Flemish painter, engraver, draughtsman and tapestryGLOSSARYAs historical climatologists have not shown that Renaissance Italian winters and springs were warmer than they are now, it is puzzling that Italy did not fabricate tapestries to decorate and draught-proof the stony rooms of its palaces until 1545, when Cosimo I set up a manufactory in Florence. To hardiness or stinginess (tapestry was by far the most expensive form of wall decoration) we owe the existence of such secular frescoed decorative schemes as the labours of the months in the castle at Trent (c. 1407), the Arthurian scenes of Pisanello and the courtly ones of Mantegna in the Ducal Palace of Mantua, the delicious calendar fantasies of Cossa and others in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara - and, doubtless, many others that await liberation from whitewash or later panelling. These are all in situations where northern patrons would have used tapestries. These were imported, chiefly from Flanders, into Italy. The influence of their hunting and ceremonial scenes in particular registered on Italian 'gothic' painting or illumination and stained glass, and in literature. But the Italians did not make them. The most famous of all 'Italian' tapestries, those for the Sistine Chapel designed by Raphael, were made in Brussels from the full-scale coloured patterns, or cartoons, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Nor is it clear whether imported tapestries were used habitually or simply to add grandeur to special occasions. Even when Cosimo's manufactory was in being, and working from designs by court artists of the calibre of Bronzino, Salviati and Allori, his own headquarters, the Palace of the Signoria (now the Palazzo Vecchio), was being decorated with frescoes. The subject is underexplored. designer active in Brussels. He specialized in landscape and city views. He is now mainly known for his tapestry designs and for his drawings and prints documenting the devastating effect on the civil buildings caused by the Bombardment of Brussels by French troops in 1695.
Augustin Coppens was youngest son of the landscape painter Frans Coppens in Brussels. He is believed to have trained with Jean-François Millet. After the Bombardment of Brussels he documented the destruction of his hometown. He engraved 12 of the drawings, some with the help of his friend Richard van Orley. The plates were published the same year in Brussels under the title Perspectives des Ruines de la Ville de Bruxelles.
Augustin Coppens joined the Brussels GuildGLOSSARYAn association of the masters of a particular craft, trade or profession (painters, goldsmiths, surgeons, and so on) set up to protect its members' rights and interests. Such guilds existed in virtually every European city in the 16th century. The guild also monitored standards of work, acted as a court for those who brought their trade into disrepute, and provided assistance to members in need. of Saint Luke in 1698. By his account he had already commenced designing tapestries and cartoons before he joined the Guild. He was very productive as a tapestry designer working on commissions from workshops in Brussels, Antwerp and Oudenaarde.
Augustin Coppens specialized in city views, landscapes and portraits. He worked in various mediums including painting, etching, drawing and tapestry design. He is mainly known for his tapestry designs and drawings. He worked as a designer of many tapestry series for workshops in the leading tapestry manufacturing centres in Flanders. He typically collaborated on these designs with specialist history painters. Coppens would take responsibility for the landscapes in the cartoonGLOSSARYA full-scale preparatory drawing for a painting, tapestry, or fresco. In fresco painting, the design was transferred to the wall by making small holes along the contour lines and then powdering them with charcoal in order to leave an outline on the surface to be painted. In the 19th centurry designs submitted in a competition for frescos in the Houses of Parliament in London were parodied in the magazine Punch. From this the word has acquired its most common meaning today - a humorous drawing or parody. designs. He worked with many of the leading tapestry designers of his time including Victor Honoré Janssens, Jan van Orley, Lodewijk van Schoor and Zeger Jacob van Helmont.
In the early 1700s Coppens and Jan van Orley became the leading team of tapestry designers for the Reydams - Leyniers tapestry workshop in Brussels. Coppens and Jan van Orley created a neo-BaroqueGLOSSARYThe period in art history from about 1600 to about 1750. In this sense the term covers a wide range of styles and artists. In painting and sculpture there were three main forms of Baroque: (1) sumptuous display, a style associated with the Catholic Counter Reformation and the absolutist courts of Europe (Bernini, Rubens); (2) dramatic realism (Caravaggio); and (3) everyday realism, a development seen in particular in Holland (Rembrandt, Vermeer). In architecture, there was an emphasis on expressiveness and grandeur, achieved through scale, the dramatic use of light and shadow, and increasingly elaborate decoration. In a more limited sense the term Baroque often refers to the first of these categories. The development of the Baroque reflects the period's religious tensions (Catholic versus Protestant); a new and more expansive world view based on science and exploration; and the growth of absolutist monarchies. style for the Brussels workshops.
