Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom

Hendrik Cornelisz Vroom (1566 - Feb 4, 1640) was a Dutch Golden Age painter credited with being the founder of Dutch marine art or seascape painting Beginning with the "birds-eye" viewpoint of earlier Netherlandish marine art, his later works show a view from lower down, and more realistic depiction of the seas themselves He is not to be confused with his son and pupil Cornelis Vroom He is considered to be the founder of European sea painting

Vroom was born in Haarlem Much of what is known of his life comes from his biography by Karel van Mander, who devoted four pages to him in his "Schilder-boeck", which reads as an adventure story, complete with freezing his pants to a mountain top and nearly starving to death on a rock with a group that discussed cannibalism as a possible survival strategy

Though it is unknown at what age he started on his travels, Vroom was born into a family of artists and began his career as a pottery (faience) painter and when his mother remarried, was no older than 19 when he rebelled against his stepfather who insisted he stick to pottery painting, by boarding a ship for Spain (Sevilla) and from thence via Livorno and Florence to Rome

In Florence he was patronized around 1585–87 by Cardinal Ferdinando de' Medici, later Grand Duke of Tuscany While there he became a pupil of Paulus Bril He went back and forth to Venice, where he earned money as a majolica painter

In 1590 he married Haarlem After that he visited his uncle in Danzig From 1592 he was active in Haarlem as a designer of tapestries and as the first Dutch specialist in the field of seascapes In 1596 he designed the series of tapestries that originate in Brussels wever François Spierincx commissioned by Charles Howard in his new hometown of Delft In that event, the English victory was celebrated on the Spanish Armada in 1588 Vroom was later seen by Lord Howard at his house in Chelsea, finding the tapestries on which occasion he was thanked for his Apparently well-deserved designs awarded a reward of 100 florins

When he returned north, he travelled via Milan, Genoa, Albisola (a ceramics center where he again earned money painting ceramics), Turin (where he met the Haarlem painter Jan Kraeck), and Lyon (via a mountain pass where his pants froze to the summit rock) From there he travelled to Paris, where he met a painter from Leiden, and from there he went to Rouen, where he became mortally ill but was saved by a woman who bandaged his head

There he boarded a ship homewards and was back in Haarlem in 1590, the year he married, before travelling to Danzig (now Gdańsk) to visit his uncle, Frederick Henricksz, who was city architect there, and where he painted an altarpiece

During his next journey, this time to Portugal, he survived shipwreck, but was threatened with execution as "an English pirate" - from which he was saved by being recognized as a Catholic from his salvaged devotional paintings, which convinced the monks on the beach that he and his companions were not "heathen Protestants" (Vroom, having been to Italy, had coached his fellow survivors in the catechism) Having been granted free passage, Vroom travelled to St Huves (Setubal), where he recorded his adventures in a painting that he sold to a painter there

On behalf of the States of Zeeland, Spierincx made a tapestry that depicts the Bergen op Zoom siege Again, Vroom made the design Then the states commissioned a further series of tapestries that had to portray the Zealands slaves against the Spaniards These tapestries were found in Middelburg Woven in the workshops of Jan and Hendrick de Maecht Of four of them Vroom designed the design It is about the sea battle at Lillo, and the sea layers at Rammekens, Zierikzee and Fort Den Haeck These tapestries are still visible in the former Middelburg abbey, The current Zeeuws Museum in Middelburg

His specialism can not be seen from the rise of the Republic of the Seven United United States His life was almost parallel to the 1980s: the Republic was despairing in Spain's grip and built the largest trading fleet in the world Hence the many images of seagoing And the paintings of Dutch merchant ships He played an important role as a painter of cityscapes through the display of coastal cities in many of his paintings

When he decided to return to Haarlem, he got off the ship at the last minute due to a premonition, being called a "crazy painter" The ship sank in the Øresund near Helsingor and in Haarlem Vroom was reported dead However, he had written to his wife, who thus discovered he was still alive He eventually died in Haarlem, in his late seventies

