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Joseph Heintz

Swiss, 1564 - 1609

BiographyJoseph Heinz the Elder studied under Hans Bock in the Basel art school and with Hans von Aachen in Rome in 1584. From 1590 to 1594 he was employed in Prague by Emperor Rudolph II, who later sent him to Italy to make copies of classical works. He returned to Prague in 1598. He also worked as an architect and produced plans for the court of the Wittembergs in 1602-1603.He painted portraits and is particularly noted for his Emperor Rudolph II in the Vienna Museum. Better known today, however, are his Mythologies (), such as the two paintings of a Sleeping Venus in galleries in Vienna and Dijon. These form a pair, and under cover of mythology they in fact display a lavish and voluptuous nudity, nakedness protected by no more than a few necklaces and bracelets, whose meticulous detail enhances the softness of so much receptive flesh. In this ambiguous eroticism Heinz is one of the most typical representatives of German Mannerism. He influenced Spranger and his own teacher, Aachen. After his death, his widow married Matthäus Gundelach, another pupil of Hans von Aachen.

His work has been included in several themed exhibitions, such as Eros and Myth: Art at the Court of Rudolf II (Eros und Mythos: Kunst am Hof Rudolfs II) at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna in 1995, and Praga Magica. Art in Prague under Rudolph II (Praga Magica. L'Art à Prague au temps de Rodolphe II) in the Musée Magnin in Dijon in 2002.

"HEINZ, Joseph, the Elder." In Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/benezit/B00085545 (accessed April 27, 2012).

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