studies that modern 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.040 historians have done where they have found very similarly posed 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:31.720 paintings of other people that previous artists had done. So 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.640 Van Dyke was clearly like using his knowledge and his 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:36.920 study of art to inform the way he was working. 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.760 He was not only working in portraiture, though he also 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:45.120 painted historical subjects. He also created works that blended historical 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:49.280 figures or thebes with imagery of contemporary models. That's a 0:08:49.320 --> 0:08:52.080 practice that was very popular at the time. And within 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.120 these works, his depictions of the people in the paintings 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:59.440 are always just incredibly detailed, like many portraits within the 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:01.640 Greater World work. So when we're talking about this, we're 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.200 saying like he would paint, you know, some important historical 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.320 or biblical scene, and people that were contemporaries of him 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.280 would be cast in roles in those pieces. An interesting 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:15.040 note is that he usually sketched out his religious and 0:09:15.120 --> 0:09:19.320 historical paintings before actually putting brush to canvas, but he 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:21.920 did not usually do the same for portraits. 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:26.199 One of the interesting and also frustrating aspects of all 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:28.920 this early work is that while we know that most 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.160 of his works were commissions from the nobility of Antwerp, 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.160 we don't know who a lot of the people in 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:39.040 the paintings are. There's not a lot of notation or 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.480 surviving record keeping regarding these works. In some cases, art 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.080 historians have made sort of best guesses by piecing together 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:51.040 information that survived, but these it's just that it's educated guesses. 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:56.000 One that we do know is a portrait of Cornelius 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.520 Vandergeese that serves as a perfect example of how very 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.800 skill Van Dyke was even at an early age. The portrait, 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.559 which is almost a close up of the subject's face, 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.320 was created in sixteen nineteen or sixteen twenty, and the 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:14.000 eyes in particular are rendered with such skill that they 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:17.160 look almost like a photograph. Around the same time that 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.080 he painted it, in the summer of sixteen twenty, there's 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.440 mention of Van Dyke in a letter from Amsterdam to 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.760 the Duke of Arundel in London, praising him as being 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:32.120 almost as admired as Rubens, but lamenting that he seems 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:33.920 reluctant to leave Antwerp. 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:37.200 Yeah, London was very eager to try to get Van 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:39.440 Dyke to come and visit, and I will say that 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:45.160 painting that Tracy just described of Cornelius vander Geeste is 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.920 one of my very favorites. It is so striking and beautiful. 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.240 At the age of eighteen, Van Dyke undertook a work 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.360 that had nothing to do with his art. He filed 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:58.840 a lawsuit against his family. This is tied to his 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:01.880 father's personal struggle, and one of those struggles involved a 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.120 woman that he had been involved with who began to 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.880 very publicly argue with him and accuse him of wrongdoing. Basically, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.600 she was in the street kind of yelling accusations. In 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.920 terms of available information, it's unclear what specifically those accusations were. 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:20.280 But because of all of this turmoil and like the 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:24.280 public embarrassment going on, Van Dyke's brothers in law filed 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.439 a motion with the court to be given control of 0:11:27.520 --> 0:11:30.520 Franz van Dyke's finances because he was not doing a 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:34.560 good job of looking after the family's interests. Anthony filed 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.920 his own papers asking for the court to name a 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.480 separate appointee to handle Franz's money, as he did not 0:11:40.640 --> 0:11:42.960 trust his brothers in law with it. Even though he 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:45.880 did recognize that his father really couldn't handle things. At 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.120 that point, the brothers in law did get control and 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.760 Anthony had to go to court again to get the 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.320 money that he and his younger siblings were owed by 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.760 those brothers in law, and it would appear that this 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:00.480 