Lucas van Leyden

Lucas van Leyden (born 1489/94, Leiden [Netherlands]—died before August 8, 1533, Leiden) was a northern Renaissance painter and one of the greatest engravers of his time.

Lucas was first trained by his father, Huygh Jacobszoon; later, he entered the workshop of Cornelis Engelbrechtsz(oon), a painter of Leiden. His paintings, as well as his prints, reveal his unique approach to subject matter and style, though Lucas is more highly regarded today as a printmaker than as a painter. He was extraordinarily precocious. Even such early prints as Muhammed and the Monk Sergius (1508) are compositionally clear and direct and show great technical skill. Such engravings as Susanna and the Elders (1508), St. George Liberating the Princess (c. 1508–09), and his famous series The Circular Passion (1510) are notable for their accurate rendering of space and subtly composed landscapes. In 1510, under the influence of Albrecht Dürer, Lucas produced two masterpieces of engraving, The Milkmaid and Ecce Homo, the latter much admired by Rembrandt. Their sureness of line and modeling complement their strong, simple compositions and place them among the most forceful engravings of their time. But engravings such as the Adoration of the Magi (c. 1512), cluttered with awkward figures and architectural backgrounds, indicate a decline in conceptual power that lasted until about 1519, when he engraved the Dance of the Magdalene. This work also has a large number of figures, but they are tranquil and are lucidly composed in small groupings.

In 1521 Lucas met Dürer in Antwerp and again fell under his influence, as can be seen in the Passion series of the same year. Lucas may have learned the technique of etching from Dürer, for he produced a few etchings after their meeting. But Lucas himself is thought to have developed the technique of etching on copper, instead of iron, plates. The softness of the copper made it possible to combine etching and line engraving in the same print. His well-known portrait of the emperor Maximilian (1521) is one of the earliest examples of the use of that technique. Lucas was also among the first to employ aerial perspective in prints. Impressed with the Italianate style of Jan Gossart, Lucas produced engravings, such as The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket (1521), characterized by a contrived monumentality. Such late prints, which often show the influence of the Italian engraver Marcantonio Raimondi, are generally considered to be his least successful.

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The number of paintings attributed to Lucas has diminished considerably since the late 19th century. Once numbered in the hundreds, it is now believed to be under 25. Such early works as The Chess Players (c. 1508) reveal a predilection for narrative painting and characterization, which he used often at the expense of compositional unity. That was largely overcome in his Moses Striking the Rock (1527), the Worship of the Golden Calf, and above all in his masterpiece, the Last Judgment (commissioned 1526), in which the composition is unified by the clear, dominant rhythm of the figures and the logically rendered space.