Flemish painter. His style was developed in Rome, where he worked from 1602 to 1608, taught by, among others, the little-known Jacob de Haze (1575-1634). Van Loon was again in Rome in 1617 and 1628; during this last visit he executed a St Anne (untraced) for Santa Maria dell'Anima, the parish church of the German nation (which included the Netherlanders). Apart from these interludes, he was active mainly in Brussels and after c. 1639 also in Leuven.
In Brussels he benefited from the patronage of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella, through whom in 1613 he was commissioned to make a cycle of paintings on the Life of the Virgin for the church of the Discalced CarmelitesGLOSSARY"Brothers of Our Blessed Lady of Mount Carmel", a Roman Catholic order of contemplative mendicant friars. Founded in Palestine in the 12th century, the Carmelites were originally hermits. In the 13th century the order was refounded as an order resembling the Dominicans and Franciscans. An order of Carmelite sisters was founded in the 15th century; in the 16th century reforms introduced by St. Teresa of Ávila led to the creation of the Barefoot (Discalced) Carmelites., which had been built on the Archduke's initiative. In 1620 van Loon produced three paintings, two of them representing St Hubert, for the archducal hunting lodge at Tervuren (now Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts). Between 1623 and 1628, and again in 1632, he painted seven monumental scenes from the Life of the Virgin for the pilgrims' church founded by the Archdukes at Scherpenheuvel (in situ). These commissions involved close collaboration with the court architect, Wenceslas Cobergher.
Van Loon spent his later life in the university town of Leuven, where he had long-standing contacts stemming from his friendship with the humanist scholar Erycius Puteanus (d. 1625), whose 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). he painted.