family situation went from strained to fairly terrible, at least 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.040 with his relations by marriage. Coming up, we'll talk about 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.880 Van Dyke's first trip to England, but first we will 0:12:06.920 --> 0:12:19.920 have a sponsor break. In November sixteen twenty Van Dyke 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.880 traveled to England for the first time, and it's believed 0:12:22.880 --> 0:12:25.000 that he was persuaded to do so by one or 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:27.600 more art collectors there. As I mentioned earlier, they were 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.160 eager to get him to England. There he was commissioned 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:34.240 as a painter by King James the First, reportedly at 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.280 a rate of one hundred pounds per year, but he 0:12:37.320 --> 0:12:40.360 didn't stay an entire year. He didn't stay even half 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:43.520 a year. He left after four months in February of 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.040 sixteen twenty one. He only painted a few works during 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.400 his time in London, including a historical portrait of the 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:54.720 Duke and Duchess of Buckingham as Venus and Adonis, another 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:57.280 and perhaps more important was a portrait of the Earl 0:12:57.320 --> 0:13:01.319 of Arundel. This is very much the style of Van 0:13:01.400 --> 0:13:04.880 Dyke's other portraits in the very real looking face and clothing. 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:08.240 The Earl is seated and shown from chair level up, 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.160 and the natural look of the subject was a significant 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:13.880 departure from the portraits that were popular in England at 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.080 the time. Those tended to look a little more rigid 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:20.360 and very formal. They were filled with opulent details, and 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:23.640 they featured figures who looked just slightly surreal. These are 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.560 the traits associated with English mannerism. If you look up 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:28.960 English mannerism and then you look at a Van Dyke portrait, 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.120 you can see where he was like the odd man 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:33.400 out of what was going on at the time. This 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:36.080 was the very beginning of a shift in portraiture that 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:38.480 had begun with Rubens when he painted the work the 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.960 Countess of Arundel and her Retinue, and it really started 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.520 to crystallize with Van Dyke. England was ready for a 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.960 change in style, and the Baroque painters of Antwerp offered 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.080 something fresh and very appealing to the art collectors there. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:54.959 So when he left England far sooner than he was 0:13:55.040 --> 0:13:58.120 expected to. There was an understanding with the royal court 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.240 that he would return in roughly eight months to make 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:04.040 more paintings that didn't exactly happen. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:08.120 Upon returning to Belgium, Van Dyke once again painted a 0:14:08.200 --> 0:14:11.000 number of portraits there, and this time we do know 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.560 more about the sitters. A seated image of Nicholas Forcox, 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:19.200 the mayor of Antwerp, shows the subject seated adjacent to 0:14:19.240 --> 0:14:22.480 a table on which the busts of Hercules and Zeus 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.680 are featured, as well as books by Plato and Seneca. 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.160 Once again, the realistic appearance of the face the natural 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:33.440 expression that had become trademarks of Van Dyke's work are 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.960 present so too in a set of seated portraits of 0:14:37.200 --> 0:14:41.360 fellow painter Franz Senyders and his wife Margaretta de Vous. 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.400 In his portraits Susannah Foormont and her daughter of Clara 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:49.960 del Monte and Isabella Brandt, red and gold tones joined 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.000 his usual palette of more somber tones to add a 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.880 level of liveliness that's pretty striking. This is not the 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.000 first time that he used red and gold They appe 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.360 heard in the Racox portrait as well, but it's more 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:06.400 prominent in those pieces. In both of these paintings, the 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:09.760 subjects all have a look of sort of restrained humor 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.440 about them. Both of the women and the child depicted 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:17.240 look as though they are about to break into a smile. Yeah, 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:22.520 they're quite charming. I highly encourage anybody to look at them. 