Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: And I'm Tracy V. Wilson. So we haven't had an
Speaker 2: art episode in a minute, so I was having a
Speaker 2: jones about it. Yeah, when I first read this outline
Speaker 2: and it said that, I was like, haven't we And
Speaker 2: then I went, oh, no, we really haven't. I always
Speaker 2: feel guilty because I'll sometimes do a couple clumped together
Speaker 2: and then I'm like, I shouldn't only talk about artists,
Speaker 2: and then I will shy away from them for a
Speaker 2: little while. But it's been on minutes, so I feel
Speaker 2: okay about it. So today we are going to talk
Speaker 2: about Anthony van Dyck, and right out of the gate,
Speaker 2: I feel like we have to talk about his name
Speaker 2: because you'll see it written a million different ways. There
Speaker 2: is a reason for that, and also pronounced right slightly differently.
Speaker 1: I feel like I looked at him million videos of
Speaker 1: like art curators and art historians, and they all kind
Speaker 1: of default to the anglicized Anthony van Dyke. But you'll
Speaker 1: see like van Dyke written with a J in it
Speaker 1: or with a W in it in a very Italian style,
Speaker 1: where it's Antonio written Italian style spelling, and then Van
Speaker 1: Dyke is one word run together with no differential of
Speaker 1: capital letters to separate Van and Dyke. It's like one
Speaker 1: big thing, even Van Dyke with a B, etc. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of different ways, and the reason is
Speaker 1: he moved around a lot, and he didn't seem especially
Speaker 1: hung up on there's one correct way to do my name.
Speaker 1: Even when he got accolades in various countries, he would
Speaker 1: be like, no, just do it this way, which I
Speaker 1: find really really interesting about him. I also feel like
Speaker 1: we should mention we'll talk about the names of his
Speaker 1: paintings in this but these are names that the most
Speaker 1: part were attributed well after he made them, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they're just a way that various art historians have identified
Speaker 1: the painting, usually by the contents of the painting. He
Speaker 1: wasn't out there, to the best of our knowledge, giving
Speaker 1: them any kind of naming convention that we're not privy to.
Speaker 1: I really really like his work, and so he's been
Speaker 1: on my list for a long time. I think he's
Speaker 1: a genius and I love him, and I also just
Speaker 1: think he's an interesting guy because he seems kind of
Speaker 1: relaxed in some ways, and he's tied to a lot
Speaker 1: of interesting things in art history, so that's what you
Speaker 1: get today.
Speaker 2: We'll start, of course, at the beginning. Anthony van Dyke
Speaker 2: was born on March twenty second, fifteen ninety nine, in Antwerp.
Speaker 2: At the time, Antwerp was part of the Spanish Netherlands.
Speaker 2: His father, Franz, was a successful silk merchant, and his mother,
Speaker 2: Maria Kuiper's, was Franz's second wife. There were a dozen
Speaker 2: children in this family. Anthony was the seventh of them.
Speaker 2: The family lived on Growth Market, which is Antwerp's central square,
Speaker 2: until they moved to a bigger house in sixteen oh seven.
Speaker 1: But just a few weeks after they made that move
Speaker 1: to their bigger house, his mother Maria died, and from
Speaker 1: that moment that privileged, comfortable life that the Van Dykes
Speaker 1: had enjoyed kind of began to unravel. Franz, his father,
Speaker 1: did not remarry, though he did have other relationships, and
Speaker 1: it seems as though without a mother to care for
Speaker 1: them full time, the kids were left largely to their
Speaker 1: own devices. Simultaneously, Franz started to really struggle with the
Speaker 1: business side of his life as well as his personal life.
Speaker 2: When Anthony was ten, he started to formally study painting
Speaker 2: under Hendrik von Balin at the Antwerp Artist Guild. He
Speaker 2: didn't stay with Van Balen for very long, though, and
Speaker 2: it's not clear when their teaching arrangement ended. The oldest
Speaker 2: surviving Van Dyke painting was made when the artist was
Speaker 2: only four team in sixteen thirteen. This is sometimes called
Speaker 2: portrait of a man, or the slightly more descriptive portrait
Speaker 2: of an old man, sometimes portrait of an unknown seventy
Speaker 2: year old man. This is a bust up rendering of
Speaker 2: a man in a stiff Elizabethan style rough collar. He
Speaker 2: has a robust white mustache and appointed goateee. Today this
Speaker 2: is part of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of
Speaker 2: Belgium's collection, and it serves as an early example of
Speaker 2: the way Van Dyke's career trajectory always seemed to be
Speaker 2: destined for portraits, although that was not the only style
Speaker 2: of painting he was interested in.
Speaker 1: At the age of fifteen or possibly sixteen, Anthony painted
Speaker 1: a self portrait. This is once again a bust and
Speaker 1: head image, with the artist seen from the side and
Speaker 1: his head is turned to face the viewer. It is
Speaker 1: overall a dark composition. He has reddish, curly hair, his
Speaker 1: face is very pale and tinged pink, and his reddish
Speaker 1: lips foremost very sharp contrast to the background. In his clothes,
Speaker 1: there's also a line of white that peeks out above
Speaker 1: his collar. It's his undershirt, but that line of white
Speaker 1: creates this sort of diagonal bisecting of the overall piece.
