| |
Historical Artist - Hendrik Goltzius (1558 - 1617)
After moving to Haarlem at the age of nineteen, Hendrick Goltzius married a rich widow who
funded the establishment of his workshop. He spent his life in the city except for a yearlong
trip to Germany and Italy in 1590 that brought him into contact with classical and naturalistic
art. His panoramic landscapes were forerunners for later Dutch artists such as Rembrandt van
Rijn. Goltzius was best known for his printmaking but has to abandon the medium in 1600 due to
his failing eyesight and inability to work with painstaking engraving tools. Although he
believed that printmaking was inferior to painting, he died in 1617 without reaching the same
quality in his paintings as he had in his engravings. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the
early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, noted for his sophisticated technique and the
"exuberance" of his compositions. His portraits, though mostly miniatures, are
masterpieces of their kind, both on account of their exquisite finish, and as fine studies of
individual character. Of his larger heads, the life-size portrait of himself is probably the
most striking example. His masterpieces, so called from their being attempts to imitate the
style of the old masters, have perhaps been overpraised. Goltzius brought to an unprecedented
level the use of the "swelling line", where the burin is manipulated to make lines
thicker or thinner to create a tonal effect from a distance. He also was a pioneer of "dot
and lozenge" technique, where dots are placed in the middle of lozenge shaped spaces
created by cross-hatching to further refine tonal shading.
Contemporary Dutch Artists
Art Galleries in the Netherlands
|
