Vincent van der Vinne
| Vincent van der Vinne | |
|---|---|
Portrait by Frans Hals ca 1655
|
|
| Born |
Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne 11 October 1628 Haarlem |
| Died | 26 July 1702 (aged 73) |
| Nationality | Nederland |
| Known for | Painting, weaving |
| Movement | Baroque |
Vincent Laurensz van der Vinne (1628–1702) was a Dutch Mennonite painter, linen-weaver, and writer.
Van der Vinne was born, lived and worked in Haarlem and was a student of Frans Hals for nine months in 1647. In 1649 he became a member of the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke. In 1652 he left on a Grand Tour through Germany, Switzerland and France. For part of the trip he was accompanied by fellow painters Dirck Helmbreker, Cornelis Bega, Joost Boelen, and Guillam Dubois. This trip was recorded in Vincent van der Vinne's diaries and form an important archival record for the city of Haarlem.
The purpose of a grand tour in those days was Italy, but van der Vinne never made it there. Since Karel van Mander published his Schilder-boeck in Haarlem in 1604, most young Haarlem painters wanted to see the Italian paintings in real life, and it became a common rite of passage, but not without dangers. Van der Vinne endured many hardships on his journey, including being kidnapped for a short period. He even stopped making sketches of the countryside at one point, because he feared to be mistaken for a military surveyor. Judging from a map of his travels, he seemed daunted by the Alps, skirting them for weeks but never making the crossing, despite what appears to be 3 attempts to cross over to Turin. He nevertheless makes no mention of this in his diaries, and seems to feel that his sole purpose all along was to explore Germany and Switzerland. He became embroiled in the Swiss peasant war of 1653. On 10 May, Van der Vinne and his companions Boelen and Bega left Basel for Bern and were taken prisoner by a group of farmers. The leader of these farmers, Niklaus Leuenberger, let him and his companions go the next day. They returned to Basel and set off for Geneva, sticking as much as possible to trails on the Burgundian side of the troubles, through Vaud. This experience clearly cut off any plans of crossing the alps in the ways normally suggested by Van Mander's book, and Van der Vinne thus records an unusual journey that goes much farther west than his contemporaries from the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke were accustomed to travelling. Cornelis Bega, who spoke no French at all, returned home, but Van der Vinne and Boelen stayed in Geneva for 15 months. The next spring they traveled further south to Lyon and spent some months in Tournon. On the way back to Geneva, Boelen was molested by soldiers, having departed a few weeks before Van der Vinne. The borders were still very unsafe for travelers. Van der Vinne returned to Geneva on 12 April.
...
Wikipedia