Speaker 2: At this point, Van Dyke appears to have left the
Speaker 2: tutelage of Van Balen and was working as an independent artist.
Speaker 2: But that's odd. Per the guild rules of Antwerp, he
Speaker 2: should not have been able to establish himself as a
Speaker 2: professional artist before being granted membership in that guild. He
Speaker 2: was too young to do that at this point. He
Speaker 2: didn't become a member of the guild until sixteen eighteen.
Speaker 2: That is also the year that Van Dyke began to
Speaker 2: study under Peter Paul Rubens, and at this time Rubens
Speaker 2: was forty one and he had gained a reputation as
Speaker 2: one of Antwerp's best artists. This association would link the
Speaker 2: two men forever Historically, in sixteen seventy two, Giovanni Pietro
Speaker 2: Bellori published the work Levite di petori sculptori at architeti
Speaker 2: Moderni Those are the Lives of the modern painters, sculptors
Speaker 2: and Architects, And in this work he described the two
Speaker 2: men meeting in a rather romanticized way, saying that Van
Speaker 2: Dyke just sort of showed up at Peter Paul Rubin's
Speaker 2: school as a quote young man possessed of such noble
Speaker 2: generosity of manners and so fine a talent for painting
Speaker 2: that then it goes on to say that, of course
Speaker 2: Rubens recognized that having this young man as a student
Speaker 2: was going to bring honor to his school. But that's
Speaker 2: really a speculative take on this meeting. We don't know
Speaker 2: much at all in the way of specifics about the
Speaker 2: earliest associations of these two men. Art historian Christopher White's
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one biography of Van dyke speculates that although
Speaker 2: Rubens and Van Dyke were very different personalities, Rubens may
Speaker 2: have recognized some similarities in their backgrounds and their turbulent
Speaker 2: family lives, and that may have been part of him
Speaker 2: deciding to become a mentor. We truly don't.
Speaker 1: Know, though, but Van Dyke, we do know, became not
Speaker 1: only a student of Rubens but also an assistant, giving
Speaker 1: up his independent career status to do so, and at
Speaker 1: some point he started living with Rubens, although the exact
Speaker 1: date that happened is unknown, He's mentioned as being there
Speaker 1: and working on pieces with the master in letters and
Speaker 1: notes of various people in sixteen twenty. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk more about the nature of their friendship and relationship
Speaker 1: in a bit, but this living situation, to be clear,
Speaker 1: was not indicative of anything in particular other than that
Speaker 1: Van Dyke was working closely with the senior artist. It
Speaker 1: would not have been.
Speaker 2: Uncommon for an assistant to do so and move in.
Speaker 2: In the early years of his professional career, Van Dyke
Speaker 2: painted a lot of portraits of Belgian aristocracy. Most of
Speaker 2: these portraits are from the bust up, although some go
Speaker 2: down to the knees. The poses all tend to be
Speaker 2: pretty similar, with the subject holding some kind of accessory.
Speaker 2: It quickly became apparent that he was incredibly skilled in
Speaker 2: painting fabrics. Sometime in sixteen eighteen or sixteen nineteen he
Speaker 2: painted portrait of a man drawing on his glove and
Speaker 2: a married couple, both of them echo paintings by sixteenth
Speaker 2: century Flemish artists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there have been some really interesting studies that modern
Speaker 1: historians have done where they have found very similarly posed
Speaker 1: paintings of other people that previous artists had done. So
Speaker 1: Van Dyke was clearly like using his knowledge and his
Speaker 1: study of art to inform the way he was working.
Speaker 1: He was not only working in portraiture, though he also
Speaker 1: painted historical subjects. He also created works that blended historical
Speaker 1: figures or thebes with imagery of contemporary models. That's a
Speaker 1: practice that was very popular at the time. And within
Speaker 1: these works, his depictions of the people in the paintings
Speaker 1: are always just incredibly detailed, like many portraits within the
Speaker 1: Greater World work. So when we're talking about this, we're
Speaker 1: saying like he would paint, you know, some important historical
Speaker 1: or biblical scene, and people that were contemporaries of him
Speaker 1: would be cast in roles in those pieces. An interesting
Speaker 1: note is that he usually sketched out his religious and
Speaker 1: historical paintings before actually putting brush to canvas, but he
Speaker 1: did not usually do the same for portraits.
Speaker 2: One of the interesting and also frustrating aspects of all
Speaker 2: this early work is that while we know that most
Speaker 2: of his works were commissions from the nobility of Antwerp,
Speaker 2: we don't know who a lot of the people in
Speaker 2: the paintings are. There's not a lot of notation or
Speaker 2: surviving record keeping regarding these works. In some cases, art
Speaker 2: historians have made sort of best guesses by piecing together
Speaker 2: information that survived, but these it's just that it's educated guesses.
