Crispin van den Broeck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Crispin van den Broeck (1523-1591) was a Flemish painter. He was born in Mechelen. He came from a family of artists, was probably trained by his father, and was the brother of Willem van den Broeck. He worked as a painter, draftsman and engraver. He was enlisted as a master in the Guild of St. Luke of Antwerp in 1555–6, where he became a citizen in 1559.

In Antwerp he was a collaborator of Frans Floris with whom he remained until the master’s death in 1570. According to Karel van Mander, Crispin van den Broeck and Frans Pourbus the elder completed an altarpiece for the Grand-Prior of Spain left incomplete at the time of Floris’s death. Van Mander also claimed that Crispin van den Broek was 'a good inventor . . . clever at large nudes and just as good an architect'. Crispin van den Broek died in Antwerp sometime between 1589 and February 6, 1591.

[edit] Themes

The painting of Two Young Men has been interpreted as depicting a sexual relationship through its symbology, with the apple (upside down) symbolizing sin and the relationship of Adam and Eve, and the bird's head viewed as an eagle, suggesting the myth of Zeus and Ganymede. ^[1] This interpretation is conjectural, however, and an alternative reading is that the two boys are brothers, that the bird is a crow, and that the crow and the apple both function as mementi mori. ^[2]

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.androphile.org/preview/Museum/Europe/deBroeck.htm commentary on Two Young Men from androphile.com
2. ^ http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/pharos/collection_pages/northern_pages/PD_20_1961/TXT_SE-PD201961.html commentary on Two Young Men from the Fitzwilliam