Frans Luycx

Self-portrait (sepia drawing)

Frans Luycx (also Lux, Leux, Laix, Löx, Leix, Lieix, Leuycx or Likh , born April 17, 1604 in Antwerp , † May 1, 1668 in Vienna ) was a Flemish portrait painter. He was a student of Peter Paul Rubens and also took influences from Anthony van Dyck . In the course of his career he became an imperial chamber painter and the outstanding artistic personality at the court of Emperor Ferdinand III . Luycx was one of the most important portrait painters of his time, his works can now be found in museums and art collections worldwide.

Surname

The artist's signatures changed frequently, one of his works, for example, is labeled “Lux”. In the sources, the name was mostly written as it was pronounced, namely "Leux"; but also the forms “Laix” and “Löx” occur. Those engravers who used Luycx's pictures as models sometimes wrote correctly, sometimes “Leix, Lieix, Leuyxc”. Since most of his personally signed pictures show the original Flemish spelling "Luycx" and this was also adopted by the artist's first biographer, Ernst Ebenstein, this name should also be retained. The spelling “Luyckx” does not appear in the sources and is therefore incorrect.

Life

Portrait of Emperor Ferdinand III. (around 1638).

Frans Luycx was baptized in the court church in Antwerp on the day of his birth . His father, Adam Luycx, was a silk scarf dealer, his mother's maiden name was Johanna de Rasieres. In 1618 he began his apprenticeship with Remakel Sina, an artist whose name is not linked to any surviving work. After the two-year apprenticeship, he was released from the same, after which he immediately entered the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens , where he must have met Anton Van Dyck , who worked for Rubens from 1617 to 1620. How long Luycx remained in Rubens' apprenticeship or which works can be dated to this time cannot be said with certainty.

In 1620 Luycx was master of the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, in 1635 he undertook an extensive study trip to Italy , where he studied the old masters . After his stay in Italy, where he looked at the traditional types of portraiture in the Italian and Spanish portrait styles, he received the post of chamber painter at Ferdinand III's court on January 1, 1638. with an impressive annual salary of 600  florins. At the Viennese court, Italian and Spanish style characteristics were very welcome and Luycx knew how to combine the basis of his artistic training with Rubens with his impressions from Italy. Luycx stayed in Vienna with short interruptions until his death. In 1646 he traveled to Graz , in the same year the painter sought out the generalissimo of the imperial army, Archduke Leopold Wilhelm , in the field camp to portray him.

The Archduke reported to his imperial brother about it: “The painter van der Likh is an extremely fine man, and if I hold him in front of an extremely good contrafeter and otherwise a good painter [...], I only pin him two today stunt, it's already extremely good. After two stunts I have to stand, after that it's finished. ” Leopold Wilhelm was very fond of his brother's chamber painter and employed him a few more times.

In 1643 his first wife, whose name was unknown, died; she was buried in the church crypt with the Michaelers . A year later, Luycx married the 24-year-old Eleonora Claurens, who died in childbed in 1651. From this marriage his three children come, his first son Franz was born in 1645. In his first will from 1645, Luycx called himself “von Luxenstein” with the nobility predicate . Around 1650 Luycx traveled to the courts of the electors , where he commissioned Emperor Ferdinand III. had to portray. On June 12, 1654 Luycx married Eva Rosina Ortin in the Schottenkirche in Vienna , for which Ferdinand III. adored a wedding present, which he had the imperial valet Johann Georg Ladner carry out, who received 50 florins for it. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, after giving up his post as governor of the Netherlands and returning to Vienna in 1656, Luycx again with several commissions. After the death of Ferdinand III. In 1657 the artist was left in imperial service by Emperor Leopold I. Frans Luycx died on May 1, 1668 at the age of 64 in Vienna. In the Book of the Dead, the cause of death is "head apostle", a purulent inflammation in the area of ​​the head. Two weeks before his death, he drew up an exact will in which he stipulated, among other things, that he wanted to be buried in the Schottenfriedhof neighboring his house and that a tombstone should be set into the wall of his house. This epitaph is now in the mausoleum of the Wiener Schottenstift , the full inscription reads:

