Otto van Veen

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

Life

Van Veen was born into a noble family in Leiden, which supported the Spanish King Philip II. From around 1573 he met in Liege at the humanist and painter Lampsonius Dominicus, a pupil of Lambert Lombard. Since 1576 van Veen was in Italy, where he probably came in contact with Federico Zuccaro. He then returned via Prague and Munich in 1583 in the Netherlands, where he became court painter to the governor of the Netherlands, Duke Alessandro Farnese, in Brussels (1585 ). 1584 dated his seminal self-portrait at the easel surrounded by his family ( Musée du Louvre, Paris). In 1592 he settled in Antwerp. From this time his large painting of the Last Supper comes in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Antwerp. In 1599 he completed his "Crucifixion of Saint Andrew " for the St. Andries Kerk. From about 1594 van Veen was perhaps the most important teaching of Peter Paul Rubens. Pictures of the " temptations of youth" in Stockholm (Swedish National Museum ) could be collaborative works of Rubens and Vaenius that arose before his departure for Italy in 1600. Even before the return of his master student from Italy decreased Vaenius his activities as a painter, and devoted himself more and more of the publication of emblem books and graphic series, including the Emblemata Horatiana (1607 ) and the Amorum Emblemata ( 1608). 1612 published in Antwerp two large etchings, Antonio Tempesta in Rome after him sent drawings of Vaenius had erased: the war of the Batavians against the Romans ( Bataveraufstand ) and the " Infantes of Lara ," picturing a popular in Spain and long literary over-molded incident from the Middle Ages. The artist knew how to combine both series to the marketing of his paintings. Already in 1610 he had delivered a series of twelve paintings with themes from the situation described by Tacitus Bataverkriegen, a kind of founding legend of the Netherlands, The Hague - most subjects of the meeting hall of the States-General of decorative pictures (now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam ) are found in the 36 Prints comprehensive Radierserie again - but with almost consistently altered composition. He dedicated the first edition of the comprehensive history of the 40 prints " Infantes of Lara 's" Don Rodrigo Calderón, a wealthy Spanish diplomat, who was in the year of publication in Antwerp and later ( only proven archival ) series of paintings with the same theme van Veen ordered. Van Veen was the court painter of governor Albert 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 from suffering, 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 )

Blue Tile Painting

Probably the largest and most unique collection of copies of works by the artist is in the Franciscan monastery in Salvador da Bahia. There one meets in the cloister of the monastery on blue tile painting ( azulejos ) produced in Portugal and a gift from the king of Portugal, John III. , Are. The tile paintings follow engravings in the Emblemata Horatiana of Otto van Veen (Antwerp 1607).

Perpetuates the same emblem on tiles