Speaker 2: One that we do know is a portrait of Cornelius
Speaker 2: Vandergeese that serves as a perfect example of how very
Speaker 2: skill Van Dyke was even at an early age. The portrait,
Speaker 2: which is almost a close up of the subject's face,
Speaker 2: was created in sixteen nineteen or sixteen twenty, and the
Speaker 2: eyes in particular are rendered with such skill that they
Speaker 2: look almost like a photograph. Around the same time that
Speaker 2: he painted it, in the summer of sixteen twenty, there's
Speaker 2: mention of Van Dyke in a letter from Amsterdam to
Speaker 2: the Duke of Arundel in London, praising him as being
Speaker 2: almost as admired as Rubens, but lamenting that he seems
Speaker 2: reluctant to leave Antwerp.
Speaker 1: Yeah, London was very eager to try to get Van
Speaker 1: Dyke to come and visit, and I will say that
Speaker 1: painting that Tracy just described of Cornelius vander Geeste is
Speaker 1: one of my very favorites. It is so striking and beautiful.
Speaker 1: At the age of eighteen, Van Dyke undertook a work
Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with his art. He filed
Speaker 1: a lawsuit against his family. This is tied to his
Speaker 1: father's personal struggle, and one of those struggles involved a
Speaker 1: woman that he had been involved with who began to
Speaker 1: very publicly argue with him and accuse him of wrongdoing. Basically,
Speaker 1: she was in the street kind of yelling accusations. In
Speaker 1: terms of available information, it's unclear what specifically those accusations were.
Speaker 1: But because of all of this turmoil and like the
Speaker 1: public embarrassment going on, Van Dyke's brothers in law filed
Speaker 1: a motion with the court to be given control of
Speaker 1: Franz van Dyke's finances because he was not doing a
Speaker 1: good job of looking after the family's interests. Anthony filed
Speaker 1: his own papers asking for the court to name a
Speaker 1: separate appointee to handle Franz's money, as he did not
Speaker 1: trust his brothers in law with it. Even though he
Speaker 1: did recognize that his father really couldn't handle things. At
Speaker 1: that point, the brothers in law did get control and
Speaker 1: Anthony had to go to court again to get the
Speaker 1: money that he and his younger siblings were owed by
Speaker 1: those brothers in law, and it would appear that this
Speaker 1: family situation went from strained to fairly terrible, at least
Speaker 1: with his relations by marriage. Coming up, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: Van Dyke's first trip to England, but first we will
Speaker 1: have a sponsor break. In November sixteen twenty Van Dyke
Speaker 1: traveled to England for the first time, and it's believed
Speaker 1: that he was persuaded to do so by one or
Speaker 1: more art collectors there. As I mentioned earlier, they were
Speaker 1: eager to get him to England. There he was commissioned
Speaker 1: as a painter by King James the First, reportedly at
Speaker 1: a rate of one hundred pounds per year, but he
Speaker 1: didn't stay an entire year. He didn't stay even half
Speaker 1: a year. He left after four months in February of
Speaker 1: sixteen twenty one. He only painted a few works during
Speaker 1: his time in London, including a historical portrait of the
Speaker 1: Duke and Duchess of Buckingham as Venus and Adonis, another
Speaker 1: and perhaps more important was a portrait of the Earl
Speaker 1: of Arundel. This is very much the style of Van
Speaker 1: Dyke's other portraits in the very real looking face and clothing.
Speaker 1: The Earl is seated and shown from chair level up,
Speaker 1: and the natural look of the subject was a significant
Speaker 1: departure from the portraits that were popular in England at
Speaker 1: the time. Those tended to look a little more rigid
Speaker 1: and very formal. They were filled with opulent details, and
Speaker 1: they featured figures who looked just slightly surreal. These are
Speaker 1: the traits associated with English mannerism. If you look up
Speaker 1: English mannerism and then you look at a Van Dyke portrait,
Speaker 1: you can see where he was like the odd man
Speaker 1: out of what was going on at the time. This
Speaker 1: was the very beginning of a shift in portraiture that
Speaker 1: had begun with Rubens when he painted the work the
Speaker 1: Countess of Arundel and her Retinue, and it really started
Speaker 1: to crystallize with Van Dyke. England was ready for a
Speaker 1: change in style, and the Baroque painters of Antwerp offered
Speaker 1: something fresh and very appealing to the art collectors there.
Speaker 1: So when he left England far sooner than he was
Speaker 1: expected to. There was an understanding with the royal court
Speaker 1: that he would return in roughly eight months to make
Speaker 1: more paintings that didn't exactly happen.
Speaker 2: Upon returning to Belgium, Van Dyke once again painted a
Speaker 2: number of portraits there, and this time we do know
Speaker 2: more about the sitters. A seated image of Nicholas Forcox,
Speaker 2: the mayor of Antwerp, shows the subject seated adjacent to
Speaker 2: a table on which the busts of Hercules and Zeus
Speaker 2: are featured, as well as books by Plato and Seneca.
Speaker 2: Once again, the realistic appearance of the face the natural
Speaker 2: expression that had become trademarks of Van Dyke's work are
Speaker 2: present so too in a set of seated portraits of
Speaker 2: fellow painter Franz Senyders and his wife Margaretta de Vous.
