mantic Northern landscapes with waterfalls and boul-
ders, and panoramic vistas such as View of Haarlem with
Bleaching Grounds (circa 1670-1675; The Hague, Maur-
itshuis). Van Ruisdael was seventeenth-century Hol-
land's greatest landscape painter.CORNELIS SAFTLEVEN
Gorinchem 1607-Rotterdam 1681
Saftleven was the son and pupil of the painter Herman
Saftleven, and the brother of the landscape painter Her-
man Saftleven the Younger. Soon after Cornelis' birth,
the family moved to Rotterdam. His earliest dated paint-
ings show fanciful animal allegories and scenes of hell.
Around 1632/34 he traveled to Antwerp, where An-
thony van Dyck made a portrait drawing of him. By
1634 Saftleven was in Utrecht, where his brother, Her-
man, was living, and the two began to paint stable in-
teriors, a subject new to peasant genre painting. By 1637
Saftleven had returned to Rotterdam. Paintings of the
following decades include landscapes with shepherds
and cows and animal satires such as Allegory of the Con-
demnation of Oldenbarnevelt (1663; Amsterdam, Rijks-
museum). As a draughtsman, Saftleven is best known for
his black chalk drawings of single figures, usually young
men, and his studies of animals, which show the influ-
ence of Roelandt Savery. Saftleven remained in Rotter-
dam until his death.
HERMAN SAFTLEVEN THE
YOUNGER
Rotterdam 1609-Utrecht 1685
Herman was probably taught i n Rotterdam by his father
and his elder brother, Cornelis Saftleven. Among his ear-
liest works is a series of landscape etchings of 1627 in the
style of Willem Buytewech. Around 1632 Saftleven
moved to Utrecht, where he was deacon of the guild of
Saint Luke in 1657, 1658, 1666, and 1667. During the
16305 and '405 he painted rustic stable interiors, but
turned increasingly to landscapes, coming under the in-
fluence of Jan van Goyen, Roelandt Savery, and—
later—-Jan Both and Cornelis van Poelenburgh. Most of
Saftleven's drawings date from after 1630. Under com-
mission from the municipality, he made studies of build-
ings in Utrecht, particularly in 1648 and 1675. Between
1648 and 1652 he drew fantastic mountain landscapes in-
fluenced by Savery. During this period he also made pre-
cise drawings of sites he encountered during travels
around Utrecht and along the Rhine. From the 16505 on
Saftleven depicted imaginary panoramas reminiscent of
the Rhineland, and in his last years made watercolors of
flowers. During the i66os the great Dutch poetjoost vanden Vondel composed several poems in praise of Saftlev-
en's work.CARLO SARACENI
Venice circa 1579-1620
Saraceni's early artistic development owed much to the
influence of the North Italian artists Jacopo Bassano, Gi-
rolamo Romanino, and Girolamo Savoldo. In 1598 he
settled in Rome, where he familiarized himself with the
contemporary trends represented by the Carracci and
Caravaggio. However, the art of the German Adam
Elsheimer made the greatest impression upon him. Sar-
aceni began producing compositions similar to works by
Elsheimer, small-scale biblical and mythological subjects
set before vast landscapes, as can be seen in the series of
six paintings in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples, in-
cluding Ariadne Abandoned. During the second decade of
the seventeenth century, Saraceni developed a rather po-
etic interpretation of Caravaggio's art. His major works
in this style include the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne
(1611-1614; Rome, Galleria Nazionale dArte Antica e
Moderna) and Saint Benno Receiving the Keys of Meissen
(1616-1618; Rome, Santa Maria della Anima). He re-
turned to Venice in 1619 to begin several private and of-
ficial commissions, which were completed after his
death by his friend and collaborator Jean le Clerc.ROELANDT SAVERY
Kortrijk (Courtrai) 1576-Utrecht 1639
Roelandt Savery and his family left the south Nether-
lands during the early 15 80s, arriving in Haarlem in 15 857- By 1591 he is likely to have been in Amsterdam,
where he studied with his elder brother Jacob and Hans
Bol. Savery arrived in Prague in 1603/04 and probably
entered the service of Emperor Rudolf II about this time.
He traveled in Prague and Bohemia, and around i6o6/
07 went to the Tyrol, where he drew mountain scenery
from life. After Rudolf's death in 1612 , Savery remained
in Prague for about a year, and between 1614 and 1619 he
lived in Amsterdam intermittently. In 1619 he settled in
Utrecht, where he spent the remaining twenty years of
his life. Savery's most innovative work dates to his years
in imperial service. His drawings and paintings are im-
portant for the development of several genres: the floral
still life, paintings of cows and other animals, cityscapes,
and landscapes. Most notably, his mountain scenes with
precipitous rocks and waterfalls influenced later Dutch
landscape painters such as Allart van Everdingen, Her-
man Saftleven, and Jacob van Ruisdael.
352 ARTISTS' BIOGRAPHIES