Marten Ryckaert

MARTEN RYCKAERT, (Antwerp, Belgium 1587 - 1631).
"The Hermit".
Oil on copper.
Measurements: 17 x 22,50 cm, 25 x 30 cm (frame).

Marten Ryckaert was a Flemish painter born in Antwerp in 1587, in a family linked to both art and commerce. His father, David Ryckaert the Elder, was a sculpture painter and art dealer, which undoubtedly facilitated young Marten's contact with the artistic world from an early age. His initial training probably began in the family workshop, and he later became a pupil of Tobias Verhaecht, a master who had also trained the young Rubens.

From a young age, Marten was known for a physical peculiarity that distinguished him from his contemporaries: he had only one arm. Even so, this did not prevent him from achieving great technical skill and developing a successful painting career. In fact, when in 1607 he was admitted as a master in the Guild of St. Luke in Antwerp, he was already recognized as "the painter with only one arm".

It is believed that he traveled to Italy between 1607 and 1610, although there are no direct records to confirm this. However, his work shows a clear assimilation of Italian influences, especially the style of Paul Bril, suggesting that he at least had access to landscapes and models from the south. Upon his return to Flanders, he devoted himself almost exclusively to the landscape genre, specializing in idealized and fanciful scenes with ruins, lush vegetation, rivers and small human figures that were integrated as narrative accents within serene and balanced compositions.

Ryckaert's landscapes, generally small in format, present a poetic atmosphere, rich in detail and with a very refined use of color and light. His compositions often alternate dramatic rocky outcrops and ruined architecture with wooded areas and soft atmospheric transitions, inherited from the Flemish tradition but filtered by a classicist and Mediterranean taste. In his works one can perceive the influence of artists such as Joos de Momper and Jan Brueghel the Elder, although with his own delicate and somewhat melancholic voice.

Marten Ryckaert was also an active member of the cultural environment of his city, linked to circles such as the chamber of rhetoric De Violieren. Although he never married, he maintained an active and respected life within the Antwerp art guild, where he also cultivated his facet as a collector. He died in his hometown on October 11, 1631, leaving a work appreciated both in his time and in later collections, and an image remembered even by great artists: he is portrayed by his friend Van Dyck in his famous series of portraits of Flemish artists.