Gillis van coninxloo biography of christopher

Biography

Painter, draughtsman and collector, part of a Flemish family of artists whose members of at least six generations were artists, active from the late 15th century to the 17th. The family was foinded by Jan van Coninxloo I ( fl 1490).

Gillis van Coninxloo (in fact Gillis van Coninxloo III) was the son of Jan van Coninxloo II. Van Mander, a contemporary of Gillis van Coninxloo III, wrote in 1604: 'He is, as far as I know, the best landscape painter of his time; his style is now frequently imitated in Holland.' His works works show the transition from Mannerist to early Baroque landscape.

Coninxloo studied under, among others, Pieter Coecke van Aelst, a painter of the Antwerp school of Mannerism.

After a period of travel in France, he returned to Antwerp in 1570 and was made a member of the painters' guild. He left his home again in 1585 to escape religious persecution and stayed at Frankenthal in the Palatinate until 1595, when he settled in Amsterdam.

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