Honthorst Gerrit van oil painting, antique oil paintings

Gerrit van Honthorst
Netherlands Baroque painter & draftsman
born 1590 - died 1656

Also known as: Gerard van Honthorst, Gerardo delle Notti, Gherardo della Notte, Gherardo Fiammingo, Ghirardo delle Notti, Monsù Giraud della notte.

Student of: Abraham Bloemaert (1564-1651).
Brother of: Herman van Honthorst (active 1620-1639), Willem van Honthorst (1594-1666).
Son of: Herman Gerritsz. van Honthorst (active 1611-).
Grandson of: Gerrit Huyghen van Honthorst (active 1579-).
Influenced by: Caravaggio (1571-1610).

HONTHORST, GERRIT VAN (1590-1656), Dutch painter of Utrecht, was brought up at the school of Bloemart, who exchanged the style of the Franckens for that of the pseudo-Italians at the beginning of the 16th century. Infected thus early with a mania which came to be very general in Holland, Honthorst went to Italy, where Gerrit van Honthorst copied the naturalism and eccentricities of Michelangelo da Caravaggio. Home again about 1614, after acquiring a considerable practice in Rome, Gerrit van Honthorst set up a school at Utrecht which flourished exceedingly; and Gerrit van Honthorst soon became so fashionable that Sir Dudley Carleton, then English envoy at the Hague, recommended his works to the earl of Arundel and Lord Dorchester. At the same time the queen of Bohemia, sister of Charles I and electress palatine, being an exile in Holland, gave him her countenance and asked him to teach her children drawing; and Honthorst, thus approved and courted, became known to Charles I, who invited him to England. There Gerrit van Honthorst painted several portraits, and a vast allegory, now at Hampton Court, of Charles and his queen as Diana and Apollo in the clouds receiving the duke of Buckingham as Mercury and guardian of the king of Bohemia's children. Charles I, whose taste was flattered alike by the energy of Rubens and the elegance of Van Dyck, was thus first captivated by the fanciful mediocrity of Honthorst, who though a poor executant had luckily for himself caught, as Lord Arundel said, much of the manner of Caravaggio's coloring, then so much esteemed at Rome. It was his habit to transmute every subject into a night scene, from the Nativity, for which there was warrant in the example of Correggio, to the penitence of the Magdalen, for which there was no warrant at all. But unhappily this caprice, though sublime in Allegri [Correggio] and Rembrandt, was but a phantasm in the hands of Honthorst, whose prosaic pencil was not capable of more than vulgar utterances, and art gained little from the repetition of these quaint vagaries. Sandrart gave the measure of Honthorst's popularity at this period when Gerrit van Honthorst says that Gerrit van Honthorst had as many as twenty apprentices at one time, each of whom paid him a fee of 100 forms a year. In 1623 Gerrit van Honthorst was president of his guild at Utrecht. After that Gerrit van Honthorst went to England, returning to settle anew at Utrecht, where Gerrit van Honthorst married. His position amongst artists was acknowledged to be important, and in 1626 Gerrit van Honthorst received a visit from Rubens, whom Gerrit van Honthorst painted as the honest man sought for and found by Diogenes Honthorst. In his home at Utrecht Honthorst succeeded in preserving the support of the English monarch, for whom Gerrit van Honthorst finished in 1631 a large picture of the king and queen of Bohemia and all their children. For Lord Dorchester about the same period Gerrit van Honthorst completed some illustrations of the Odyssey; for the king of Denmark Gerrit van Honthorst composed incidents of Danish history, of which one example remains in the gallery of Copenhagen. - Honthorst Gerrit van oil painting, antique oil paintings - Honthorst Gerrit van bio, Honthorst Gerrit van oil paintings antique and Netherlands oil paintings art of Honthorst oil painting antique, antique oil paintings Netherlands.

The titles of oil painting old master Gerrit van Honthorst