Lucas van Leyden

Lucas van Leyden , 1494-1533, Dutch historical and genre painter and engraver. With Lucas, Dutch painting of scenes from daily life may be said to begin. His art is notable for its realistic treatment, dramatic power, and careful execution. He studied with his father, Huig Jacobsz, a Leiden artist, and with Cornelis Engelbrechtsz and soon established himself as an engraver of extraordinary ability, as well as a painter of originality and power. A child prodigy and prolific artist, Lucas executed more than 200 engravings, etchings, and designs for woodcuts, including Mohammed and the Monk (1508), Ecce Homo (1510), and Adam and Eve (1519). From c.1510 his works show the influence of Dürer, whom he met on a visit to Antwerp in 1521. They drew and exchanged portraits of each other. Later Lucas's style reflected his study of the prints of Marcantonio Raimondi. Among his paintings are Moses Striking Water from the Rock (Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston); Chess Game, St. Jerome, and Virgin Enthroned (Berlin); and Last Judgment (Leiden).

Bibliography: See his complete engravings, etchings, and woodcuts, ed. by J. Lavalleye (tr. 1967).

Lucas van Leyden (1494–1533) Dutch painter and engraver. His engravings (which are regarded as second only to those of Dürer) include Ecco Homo and Dance of the Magdalene (1519). Among his paintings are Moses Striking Water from the Rock (1527) and Last Judgement (1526).

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Lucas van Leyden (1494?–1533). Netherlandish engraver and painter, born and mainly active in Leiden. He was the pupil of his father, from whose hand no works are known, and of Cornelis Engelbrechtsz., but both these were painters whereas Lucas himself was principally an engraver. How he learnt engraving is unknown, but he was highly skilled in that art at a very early age; the earliest dated print by him (Mohammed and the Murdered Monk, 1508) was made when he was perhaps only 14, yet it reveals no trace of immaturity in inspiration or technique. In 1514 he became a member of the Leiden painters' guild. He seems to have travelled a certain amount, and on a visit to Antwerp in 1521 he met Dürer, who drew his portrait (Mus. B.-A., Lille). An unbroken series of dated engravings makes it possible to follow his career as a printmaker and to date many of his paintings, but no clear pattern of stylistic development emerges. Dürer was the single greatest influence on him, but Lucas was less intellectual in his approach, tending to concentrate on the anecdotal features of the subject and to take delight in caricatures and genre motifs. Van Mander characterizes him as a pleasure-loving dilettante, who sometimes worked in bed, but he left a large œuvre, in spite of his fairly early death, and must have been a prodigious worker. Lucas had a great reputation in his day (Vasari even rated him above Dürer in certain respects) and he is universally regarded as one of the greatest figures in the history of graphic art (he made etchings and woodcuts as well as engravings and was a superb draughtsman). His status as a painter is less elevated, but he was undoubtedly one of the outstanding Netherlandish painters of his period. He was a pioneer of the Netherlandish genre tradition, as witness his Chess Players (c.1508, Gemälde galerie, Berlin)—which actually represents a variant game called ‘courier’—and his Card Players (c.1517, Wilton House, Wiltshire), while his celebrated Last Judgement triptych (1526–7, Lakenhal Mus., Leiden) shows the heights to which he could rise as a religious painter. It eloquently displays his vivid imaginative powers, his superb skill as a colourist, and his deft and fluid brushwork. Lucas left no pupils or direct followers, but his work was a stimulus to an even greater Leiden-born artist, Rembrandt.