JONSON VAN CEULEN, Cornelius the Elder

Anglo-Flemish portraitGLOSSARYThe Roman portrait bust survived in the form of life-sized reliquaries of saints, but it was in 15th century Florence that the individual features and character of a contemporary sitter were accurately recorded by sculptors such as Donatello, Desiderio da Settignano, Mino da Fiesole and the Rossellino. A similar degree of realism occurs in 15th century tomb sculpture. The equestrian portrait, based on antique statues such as the Marcus Aurelius monument (Rome, Campidoglio), was revived in the 14th century. Two examples in fresco are Simone Martini's Guidoriccio (c. 1328; Siena, Palazzo Pubblico) and the posthumous portrait of Sir John Hawkwood (1436; Florence, Cathedral) by Uccello, which gives the illusion of a 3-dimensional statue seen from below. The Venetian Republic ordered imposing monuments from Donatello (1447; Gattarnelata, Padua) and Verrocchio (14799; Colleoni, Venice), whilst other statesmen ordered their own images to be erected in public places, directly relating themselves to the military heroes of ancient Rome. Another form of political portraiture derived from antiquity was the commemorative portrait medal designed by artists such as Pisanello. The carved or painted profile portrait became popular in the 1450s. The realism of the clear, flattened image, painted under the influence of Flemish examples by the Pollaiuolo brothers, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, was superseded by the three-quarter and frontal portrait, psychologically more complex, such as Leonardo's enigmatic Mona Lisa (Paris, Louvre) with her momentary smile or Andrea del Sarto's arresting Portrait of a Man (London, National Gallery). The 16th century portrait became generalized, Lotto's Andrea Odoni (1527; Royal Collection) being an idealized concept of a collector rather than an individual. Group portraits, decorating whole rooms, include the narrative scenes of the Gonzaga court painted by Mantegna (completed 1474; Mantua, Palazzo Ducale) and the elaborate schemes commissioned by the Farnese family in Rome from Vasari (1546; Palazzo della Cancelleria) and Salviati (after 1553; Palazzo Farnese). Portraits were also incorporated into religious narratives, as in Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle painted for Giovanni Tornabuoni in S. Maria Novella, Florence (1486-90). painter born in London of Flemish parents (also called Cornelis Johnson or Janssen van Ceulen). He was the son of Cornelis Jonson of Antwerp and Jane Le Grand, who had fled to London to escape religious persecution. His grandfather Peter Jansen originally came from Cologne, so the family often used the name Jonson van Ceulen. Cornelis Jonson probably trained as a painter in the northern Netherlands, returning to London about 1618, where he worked for the next 25 years as a portrait painter, and had an extensive practice. His signed or monogrammed portraits number several hundred; he is the first English-born painter known to have made so many. Anthony van Dyck's dazzling manner influenced him, but Jonson's style remained more straightforward, a somewhat conservative approach that appealed to his patrons in the higher, but not the highest, social circles.

Jonson also painted miniatures in oil on copper, some of which were reduced copies of larger paintings. He was at his best when working on a fairly small scale, showing a sensitive gift for characterization. He painted in a straightforward but sensitive Dutch manner. After 1632 he came under van Dyck's influence, but in Holland he adopted a more Dutch manner, closer to that of Miereveld.

In 1622 he married Elizabeth Beck [Beek, Beke] of Colchester, a woman of Dutch origin who bore him two sons. The couple are portrayed with their son, Cornelis Jonson van Ceulen the Younger, in a portrait by Adriaen Hanneman (c. 1637; Enschede, Rijksmuseum Twenthe).

When the English Civil War began in 1643, Jansen moved to the northern Netherlands, where he helped to popularize van Dyck's airy, liquid touch. He stopped first in Middelburg and later in Amsterdam, The Hague, and finally Utrecht. His half-length and three-quarter-length portraits were notable for their elegance and for his characteristically precise rendering of his sitter's features and clothing.