Speaker 2: In his portraits Susannah Foormont and her daughter of Clara
Speaker 2: del Monte and Isabella Brandt, red and gold tones joined
Speaker 2: his usual palette of more somber tones to add a
Speaker 2: level of liveliness that's pretty striking. This is not the
Speaker 2: first time that he used red and gold They appe
Speaker 2: heard in the Racox portrait as well, but it's more
Speaker 2: prominent in those pieces. In both of these paintings, the
Speaker 2: subjects all have a look of sort of restrained humor
Speaker 2: about them. Both of the women and the child depicted
Speaker 2: look as though they are about to break into a smile. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're quite charming. I highly encourage anybody to look at them.
Speaker 2: He also eventually became really well known for painting children,
Speaker 2: and he's quite good at that kind of quizzical always
Speaker 2: on the verge of a giggle expression. In October sixteen
Speaker 2: twenty one, Van Dyke made his way to Italy, arriving
Speaker 2: first in Genoa with introductions from Rubens. He had a
Speaker 2: group of patrons essentially waiting for him there, so he
Speaker 2: was able to make money right out of the gate,
Speaker 2: and this was the start of a trip that led
Speaker 2: to a great deal of artistic growth, partially because of
Speaker 2: the timing being out of his period of apprenticeship, and
Speaker 2: also because he was suddenly exposed to a very vibrant
Speaker 2: art scene where a lot of different styles were in
Speaker 2: play at the same time time, Plus, there was just
Speaker 2: a lot of existing art in museums as well as
Speaker 2: churches to study. This is also a period where Van
Speaker 2: Dyke made several self portraits, at least one has been
Speaker 2: determined to be a repaint over an unfinished commission. All
Speaker 2: of them, if you just look at his self portraits,
Speaker 2: show his growth as an artist and the fine shifts
Speaker 2: in his technique that led to even greater mastery of
Speaker 2: showing the subject as a living, a motive entity. He
Speaker 2: became really well known for just kind of these natural
Speaker 2: looking depictions. One thing that jumps out looking at these paintings, though,
Speaker 2: is what a baby face he still was. He was
Speaker 2: still in his very early twenties, and while he was
Speaker 2: clearly a master of his work, he felt like he
Speaker 2: still had plenty left to learn. Anthony van Dyke was
Speaker 2: constantly on the go in Italy, and this period of
Speaker 2: his life is hard to track in terms of when
Speaker 2: he was ware. Genoa was sort of like a home
Speaker 2: base that he would return to over and over, but
Speaker 2: he was routinely making trips to other cities throughout his
Speaker 2: time in Italy, and that he took advantage of the
Speaker 2: available art there to continue his studies. He made sketches
Speaker 2: of a lot of the works of Italian masters in
Speaker 2: which he recorded his reactions to and feelings about them.
Speaker 2: One interesting shift that took place in Van Dyke's Italian
Speaker 2: travels is that his portraits started to be more frequently
Speaker 2: full body portraits instead of busts or knees up. He
Speaker 2: had painted some full body portraits before this, but those
Speaker 2: were outliers. He also started posing his subjects a little
Speaker 2: bit differently during this time. Often they're facing away from
Speaker 2: the viewer, with their gaze elsewhere, unlike his earlier straight
Speaker 2: on perspective. His sixteen twenty two portrait of Agostino Pallaviccini,
Speaker 2: the Doge of Genoa, shows this transition starting. The Doge
Speaker 2: is seated, but his entire body is in the portrait,
Speaker 2: draped in a dramatic red robe with very wide sleeves
Speaker 2: signifying his connection to the pope, and a white rough collar.
Speaker 2: This portrait still features the straight on gaze of the
Speaker 2: subject's eyes, but his face has turned about one quarter
Speaker 2: to the viewer's left. The motivations for Van Dyke's choices
Speaker 2: in travels in Italy remains a bit unclear. Some biographies
Speaker 2: indicate he was plotting a course of self study and
Speaker 2: visiting places like Rome and Venice to take in the
Speaker 2: art there as part of his education. Others suggest that
Speaker 2: he had commissions waiting almost everywhere and was just moving
Speaker 2: around following the financial opportunities that were thick in Italy.
Speaker 2: Could have even been both while in Rome. In sixteen
Speaker 2: twenty two, Van Dyke painted George Gage with Two Men,
Speaker 2: an unusual portrait in its composition of the main subject
Speaker 2: occupying the left two thirds of the canvas, seated, but
Speaker 2: not in what looks like a static pose. His head
Speaker 2: is turned to the right of the frame and he
Speaker 2: looks like he's mid sentence with the two men, who
Speaker 2: were noted in the title. The two supporting figures are
Speaker 2: rendered beautifully, of course, but with less detail and in
Speaker 2: darker hues than Gage is. This painting was made when Gage,
Speaker 2: who was an English diplomat, was in Rome.
Speaker 1: Another project in sixteen twenty two was a set of
Speaker 1: portraits of Sir Robert Shirley and his wife Teresa. These
Speaker 1: are fascinating portraits because of the clothing involved. Terrisia was
Speaker 1: a Circassian and a noble. The pair had met when Shirley,
Speaker 1: an adventurer, was in Persia, and after that trip he
Speaker 1: took to wearing Persian dress and he acted as an
Speaker 1: ambassador for the Shaw and it is in that style
Speaker 1: that Robert and Terrasia were painted. In the husband's portrait,
Speaker 1: he is standing full length. He is wearing a large turban.
