Hendrick Goltzius

HendrickTemplate:Efn Goltzius (Template:IPA, Template:IPA; born Goltz; January or February 1558 – 1 January 1617) was a German-born Dutch printmaker, draftsman, and painter. He was the leading Dutch engraver of the early Baroque period, or Northern Mannerism, lauded for his sophisticated technique, technical mastership and "exuberance" of his compositions. According to A. Hyatt Mayor, Goltzius "was the last professional engraver who drew with the authority of a good painter and the last who invented many pictures for others to copy".<ref>Mayor (1971), no. 420</ref> In the middle of his life he also began to produce paintings.

Biography

File:Goltzius's right Hand.jpg

Goltzius's drawing of his right hand, collection Teylers Museum Haarlem.

File:Lot en zijn dochters Rijksmuseum SK-A-4866.jpeg

Lot and his Daughters (1616) in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.

File:Allegorische voorstelling van het werk en de vlijt.jpg

Print reflecting an allegoric representation of work and diligence.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Goltzius was born near Viersen in Bracht or Millebrecht, a village then in the Duchy of Julich, now in the municipality Brüggen in North Rhine-Westphalia. His family moved to Duisburg when he was 3 years old. After studying painting on glass for some years under his father, he learned engraving from the Dutch polymath Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert, who then lived in Cleves. In 1577 he moved with Coornhert to Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, where he remained based for the rest of his life. In the same town, he was also employed by Philip Galle to engrave a set of prints of the history of Lucretia.

Goltzius had a malformed right hand from a fire when he was a baby (his drawing of it is at right), which turned out to be especially well-suited to holding the burin; "by being forced to draw with the large muscles of his arm and shoulder, he mastered a commanding swing of the line".<ref>Mayor (1971), no. 418. Other writers take his friend and biographer Karel van Mander's account to mean that he engraved with his right hand and drew with his left. See Template:Cite book</ref>

In the 1580s, Goltzius with his friends van Mander and the painter Cornelis van Haarlem, founded an art academy in Haarlem in emulation of those in France and Bologna, where the human figure could be studied from life and artists could meet to discuss both practice and aesthetics.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

At the age of 21, Goltzius married a widow eight or nine years his senior. Her money enabled him to establish an independent business at Haarlem, but the marriage itself was unhappy. Feeling that the unpleasant atmosphere at home had affected his health, he found it advisable in 1590 to make a tour through Germany to Italy, where he acquired an intense admiration for the works of Michelangelo. He returned to Haarlem in August 1591, considerably improved in health, and worked there until his death.Template:Sfn

His portraits, though mostly miniatures, are masterpieces of their kind, both on account of their exquisite finish and as fine studies of individual characters. Of his larger heads, his life-size self-portrait is probably the most striking example.Template:Sfn

Goltzius brought to an unprecedented level the use of the "swelling line", where the burin is manipulated to make lines thicker or thinner to create a tonal effect from a distance. He also was a pioneer of the "dot and lozenge" technique, where dots are placed in the middle of lozenge-shaped spaces created by cross-hatching to further refine tonal shading.

Hollstein credits 388 prints to him, with a further 574 by other printmakers after his designs.

In his command of the burin, Goltzius is said to rival Dürer.Template:Sfn He made engravings of Bartholomeus Spranger's paintings, thus increasing the fame of the latter – and his own. Goltzius began painting at the age of forty-two; some of his paintings can be found in Vienna. He also executed a few chiaroscuro woodcuts. He was the stepfather of the engraver Jacob Matham. He died, aged 58, in Haarlem.

Public collections

Most major print rooms will have a group of Goltzius's many engravings.

• Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Rijksmuseum Amsterdam<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Blanton Museum of Art, Austin<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Philadelphia Museum of Art<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• British Museum, London<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Gallery

• Horatius Cocles, from The Roman Heroes, 1586
  Horatius Cocles, from The Roman Heroes, 1586
• Icarus (1588) from the series The four disgracers
  Icarus (1588) from the series The four disgracers
• Engraving of the Farnese Hercules, Template:Circa
  Engraving of the Farnese Hercules, Template:Circa
• Template:Lang (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze), 1600–03, Philadelphia Museum of Art
  Template:Lang (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze), 1600–03, Philadelphia Museum of Art
• Portrait of the Shell Collector Jan Govertsen van der Aer, 1603, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
  Portrait of the Shell Collector Jan Govertsen van der Aer, 1603, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
• Jupiter and Antiope, 1612, National Gallery, London
  Jupiter and Antiope, 1612, National Gallery, London
• The Fall of Man, 1616, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
  The Fall of Man, 1616, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Hercules Killing Cacus, a chiaroscuro woodcut, 1588
  Hercules Killing Cacus, a chiaroscuro woodcut, 1588
• Divine Mother of God, and the faithful care of Joseph. All [things] feed who feeds all, 1589, pen and black ink on laid paper
  Divine Mother of God, and the faithful care of Joseph. All [things] feed who feeds all, 1589, pen and black ink on laid paper
• Illustration of a foxglove plant
  A Foxglove in Bloom, 1592, pen and brown ink on laid paper.
• The Great Hercules, 1589
  The Great Hercules, 1589

Sources

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• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite journal

Further reading

• Template:Cite book (see index).
• Template:Cite book

External links

• Template:Cite web
• Template:Cite web
• Template:Cite web
• Template:Cite web
• Hendrick Goltzius, Dutch Master (1558–1617): Drawings, Prints, and Paintings 2003 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; catalog by Huigen Leeflang and Ger Luijten ISBN 978-9-040-08794-3