The children's book of art (1909) (14802266023)

Identifier: childrensbookofa00conw (find matches)
Title: The children's book of art
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Conway, Agnes Ethel Conway, Martin, Sir
Subjects: Art
Publisher: London : Adam and Charles Black
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library



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ith diplomacy. In his life as in his art he was exuberant. Anabsurd anecdote of the time is good enough toshow that. Some people, who went to visit himin his studio at Antwerp, wrote afterwards thatthey found him hard at work at a picture, whilstat the same time he was dictating a letter, and someone else was reading aloud a Latin work. Whenthe visitors arrived he answered all their questionswithout leaving off any of those three occupations !We must not all hope to match Rubens. Rubenss great ceremonial paintings, containingnumerous figures and commemorating historicalscenes in honour of his Royal patrons, were ex-ecuted by his own hands, or by the hands hetaught and guided, with great skill and speed.He painted also beautiful portraits of his wifeand family, and pictures of his own medievalcastle, which he restored and inhabited during thelast years of his life, with views of the countrystretching out in all directions. He liked a com-fortable life and comfortable-looking people. He
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S u u — VAN DYCK 145 painted his own wives as often as Rembrandtpainted Saskia; both were plump enough tomake our memories recur with pleasure to theslenderer figures preferred by Botticelli and thepainters of his school. To accomplish the great mass of historic, sym-bolic, and ceremonial painting that still crowds thewalls of the galleries of Europe, Rubens neededmany assistants and pupils, but only one of them,Van Dyck, rose to the highest rank as a painter. He was a Fleming by birth, and worked in thestudio at Antwerp for several years as an assistantof Rubens; then he went to Italy to learn fromthe great pictures of the Italian Renaissance, as somany Northern artists wished to do. It has beensaid that the works of Titian influenced his youth-ful mind the most. Van Dyck spent three years inGenoa, where he was employed by those foremostin its life to paint their portraits. Many of thesesuperb canvases have been dispersed to enrich thegalleries of both hemispheres, public