Cornelis van Haarlem

Dutch, 1562 - 1638

BiographyBorn Haarlem, 1562; died Haarlem, 11 Nov 1638.

Dutch painter and draughtsman. He came from a wealthy family. During the Spanish siege and occupation of Haarlem (1572–7), his parents moved elsewhere, leaving their son and large house in the protection of the painter Pieter Pietersz. (1540/41–1603), who became Cornelis’s teacher. In 1579 Cornelis travelled to France by sea, but the journey terminated at Rouen because of an outbreak of plague. He then became a pupil of Gillis Congnet in Antwerp, with whom he stayed for one year. In 1580–81 he returned permanently to Haarlem, and in 1583 he received his first official commission from the city, a militia company portrait, the Banquet of the Haarlem Civic Guard (Haarlem, Frans Halsmus.). Around 1584 he befriended Hendrick Goltzius and Karel van Mander, with whom he is said to have established a kind of academy (see Mander, van, and Haarlem, §2), which became known as the Haarlem Academy. Cornelis later became city painter of Haarlem and received numerous commissions from the town corporation. He worked for the Commanders of the Order of St John and also for the Heilige Geesthuis. He married Maritgen Arentsdr Deyman (d 1606), the daughter of a burgomaster, some time before 1603. In 1605 he inherited one third of his wealthy father-in-law’s estate. Cornelis also had one illegitimate daughter (b 1611), who married Pieter Jansz. Bagijn, a silversmith, and whose son was the painter Cornelis Bega. From 1626 to 1629 Cornelis Cornelisz. was a member of the Catholic Guild of St Jacob. In 1630, along with several other artists, he drew up new regulations for the Guild of St Luke, which brought to an end its essentially medieval organization and conferred a higher status on art. The surviving inventory of his estate contains valuable information about his art collection. Iconographically, Cornelis van Haarlem—as he is usually known—had a wider range than his Haarlem colleagues. Besides conventional religious and mythological subjects, he produced a few portraits as well as kitchen scenes and still-lifes.

1. Drawings.

Only about 15 of the artist’s drawings survive, which seems very little compared to the 500 or more examples left by his contemporaries Goltzius and Jacques de Gheyn II. One explanation is that, unlike them, Cornelis was not a printmaker himself. There are, however, 23 engravings based on his designs from before c. 1608. In his drawings the principal motif is the naked figure. Whether or not he drew directly from life is unclear; it is thought that he used plaster casts of parts of the body, since these are listed in the inventory of his studio. He was inspired, among other things, by the drawings of Roman views by Maarten van Heemskerck (Berlin, Kupferstichkab.), which were once in his possession.

Three stylistic phases can be distinguished in Cornelis’s drawings. The first is a rather rough and old-fashioned style, as in the Sketch for a Civic Guard Banquet (c. 1583; ex-F. Winkler priv. col., Berlin; see Reznicek, i, pl. VIII). After 1585 the work is noticeably influenced by Goltzius and Bartholomeus Spranger, one good example being the large drawing (402×603 mm) of Athletic Games (shortly after 1590; U. Warsaw, Lib.). Later the rendering of anatomy and movement gradually becomes less exaggerated, as in his beautiful figure drawings in red chalk, very few of which have been preserved (e.g. the Study of a Man Undressing, Seen from the Back, c. 1597; Darmstadt, Hess. Landesmus.). They remained in the family and were later used by the artist’s illegitimate grandson Cornelis Bega to develop his own masterly red-chalk technique.

2. Paintings.

According to van Thiel, some 280 paintings by Cornelis Cornelisz. survive. The early works still reveal certain Flemish influences from his Antwerp period, for example that of Jan Massys. Cornelis’s powerful, vigorous Goltzius–Spranger style is at its best c. 1588. In that year Goltzius made engravings (Hollstein, nos 4–8) of five of the artist’s paintings, which brought Cornelis fame and public recognition. Four show the fall of the legendary figures Tantalus, Icarus, Phaeton and Ixion. The only extant painting is that of Ixion (Rotterdam, Mus. Boymans–van Beuningen). Because the giants are seen from below, floating in the air as they fall, it seems possible that the large paintings were originally intended as ceiling decorations. The fifth engraving represents the dramatic story of Two Followers of Cadmus Devoured by a Dragon. In 1961 the original painting was rediscovered in the National Gallery, London, having previously been put aside by the museum as a copy. It is painted with remarkable vivacity, with vigorous brushstrokes reminiscent of the Venetian masters. It seems likely that Cornelis acquired this ‘Italian’ manner from van Mander.

In 1590 the burgomasters of Haarlem awarded Cornelis an unprecedented commission to decorate the interior of the Prinsenhof with paintings. The building, originally a Dominican abbey, served as a residence for the Prince of Orange. Cornelis made a series of four paintings, alluding to recent events in the history of the young Dutch Republic. The largest of these paintings—covering a wall 4 m wide—shows the Marriage of Peleus and Thetis (Haarlem, Frans Halsmus.). This masterpiece was painted in an elegant, fluent style, with a large number of Spranger-like nudes in soft tones. The scene is intended as a moralistic warning against discord, which would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the state and could be prevented only by a wise and powerful ruler such as the Prince of Orange.

From 1594, the year of the Unequal Lovers (Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister), the artist became less outspokenly ‘Mannerist’, making less use of exaggerated musculature in his nudes and adopting what might be called a pseudo-classical style. After c. 1610 Cornelis’s forms became increasingly weak compared with his earlier work, and the execution was rather careless. The overall quality of his later works is mediocre, with the occasional splendid exception, such as Venus, Bacchus and Ceres (1614; Dresden, Gemäldegal. Alte Meister).

E. K. J. Reznicek. "Cornelisz. van Haarlem, Cornelis." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T019537 (accessed May 8, 2012).

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