Speaker 1: One hand is resting on his sash, and the other
Speaker 1: holds a bow with a quiver dangling from a strap
Speaker 1: that he has in his hand. Lady Shirley is in
Speaker 1: a really unique sort of relaxed kneeling pose. She's resting
Speaker 1: on her folded legs, and her dress is this sumptuous
Speaker 1: gold and ivory with embellishment and other colors that are
Speaker 1: kind of these fine little accents to it. And she
Speaker 1: has a huge veil that billows out around her, and
Speaker 1: it's topped with an ostrich plume. These portraits were meticulously planned.
Speaker 1: There are surviving sketches for these, and their composition evolved
Speaker 1: from the initial plan to the finished pieces.
Speaker 2: A couple of years into his Italy visit, Van Dyke
Speaker 2: painted two paintings of the same man, Lucas van Uffled.
Speaker 2: They're in some ways similar, with fun Uffull facing to
Speaker 2: the right of the frame, even turned a little away
Speaker 2: from the viewer, and he looks back over his right shoulder.
Speaker 2: One looks as though he's settled in on his chair
Speaker 2: and the other looks as though he's getting up or
Speaker 2: bracing his hand on the arm of his chair to
Speaker 2: hold his position. The face is really where the difference
Speaker 2: is most apparent, though. In the seated image, in which
Speaker 2: Vanuffel is backed by a large window, he looks placid,
Speaker 2: almost bored or maybe questioning. In the second image, which
Speaker 2: is in a darker interior before a desk, his expression
Speaker 2: is harder to discern. His eyes are cut sharply to
Speaker 2: his right to meet the viewer's gaze, and the look
Speaker 2: on his face could be irritation or judgment, coupled with
Speaker 2: what feels like the action of rising. The simple differences
Speaker 2: and the second painting to the first make it feel
Speaker 2: more dynamic. It's an interesting exercising comparison.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they look so similar in many ways, but there
Speaker 1: are just these very small tweaks that they become completely different.
Speaker 1: One of the later pieces, created during the years that
Speaker 1: Van Dyke was in Italy offers an example of something
Speaker 1: he would become well known for, and I reference this earlier.
Speaker 1: That's his portraits of children. In a painting that features
Speaker 1: three young brothers called the Balbi Children, he shows three
Speaker 1: cherum faced boys, all of whom obviously look related, but
Speaker 1: who each showed their own unique personality. These are obviously
Speaker 1: children from an aristocratic family. Their clothes are pretty formal,
Speaker 1: they look very luxurious, and each outfit is very different,
Speaker 1: though they are all in shades of red, gold, gray,
Speaker 1: and black.
Speaker 2: We noted that several of his clients in Italy were English,
Speaker 2: and it's believed that some of them probably made invites
Speaker 2: to try to get him back to London, but he
Speaker 2: was not ready to go. Vandyke returned to Antwerp in
Speaker 2: the summer of sixteen twenty seven and for the next
Speaker 2: five years stayed very busy with portrait commissions There. He
Speaker 2: eventually was appointed the court painter to arch Duchess Isabella.
Speaker 2: One of his motivations for that return to Antwerp was
Speaker 2: once again family issues. One of his sisters had died
Speaker 2: and he once again brought a suit against his brothers
Speaker 2: in law to regain the remainder of the family fortune.
Speaker 2: To be clear, this was something he did not need.
Speaker 2: He was financially very successful at this point. He lived
Speaker 2: a very lavish life. You can find long descriptions of
Speaker 2: how fancy his clothes were, but remember he came from
Speaker 2: a big family and his siblings were going to lose
Speaker 2: everything if he didn't intercede. We're about to talk about
Speaker 2: what's often described as a cooling of the friendship between
Speaker 2: Van Dyke and Rubens, although it's possible that that friendship
Speaker 2: has been kind of misinterpreted over the centuries. We'll get
Speaker 2: to it after we hear from the sponsors that keep
Speaker 2: the show going. As Anthony reached his thirties, his relationship
Speaker 2: with Rubens is described as having faltered, and the exact
Speaker 2: cause for this cooling of their friendship is unknown. But
Speaker 2: during the period that Van Dyke was in Antwerp following
Speaker 2: his Italian trip, Rubens was often away. This is because,
Speaker 2: in addition to being an artist, Rubens was also a diplomat,
Speaker 2: and business dictated his frequent travels. It doesn't appear that
Speaker 2: Rubens tried to stifle Van Dyke's career or anything that's
Speaker 2: often something people theorize. Some of his clients did turn
Speaker 2: to the younger artist when Rubens was unavailable for commissions,
Speaker 2: but that doesn't seem to have been an issue. There
Speaker 2: are plenty of other speculations about why these two men
Speaker 2: fell out, and it seems like anyone who has studied
Speaker 2: their work and their relationship has a different idea of
Speaker 2: what happened. Popular theories include that Rubens became jealous of
Speaker 2: his student, the possibility that Rubens sabotaged Van Dyke's career
Speaker 2: by steering him to portraitures often written about at the time,
Speaker 2: portraits were considered a commercial form of art, not like
Speaker 2: art art, and Rubens did often pass portrait requests on
Speaker 2: to his students while he focused on the more highly
Speaker 2: regarded religious, historical, and allegorical areas of art. And some
Speaker 2: of this confusion, once again pointed out by Christopher White,
Speaker 2: who we referenced earlier, is because historians may have had
Speaker 2: a very mischaracterized picture of the relationship between Rubens and
Speaker 2: Van Dyke. For all these years, it's always been believed
Speaker 2: that the two men were very close, but it's entirely
Speaker 2: possible that theirs was really more of a business relationship.
