Anthony van Dyck

Anthony van Dyck was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the most important court painter in England. He is most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England and his family and court, painted with a relaxed elegance that was to be the dominant influence on English portrait-painting for the next 150 years. He also painted biblical and mythological subjects, displayed outstanding facility as a draftsman, and was an important innovator in watercolor and etching. Anthony van Dyck is also considered to be one of the most brilliant colorists in the history of art. He was one of the most influential 17th-century painters, set a new style for Flemish art and founded the English school of painting; the portraitists Sir Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough of that school were his artistic heirs.