A LLHIE LIGT BURIED W OHL E DL AND G ESTRENG H ERR F RANCISCUS L EVX OF L VXENSTEIN D ER R OEM: K AY: M MAY: C AMMER M ALL WHICH THE DIED 1 . D AG M AY A NNO MDCLXVIII LIKE AVCH HIS LOVE H AVSFRAV E LEONORA C LAVENS SO DIVIDED FROM THIS W ELT ON 12 . IVLY ANNO MDCLI WHO WOULD LIKE TO COMPARE A FRIENDLY AVFERSTEHVNG TO G OTT VNS VNS . A MEN.

Style and reception

The oldest source that reports on Luycx is the German Academy of Noble Building, Image and Painting Arts of Joachim von Sandrart : “Franciscus Leux von Antorf [Antwerp] became a royal court-Mahler in Vienna / and worked with Rubens in the manner but he would like to grasp his art even worse / he went to Italy / stayed there for a number of years / and then returned to Kayser's Ferdinandi III. Services / in it he persisted a bit at his end: He was very good in contrafat / grinded it mostly in life-size / completely the same and happily / and almost an unaffordable number for your Kayserl. Your Majesty and the Seven Electors. He grinded little of history / because he never lied on it / then he earned great praise and considerable wealth through his contrafat and polite gestures / and after his death he left two sons / who, according to reports, are eager to imitate their father's art. "

Luycx was clearly influenced in his earlier work by the ideal portrait style that Rubens had created for his decorative images of rulers. However, he soon abandoned this, in the strict sense of the term, high-baroque type of princely image and again approached the older conception, which required a calm representation, not a dynamic one.

The art historian Ernst Ebenstein summed up in his monograph in 1907: “One would have to imagine the artistic development of the painter as follows: Luycx came from Rubens' school after he had acquired the maturity in all technical matters to look around and grasp the world tried to find out what painterly problems art was pursuing in other countries, in an atmosphere that could not encourage a more free development of personality. The artist who was supposed to do justice to the tasks assigned to him was not allowed to be an innovator but had to strive to bring the already generally accepted art into harmony with the tradition prevailing at court. A whole series of artists worked at and for the court who, compared to the painters at the Spanish court, had no art that could be valued highly, but certainly had developed a style of their own, which was to show itself before the Nordic influence began, was under Italian and mainly Spanish influence. Luycx also had to adapt to this influence in all his portraits for the imperial court. But if a work was not intended for the court, we see him again and again tie in with those masters who were closer to his original nature and who determined his first development, Rubens and the Italians. "Walter Kalina added in 2003:" Even if Frans Luycx should not be overestimated in his art-historical importance, nevertheless, as a typical representative of the court art of that time, he should be given the place he deserved among his contemporaries. Ferdinand III. certainly did a good job with him, he called a highly educated artist to his court who certainly wanted to stand out more than he was allowed to and who stylistically did what he was told to do. "

plant

Most of the works of Frans Luycx are now in Stockholm (see Prager Kunstraub 1648 ), Vienna, Innsbruck , St. Florian , Prague , Budapest , Dresden , Copenhagen and The Hague , whereby only those known to research are meant here ( the painter only signed his pictures in the rarest cases). Works whose attribution is doubtful or which are otherwise lost were probably scattered across all continents. One example of this is Grafenegg Castle near Krems in Lower Austria : In 1638 and 1647, Luycx painted a series of portraits for the Verdenberg family, from which Hans Tietze was able to see eight pictures in 1908. The castle was looted by the Red Army during World War II and all its furnishings were robbed. The building was under Russian military administration until 1956, during which time shooting exercises were held on the paintings; bullet holes on various portraits testified to this. Of the eight Luycx pictures, only two are left today, the rest were either shot, burned or taken to the east. According to the current state of research, it is almost impossible to trace a complete inventory of Luycx's oeuvre. In research, the works that Luycx wrote for Emperor Ferdinand III. made, the main role.

Portrait of Empress Eleonora as Diana (after 1651).

