Adriaen van de Velde
1636–1672 · Dutch Republic · Dutch Italianate painters, Baroque, Golden Age painting
The story
If you look at a serene Dutch landscape from the 1660s by Hobbema or Jacob van Ruisdael and notice the little herdsman, the cattle, the figures resting by a road, there is a fair chance another man painted them. Adriaen van de Velde was the specialist the great landscapists called in to populate their scenes.
He was born into the leading marine-painting family of the Dutch Republic. His father and brother, both named Willem van de Velde, spent their lives drawing warships and sea battles. Adriaen wanted no part of it and trained instead under Jan Wynants, a landscape painter, learning to render sheep, goats and cattle in a clear silvery light. He became one of the Dutch Italianate painters, setting Dutch pastures under a warm southern sun he had likely never seen in person.
His career lasted barely two decades. Signed paintings survive from almost every year between 1654 and 1671, and then he died in Amsterdam early in 1672, only 35 years old.
