Jan van der Heyden
Jan van der Heyden | |
---|---|
Born | |
Died | March 28, 1712 | (aged 75)
Occupation(s) | Artist, engineer, city official |
Spouse | Sarah Terhiel |
Children | Jan, Samuel, Sarah |
Parent(s) | Jan Goriszoon, Neeltje Jans Munster |
Jan van der Heyden (5 March 1637,
Jan van der Heyden was also an engineer and
Life
Jan van der Heyden was born in Gorinchem, the son of a
Jan van der Heyden may have received his initial artistic training in the studio of a relative, perhaps his eldest brother, Goris van der Heyden, who made and sold mirrors.[1] He had joined his brother Goris in his mirror producing and selling business. He may also have learned drawing from a glass painter.[5] It is possible that his teacher was one of the most admired glass painters of the time, Jacob van der Ulft, who was also originally from Jan van der Heyden's hometown. Several examples of van der Heyden’s paintings on glass (verre eglomisé) have survived and probably date from this early part of his career.[4]
He married Sara ter Hiel of Utrecht on 26 June 1661 in Amsterdam. At the time of his marriage, he lived on the most fashionable canal in Amsterdam, Herengracht. He was then already a practising artist. His earliest dated works are two drawn portraits of his brother-in-law Samuel ter Hiel and his bride, Jacquemijntje van der Passe date 1659. His earliest dated painting is from 1663.[3] As a young man he witnessed the fire in the old town hall which made a deep impression on him. He later would describe or draw 80 fires in almost any neighborhood of Amsterdam. In 1668 Cosimo III de' Medici bought one of his paintings, a view of the townhall with a manipulated perspective.
Painting was not the sole occupation and interest of van der Heyden. In fact he never joined Amsterdam's painters' guild. Even while his work was in great demand, he did not rely on his art to make a living. His principal source of income was, in fact, not painting. Rather he was employed as engineer, inventor and municipal official.[4] He was clearly greatly preoccupied with the problem of how to fight fires effectively, and, with his brother Nicolaes, devoted much time between 1668 and 1671 to inventing a new, highly successful water pumping mechanism.[3]
He devised street lamps and the first street-lighting system for Amsterdam and was in 1669 appointed director of street lighting.[6]
In 1673 the two brothers received official appointments to manage the city’s fire-fighting equipment and organisation. The two officials appointments were sufficient to ensure the prosperity of the artist.[4]
Jan van der Heyden moved in 1680 to the Koestraat near the St. Anthonismarkt. Here he built a new family home and a factory for producing fire equipment. In collaboration with his eldest son Jan, he published in 1690 an illustrated book on fire-fighting, entitled 'Beschrijving der nieuwlijks uitgevonden en geoctrojeerde Slangbrandspuiten' ('Description of the recently invented and patented hose fire engines').[3][7]
Jan van der Heyden died a wealthy man in 1712.[4] His wife survived her husband by only a month. The inventory of the estate made soon after her death include more than 70 of his own paintings. His only known pupil is his son Jan.[8]
Work
General
Van der Heyden was one of the first Dutch painters to dedicate most of his output to cityscapes and other depictions of groups of buildings. In addition, he also painted approximately 40 pure landscapes, of which two on glass. At the end of his career he painted still lifes in indoor settings.[1]
Architectural paintings
His most frequent subject were various views of Amsterdam. In addition, he painted vistas of other Dutch, Flemish and German cities (in particular the region near the Dutch–German border), country houses and estates and landscapes.[4] It is believed that he visited these places personally. A painting of an Italian scene is believed to have been based on a drawing by Daniël Schellinks. Other foreign scenes may have been based on drawings of other artists.[9] Van der Heyden often painted country estates. Several views exist of a country estate owned by Joan Huydecoper II, the Amsterdam burgomaster.[4] A set of 14 paintings depicting scenes in and around the village of Maarssen were likely also made on commission for Joan Huydecoper II, who had developed real estate around that village.[10][1]
Van der Heyden also created completely imaginary architectural fantasies, so-called
Despite the apparently naturalistic style, which was so detailed that every single brick was visible, the artist did not strive for topographical accuracy in his city views. Even in his depictions of recognizable sites he regularly adapted and rearranged the architecture and setting to fit his overall compositional goals. Topographical accuracy was clearly not his primary objective. Rather he strove to present an idealized vision of the world around him. Despite the attention to detail, Jan van der Heyden's primary aim was to achieve an overall harmony in his compositions. It is possible that van der Heyden achieved the details in his paintings with the aid of a magnifying glass or even a camera obscura, lenses and mirrors.[4]
Van der Heyden's scenes are usually bathed in a brilliant, crisp light of almost unnatural clarity. Van der Heyden's skill in distributing areas of light and shade and his mastery of subtle atmospheric effects contribute to the sense of coherence and unity of his works.[3]
The
Still lifes
Jan van der Heyden painted still lifes in the beginning and at the end of his career. Nine of his still lifes survive. One of his earliest dated still lifes is a Still life with a bible (signed and dated 1664, Mauritshuis). This and other early still lifes typically depict a bible and other objects on a table with a carpet.[14]
An example of his early works in this genre is the
Van der Heyden stopped painting still lifes around 1670 only to return to the subject in the last two years of his life. The motifs, designs and themes in his later still lifes are the same as those of his early still lifes but their execution is very different, much drier.[14]
Van der Heyden painted his still life masterpiece Room Corner with Curiosities at the age of seventy-five in 1712, the year he died. Now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest the composition reprises the themes of his earlier still lifes with special attention given to the vanitas symbolism. The Bible in the foreground is opened at the well-known line from Ecclesiastes: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity'. This message may have resonated particularly with the artist who was nearing the end of his life. The objects present in the composition point to the various aspects of worldly culture, not just wealth but also noble intellectual aspirations. The atlas is again opened on the page showing the fortifications of Bergen-op-Zoom. Other exotic objects reference all the routes plowed by the Dutch merchant fleets: a Turkish carpet, Chinese silk and porcelain, Japanese weapons and a stuffed armadillo from South America. Classical culture, the cradle of European civilization, is represented in the picture above the fireplace, which depicts the tragedy of Dido, and the German cabinet, which is decorated with an image of Minerva. Terrestrial and celestial globes introduce a universal dimension into the mix of symbols.[15]
Museums with Jan van der Heyden's works
- The National Gallery, London, England
- Amsterdams Historisch Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
- Mauritshuis, Royal Cabinet of Paintings, The Hague
- Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
- National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York
- Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan
- Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas
- National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia
- Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California
- Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut
Nazi-looted art
In 2019, van der Heyden's Picture of a Dutch Square which had been confiscated by the Gestapo after the Jewish owners Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus fled Nazi persecution, was restituted to the family. The history of the painting caused a scandal when it was learned that after the war it was returned not to the Kraus family but to Nazis.[16][17][18]
References
- ^ a b c d e Lyckle de Vries. "Heyden, Jan van der." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 13 July 2016
- ^ The fire hose pump was invented by Hans Hautsch, "Jan van der Heiden". Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-15.