Several portraits of the emperor himself have survived, as well as of his numerous children and relatives such as B. Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Tyrol . Luycx painted another remarkable portrait of Ferdinand III's third wife, Empress Eleonora Gonzaga . The picture should have been taken soon after the wedding of the imperial couple on April 30, 1651. In this work, Luycx shows the lively form of the representation of the Flemish High Baroque in the manner of his teacher, Peter Paul Rubens: The clothes, the play of lines of the drapery are dynamic, the physiognomy fresh and lively, the colors bright and luminous.

Luycx mainly painted portraits, but other subjects of him have also been preserved and are easily accessible: In 1649, for example, he made the altarpiece and some murals for the St. Thomas Chapel in the Dominican Church in Vienna . On the one hand, the room conception, formulated through dramatic light and dark, is to be emphasized, on the other hand, an atmospheric color melody achieved with economical means, which is shown in the black and white Dominican habit of St. Thomas Aquinas and in the fireplace of the column drapery and the altar structure. A late work can be found on the side wall of the Antonius Chapel in the Church of the Nine Choirs of Angels , also in Vienna. It is a depiction of the crucifixion, donated by Empress Eleonora. The delicacy of the painting in this work bears impressive testimony to the painter's late maturity.

Works (excerpt)

• Portrait of Emperor Ferdinand III. in full figure (around 1638), oil on canvas, 214 × 141 cm; National Museum Stockholm , Gripsholm , Inv. No. Grh 298.
• Portrait of Emperor Ferdinand III. Half-length portrait (around 1638), oil on canvas; KHM Vienna (Ambras Castle Innsbruck), inv. No. GG 8024.
• Portrait of Archduke Ferdinand VI. with his sister Archduchess Maria Anna (around 1638), oil on canvas; KHM Vienna (Ambras Castle Innsbruck), inv. No. GG 3214.
• Portrait of Archduke Karl Josef in full figure with cockatoo and puppy (around 1651/52), oil on canvas; KHM Vienna (Ambras Castle Innsbruck), inv. No. GG 3185.
• Portrait of Archduke Ferdinand Karl of Tyrol in full figure (around 1650), oil on canvas; KHM Vienna (Ambras Castle Innsbruck), inv. No. GG 9425.
• Portrait of Empress Eleonora Gonzaga as Diana (after 1651), oil on canvas; KHM Vienna (Ambras Castle Innsbruck), inv. No. GG 4508.
• Portrait of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg (around 1650/51), oil on canvas; KHM Vienna (Ambras Castle Innsbruck), inv. No. GG 3163.
• Saint Thomas Aquinas (1649), oil on canvas; Altar and wall paintings in the St. Thomas Chapel of the Dominican Church in Vienna.
• Crucifixion with Maria, Maria Magdalena, Evangelist Johannes and members of the imperial family (around 1663), oil on canvas; Antoniuskapelle, Church of the Nine Choirs of Angels, Vienna.

literature

• Ernst Ebenstein: The court painter Frans Luycx. A contribution to the history of painting at the Austrian court . In: Yearbook of Art History Collections. Vol. 26, Issue 3, 1907, ISSN  0258-5596 , pp. 183-254.
• Herbert Haupt: Culture and art historical news from the Viennese court of Archduke Leopold Wilhelms in the years 1646-1654 , in: Mitteilungen des Österreichisches Staatsarchivs Volume 33, Vienna 1980.
• Günther Heinz: Studies on portrait painting at the courts of the Austrian hereditary lands , in: Yearbook of the art historical collections in Vienna, Volume 39, 1963, pp. 99–224.
• Walter F. Kalina: Emperor Ferdinand III. and the fine arts. A contribution to the cultural history of the 17th century. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2003.
• Elisabeth Maria Leitner: Reflections on the portrait creation of the Flemish artist Frans Luycx. Diploma thesis, University of Vienna, 2008.
• Renate Schreiber: A gallery based on my humor. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm , Vienna 2004
• Karl Schütz, Günther Heinz: Portrait gallery on the history of Austria from 1400-1800 , exhibition catalog Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Ambras Castle, Innsbruck / Vienna, 1982
• Karl Polleroß: Frans Luycx von Leuxenstein (1604–1668) and Prague, in: Lenka Stolárová, Kateřina Holečková (eds.), Karel Škréta (1610–1674): Dílo a doba. Study, dokumenty, prameny, Praha, 2013, pp. 243–256.

