Franck Deutsche Künstler-Gallerie 1818 Bild 14

Jan Steven van Calcar ( it, Giovanni da Calcar, la, Ioannes Stephanus Calcarensis) (c. 1499–1546) was a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

-born

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

painter.

Life

Calcar was born in the Duchy of

Cleves Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...

sometime between 1499 and 1510.

Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

refers to him several times, mainly with respect to his having been a pupil of

Titian Tiziano Vecelli or Vecellio (; 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian ( ), was an Italian (Venetian) painter of the Renaissance, considered the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, nea ...

. Calcar entered Titian's school in 1536 and was accepted to his faculty for his extraordinarily accurate copies of the works of that master. Calcar appears to have worked first at Dordrecht, but the greater part of his life was spent at Naples, and there, as Vasari tells us, "the fairest hopes had been conceived respecting his future progress".Williamson, George. "Jan Stephanus van Kalcker". The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910.

Works

Giorgio Vasari Giorgio Vasari (, also , ; 30 July 1511 – 27 June 1574) was an Italian Renaissance Master, who worked as a painter, architect, engineer, writer, and historian, who is best known for his work '' The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculp ...

, Carel van Mander, and others credit Calcar with the eleven large

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...

illustrations of anatomical studies which accompanied Andreas Vesalius's work on anatomy. The most notable among these is the anatomical study of the human body entitled ''

De humani corporis fabrica libri septem ''De Humani Corporis Fabrica Libri Septem'' (Latin, lit. "On the fabric of the human body in seven books") is a set of books on human anatomy written by Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564) and published in 1543. It was a major advance in the history ...

'' or ''On the Fabric of the Human Body in Seven Books'' (1543). Calcar is also said to have drawn the portraits of the artists in the early edition of Vasari's ''Lives''. By some writers he has been declared to have been a close imitator of

Giorgione Giorgione (, , ; born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco; 1477–78 or 1473–74 – 17 September 1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school during the High Renaissance, who died in his thirties. He is known for the elusive poetic quali ...

; all who write about him unite in stating that his imitations of the works of the great Venetian artists, and also of

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, better known as Raphael (; or ; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual a ...

, were so extraordinary that they deceived many critics of the day. His pictures are to be seen in Berlin, Paris, Florence, Vienna, and Prague, and his original works are, as a rule, portraits, although at Prague there is a remarkable "Nativity" by him, which was once the property of Rubens.

Notes

References

* *

External links

Jan Stefan van Calcar
in the

RKD The Netherlands Institute for Art History or RKD (Dutch: RKD-Nederlands Instituut voor Kunstgeschiedenis), previously Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), is located in The Hague and is home to the largest art history center i ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Calcar, Jan van 1499 births 1545 deaths Medical illustrators German printmakers