- ^ a b c d e f Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., Jan van der Heyden Archived 2016-07-11 at the Wayback Machine, 24 April 2014 at the National Gallery of Art
- ^ a b c d e f g h Jan van der Heyden, A Palatial Garden, with Figures emerging from a Palace on the Right Archived 2016-07-13 at the Wayback Machine at Johnny Van Haeften Ltd
- ^ Joan vander Heyden biography in: Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, (1718) (in Dutch)
- ^ The Light of Lamp-Lanterns: Street Lighting in 17th-Century Amsterdam, Lettie S. Multhauf,Technology and Culture, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Apr., 1985), pp. 236-252, The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology
- ^ Van der Heyden, Fire Engines with Water Hoses and the Method of Fighting Fires by Lettie Stibbe Multhauf, 102 illustrated pages (Science History Publications/USA: 1996)
- ^ Peter C. Sutton, et al., p. 35
- ^ Peter C. Sutton, et al., Jan van der Heyden (1637–1712) (exhibit catalogue), Yale University Press, 2006, p. 176
- ^ "G. Schwartz (1983) Jan van der Heyden and the Huydecopers of Maarsseveen" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-09-30. Retrieved 2021-10-01.
- ^ An Architectural Fantasy Archived 2016-07-22 at the Wayback Machine at the National Gallery of Art
- ^ David R. Smith, Jan van der Heyden's Feast of Purim, in: David R. Smith, Parody and Festivity in Early Modern Art: Essays on Comedy as Social Vision, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2012, p. 142-164
- ^ Jan van der Heyden and Adriaen van de Velde, The Dam and Damrak Archived 2016-07-14 at the Wayback Machine at the Fogg Museum
- ^ a b c Peter C. Sutton, p. 180-182
- ^ a b Axel Vécsey, Jan van der Heyden, Room Corner with Curiosities, 1712 Archived 2016-10-09 at the Wayback Machine, collection of Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest
- ^ "Bavaria Kept Nazi-Looted Art in Museums". Artnet News. 2016-06-28. Archived from the original on 2016-06-28. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
"Records show they were handed over to Bavaria by the US in 1952 for the purpose of restitution," the report reads. "To their shock, they found they had instead been given by the Bavarian State in the early 1960s to Henriette Hoffmann-von Schirach, daughter of Hitler's close friend and photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann, and wife of the notorious 'Gauleiter' [Hitler's district governor] of Vienna, Baldur von Schirach. Von Schirach was condemned at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity for the deportation of 60,000 Austrian Jews." It traces how von Schirach came by one small painting, Picture of a Dutch Square, by Jan van der Heyden that originally belonged to the Kraus family. The Bavarian State Galleries sold the painting to von Schirach for 300 Deutschmark, who then auctioned it off for 16,000 Deutschmarks to the Xanten Cathedral Association; it was on display in the cathedral until 2011. The Kraus's rightful heirs have been seeking restitution of this and other paintings from the family's collection in vain.
- ^ "German Cathedral Returns Nazi-Looted Old Master Painting". www.lootedart.com. Artfix Daily. Archived from the original on 2019-05-01. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
The Commission for Looted Art in Europe (CLAE), representing the heirs of Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus, and the Verein zur Erhaltung des Xantener Domes e.V. (Association for the Preservation of the Xanten Cathedral), Germany, are pleased to announce the return of the painting 'View of a Dutch square' attributed to the Dutch 17th century painter Jan van der Heyden, to the heirs of Gottlieb and Mathilde Kraus, who fled Vienna in April 1938 to escape from Nazi persecution.
- ^ "A Painting Looted by and Returned to Nazis Finally Goes to Its Jewish Owners". www.lootedart.com. New York Times. Archived from the original on 2019-05-01. Retrieved 2021-06-02.
The painting, "View of a Dutch Square," attributed to the Golden Age painter Jan van der Heyden, was one of about 160 looted from the Kraus family in 1941, retrieved by the Allies after the war and returned to the Bavarian State. But instead of ensuring its restitution to the family from which it was stolen, the Bavarian government sold it back to the heir of the Nazi official who bought it during the war.
External links
- Media related to Jan van der Heyden at Wikimedia Commons