Web links

Commons : Frans Luycx  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Walter F. Kalina: Emperor Ferdinand III. and the fine arts. A contribution to the cultural history of the 17th century. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2003, p. 218
2. ^ Andreas Prater, Hermann Bauer : Painting of the Baroque. Edited by Ingo F. Walther. Taschen, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-8228-8193-7 , p. 145.
3. ↑ Ernst Ebenstein: The court painter Frans Luycx. 1907, pp. 183-254.
4. ^ Walter Bernt: The Dutch painters and draftsmen of the 17th century. Volume 2: Painter. Heem - rombouts. 4th, revised edition. Bruckmann, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-7654-1766-1 , p. 180.
5. ^ Walther Buchowiecki: History of Painting in Vienna. In: Heinrich Zimmermann (Red.): History of the City of Vienna. New series, volume 7, half 2: History of the fine arts in Vienna. Published by the Association for the History of the City of Vienna. Holzhausen, Vienna 1955, pp. 1–226.
6. ↑ cit. with: Renate Schreiber: Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Bishop and general, governor and art collector. Studies on his biography. Dissertation University of Vienna 2001, p. 220.
7. ↑ Hofkammerarchiv Vienna, Court Pay Office Books, Sig. 100, 1654, fol. 571.
8. ↑ Also "head apostem", cf. Anton Luidl: Of the Eichstättischen Heiligthums, Anderer Part, of the supernatural origin / properties and strangulation of the wonderful oil river gushing out of the virgin breast bones of the Holy Walburgae, zu Eichstätt, 1750 , Google-Books accessed on October 11, 2012
9. ^ Gustav Gugitz : Fine arts and applied arts in the wills of the archive of the city of Vienna from the years 1548–1783. In: Yearbook of the Association for the History of the City of Vienna. Vol. 9, 1951, ISSN  1011-4726 , pp. 119-150.
10. ↑ Epitaph of Frans Luycx in the Wiener Schottenstift, quoted in. with Walter F. Kalina: Emperor Ferdinand III. and the fine arts. A contribution to the cultural history of the 17th century . Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2003, p. 221.
11. ↑ Joachim von Sandrart : The German Academie. II. Theils, Book III: From the Hoch = and Nieder-Teutschen famous Mahler / and sculptor and builder / life and praise. Miltenberger, Nuremberg 1675, p. 322 f.
12. ^ Günther Heinz: Studies on portrait painting at the courts of the Austrian hereditary lands. In: Yearbook of the Art History Collections in Vienna. Vol. 59, 1963, ISSN  0258-5596 , pp. 99-224.
13. ↑ Ernst Ebenstein: The court painter Frans Luycx. 1907, p. 250.
14. ^ Walter F. Kalina: Emperor Ferdinand III. and the fine arts. A contribution to the cultural history of the 17th century. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2003, p. 250
15. ^ Hans Tietze : The collections of Grafenegg Castle (= Austrian art topography. Volume 1, supplement). Schroll, Vienna 1908, pp. 6–9, 44–50.
16. ↑ ^{a b} Walter F. Kalina: Ferdinand III. and the fine arts. 2003, p. 226.
17. ^ Walter F. Kalina: Emperor Ferdinand III. and the fine arts. A contribution to the cultural history of the 17th century. Dissertation, University of Vienna, 2003, pp. 226, 231 f.
18. ↑ Klaus Bußmann , Heinz Schilling : 1648 - War and Peace in Europe. Catalog volume and two text volumes, Münster 1998 [Documentation of the Council of Europe exhibition on the 350th anniversary of the Peace of Westphalia in Münster and Osnabrück.] Münster / Osnabrück 1998, ISBN 3-88789-127-9 , p. 73
19. ↑ on the university publication database of the University of Vienna , accessed on October 10, 2012

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on October 31, 2012 .