Philips Angel II or Philips Angel van Leiden (c. 1618 in

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

– after 11 July 1664 in

Batavia, Dutch East Indies Batavia was the capital of the Dutch East Indies. The area corresponds to present-day Jakarta, Indonesia. Batavia can refer to the city proper or its suburbs and hinterland, the Ommelanden, which included the much-larger area of the Residency ...

) was a

Dutch Golden Age The Dutch Golden Age ( nl, Gouden Eeuw ) was a period in the history of the Netherlands, roughly spanning the era from 1588 (the birth of the Dutch Republic) to 1672 (the Rampjaar, "Disaster Year"), in which Dutch trade, science, and Dutch art, ...

painter, etcher, writer and colonial administrator. Today he is remembered as the author of a 58-page booklet entitled 'Praise of the Art of Painting' which represents a rare resource for understanding Dutch art theory from the mid-17th century.

Biography

Philips Angel II's life and work are often mixed up with those of a relative (apparently a cousin), a contemporary painter of the same name (now referred to as

Philips Angel I Philips Angel I (bapt. 14 September 1616 - (after?) October 1683) was a Dutch painter of still lifes. Biography Philips Angel I left his native Middelburg in 1639 to establish himself as a still life painter in Haarlem. He entered the Haarlem ...

or Philips Angel van Middelburg), who was born in

Middelburg Middelburg may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe * Middelburg, Zeeland, the capital city of the province of Zeeland, southwestern Netherlands ** Roman Catholic Diocese of Middelburg, a former Catholic diocese with its see in the Zeeland ...

in 1616. Philips Angel II was active as a painter in Leiden from 1637 where he is listed as a master painter in 1638. Nothing is known about his training, but some details of his life suggest he had been in contact with Rembrandt shortly before becoming a master painter. He married in 1639. He held a speech at a banquet for the Leiden

Guild of Saint Luke The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ide ...

on the

feast day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context d ...

Saint Luke Luke the Evangelist (Latin: '' Lucas''; grc, Λουκᾶς, '' Loukâs''; he, לוקאס, ''Lūqās''; arc, /ܠܘܩܐ לוקא, ''Lūqā’; Ge'ez: ሉቃስ'') is one of the Four Evangelists—the four traditionally ascribed authors of t ...

on 18 October in 1641. The speech was published in Leiden the following year under the title 'Praise of the Art of Painting' (original title: 'Lof der Schilder-konst'). In the work he praises the work of his Dutch contemporary and fellow Leiden citizen

Gerard Dou Gerrit Dou (7 April 1613 – 9 February 1675), also known as Gerard Douw or Dow, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, whose small, highly polished paintings are typical of the Leiden fijnschilders. He specialised in genre scenes and is noted for his '' ...

, a pupil of

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

. On 15 December 1643 he drew up a

will Will may refer to: Common meanings * Will and testament, instructions for the disposition of one's property after death * Will (philosophy), or willpower * Will (sociology) * Will, volition (psychology) * Will, a modal verb - see Shall and will ...

in Leiden. He signed a document stating he was ceasing all activities as a painter (probably to relieve himself of the duty to pay dues to the guild) in 1645 and joined the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( nl, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the VOC) was a chartered company established on the 20th March 1602 by the States General of the Netherlands amalgamating existing companies into the first joint-stock ...

. In the same year he sailed to Batavia in the Dutch East Indies. Here he would reside with interruptions from 1645 to 1664.Philips Angel II
at the Netherlands Institute for Art History In the company of envoy Joan Cunaeus he traveled as a 'Chief Buyer' (in Dutch: opperkoopman) of the Dutch East India Company to

Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

where he arrived in Bender-Abassi on 25 December 1651. He visited the ruins of

Persepolis , native_name_lang = , alternate_name = , image = Gate of All Nations, Persepolis.jpg , image_size = , alt = , caption = Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis. , map = , map_type ...

on 16 February 1652 and 11 days later took up his new post. With his interpreter Nils Mathson Köping he also traveled to Arabia. When soon thereafter he had to resign because of irregularities in his management, he travelled to

Isfahan Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...

. Here he was the drawing master of Shah

Abbas II of Persia Abbas II (; born Soltan Mohammad Mirza; 30 August 1632 – 26 October 1666) was the seventh Shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1642 to 1666. As the eldest son of Safi and his Circassian wife, Anna Khanum, he inherited the throne when he was ni ...

