Hendrick Cornelisz. Vroom

Hendrick ( Cornelisz. ) Vroom (* about 1563 in Haarlem, † 1640 ) was a Dutch painter and draftsman, and is considered the founder of European marine painting.

Family

Hendrick Vroom was the son of Cornelis Hendricksz. Vroom the Elder born into a family of artists. His father was a sculptor and Fayencemaler and uncle Frederick Hendricksz. I. Vroom city architect in Gdansk. The three sons of Hendrick Vroom and one of his grandsons later worked also as a painter, with his son Cornelis Vroom had this remarkable success.

Life

First of Hendrick Vroom began training as Fayencemaler with relatives of his mother in Delft. Vroom's contemporary Karel van Mander reports of disagreements with the family, which led the young artist to leave the house. He traveled through Spain to Italy, where he stayed in Rome and Florence and worked as Fayencemaler for church dignitaries. From 1585 to 1587 belonged to Cardinal Ferdinando de 'Medici, later Grand Duke of Tuscany, to his sponsors. He was interested in seafaring client has probably been the inspiration for Vroom's turn to marine painting. The earliest Hendrick Vroom ascribed seascapes are now in the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. His friendship with the landscape painter Paul Bril had no artistic influence on Vroom, although he in 1590 on his return to Haarlem, in France anfertigte some landscape drawings of the Rhone Valley. In the same year Vroom married and visited his uncle in Gdansk. The following voyage to Portugal, he lived as a castaway and produced by this experience a series of images, which he sold locally. On his final return to Haarlem Vroom was already an internationally respected artist. Among his students Simon de Vlieger Jan Porcellis and Hans Goderis.

Work

Hendrick Vroom regarded as the founder of European marine painting, although already had painted seascapes artist before him. However, he was the first painter to completely devoted to this topic and established as an independent genre. His most important works include the designs to ten tapestries, which gave Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham with him in order. This was when Lord Admiral Commander in Chief of the British fleet, and the cycle of paintings should represent the victory of the English fleet over the Spanish Armada in 1588. The tapestries were worked 1592-1595 in Brussels and later hung in the British Parliament, until they were destroyed by fire in 1854 the building. There are however made ​​according to the original engravings from the 18th century. Further orders for decorative battle pictures by the Dutch and English fleet followed, with detailed pictures of the ships were in the foreground. His often large-format paintings often depict historical events, such as the arrival of Frederick V of the Palatinate in Vlissingen. The detailed representation of the ships stands opposite the imaginative play of events. In addition to individual ship portraits include views of entire fleets and prosperous ports to his popular works. At a time when the Netherlands and England ascended to leading maritime nations, its navy images of patriotic self-representation of clients served.

Gallery

Exit of the East Indiaman

The Port of Amsterdam

The battle in Haarlem Sea

Dutch ship rams Spanish galley off the Flemish Coast in October 1602

The Battle of Gibraltar

Dutch boat and fishing boat in the fresh breeze

Merchant ships sailing towards the east