Page:Hofstede de Groot catalogue raisonné, Volume 4, 1912.djvu/466

SECTION XV ADRIAEN VAN DE VELDE ADRIAEN VAN DE VELDE (1636-72) was born at Amsterdam in November 1636. He was a son of Willem van de Velde the elder, and a brother of Willem van de Velde the younger, to whom he was junior by three years. Esaias van de Velde is thought to have been the brother of Adriaen's father, and it is supposed that the three Jan van de Veldes, the father, son, and grandson, who were respectively a caligrapher, a copper-engraver, and a painter of still-life, as well as the other still-life painter named Anthoni van de Velde (1617-72), belonged to the same family. These family connections were enough to induce the youthful Adriaen to become a painter himself. There can be no doubt that he took his first steps in this field under the direction of his father and his elder brother. Then he went to study under Johannes Wijnants, the Haarlem landscape- painter. His relations with this master lasted throughout the whole of his short life, as we may infer from the landscapes by Wijnants into which Adriaen introduced figures. Adriaen learned how to paint landscape from his kinsmen and from Wijnants. But he seems to have taught himself to draw and paint the accessories which are in his case just as important as the landscape itself. His style bears no resemblance to that of any one of the older painters who suggest themselves in this connection neither to Paulus Potter, who had a drier manner, and treated figures more as a draughtsman than as a painter ; nor to Berchem, who must, however, be taken into account ; nor to Karel Du Jardin, although he in his soft and painter-like way shows the closest kinship to Adriaen. The question whether Adriaen made a journey to Italy has not yet been definitely solved. His biography says nothing about such a journey, but it may be inferred from his pictures. The shepherds and shepherdesses, whom he represents with bare feet and bare heads, are not Dutch, nor are the landscapes ; there are Italian mules, asses, and horses harnessed in the Italian manner, and Italian temple-ruins and farms, both in his pictures and in his etchings. The date of this journey, if it was ever made, must remain uncertain, but it was in any case before 1657, when he was married. 452