Samuel van Hoogstraten
1627–1678 · Dutch painter, poet and art theorist of the Baroque era
Samuel Dirksz van Hoogstraten (Dordrecht, 1627-1678) was a Dutch painter, poet and writer on art. He wrote in Dutch, and his reputation today rests as much on his treatise on painting as on his uneven canvases. That treatise is among the most ambitious books on art published in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century.
He first trained with his father, Dirk van Hoogstraten, in Dordrecht. After his father died, around 1640, he moved to Amsterdam and joined Rembrandt's workshop. Shortly afterwards he set up on his own as a master and portrait painter. Later he travelled to Vienna, Rome and London, around 1651, before settling back in Dordrecht, where he married in 1656 and held the post of provost of the mint.
His output shows a habit of imitating different styles at different periods. A portrait from 1645 borrows Rembrandt's manner, while a bearded man looking out of a window, painted in 1653, is one of his most typical works. He also excelled at architectural views, such as a 1652 picture of a courtyard in the Vienna Hofburg, and he built perspective boxes, or peepshows, that offered a convincing three-dimensional view of a Dutch interior through small holes.
His writing is now arguably his most lasting achievement. His Introduction to the Academy of Painting (1678) discusses pictorial persuasion, illusionism, the moral standing of the painter and the links between painting and philosophy, drawing on ancient and modern authors. He also wrote sonnets and tragedies and produced a few etchings.
Much of what we know about him comes from Arnold Houbraken, one of his pupils, who included a biography of him in his great history of Dutch painters. That account has shaped his reputation, which is often linked to a varied career and a strong drive for social advancement.
Key works
- Introduction to the Academy of Painting, or the Visible World (1678): a theoretical treatise on illusionism, pictorial persuasion and the painter's ethics.
- Man at a Window (1653): a characteristic example of his later manner, inspired by Rembrandt.
- Courtyard of the Vienna Hofburg (1652): shows his skill as a painter of architecture.
- Peepshow with Views of the Interior of a Dutch House: a box that combines perspective and visual illusion.
Curiosities
A biographer who had been his pupil
Arnold Houbraken, once a student of Van Hoogstraten, wrote a biography of his teacher. Much of what we know about him today comes from that account.
Sayings of Rembrandt
He is credited with preserving some of Rembrandt's familiar sayings, which might otherwise have been forgotten.
A self-portrait engraved at fifty
He engraved his own portrait at the age of fifty, and that print still survives.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.