Works:
Among his more famous historical scenes included the 1607 Battle of Gibraltar and the arrival of various dignitaries in Amsterdam, including Protestant leader Frederick V, Elector Palatine of Bohemia who had been exiled by the Holy Roman Emperor

Dutch trimmer in the Sont 1614
Amsterdam's treadmill in the Sont near Kronborg castle with the right one Dutch boat and left an English ship The painting thus reflects the proportions of the early 17th century: of the 5479 ships carrying this strait in 1614 were 3820 Dutch The Sont connects the North Sea with the Baltic Sea and is only 45 kilometers wide at the narrowest point This makes it ideal for toll tax, and the Danes built a fort here around 1420 to ensure this income The castle Kronborg depicted was built in 1574 and is still largely intact (Collection Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)

Merchant ships sail towards East 1614
Behind the rocks a castle and for loading and unloading, the Dutch ship fires a sale slide The umbrellas and turbines make it an Eastern scene Striking is the variety of flags: Dutch, English and Spanish ships carry out peaceful trade Vroom was apparently inspired by the twelve-year file (1609-1621) (Collection National Maritime Museum, London)

The Amsterdam Port 1630
View of Amsterdam On the right a warship, left a small coastal warden Vroom often received assignments for the painting of cityscapes, and these works are still in various cities Among other things, he painted views of Delft, the Haarlemmerpoort, Alkmaar, Hoorn and Haarlem In 1622, with the sight of Hoorn, he earned one hundred guilders (Schloss Schleißheim Collection)

North Dutch ships hit Spanish galein 1617
Dutch ship hit Spanish galei between England and Flanders on October 3, 1602 A galei was a ship-propelled ship, co-operated by rowers, often equipped with a ram to push the enemy to the ground On this painting the roles are reversed as the sailing ship sails across the galley In the background a Dutch frigate is flying These light and fast warships were developed by the Republic around 1600 and proved to be a fierce opponent for the heavy and slow Spanish ships

The battle on the Haarlemmermeer about 1621
The battle on the Haarlemmermeer on May 26, 1573 between the Geuzen and the Spaniards The Spanish fleet had 63 ships on the Haarlemmermeer, the Dutch geyser had more than one hundred The geuzenflot was poorly equipped and the wind was favorable for the Spaniards The Dutch fleet was defeated; The remainder fled to the Kaag and Oude Wetering, where the ships were welcomed by the Spaniards who conquered another 21 ships Two months later Haarlem handed over (Collection Rijksmuseum Amsterdam)

View of Delft from the southwest, 1615
Vroom gives this picture a panoramic view of Delft from the southwest In the center of the painting, the Watersloot Gate is dominant between the towers of the Old Church (left) and the New Church (right) Several other Delft buildings are visible on the painting, such as the chapel of the Sint Joris Gasthuis, the Town Hall, the City Hall, the Gemeenland House, the Girls House and the Guest House Church In the foreground, the Buitenwatersloot is visible This painting is one of the first known painted cityscapes Earlier cityscapes are almost always engravings or maps For the purpose of the composition, the town hall and the Nieuwe Kerk by Vroom have been placed too much to the right (Collection Museum of the City Het Prinsenhof)

The arrival of Frederik V van de Palts and Elizabeth Stuart in Vlissingen ca 1623
This is his biggest work: 203 X 409 cm Left of the center the HMS Prince Royal with escort, on board are newly married Frederik V van den Palts and Elizabeth Stuart They arrive in Vlissingen on April 29, 1613 In the middle of the Oranjeschip with Prince Maurits and Frederik Hendrik and in the background the city walls The Republic sought an ally against the Catholic Spaniards in the Protestant Pallet despite the file closed in 1609 (Collection Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem)

Sailing out a number of East Indiesmen from Marsdiep ca1615
The East Indians, including the Mauritius in the middle, sail out Marsdiep In 1602, the United East Indian Company was established to withstand the British East India Company's competition The VOC would acquire the monopoly on trade with Asia and become the first multinational The production date of the piece is unclear: somewhere between 1600 and 1630 (Collection Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)
https://hisour.com/artist/hendrick-cornelisz-vroom/