Adriaen van de Venne

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Fishers of Men (Zielenvisserij), 1614, a satirical allegory of Protestant-Catholic struggles for souls. in the Dutch Revolt (Rijksmuseum)
Fishers of Men (Zielenvisserij), 1614, a satirical allegory of Protestant-Catholic struggles for souls. in the Dutch Revolt (Rijksmuseum)

Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne (1589, DelftNov 12, 1662, The Hague) was a versatile Dutch Baroque painter of allegories, genre subjects and portraits, as well as a miniaturist, book-illustrator and designer of political satires and a versifier.

He went to Leiden to learn to paint,[1] then lived in Middelburg from 1614 and was influenced by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. His skeptical commentary on the "fishers of men", Catholic and Protestant alike, of 1614 (illustration) is at the Rijksmuseum. An ironic allegory of the peacefire in effect since 1609, the Twelve Years' Truce, of 1616, is at the Musée du Louvre. The influence of Jan Brueghel the Elder is particularly evident in boths panels.[2]

From 1620 until his death van de Venne executed many more grisailles of genre subjects, featuring peasants, beggars, thieves and fools (illustration, left) and illustrating current proverbs and sayings, as jokes and moral anecdotes, with a harsh and critical eye.[3]

Grisaille painting inscribed Al te bot!, "Altogether too stupid!": a peasant woman gets her wits sharpened on the knife-grinder's whetstone as other are drawn in by the miracle cure (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille).
Grisaille painting inscribed Al te bot!, "Altogether too stupid!": a peasant woman gets her wits sharpened on the knife-grinder's whetstone as other are drawn in by the miracle cure (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lille).

Van de Venne also worked as a book illustrator and print designer. Van de Venne moved to The Hague and joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1625, taking the position of dean in 1637. He was a founding member of Pictura, a group bent on improving the independent status and social position of the artist in Dutch society.

His self-portrait was engraved by Wenceslas Hollar.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Cornelis de Bie, Het gulden cabinet 1661;
  2. ^ Noted, for instance, by Martin Royalton-Kisch, reviewing Adriaen Pietersz. Van de Venne (1589-1662), de grisailles met spreukbanden by Annelies Plokker (Leuven 1982), in The Burlington Magazine 128, No. 995 (February 1986:152.
  3. ^ Noted in the preface by K. Porteman to Annelies Plokker, Adriaen Pietersz. Van de Venne (1589-1662), de grisailles met spreukbanden (1984.
  • Bol, Laurens J., series of articles on van de Venne in Tableau, 1982-84.

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