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:25.640 He also eventually became really well known for painting children, 0:15:25.680 --> 0:15:29.160 and he's quite good at that kind of quizzical always 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.400 on the verge of a giggle expression. In October sixteen 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.160 twenty one, Van Dyke made his way to Italy, arriving 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:39.160 first in Genoa with introductions from Rubens. He had a 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:41.760 group of patrons essentially waiting for him there, so he 0:15:41.840 --> 0:15:43.560 was able to make money right out of the gate, 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.160 and this was the start of a trip that led 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:49.280 to a great deal of artistic growth, partially because of 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.120 the timing being out of his period of apprenticeship, and 0:15:53.200 --> 0:15:56.400 also because he was suddenly exposed to a very vibrant 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.200 art scene where a lot of different styles were in 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.560 play at the same time time, Plus, there was just 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.400 a lot of existing art in museums as well as 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.640 churches to study. This is also a period where Van 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:11.000 Dyke made several self portraits, at least one has been 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:15.280 determined to be a repaint over an unfinished commission. All 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.600 of them, if you just look at his self portraits, 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:20.640 show his growth as an artist and the fine shifts 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.680 in his technique that led to even greater mastery of 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:27.160 showing the subject as a living, a motive entity. He 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.760 became really well known for just kind of these natural 0:16:29.800 --> 0:16:33.920 looking depictions. One thing that jumps out looking at these paintings, though, 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.760 is what a baby face he still was. He was 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.400 still in his very early twenties, and while he was 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.720 clearly a master of his work, he felt like he 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.760 still had plenty left to learn. Anthony van Dyke was 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.600 constantly on the go in Italy, and this period of 0:16:48.600 --> 0:16:51.120 his life is hard to track in terms of when 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.480 he was ware. Genoa was sort of like a home 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.360 base that he would return to over and over, but 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.000 he was routinely making trips to other cities throughout his 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.440 time in Italy, and that he took advantage of the 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.760 available art there to continue his studies. He made sketches 0:17:07.800 --> 0:17:10.760 of a lot of the works of Italian masters in 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.359 which he recorded his reactions to and feelings about them. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.960 One interesting shift that took place in Van Dyke's Italian 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:22.560 travels is that his portraits started to be more frequently 0:17:22.720 --> 0:17:26.639 full body portraits instead of busts or knees up. He 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:29.400 had painted some full body portraits before this, but those 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:33.160 were outliers. He also started posing his subjects a little 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.720 bit differently during this time. Often they're facing away from 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:40.320 the viewer, with their gaze elsewhere, unlike his earlier straight 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:44.960 on perspective. His sixteen twenty two portrait of Agostino Pallaviccini, 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:49.560 the Doge of Genoa, shows this transition starting. The Doge 0:17:49.680 --> 0:17:52.160 is seated, but his entire body is in the portrait, 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:55.520 draped in a dramatic red robe with very wide sleeves 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:59.000 signifying his connection to the pope, and a white rough collar. 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:02.560 This portrait still features the straight on gaze of the 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.960 subject's eyes, but his face has turned about one quarter 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:10.200 to the viewer's left. The motivations for Van Dyke's choices 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.560 in travels in Italy remains a bit unclear. Some biographies 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.399 indicate he was plotting a course of self study and 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.280 visiting places like Rome and Venice to take in the 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.959 art there as part of his education. Others suggest that 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:28.280 he had commissions waiting almost everywhere and was just moving 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:32.000 around following the financial opportunities that were thick in Italy. 0:18:33.240 --> 0:18:36.800 Could have even been both while in Rome. In sixteen 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.000 twenty two, Van Dyke painted George Gage with Two Men, 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:44.440 an unusual portrait in its composition of the main subject 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.800 occupying the left two thirds of the canvas, seated, but 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.080 not in what looks like a static pose. His head 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:54.239 is turned to the right of the frame and he 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.360 looks like he's mid sentence with the two men, who 0:18:57.400 --> 0:19:00.840 were noted in the title. The two supporting figures are 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:04.320 rendered beautifully, of course, but with less detail and in 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:08.840 darker hues than Gage is. This painting was made when Gage, 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.160 who was an English diplomat, was in Rome. 