Sebastian Vrancx

SEBASTIAN VRANCX (Antwerp, 1573 -1647).
"The visit of the mounted cavalry".
Oil on canvas.
Relined.
Signed with anagram (S.V.).
It has damage to the frame and wear on the side of the canvas.
Measurements: 111 x 142 cm; 128 x 160 cm (frame).

Sebastian Vrancx was the great promoter of the painting of battles in Flanders. His influence will be decisive in the evolution of artists like Peter Snayers and Adam Frans van der Meulen in Flanders. He also exerted great influence through his many collaborations with other great artists such as Jan Brueghel the Younger, Tobias Verhaecht, Alexander Keirincx, Jan van Valen and Frans Francken II.

The painting shown here belongs to Sebastian Vrancx's mature period, which can be seen in his skill in organizing the space of the painting, integrating the landscape with the arrangement of horsemen and peasants in it, the adobe houses with thatched roofs and the Gothic architecture, all under a clear sky. The coloring and composition give the work a convincing realism. The presence of soldiers (galloping and on foot) among the peasants was a recurring theme in the production of Vrancx, who lived through a time when the Spanish army sacked villages and farms in the Netherlands with some recurrence. These were turbulent times, which would last until the end of the Eighty Years' War (1648), when Spain would accept the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. However, unlike paintings such as "The Sack of Wommelgem in 1589", where the soldiers violently attack the villagers, on this occasion the visit of the military is apparently diplomatic, although in the brio of the horses, in the bugler mounted on a white steed, and in general, in the attitudes of the intruders, we observe how they impose authority. In any case, the painter overlaps two pictorial genres in the same scene: a military theme and a folkloric theme. In this way, he entertains himself by portraying a lively village scene, ascribing to the best tradition of genre painting in Flemish art. The figures swirl in small groups, placed at different levels of depth through a skillful handling of chromatic nuances, proportions and aerial perspective. The anecdotes multiply in the village square, where the church tower stands out. With descriptive eagerness, peasants and soldiers are typified, worked figure by figure in an individual and precise manner. The vivacity animates their gestures and gestures.

Sebastian Vrancx was a Flemish Baroque painter, specialized in the representation of battles. All his artistic activity took place in Antwerp, except for a few years of his youth (1596-1601) when he settled in Italy. Around 1600-1601 he joined the Painters' Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, and in 1607 he became a member of the chamber of rhetoric known as de Violeren. The subject matter of his works is varied, including landscapes, religious, allegorical, pastoral, etc. scenes. However, the genre for which he is best known is the representation of battles. These paintings sometimes represent specific historical events, but they are generally imagined scenes of confrontations between armies in which great attention is paid to detail. He was the initiator of this genre in the Netherlands and the first to depict cavalry battles. His works were widely disseminated through copies and engravings and influenced other Flemish painters such as Peter Snayers, Adam Frans van der Meulen, Pieter Meulener, Jacques van der Wijhen and Esaias van de Velde. His paintings are preserved in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and the Louvre Museum in Paris among others. In Spain they can be seen in the Prado Museum in Madrid and the Museum of Fine Arts in Seville.