Speaker 2: Their lives were just so markedly different. While Van Dyke
Speaker 2: was focused solely on art his entire life, Rubens, as
Speaker 2: we just said, was also a diplomat. The older artist
Speaker 2: also had a wife and children, whereas Van Dyke didn't
Speaker 2: marry until near the end of his life. So it's
Speaker 2: possible that, based on things like the writings of Belori
Speaker 2: that we mentioned earlier, everyone just had this completely wrong
Speaker 2: take on the situation, and what's been perceived as a
Speaker 2: rift may have just been a natural drift apart. But
Speaker 2: it also may have been a matter of insightful recognition
Speaker 2: of business viability. Antwerp's art patrons may not have been
Speaker 2: numerous enough to fully support to artists with similar styles,
Speaker 2: so both men traveled to expand their markets rather than
Speaker 2: staying together all the time. Starting in the sixteen thirties,
Speaker 2: Vandyke produced a series of works that were one color,
Speaker 2: using chalk or oil to make simple portraits intended for engraving.
Speaker 2: These were part of the project he undertook with printer
Speaker 2: and art dealer Martin van den Ninden, and the collection
Speaker 2: titled Iconography, didn't get published until after Van Dyke's death
Speaker 2: in sixteen thirty two, eleven years after he had left Anthony,
Speaker 2: van Dyke finally returned to England and he was once
Speaker 2: again greeted warmly by the royal court. King Charles the
Speaker 2: First was in power at that point, and he made
Speaker 2: the Flemish artist the monarchy's principal painter in ordinary with
Speaker 2: a salary of two hundred pounds per year. Van Dyke
Speaker 2: became friendly with the royal family and he made a
Speaker 2: lot of portraits of King Charles, Queen Henrietta Maria and
Speaker 2: their children, and some of these were used to really
Speaker 2: humanize the king in the face of growing unrest in
Speaker 2: the country, so he was kind of a propaganda painter
Speaker 2: in some ways. During the early part of his time
Speaker 2: back in London, Vandyke painted one of his most famous
Speaker 2: self portraits, which was self portrait with a Sunflower. This
Speaker 2: image shows him facing away from the viewer at a
Speaker 2: three quarter angle, with his head turned back over his
Speaker 2: right shoulder. In front of him, there's a sunflower which
Speaker 2: he appears to be pointing at while fixing his guys
Speaker 2: squarely on the viewer. His hair is longer and darker
Speaker 2: than in his earlier portraits, and he has a mustache
Speaker 2: and a goateee. It's no longer the chairub of his
Speaker 2: earlier self portrait work. His outfit seen from the shoulders up,
Speaker 2: is of kind of a salmony pink color, and he
Speaker 2: plays with a gold chain that straped over his shoulder.
Speaker 2: This is an important work in the private collection of
Speaker 2: the Duke of Westminster.
Speaker 1: It is not on public display because if it was,
Speaker 1: I would get a plane ticket today. I love this painting.
Speaker 1: While he stayed longer than he did on his first
Speaker 1: trip when he was visiting King James's court, he did
Speaker 1: return to Antwerp again for a year, starting in sixteen
Speaker 1: thirty four, once again to handle family business. He was
Speaker 1: also named Honorary Dean of the Antwerp of Artists during
Speaker 1: this brief stay in his home country. But he was
Speaker 1: back in England in sixteen thirty five and he moved
Speaker 1: into the neighborhood of Blackfriars. He spent summers in Eltham
Speaker 1: Palace and over the course of several years in London,
Speaker 1: Van Dyke painted portraits of almost everyone in the nobility,
Speaker 1: and many many more portraits of King Charles.
Speaker 2: The first Van Dyke's studio in London became a fast
Speaker 2: paced whirlwind of creation. Like most masters, he had a
Speaker 2: group of assistants and apprentices who helped him. When one
Speaker 2: of his subjects came for a sitting, he would sketch
Speaker 2: out the rough plan, something he increasingly did for portraits
Speaker 2: as his career evolved, and then that sketch would be
Speaker 2: enlarged onto canvas by an assistant. Van Dyke typically painted
Speaker 2: the face, and then the accompanying elements of the canvas
Speaker 2: would be completed again by his assistants, with varying degrees
Speaker 2: of participation from Van Dyke himself. He would apply the
Speaker 2: finishing touches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of his assistants were doing like all of
Speaker 1: the clothing, but he always did the face. His life
Speaker 1: at the end of the sixteen thirties and beginning of
Speaker 1: the sixteen forties could be described as unsettled because he
Speaker 1: was once again often on the move, but he also
Speaker 1: made the decision to settle down. In early sixteen forty,
Speaker 1: Anthony married Mary Ruthven, who was Lady in waiting to
Speaker 1: Queen Henrietta. This was something of a surprise to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Throughout his life, Van Dyke had many
Speaker 1: relationships with women and often had more than one romance
Speaker 1: going at a time as he traveled around Europe. He
Speaker 1: was sort of infamously involved with a woman named Margaret
Speaker 1: Lemon right up to the time he was married to Ruthven.
