A Popular Handbook to the National Gallery, Volume I, Foreign Schools / Including by Special Permission Notes Collected from the Works of John Ruskin

by Unknown

1010. RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE.

Dirk van Delen (Dutch: 1607-1673).

This painter was born at Heusden. He lived at Arnemuiden in Zealand, of which town he was burgomaster. He worked also at Haarlem, Delft, and Antwerp.

A picture by a rare master—interesting to students of the history of architectural taste. In 992 we are shown the struggle between the old Gothic style and the new Renaissance architecture; here we see the full victory of the latter. Dirk van Delen loved to depict the costly and variegated marbles on splendid palaces in the style of the late Renaissance. He will not be defrauded, even by considerations of distance, of any of his details, and every statue and ornament is shown us as minutely as if it were on the level of the eye. The classical style has pervaded too the fountain; note the gilt bronze group of Hercules and the Hydra.