A precocious talent: Anton Van Dyck

From November 2012 to March 2013 the Prado Museum is presenting one large exhibition: "The Young Van Dyck". It focuses exclusively on his early period and includes 50 paintings and 42 drawings painted when Van Dyck was between the ages of 18 and 21. During these years the prolific painter produced around 160 paintings, of which the Prado holds the most important collection.

Van Dyck was born in Antwerp in 1599 and began his apprenticeship in 1609, when he was 10, in the workshop of Hendrick van Balen, one of the most famous Flemish painters of that time. He later worked in the studio of Rubens, his mentor, whose influence is seen in many of the works presented in this exhibition. Rubens was very highly regarded as the leading painter of the Netherlands.

The exhibition contains small or medium-size drawings and portraits; in fact, it opens with a self-portrait painted when the artist was fifteen. The exhibition also features large-format paintings which reflect the precocious talent and strong personality of Van Dyck.

In his earliest drawings and paintings Van Dyck shows a great interest in learning about human and animal anatomy. An example of this is one of his drawings, "Studies of a man on horseback and three horses' heads", showing some excellent sketches of horses' heads.
 

Although his paintings showed the clear influence of Rubens, he tried to mark a difference by using a strong personal manner. His rendering of anatomy is notable in his early paintings, where we can observe the spontaneous creativity visible in the textures and a taste for rough physical types and un-idealized figures.

Portraits are a very important part of Van Dyck's repertoire. The dark backgrounds and clothing force us to focus our attention on faces and hands, which are not idealized and show the signs of age. Rubens' influence can be seen in the roundness of the figures themselves.

Although Van Dyck could imitate Rubens' style perfectly, he sought in all his youthful production a continuous experimentation, manifested in his frequent changes of style.

At the end of this phase, while he was working for Rubens and developing his own version of the master’s style, he was also developing a more appropriate way of painting. This is indicated by a series of works containing figures of great originality that give the impression of lighter brushstrokes and more stylized forms. The exhibition finishes with three portraits of subjects from the English court and another of Rubens' wife, which was a gift for his mentor when he was already close to leaving his master and setting up his own workshop.

The continuing search for a personal style and the quality of his works, especially his portraits, made Van Dyck one of the most influential artists in the history of European art. It is surprising that an artist whose style was so close to Rubens' way of painting could get so far. But, had he only produced the works of his early period, Van Dyck would still be considered one of the most important painters of the 17th century.

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