Speaker 1: Stories of Margaret are all about how intense and jealous
Speaker 1: she was, and some of the very graphic threats of
Speaker 1: bodily harm that she issued should Anthony ever cheat on her.
Speaker 1: She sort of vanishes into the historical record once the
Speaker 1: painter left her for his marriage to Mary, though.
Speaker 2: This was by all accounts a happy marriage and soon
Speaker 2: Mary was pregnant. But though this should have been a
Speaker 2: time of joy, a shadow was cast when Van Dyke's mentor, Rubens,
Speaker 2: died of heart failure in late May of sixteen forty.
Speaker 2: A few months later, Van Dyke decided to return once
Speaker 2: more to Antwerp to pay his respects, although this was
Speaker 2: a brief visit. His final self portrait was created sometime
Speaker 2: during this transitional period of his life. It's less colorful
Speaker 2: than the others, certainly far less so than the Sunflower
Speaker 2: self portrait, although he's posed at the same angle. This time.
Speaker 2: He wears a black doublet with white slashing. The background
Speaker 2: is a simple, warm brown, and his curly hair and
Speaker 2: facial hair are once again included. He looks quite handsome
Speaker 2: and his facial expression is mostly neutral, although his eyes
Speaker 2: once again seemed to peer out at the viewer, almost
Speaker 2: as if asking a question.
Speaker 1: This was all happening at the same time that word
Speaker 1: spread that King Louis the thirteenth of France needed a
Speaker 1: decorator for the galleries of the Louver. Van Dyke heard
Speaker 1: about this opportunity. He returned to London after his trip
Speaker 1: to Antwerp, and he immediately turned and headed to Paris
Speaker 1: to try to get an audience with the king because
Speaker 1: he wanted to lobby for this commission. But though he
Speaker 1: made it there, he did not get the job. That
Speaker 1: commission went to French painters Nicholas Poussin and Simon Vouis.
Speaker 1: At this point, the forty two year old Van Dyke
Speaker 1: was not well. His health had been in decline in
Speaker 1: this frantic pace of his life, including going back to
Speaker 1: Antwerp and France once again. Before returning to England had
Speaker 1: taken a toll. He had developed a tremor in his
Speaker 1: right hand that was bad enough that he couldn't sign
Speaker 1: his name naturally. He was concerned about this, and he
Speaker 1: said to have visited a number of physicians in the
Speaker 1: hope of finding a cure, but nothing came of it.
Speaker 1: King Charles the First was deeply concerned for his painter
Speaker 1: and friends, so much so that he offered three hundred
Speaker 1: pounds as a reward for anyone who could help. The
Speaker 1: King's own physician attended to Van Dyke, but he was
Speaker 1: unable to cure him or improve his condition. Van Dyke's
Speaker 1: daughter with Mary, named Justiniana, was born on December first,
Speaker 1: sixteen forty one. Anthony was at the birth. The baby
Speaker 1: was baptized a little over a week later on December ninth,
Speaker 1: and just hours after that, Van Dyke died at his
Speaker 1: home in Blackfriars. In between Justiniana's birth and her baptism,
Speaker 1: Knowing clearly how serious his health crisis was, Van Dyke
Speaker 1: had made his will, and that will actually contained a surprise.
Speaker 1: Justiniana was not his first child. He had been hiding
Speaker 1: another daughter born to one of his mistresses, all the
Speaker 1: way back in sixteen twenty two when he was in
Speaker 1: his early career in Antwerp, and his sister Susannah had
Speaker 1: raised that girl, named Maria Theresa, who was just shy
Speaker 1: of twenty when he died, and he provided for her
Speaker 1: in his will. Vandyke was buried in England in Old
Speaker 1: Saint Paul's Cathedral. The king ordered a monument to be
Speaker 1: erected over the final resting place, although what was inscribed
Speaker 1: on it is reported differently by various sources. We cannot
Speaker 1: verify which is correct because this monument burned in the
Speaker 1: Great Fire in sixteen sixty six. Van Dyke's collection of
Speaker 1: print portraits Iconography published four years after his death in
Speaker 1: sixteen forty five, and that has become sort of a
Speaker 1: visual directory of many of Antwerp's most prominent citizens during
Speaker 1: Van Dyke's career. For example, there are two portraits of
Speaker 1: Peter Breugel, the younger in that group, that are particularly striking.
