Anthony van Dyck
Portrait painter to the aristocracy.
Van Dyck was Rubens's foremost pupil and became court painter to Charles I in England. He shaped the image of the elegant nobleman for a long time to come.
Anthony van Dyck was born on 22 March 1599 in Antwerp. His father was a wealthy silk merchant. He was apprenticed to a painter at the age of ten and was an independent artist at an early age. Around 1618 he worked as an assistant in Rubens's workshop, and Rubens called him his best pupil. Van Dyck learned a great deal from Rubens but developed a more refined and nervous style of his own.
After a short visit to London he travelled to Italy in 1621, where he stayed for six years. He studied Titian closely and lived mostly in Genoa, where he painted the city's aristocrats. The portrait of Marchesa Elena Grimaldi, now in Washington, shows a tall, slender woman in black under a red parasol held by a servant. On Sicily he visited the aged painter Sofonisba Anguissola and drew her.
After a few years in Antwerp he moved to London in 1632 and became court painter to Charles I, who knighted him. There he created his most famous portraits. Charles I at the Hunt, in the Louvre, shows the king on foot in a landscape, relaxed yet exalted. The equestrian portraits make him a ruler in the antique manner. Van Dyck also painted a triple portrait of the king, from the front and from two sides, which was sent to Bernini in Rome as the basis for a bust.
Van Dyck's portraits are elegant and flattering. The sitters have long, slender hands, gleaming silk and a nonchalant self-assurance. He was himself known for his elegant lifestyle. In 1640 he married Mary Ruthven, a lady of the court. He died in London in December 1641, only 42 years old, and was buried in Old St Paul's Cathedral.
He shaped the image of the English aristocracy for more than a hundred years. Gainsborough and Reynolds built on his style. The pointed goatee worn by Charles I is still called a “Van Dyke beard”.