Van Dyck. The Anatomy of Portraiture

John Balestrieri | Antiques and the Arts Weekly | 18th March 2016

Van Dyck was his century’s greatest portraitist. Preferring to paint from life, he needed his sitters to make multiple studio visits. This gave him an opportunity to observe personality which became the intangible but animating quality of the portrait. “Great portraits bounce us back and forth between then and now, us and them … Great portraits have everything to do with what makes us all unique, and uniquely human.”

Image: Frick Collection