Otto van Veen

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Christ with Mary and Martha, approx. 1596–1598

Otto van Veen (* 1556 in Leiden ; † 1629 in Brussels ), known as Otto Vaenius or Venius , was a Flemish painter and draftsman.

Life

Van Veen came from a noble family from Leiden that supported King Philip II of Spain . From around 1573 he learned in Liège with the humanist and painter Dominicus Lampsonius (1532–1599), a student of Lambert Lombard . Van Veen had been in Italy since 1576 , where he presumably came into contact with Federico Zuccaro . He then returned to the Netherlands via Prague and Munich in 1583 , where he became court painter to the governor of the Netherlands, Duke Alessandro Farnese , in Brussels (1585). His important self-portrait at the easel in the middle of his family is dated 1584 ( Musée du Louvre , Paris ). In 1592 he settled in Antwerp . His large-format depiction of the Last Supper in Antwerp's Cathedral of Our Lady comes from this period . In 1599 he completed his "Crucifixion of St. Andrew" for the St. Andries Kerk. From around 1594 van Veen was perhaps the most important teacher of Peter Paul Rubens . Pictures such as the “Temptations of Youth” in Stockholm ( Swedish National Museum ) could be joint works by Vaenius and Rubens, which were created before his departure for Italy in 1600. Before his master student returned from Italy, Vaenius reduced his activities as a painter and devoted himself more and more to the publication of emblem books and graphic series, including the Emblemata Horatiana (1607) and the Amorum Emblemata (1608). 1612 two large etchings that appeared in Antwerp Antonio Tempesta in Rome after him sent drawings of Vaenius had erased: the war of the Batavians against the Romans ( Batavian ) and the "Infantes of Lara," picturing a popular in Spain and long literary overmolded story from the Middle Ages . The artist knew how to combine both series with the marketing of his paintings. As early as 1610 he had delivered a series of twelve pictures with themes from the Bataverkriege described by Tacitus , a kind of founding legend of the Netherlands, to The Hague - most of the subjects of these pictures that adorn the meeting room of the States General (today in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam ) can be found in the A series of etchings comprising 36 prints again - albeit with an almost entirely different composition. He dedicated the first edition of the 40 printed history of the “Infants of Lara” to Don Rodrigo Calderón, a wealthy Spanish diplomat who was in Antwerp the year it was published, and later a series of paintings on the same subject at Van Veen (only archived) ordered.

Albrecht VII of Austria , around 1596/97

Van Veen was also court painter to governor Albrecht VII of Austria and his wife Isabella. In 1615 he moved from Antwerp to Brussels.

Works (excerpt)

  • The distribution of herring and white bread after the liberation of Leiden, October 3, 1574 , signed and dated: “OVV f 1574 3 10”, oil on wood, 40 × 59.5 cm, Rijksmuseum , Amsterdam
  • Vita D. Thomae Aquinatis . Antwerpiae 1610 ( digitized version )

Blue tile painting

Probably the largest and most unique collection of copies based on the artist's works is located in the Franciscan monastery in Salvador da Bahia . There you can find blue tile paintings ( azulejos ) made in Portugal and a gift from the King of Portugal, John III. , are. The tile paintings follow copperplate engravings in the Emblemata Horatiana by Otto van Veen (Antwerp 1607).

  • Emblemata Horatiana with the work "Virtus Inconcussa"

  • the same emblem immortalized on tiles

literature

  • Hermann Arthur Lier :  Veen, Otto von . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, p. 791 f.
  • Justus Müller-Hofstede: On the work of Otto van Veen, 1590–1600, in: Bulletin. Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique / Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België 6, 1957, pp. 127–174.
  • Alphons Vogl, The picture cycle The Triumph of the Church by Otto van Veen, Munich 1987.
  • Elizabeth McGrath: Taking Horace at His Word: Two Abandoned Designs for Otto van Veen's Emblemata Horatiana, Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 55, 1994, pp. 115-126.
  • Anne Buschoff: The love emblematic of Otto van Veen, Bremen 2004.
  • Eckhard Leuschner: Une Histoire telle que celle-ci, qui tient un peu du Roman  : Allegory and history in Antonio Tempesta's 'Infanten von Lara' and André Félibien, in: Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft 32, 2005, pp. 203–243.
  • Thijs Weststeijn: "Otto Vaenius' Emblemata Horatiana and the azulejos in the monastery of São Francisco in Salvador de Bahía", De Zeventiende Eeuw 21 (2005), 128-145.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 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. 27

Web links

Commons : Otto van Veen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Veen, Otto van
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Otto Vaenius; Otho Vaenus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Flemish painter and draftsman
DATE OF BIRTH 1556
PLACE OF BIRTH Suffer
DATE OF DEATH 1629
Place of death Brussels