(1641-1666), grandson of

Shah Abbas the Great Abbas I ( fa, ; 27 January 157119 January 1629), commonly known as Abbas the Great (), was the 5th Safavid Shah (king) of Iran, and is generally considered one of the greatest rulers of Iranian history and the Safavid dynasty. He was the third son ...

. In 1656 he was summoned to Batavia to justify himself. As he failed to clear his name he was forced to leave the service of the Dutch East India Company. He was able to obtain other administrative positions in Batavia. Again there were irregularities in his management of affairs and he was removed from all posts on 11 October 1661.Angel, Philips (2)
in: P.C. Molhuysen en P.J. Blok (red.), Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. Deel 1. A.W. Sijthoff, Leiden 1911

Work

No extant paintings of Philips Angel II are known to exist. An etch of a man's head by him is dated 1637 and is reminiscent of Rembrandt.Tatsushi Takahashi. "Angel, Philips (ii).
Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 7 Jun. 2014

Lof der Schilder-konst

His booklet 'Lof der Schilder-konst' ('Praise of the Art of Painting') situates itself in a line of art historical and theoretical writing in the Dutch Republic that started with the '

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 Engl ...

' published by Flemish émigré

Karel van Mander Karel van Mander (I) or Carel van Mander I (May 1548 – 2 September 1606) was a Flemish painter, poet, art historian and art theoretician, who established himself in the Dutch Republic in the latter part of his life. He is mainly remembe ...

in Haarlem in 1604. Angel gave his lecture at a time when he and other painters in Leiden were seeking permission to establish a guild to protect their economic interests. They likely also sought recognition as a group with an important socio-economic status in local society. The latter is reflected in the first part of the book which seeks to affirm the status of the painter's profession.Eric J. Sluijter, 'Belering en verhulling? Enkele 17de-eeuwse teksten over de schilderkunst en de iconologische benadering van Noordnederlandse schilderijen uit deze periode.'
in: De zeventiende eeuw. Jaargang 4. Sub Rosa, Lettele 1988 The first part of the booklet makes the traditional comparisons between the value and ranking of painting, sculpture and poetry. In this part Angel liberally borrows anecdotes on famous painters from antiquity up to the 17th century from van Mander's Schilder-boeck. According to Angel, painting deserves more praise than the other two arts because it can imitate all that is visible in nature. The second part of the booklet deals with the wide range of skills that a painter must master to excel. This is the most original part of the booklet as Angel describes genres such as seascapes, battle scenes and guardroom scenes that were new at the time. One of the skills he emphasizes is the ability to accurately imitate visible things, so that they seem 'truly real'. He argues that light and shadow must be divided so that even things that appear difficult to imitate with brush and paint seem very real. As a final point, he recommends the need for neatness (a careful, smooth way of painting) which must be accompanied by a certain 'lossicheyt' (looseness) in order to avoid a "stiff neat unpleasantnesss'. He praises Gerard Dou as a painter accomplished in this respect. Finally, Angel emphasises the need of a painter to display a pleasant behaviour, virtue and industry - especially the latter is strongly emphasized - in order to obtain the highest honor and fame as a painter. According to the book, the main concern of painting should be to please the eye of the beholder. The largest section of Angel’s book is devoted to history painting and he discusses several contemporary Old Testament paintings including Rembrandt’s 'The Wedding of Samson'. He argues that in order to depict 'godly, poetic and heathen histories' one must first read the texts of the stories well so that the information in these stories is represented accurately without mistakes in relation to the text. Angel is not concerned about expressing the deeper meanings inherent in these stories and neither does he stress the need to express emotions to move the beholder. Angel expresses no clear consciousness of a hierarchy between the different genres. His appreciation for Gerard Dou, who had already started to concentrate mainly on paintings of interiors and ''

tronie A tronie is a type of work common in Dutch Golden Age painting and Flemish Baroque painting that depicts an exaggerated or characteristic facial expression. These works were not intended as portraits but as studies of expression, type, physiognom ...

s'' is certainly no less than that for Rembrandt and

Jan Lievens Jan Lievens (24 October 1607 – 4 June 1674) was a Dutch Golden Age painter who was associated with his close contemporary Rembrandt, a year older, in the early parts of their careers. They shared a birthplace in Leiden, training with Pieter L ...

.Facsimile of 'Lof der Schilder-konst'
on Google Books

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Angel II, Philips 1618 births 1660s deaths Year of death missing Dutch Golden Age painters Dutch male painters Artists from Leiden Dutch East India Company people