Word: dyck
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King Charles I of England had several court painters, not all equally lucky. Anthony van Dyck was the luckiest of all. But how could one envy, say, Richard Gibson? He was not only a miniaturist but a dwarf who at a court banquet had to skip from a pie and walk the length of the table bearing portraits of the King and Queen he had copied after Van Dyck on playing cards. It cannot have been fun to be this small, if distinct, talent, awaiting his cue in a dark pastry coffin. But to be Van Dyck himself? A different...
...child prodigy at 14, a full professional by his early 20s and dead at 42, Van Dyck had one of those careers that is conventionally dubbed meteoric -- except that it did not burn out. His name has lasted three centuries. Which is not to say that he has altogether received his due. In a curious way, Van Dyck remains a somewhat underrated artist, as anyone might if he had to be constantly compared with Rubens, his master, and Titian, his even greater model. Especially, he is not well known to the American public, though some of his finest paintings...
...Dyck covered a lot of territory in his short life. He was Rubens' most gifted assistant in Antwerp, and his early ability to reproduce the style of his idol has led to prolonged squabbles over the attribution of some of his early paintings. What they leave no doubt of is Van Dyck's precocity, the speed with which he metabolized the lessons of his master. In 1620, when he was only 21, he was hired by King James I as a court painter in London. A year later he was in Genoa, painting its nobles and dignitaries, making study trips...
...illustrates the moment when the sorceress Armida falls in love with the wandering Christian knight Rinaldo on glimpsing his sleeping face. The sensuous color, the glow of flesh and even the eyeline of the scene -- shot, as it were, from slightly below -- recall the Titians and Veroneses that Van Dyck had avidly studied in Venice seven years before; the flutter of Armida's red cloak, a discreet image of erotic turmoil, recalls the love god's cloak in Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne...
ANTHONY VAN DYCK, National Gallery of Art, Washington. Child prodigy, assistant to Rubens, Van Dyck rose to become a major artistic force in 17th century Europe and a potent influence on painters in the 18th century and beyond. Here are more than 100 examples of his bold virtuosity in portraits and religious and mythological scenes. Through...