Talk:John de Critz
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[edit] Something out of nothing
I made this article because I'm fed up with seeing red type on de Critz's name in portrait captions. The trouble is that we know almost nothing about him, and so I have had to put whatever I can find into the article, leading to a mishmash of incidental information rather than a biography that hangs together. However, it is better than nothing; and I hope future editors will be able to find more information than I have. (Thank goodness, at least, for Walpole and Vertue, who were bothered enough to show interest in de Critz's bills, bless 'em.)
De Critz isn't thought very significant by art historians and critics, it seems. William Gaunt's book about English court painting gives him one paragraph and no illustrations. But it seems to me that someone who regularly painted nobles and the royal family should not be totally overlooked. When de Critz is mentioned anywhere, he is often called "John de Critz the Elder"; but for the life of me, I can find no trace of a "John de Critz the Younger". If you type that into Google, you get very few hits, and those that do come up are mistakes for John the Elder, I suspect. I do sometimes wonder if there were indeed two Johns, who have merged into one with time, since we have here an artist who not only lived to be ninety but was billing for the painting of barges and coaches at the age of 82. Hmm. However, I can find no information on the phantom John the Younger, and so I have called the article simply "John de Critz", pending the arrival of some scholar to say otherwise. qp10qp 04:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
- John the Younger succeeded Dad as Serjeant Painter; there was also an Emmanuel and possibly an Oliver. See Ellis Waterhouse in Ellis Waterhouse, "Painting in Britain, 1530-1790", 4th Edn, 1978, Penguin Books (now Yale History of Art series). p.77 in my edn "Painters of the 1640s uninfluenced by Van Dyck" (!) section. Johnbod 01:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
