Pieter van Laer
Encyclopedia
Dutch Golden Age
The Golden Age was a period in Dutch history, roughly spanning the 17th century, in which Dutch trade, science, military and art were among the most acclaimed in the world. The first half is characterised by the Eighty Years' War till 1648...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
of genre scenes, active for over a decade in Rome, where his nickname was Il Bamboccio. Artists working in his style became known as the Bamboccianti
Bamboccianti
The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small...
.
Biography
He was born at HaarlemHaarlem
Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...
in Holland as the second child of Jacob Claesz Bodding and Magdalena Heyns. He came from a well to do family and his parents operated a private school in Haarlem started by Magdalena's father, the well-known writer and publisher Peeter Heyns, after whom Pieter van Laer was named. His older brother was Roedolff van Laer, who later also would become a painter and was known as Roeland van Laer or Orlando van Laer. His youngest brother was Nicolaes Bodding, later on in life known as Nicolaes Boddingius
Nicolaes Boddingius
Nicolaes Boddingius, or Bodding van Laer was a schoolmaster, writer and minister in the Netherlands.-Biography:...
, a schoolmaster and Reverend.
The influence of a long stay in Rome starting in 1625 is seen in his treatment of landscape
Landscape art
Landscape art is a term that covers the depiction of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests, and especially art where the main subject is a wide view, with its elements arranged into a coherent composition. In other works landscape backgrounds for figures can still...
and backgrounds, but in his subjects he remained true to the Dutch tradition, choosing generally lively scenes from peasant life. He painted markets, feasts, bowling scenes, farrier
Farrier
A farrier is a specialist in equine hoof care, including the trimming and balancing of horses' hooves and the placing of shoes on their hooves...
s' shops, robbers, hunting scenes and peasants with cattle. From this taste, or from his personal deformity, he was nicknamed Il Bamboccio by the Italians. The painters influenced by his genre style were called the Bamboccianti
Bamboccianti
The Bamboccianti were genre painters active in Rome from about 1625 until the end of the seventeenth century. Most were Dutch and Flemish artists who brought existing traditions of depicting peasant subjects from sixteenth-century Netherlandish art with them to Italy, and generally created small...
after his nickname, and included Andries Both
Andries Both
Andries Both , was a Dutch Golden Age genre painter, one of the bamboccianti, and brother of Jan Dirksz Both.Both was born in Utrecht, the son of a glass painter. He studied under Abraham Bloemaert. According to Joachim von Sandrart Andries and his brother Jan cooperated on the paintings, with Jan...
and his brother Jan, Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Michelangelo Cerquozzi was an Italian Baroque painter.Born and active mainly in Rome, he is best known for small canvases of genre scenes, and for being one of the Italian proponents of the Bamboccianti style practised by a Dutch painter in Rome, Pieter van Laer...
, the French Hugenot Sébastien Bourdon
Sébastien Bourdon
Sébastien Bourdon was a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the cathedral of Notre Dame....
, and Jan Miel
Jan Miel
Jan Miel was a Flemish painter, active in Italy, emerging from the circle of genre painters influenced by Pieter van Laer and the so-called Bamboccianti painters. He was born in Beveren-Waas near Antwerp, but had traveled to Rome by 1636. Surprisingly, he briefly collaborating with Andrea Sacchi,...
. He was also a member of the Bentvueghels
Bentvueghels
The Bentvueghels were a society of mostly Dutch and Flemish artists active in Rome from about 1620 to 1720. They are also known as the Schildersbent .-Activities:...
, a society of mostly Dutch-speaking artists in Rome known for their anti-academic stance and initiation rituals. Among the other artists that worked with or under van Laer, one can include John Phillip Lemke.
On his return to Holland about 1639, he lived chiefly at Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
and Haarlem, in which latter city he died around 1642.
His pictures are marked by skilful composition and good drawing; he was especially careful in perspective
Perspective (graphical)
Perspective in the graphic arts, such as drawing, is an approximate representation, on a flat surface , of an image as it is seen by the eye...
. His colouring, according to Crowe
Joseph Archer Crowe
Sir Joseph Archer Crowe , was an English consular official and art critic, whose volumes of the History of Painting in Italy, co-written with the Italian critic Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle , stand at the beginning of disciplined modern art history writing in English,...
, is "generally of a warm, brownish tone, sometimes very clear, but oftener heavy, and his execution broad and spirited." Certain etched plates are also attributed to him.
While his style of painting was openly disdained by pre-eminent Italian painters in Rome and Bologna, such as Sacchi
Andrea Sacchi
Andrea Sacchi was an Italian painter of High Baroque Classicism, active in Rome. A generation of artists who shared his style of art include the painters Nicolas Poussin and Giovanni Battista Passeri, the sculptors Alessandro Algardi and François Duquesnoy, and the contemporary biographer Giovanni...
, Albani
Francesco Albani
Francesco Albani or Albano was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early years in Bologna:Born 1578 in Bologna, his father was a silk merchant who intended to instruct his son in the same trade; but by age twelve, Albani became an apprentice under the competent mannerist painter Denis Calvaert, where he...
, and Reni
Guido Reni
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style.-Biography:Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that...
, this did not translate into a poverty of commissions. In fact, van Laer paintings over time became highly sought after. Initially, the painter must have depended on an open market and dealers, rather than commissions for sales; however, within a decade of work in Rome, he could ask a very respectable 30-35 scudi per painting. Among those owning his work were Pietro Testa
Pietro Testa
Pietro Testa was an Italian High Baroque artist, best known, both to his contemporaries and modern appreciation, as a printmaker and draftsman, who was active in Rome.-Biography:...
, Cassiano dal Pozzo
Cassiano dal Pozzo
Cassiano dal Pozzo was an Italian scholar and patron of arts. The secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini, he was an antiquary in the classicizing circle of Rome, and a long-term friend and patron of Nicolas Poussin, whom he supported from his earliest arrival in Rome: Poussin in a letter...
, the marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani
Vincenzo Giustiniani
thumb|upright|Vincenzo Giustiniani in a portrait by [[Nicolas Régnier]] Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani was an aristocratic Italian banker, art collector and intellectual of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, known today largely for the Giustiniani art collection, assembled at Palazzo...
, and later, the Flemish merchant in Naples Gaspar Roomer
Gaspar Roomer
Gaspar Roomer was a prominent Flemish merchant and art patron of the early 17th century. Born in Antwerp, he lived for at least four decades in Naples. He became very wealthy from shipping enterprises, mainly to the Flemish and Dutch provinces and from banking. he owned Palazzo della Stella in...
. Van Laer was to dedicate a series of engravings to Don Ferdinando Afan de Ribera, the Spanish Viceroy in Naples (Haskell 135-6).