Andries van Eertvelt
1590-1652
Andries van Eertvelt was a Flemish Baroque painter, active in his native Antwerp. He specialized in battle scenes, marine painting and stormy seascapes.
Eertvelt entered Antwerp’s Guild of St Luke in 1609. He was one of the earliest Flemish artists to paint seascapes. After the death of his first wife in 1627 he traveled to Genoa where he worked with Cornelis de Wael. In Italy, his originally very dark palette brightened.
Back home his reputation was considerable. He sat for Van Dyck in 1632 (the portrait is now in Schaezlerpalast, Augsburg), and the poet Cornelis de Bie praised him in his verse.
The battle scenes and stormy seascapes that became his speciality are unusually crowded and dramatic in their representation of naval engagements. They can also be very large. Freely applied, sketchy brushstrokes intensify the impression of movement and action, and contrasts of light and darkness are used to convey atmospheric effects.
He painted imaginary battles with Barbary galleys, as well as such historic actions as ‘The Battle of Lepanto’ and the more recent battle of the Spanish Fleet with Dutch Ships in May 1573 during the ‘Siege of Haarlem’. His painting showing the ‘Return to Amsterdam of the Second Expedition to the East Indies, 19 July 1599′ is a copy after Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom but the suggestion that Van Eertvelt was his pupil seems unfounded, despite Vroom’s influence on him.