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:14.720 Another project in sixteen twenty two was a set of 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:18.520 portraits of Sir Robert Shirley and his wife Teresa. These 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:23.240 are fascinating portraits because of the clothing involved. Terrisia was 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:27.240 a Circassian and a noble. The pair had met when Shirley, 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.760 an adventurer, was in Persia, and after that trip he 0:19:30.800 --> 0:19:33.840 took to wearing Persian dress and he acted as an 0:19:33.880 --> 0:19:37.320 ambassador for the Shaw and it is in that style 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:41.000 that Robert and Terrasia were painted. In the husband's portrait, 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:44.040 he is standing full length. He is wearing a large turban. 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.160 One hand is resting on his sash, and the other 0:19:47.240 --> 0:19:50.199 holds a bow with a quiver dangling from a strap 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.240 that he has in his hand. Lady Shirley is in 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:58.760 a really unique sort of relaxed kneeling pose. She's resting 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.000 on her folded legs, and her dress is this sumptuous 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.000 gold and ivory with embellishment and other colors that are 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:07.520 kind of these fine little accents to it. And she 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:09.960 has a huge veil that billows out around her, and 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:15.159 it's topped with an ostrich plume. These portraits were meticulously planned. 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.119 There are surviving sketches for these, and their composition evolved 0:20:19.119 --> 0:20:21.440 from the initial plan to the finished pieces. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:25.320 A couple of years into his Italy visit, Van Dyke 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:29.160 painted two paintings of the same man, Lucas van Uffled. 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.840 They're in some ways similar, with fun Uffull facing to 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:35.439 the right of the frame, even turned a little away 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.440 from the viewer, and he looks back over his right shoulder. 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.359 One looks as though he's settled in on his chair 0:20:41.480 --> 0:20:43.600 and the other looks as though he's getting up or 0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.080 bracing his hand on the arm of his chair to 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.000 hold his position. The face is really where the difference 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.120 is most apparent, though. In the seated image, in which 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:56.359 Vanuffel is backed by a large window, he looks placid, 0:20:56.520 --> 0:21:00.920 almost bored or maybe questioning. In the second image, which 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:04.720 is in a darker interior before a desk, his expression 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.800 is harder to discern. His eyes are cut sharply to 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:11.120 his right to meet the viewer's gaze, and the look 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:15.040 on his face could be irritation or judgment, coupled with 0:21:15.119 --> 0:21:19.200 what feels like the action of rising. The simple differences 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:21.359 and the second painting to the first make it feel 0:21:21.400 --> 0:21:24.760 more dynamic. It's an interesting exercising comparison. 0:21:25.200 --> 0:21:28.120 Yeah, they look so similar in many ways, but there 0:21:28.119 --> 0:21:31.479 are just these very small tweaks that they become completely different. 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:34.800 One of the later pieces, created during the years that 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.359 Van Dyke was in Italy offers an example of something 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.240 he would become well known for, and I reference this earlier. 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.880 That's his portraits of children. In a painting that features 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:47.120 three young brothers called the Balbi Children, he shows three 0:21:47.440 --> 0:21:51.000 cherum faced boys, all of whom obviously look related, but 0:21:51.080 --> 0:21:55.440 who each showed their own unique personality. These are obviously 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:59.400 children from an aristocratic family. Their clothes are pretty formal, 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:02.920 they look very luxurious, and each outfit is very different, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:05.720 though they are all in shades of red, gold, gray, 0:22:05.800 --> 0:22:06.359 and black. 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:10.119 We noted that several of his clients in Italy were English, 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.360 and it's believed that some of them probably made invites 0:22:13.359 --> 0:22:15.479 to try to get him back to London, but he 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:19.040 was not ready to go. Vandyke returned to Antwerp in 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.480 the summer of sixteen twenty seven and for the next 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:26.080 five years stayed very busy with portrait commissions There. He 0:22:26.119 --> 0:22:29.840 eventually was appointed the court painter to arch Duchess Isabella. 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.520 One of his motivations for that return to Antwerp was 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:37.800 once again family issues. One of his sisters had died 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.760 and he once again brought a suit against his brothers 0:22:40.760 --> 0:22:43.600 in law to regain the remainder of the family fortune. 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:46.240 To be clear, this was something he did not need. 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.480 He was financially very successful at this point. He lived 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.280 a very lavish life. You can find long descriptions of 0:22:52.320 --> 0:22:55.800 how fancy his clothes were, but remember he came from 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:58.359 a big family and his siblings were going to lose 0:22:58.440 --> 0:23:01.800 everything if he didn't intercede. We're about to talk about 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:05.359