Adriaen van de Venne

Paintings

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

Biography
Fishing for Souls (Zielenvisserij), 1614, a satirical allegory of Protestant-Catholic struggles for souls during the Dutch Revolt (Rijksmuseum)
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).

According to Houbraken he learned Latin in Leiden. He learned to paint from the master goldsmith and painter Simon de Valk, and afterwards learned engraving from Jeronimus van Diest, a good painter of grisailles.[1][2] He then moved to Middelburg in 1614 where he was influenced by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pieter Brueghel the Elder. His political painting Fishers of men, 1614, is an ironic commentary on the Catholic and Protestant troubles of the Eighty Years War that split the border between the Northern from the Southern Netherlands along the Schelde river, very close to his home in Middleburg. When he painted this picture, the Twelve Years' Truce was in effect since 1609. The influence of Jan Brueghel the Elder is particularly evident in this allegory of religious fanaticism.[3]

From 1620 until his death van de Venne made many grisailles and engravings of genre subjects, featuring peasants, beggars, thieves and fools as illustrations of current proverbs and sayings, mostly by Jacob Cats.[4] This work made him famous during his lifetime, and remained popular throughout the 18th century after his death.

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 Confrerie Pictura, a group bent on improving the independent status and social position of the artist in Dutch society by encouraging a more academic approach to the arts.

Notes

1. ^ Cornelis de Bie, Het gulden cabinet 1661;
2. ^ (Dutch) Adriaan van de Venne biography in De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen (1718) by Arnold Houbraken, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
3. ^ 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.
4. ^ Noted in the preface by K. Porteman to Annelies Plokker, Adriaen Pietersz. Van de Venne (1589-1662), de grisailles met spreukbanden (1984).

* Laurens J. Bol, series of articles on van de Venne in Tableau, 1982-84.
* Filippo Baldinucci's Artists in biographies by Filippo Baldinucci, 1610–1670, p. 198 Google books

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