Albert van Ouwater ( 1410/1415 – 1475) was one of the earliest artists of

Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flour ...

working in the Northern

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, as opposed to

Flanders Flanders ( or ; ) is the Dutch language, Dutch-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, la ...

in the South of the region.

Biography

He was probably born in

Oudewater Oudewater () is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. History The origin of the town of Oudewater is obscure and no information has been found concerning the first settlement of citizens. It is also difficult to recover the name of Oud ...

, and is mentioned by

Karel van Mander Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander IKarel van Mander
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History ...

(1604) as a reputable painter at the time in which he lived.Albert van Ouwater
in

Karel van Mander Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander IKarel van Mander
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History ...

's ''

Schilder-boeck or is a book written by the Flemish writer and painter Karel van Mander first published in 1604 in Haarlem in the Dutch Republic, where van Mander resided. The book is written in 17th-century Dutch and its title is commonly translated into En ...

'', 1604, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature According to Karel van Mander he was possibly a contemporary of

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...

and had been the teacher of

Geertgen tot Sint Jans Geertgen tot Sint Jans (c. 1465 – c. 1495), also known as Geertgen van Haarlem, Gerrit van Haarlem, Gerrit Gerritsz, Gheertgen, Geerrit, Gheerrit, or any other diminutive form of Gerald, was an Early Netherlandish painter from the northern Lo ...

, though he was quick to qualify this statement with the eye-witness account of an old man named '' Albert Simonsz'' who had been a pupil of

Jan Mostaert Jan Mostaert (c. 1475 – 1552/1553) was a Dutch Renaissance painter who is known mainly for his religious subjects and portraits. One of his most famous creations was the ''Landscape with an Episode from the Conquest of America''. There are v ...

and claimed neither he nor Mostaert had ever even heard of this Albert van Ouwater or Geertgen tot Sint Jans. Van Mander highly commends an altarpiece by Van Ouwater in the principal church in

Haarlem Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English language, English) is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the Provinces of the Nether ...

, the Grotekerk or

Sint-Bavokerk The Grote Kerk or St.-Bavokerk is a Reformed Protestant church located on the central market square ( Grote Markt) in the Dutch city of Haarlem. The church was built in 1307. Prior to the Reformation, Grote Kerk was a Catholic cathedral after wh ...

, representing St. Peter and St. Paul, in which the figures are carefully and correctly designed, and richly coloured. Van Mander posits Van Ouwater as the founder of the Haarlem school of painting, making him the first major Dutch (as opposed to Flemish) artist. According to Van Mander,

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...

painting was a particular specialty of this Dutch school, although none of Van Ouwater's surviving works exhibit this tendency. Van Ouwater seems to have been a contemporary of

Dirk Bouts Dieric Bouts (born – 6 May 1475) was an Early Netherlandish painter. Bouts may have studied under Rogier van der Weyden, and his work was influenced by van der Weyden and Jan van Eyck. He worked in Leuven from 1457 (or possibly earlier) until ...

in mid-15th-century Haarlem, and

may have been his pupil. Van Mander describes another picture by Van Ouwater of a more extensive composition, the ''Resurrection of

Lazarus Lazarus may refer to: People *Lazarus (name), a surname and a given name * Lazarus of Bethany, a Biblical figure described as being raised from the dead by Jesus * Lazarus, a Biblical figure from the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus * Lazar ...

'', which had been taken by the Spaniards back to Spain after the

siege of Haarlem The siege of Haarlem was an episode of the Eighty Years' War. From 11 December 1572 to 13 July 1573 an army of Philip II of Spain laid bloody siege to the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands, whose loyalties had begun wavering during the previou ...

as war booty, but which he saw the copy of that had been greatly admired by

Maarten van Heemskerck Maarten van Heemskerck (born Maerten Jacobsz van Veen; 1 June 1498 – 1 October 1574), also known as Marten Jacobsz Heemskerk van Veen, was a Dutch portrait and religious painter, who spent most of his career in Haarlem. He was a pupil of Jan ...

. This has been identified as the painting now in the

Staatliche Museen The Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (Berlin State Museums) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters; several research institutes; libraries; and supporting facilities. They are overseen by the ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. This is the only widely accepted attribution to Van Ouwater, although many scholars also credit him with the small, fragmentary ''Head of a Donor'' in the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York New York may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * ...

. Max J. Friedländer also gave him a ''Virgin and Child'' (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), but this painting has also been associated with the early works of Dirk Bouts (the Metropolitan Museum now considers it the work of a German painter influenced by the Haarlem school). Less convincingly, Albert Châtelet adds a pair of altar wings with ''St. John the Baptist'' and ''St. Michael'' (both in the Capilla Real, Granada) to Van Ouwater's ''œuvre''. According to the RKD he was also known as Albertus Veteraquinas, and the art historian W.R. Valentiner identified him as identical to the painters Master of Bellaert and

Master of the Tiburtine Sibyl The Master of the Tiburtine Sibyl (fl. 1475–1495) was an unidentified Early Netherlandish painter, probably from Haarlem, named after ''The Tiburtine Sibyl meets Augustus'', a work in the Städel in Frankfurt. Identification The artist was f ...

References

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