Dutch Ships Ramming Spanish Galleys off the Flemish Coast in October 1602, oil on canvas.

Delft Vanuit het Westen, oil on canvas.

Arrival of a Dutch Three master at Schloss Kronberg, oil on canvas.

Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (1566, Haarlem – buried February 4, 1640, Haarlem) was a Dutch Golden Age painter creditted with being the founder of Dutch marine (seascape) painting.

[edit] Biography

Born in Haarlem he began his career as a pottery (faience) painter and in this capacity travelled to Spain and Italy. In Florence he was patronized around 1585–87 by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, later Grand Duke of Tuscany. While there he became a pupil of Paulus Bril.^[1] It was probably at the Grand Duke's incentive that he took up easel painting. He was back in Haarlem in 1590, the year he married, before travelling to Danzig (now Gdansk). During his next journey, this time to Portugal, he survived shipwreck and possibly murder by being recognized as a Catholic from his salvaged religious paintings and he recorded the event in a series of pictures that he sold in Portugal. He returned to Haarlem as an artist of international repute and soon afterwards received two commissions for tapestry designs, one of which, from Lord Howard of Effingham, was for a series of ten tapestries depicting the defeat of the Spanish Armada of 1588, by the English under Howard’s overall command as Lord Admiral. Executed in Brussels in 1592–95, the tapestries later decorated the House of Lords, Westminster, and were fortunately recorded in engravings before they were destroyed with it, by fire in 1834. He also recorded important engagements of the Dutch and English fleets in his oil paintings, giving a detailed portrayal of ships. His large and decorative battles, ceremonial scenes and beach views introduced novel compositional devices to be taken up by younger Dutch marinists. The Haarlem painters Hans Goderis, Cornelis Verbeeck and Cornelis Claesz van Wieringen were all directly influenced by him. His pupils included Aert Anthonisz, Nicolaes de Kemp, Jan Porcellis, and his son Cornelis Hendriksz Vroom.^[1]

[edit] Works

Among his more famous historical scenes included the 1607 Battle of Gibraltar and the arrival of various dignitaries in Amsterdam, including Protestant leader Frederick V, Elector Palatine of Bohemia who had been exiled by the Holy Roman Emperor. He is credited often as the first Dutch Maritime artist, and consequentially as the first European maritime artist.

Battle of Gibraltar, oil on canvas.

Battle between England and Spain 1601, oil on canvas.

The Arrival at Vlissingen of the Elector Palatinate Frederick V, oil on canvas.

The Harbour in Amsterdam (1630) showing the Port of Amsterdam

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hendrick Cornelisz. Vroom

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Vroom at the Web Gallery of Art

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