Speaker 1: Van Dyke's legacy really cannot be overstated. His work truly
Speaker 1: changed portraiture in England, and a lot of artists who
Speaker 1: came after him, including Thomas Gainsborough, a painter of the
Speaker 1: famous Blue Boy portrait, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, who helped
Speaker 1: found the Royal Academy of Arts. I'll cite him as
Speaker 1: a primary influence, as has no doubt been evident throughout
Speaker 1: this episode. There are huge gaps in the record of
Speaker 1: Van Dyke's life, and some of this may have been purposeful,
Speaker 1: because it's possible that a man with the kinds of
Speaker 1: secrets he would only divulge, for example, in his will,
Speaker 1: might not have wanted to account for his various visits
Speaker 1: to places he traveled as anything more than I just
Speaker 1: have business there. But some of it is also just
Speaker 1: that records were lacking. A lot of records burned and
Speaker 1: people just didn't track every little thing. And the interesting
Speaker 1: result of all of this in Van Dyke's case is
Speaker 1: that we don't know how many paintings he made. There
Speaker 1: are estimates, but those vary from two hundred to five
Speaker 1: hundred pieces. And because he was so influential, a lot
Speaker 1: of artists that followed took great pains to try to
Speaker 1: capture his style in their work. He also had a
Speaker 1: lot of assistance, so this all has led to some
Speaker 1: uncertain attributions over the years. Some have eventually been attributed
Speaker 1: to the assistance of his workshop, but there are a
Speaker 1: lot of others that still have question marks. As recently
Speaker 1: as twenty nineteen, there was a new identification made when
Speaker 1: just such a work, portrait of the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia,
Speaker 1: was identified as an original Van Dyke.
Speaker 2: Oh you're so happy talking about art, I am. I
Speaker 2: love it and I really love his im I will
Speaker 2: talk about it some in the behind the scenes, like
Speaker 2: the way I plagued some of my friends by sending
Speaker 2: them photographs of Van Dyke work and like, could you
Speaker 2: believe this was penty four hundred years ago?
Speaker 1: I just mind boggling. I do have some listener mail
Speaker 1: which comes from our listener Caitlin, and it is about
Speaker 1: planners and specifically Planners and ADHD. Caitlyn writes, Hi, Holly
Speaker 1: and Tracy, and Happy New Year. Listening to the New
Speaker 1: Year's Day episode on planners and Almanacs, as well as
Speaker 1: the behind the scenes, brought back a visceral memory of
Speaker 1: being an elementary school and having the teacher distribute planners
Speaker 1: to each student. They were August to June to align
Speaker 1: with the school year, and every month there were little
Speaker 1: quotes and fun facts, as well as so many holidays.
Speaker 1: Every day when we were given homework, our teacher would
Speaker 1: ask us to pull out our planners and write down
Speaker 1: the details concerts, field trips, any other reason a nine
Speaker 1: year old might need to know a date into the planner.
Speaker 1: I inevitably would lose my planner several times a semester,
Speaker 1: or fished out crumpled and unmarked from the bottom of
Speaker 1: my backpack when challenged. Because I usually did my homework
Speaker 1: in class after my other work, missing technical deadlines was
Speaker 1: no big deal. Fast forward to age twenty three, and
Speaker 1: it turned out I have ADHD. All of my efforts
Speaker 1: and attempts at systems and bullet journals and calendars had
Speaker 1: been thwarted, not by innate laziness or it not being
Speaker 1: for me, but by brainworms. A few years out, I'm
Speaker 1: on ADHD meds and my color coded dry erase calendar
Speaker 1: lives with my fridge and is strictly up to date. Mostly.
Speaker 1: Hope y'all are well, and I've attached some shark to
Speaker 1: post photos as pet text. She was recently put on
Speaker 1: a diet after being certified chonky at the VET, and
Speaker 1: she hates it a lot. Yeah, I've had a cat
Speaker 1: on a diet. He no like it one bit. She
Speaker 1: also asks about accessibility when we plan our trips. The
Speaker 1: answer is yes, but also it becomes difficult to gauge
Speaker 1: accessibility when we're planning international trips sometimes, but we do
Speaker 1: always consider it. It doesn't always work out, obviously, it's
Speaker 1: kind of tricky on international travel. But I hope nobody
Speaker 1: thinks that we're just ignoring that this cat is very cute.
Speaker 1: She looks like a dilutey calico. It's hard to tell
Speaker 1: case she's in shadow. She may be full of calico,
Speaker 1: but the cutest thing on the planet. Listen, I love
Speaker 1: a chunky cat.
Speaker 2: I also really like this email because while we talked
Speaker 2: about planners and how some people love planners, we didn't
Speaker 2: really talk about how planners can be very flum mixing
Speaker 2: for people sometimes when they don't even really realize why.
Speaker 2: And I think it's valid to discuss that, Like, there
Speaker 2: are some people that just look at a planner and
Speaker 2: it looks like torture. So while I love them because I,
Speaker 2: you know, have a little bit of attention issues myself.
Speaker 2: For me, that's like the good tool, but I understand
Speaker 2: that doesn't work for everybody.
Speaker 1: Anyway. I hope, whether you're a planner person or not,
Speaker 1: that you're having a great start to the new year.
Speaker 1: I suppose you could write us if you would wish
Speaker 1: and share your experiences and maybe you're kiddies or puppies
Speaker 1: or snakes or translats or whatever pets you have and enjoy.
Speaker 1: I would love it if someone would send us.
Speaker 2: Some some Corvid pictures. Anybody got a pet raven send
Speaker 2: them along. You can do that at History podcast at
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: We're also on social media as Missed in History, and
Speaker 1: you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 1: and anywhere else you get your favorite shows.
Speaker 2: Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.