Adriaen Van De Velde Biography | Oil Paintings.

Adriaen van de Velde was the son of Willem van de Velde the Elder and brother of Willem van de Velde the Younger, both of which were seascape and marine painter.

Adriaen van de Velde wanted to be different and did not want to become a marine painter like the rest of his family, so he was trained in the Haarlem studio of the landscape painter Jan Wynants. There he met Philip Wouwerman, who aided him in his studies of animals, and exercised a powerful influence upon his art. Adriaen van de Velde produced his first known works, six etchings at the age of sixteen, in 1653 and had returned to Amsterdam from Haarlem by 1657. Having been a good student and progressed rapidly, he was soon employed by Wynants to introduce figures into his landscape paintings, and he cooperated with Meindert Hobbema, Ruisdael, Verboom and other contemporary artists in painting figures or animals for them.

Adriaen van de Velde favorite subjects were sheep, cattle, and goats, in open pasture land which he executed with smoothness, accurate draftsmanship, and a silvery hue. Like Paulus Potter, van de Velde preferred cattle scenes. Potter's precise technique and use of hard, cool sunlight also influenced van de Velde's early style. He painted a couple of little winter scenes with skaters, and several religious subjects, such as the Descent from the Cross, for a Roman Catholic church that was hidden in Amsterdam. Around 1658, in response to works by Italianate painters Karel Dujardin and Nicolaes Berchem, van de Velde began to warm up his palette with warmer hues and a softer, more yellowish sunshine. He died early at age of thirty-six while collaborating with Jan van der Heyden and Frederik de Moucheron, painting animals for their oil paintings.

Art Movement: Dutch Golden Age.
Artists Influencing Adriaen van de Velde: Jan Wynants, Philip Wouwerman.
Artist Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.