RYCKAERT, Maerten

Flemish painter, descendant of a dynasty of Antwerp painters: he was the son of David Ryckaert the Elder and uncle of the prolific genreGLOSSARYIn a broad sense, the term is used to mean a particular branch or category of art; landscape and portraiture, for example, are genres of painting, and the essay and the short story are genres of literature. painter David Ryckaert the Younger. He received his initialGLOSSARYthe first letter of the text in medieval manuscripts and early printed books, made to stand out emphatically by its colour, size, and ornamentation. training from his father and later from the landscape painter Tobias Verhaeght, who was also responsible for the training of the landscape painter Joos de Momper. Although it has often been asserted that Ryckaert travelled to Italy around 1605-10, no such trip is documented. The assumption that he journeyed south would appear to come from his emulation of the works of Paul Bril, who himself had worked in Italy throughout his long and prolific life. Ryckaert made numerous paintings after Bril's designs from after circa 1615. These works by Bril were imported from Rome to Antwerp where they were much in demand and there was apparently also a strong market for Ryckaert's variations after Bril.

Ryckaert was registered in the Antwerp 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 1611 as the "painter with one arm". He was, despite his handicap, a highly prolific artist who gained a great reputation for his landscapes with ruins, mountains, waterfalls and pleasant valleys. He remained a bachelor and collected many paintings by his contemporaries in his house in the Meyerstraat in Antwerp. His 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). by Anthony van Dyck, showing Ryckaert dressed up as a king, is today in the Prado in Madrid; it was executed around 1630. In spring 1631 Ryckaert fell ill and he died a few months later in Antwerp on 28 October. He left his entire fortune to his sister Maria and his brother Pauwel.