Lucas van Uden

Variant namesauktoriserad namnform: Lucas van Uden

DatesBiographical dates: 1595 - 1672 Dead: dead 1672 Born: born 1595

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BiographyBiography: Landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher. Lucas van Uden was probably a pupil of his father, the Antwerp town painter Artus van Uden. He registered in the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke as a “wijnmeester”, or son of a master, in 1626/27. Although his work clearly owes much to Peter Paul Rubens, the assertion that he worked in the master’s studio in the 1630s, providing landscape backgrounds for the master’s paintings, remains unproven. Apart from a tour of the Rhine in 1644–46, he seems to have spent his life in Flanders. On 31 December 1649 he was registered as no longer living in the city, so for a period in 1650 he must have lived elsewhere, possibly in Brussels. In 1640 and 1642 he registered a pupil in the Antwerp Guild. Among his documented pupils are: Philips Augustyn van Immenraet, Jan Baptist Bonnecroy and Gillis Neyts. Van Uden specialized exclusively in landscape painting. Together with Jan Wildens he is generally considered one of the most important landscape painters of his time. In a later edition of Van Dyck’s Iconography, both artists are described as “Pictor Ruralium Prospectuum Antverpiae” (Painter of Country Views from Antwerp). Houbraken (1718–1721), who had high praise for Van Uden, wrote that he often set out into the countryside early in the morning to make landscape sketches. This may be stretching the truth somewhat, for even more important than the observation of nature for Van Uden were earlier developments in Flemish landscape painting. The influence on his art of Rubens, whose landscapes he copied in paintings and etchings, was certainly important, but shows itself in ways that are very personal to him. Van Uden’s landscapes, painted mostly between the 1630s and 1650s, also show close affinity with the tradition of Jan Brueghel I and Joos de Momper II, especially in his choice of subjects. He is at his best in small format paintings, and in his etchings and attractive watercolour drawings, which reveal his greatest individual talent in the close observation of nature. David Teniers II often painted the figures in his landscapes, as can be seen from several paintings with both artists’ signatures. Van Uden also collaborated with Jacob Jordaens, Hendrick van Balen I and Gonzales Coques. Most often, however, the staffage was Van Uden’s own work, influenced by Teniers II and Rubens.

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