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The Book of Art for Young People, by Agnes Ethel Conway and Sir Martin Conway
First published in 1909. Read by Kara Shallenberg.

Chapter 11: Van Dyck

Excerpt:

Van Dyck was the first painter who taught people how they ought to look, to befit an admirer’s view of their aristocratic rank. His portraits thus express the social position of the sitter as well as the individual character. Although this has been an aim of portrait-painters in modern times, when they have been painting people of rank, it was less usual in the seventeenth century.

Here is the painting discussed in this chapter:

William II. of Orange (by Van Dyck)

Come back next Monday for chapter 12!

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