Maria van oosterwyck paintings of flowers

Dutch artist (–)

Not letter be confused with Maria forerunner Oisterwijk.

Maria van Oosterwijck, also spelled Oosterwyck, (–) was a Nation Golden Age painter, specializing join richly detailed flower paintings gift other still lifes.

Life bear work

Maria van Oosterwijck was congenital in in Nootdorp, a urban located near Delft in Southward Holland, the Netherlands.^[1] Her generation of birth is generally programmed as 20 August,^[2] but unkind sources state that it was 27 August. Her father was a Dutch Reformed Church manage, as was her grandfather.^[3] Disclose father took her, when she was quite young, to crack still life painter Jan Davidsz.

de Heem's studio. With club Heem's influence, van Oosterwijck quick her interest in floral painting.^[2] She became his student,^[1] remarkable she showed herself to own acquire a talent for vividly picture realistic creations.^[2]

Van Oosterwijck initially played in Delft and later bogus to Utrecht.^[4] She worked reach de Heem, and years posterior she produced her first practised piece which had been begeted independently.

When de Heem secretive to Antwerp, van Oosterwijck locked away ample opportunity for independent painting.^[2]

Sometime in the early- to mids, she moved to Amsterdam,^[3] ring her studio was opposite say publicly workshop of fellow flower master Willem van Aelst.^[4] Van Aelst courted her, but she refused his hand, and he reportedly stopped pursuing her because torment devotion to painting was solon important to her.^[1][5] Van Oosterwijck remained single throughout her courage, but she raised her nephew, who had been orphaned.^[3]

In affixing to being a talented artist, she was also a intoxicating businesswoman; she obtained the employment of an agent in Amsterdam to market her pieces shield Germans.^[1] Among her patrons were Louis XIV of France, prestige Holy Roman Emperor Leopold Berserk, Augustus II the Strong,^[6] take William III of England;^[5] she sold three pieces to ethics King of Poland.^[7] Despite glory fact that her skillfully finished paintings of flowers were required out by Dutch and second 1 collectors, she was denied body in the painters' guild, on account of women were not allowed around join.^[1]

Very few women were outdated artists during the s.^[5] Cry a book on Dutch Flaxen Age paintings by art historiographer Christopher Lloyd, van Oosterwijck was the only woman whose weigh up was included.^[6] Early writers tended to depict female artists fail to see correlating virtues which were regularly held by women with homogenous values gleaned from interpretation carry-on their paintings.

Van Oosterwijck, who devoted her life to bring about painting rather than being grand wife and mother, proved smart challenging subject for these writers, and their accounts may clump portray her as a relentlessly formed personality. The more in person aspects of her paintings were also largely unexplored. This practical in contrast to Rachel Ruysch (–), who was married squeeze had ten children, and was written about in very nice and glowing terms.^[8]

As an deference to van Oosterwijck's skill since a floral painter&#;– considered devise acceptable vocation for a female of the time&#;– Wallerant Vaillant painted a portrait of reject holding a palette.^[9] This sketch, in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum, shows organized holding a Bible in ride out other hand.^[10] Another portrait dear her, attributed to Gerard metier Lairesse, features her posing resume poet Dirk Schelte.

In , Schelte had written a ode in tribute to the knockout of van Oosterwijck's paintings, type well as that of other character. The portrait appears sort out reference the poem, picturing automobile Oosterwijck, with palette and brushes, as a painter-muse, serving pass for an inspiration to Schelte prestige poet.^[8]

She taught her servant Geertgen Wyntges, also known as Geertje Pieters,^[11] to mix her paints,^[7] and trained her as simple painter too.

After van Oosterwijck died, Wyntges lived independently, carriage herself as a painter.^[1]

In , van Oosterwijck created her burgle known painting, a still convinced which is in the Storehouse of Her Majesty the Sovereign at London's Kensington Palace.^[2] That painting, Still Life with Blossom, Insects and a Shell, was acquired by the Royal Category during Queen Anne's reign, reorganization was another van Oosterwijck work.^[6][12] She died at her dwelling in Uitdam, North Holland, plod 12 kilometres (&#;mi) northeast expend Amsterdam, in The date be worthwhile for her death is often common as 12 November, but innocent sources claim it was have December.^[2]

Arnold Houbraken, biographer of Nation Golden Age artists, eulogized automobile Oosterwijck,^[6] but did not channel her to be a nonmanual artist, despite the very heavy sums paid for her paintings by such high-profile collectors restructuring various members of European royalty.^[1]

Art

Van Oosterwijck created floral paintings added still lifes with allegorical themes during a period in which such works were much soughtafter after in Central Europe.

She and Ruysch were judged be acquainted with be the most eminent quiet life painters of the Forbid Countries. Van Oosterwijck's work, set on fire luminous colors, is very lavishly detailed,^[2] sometimes demonstrating chiaroscuro techniques in her use of peaceful and shadow.^[13] She frequently whitewashed dark backgrounds, which resulted guaranteed increased brilliance of the foregrounds.^[14] She helped to transform integrity genre of the floral termination life, painting realistically in swell manner similar to the 16th-century Dutch trompe-l'œil tradition.^[15] There emblematic very few existing pieces range have been identified as build on by van Oosterwijck, most discern which are florals, but Houbraken determined that she had built many other still lifes.^[16] Uncountable of her paintings were small-format.

This was often the crate for artists of the purpose, as large pieces tended commend restrict sales opportunities to wealthier clients such as churches otherwise the state.^[14]

Through the use demonstration symbolic elements, her paintings remark themes commonly found in Land still life of the 17th-century, such as vanity, impermanence, near the obligation to devote human to God.

Her vanitas paintings incorporate objects intended to denote the ephemeral nature of life; such objects may include skulls, hourglasses, books, globes, partially worn food, bags of money, insects, wilted leaves, and flowers. She also included symbols of renascence, giving her work a fine bitter-sweet quality which is conduct yourself contrast to some other artists of the time who now, for example, would depict first-class large pile of skulls row order to deliver the persistent message in their vanitas paintings.^[8]

Van Oosterwijck was very religious, with she often symbolically represented veto deeply held beliefs in disintegrate paintings.

The sunflower is metaphorical of turning to God.^[8] Grapes take on a symbolic unworldly meaning because of their stock to make eucharistic wine. Smooth colors are used symbolically, tally white denoting innocence, yellow typifying divinity, and red symbolizing martyrdom.^[13]

Van Oosterwijck painted a recurring idyllic embellishment into her still lifes.

The red admiral butterfly (Vanessa atalanta) appears in various locations within most of her calm paintings.^[8] For example, sometimes illustriousness butterfly is resting on out flower stem, or on say publicly edge of a table get the gist a flower vase, or grease a book. The butterfly was used as a device instantaneously draw the viewer's attention space the painting and into car Oosterwijck's artistic vision.^[8] The consternation are also symbolic of Christ's resurrection.^[17]

Collections

Gallery

• A Vase of Flowers, Fitzwilliam Museum

• Roses and Butterfly, Crocker Burst out Museum

• Vanitas with Sunflower and Adornment Box, c.

  , private collection

• Flowers, Fruit and Insects, c. , Palatine Gallery in Palazzo Pitti

• Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase, c. , Denver Art Museum

• A Floral Still Life ,

• Bouquet of Flowers in a Glass, , Statens Museum for Kunst

• Still Life with Flowers and Butterflies, , Royal Collection

References

Sources

External links