271 



VANDERMEULEN, ANTONY FRANCIS. 



VANDERVELDE, WILLIAM. 



painter are executed in a light and free manner, but are too blue in 

 the distances. According to Van Eynden and Vander "VVilligen, in 

 their ' History of National Art,' Vander Meer painted only history and 

 portrait. The date of his death is not known. 



JAN VANDER MEER, the young, a relation of, and, according to some, 

 the BOO of the preceding, was born in 1656. He was first instructed 

 by the elder Vander Meer, and after his death he became the scholar 

 of N. Berghem, in whose style he executed a few pictures, but he 

 painted chiefly landscapes with sheep and goats. His landscapes are 

 excellent, and in painting sheep, which predominate in his pictures, he 

 has not been equalled by any of his countrymen : he seldom painted 

 horses or cattle. He excelled also in making pen-and-ink drawings, 

 which he shaded very skilfully with Indian ink. He etched likewise 

 a few plates in a very masterly manner. He died in 1 706, in great 

 poverty, brought on by intemperate habits. Some of the pictures 

 attributed to the elder Vander Meer have been most likely painted by 

 the younger. 



The supposed third artist of this name is by some writers called 

 John, and by others Jacob ; and the misfortune said to have happened 

 to the elder Vander Meer at Utrecht is related of this artist, but the 

 accounts are too discrepant to enable us to say decidedly whether 

 there were three or only two artists of this name. 



VANDERMEULEN, ANTONY FRANCIS, a celebrated Flemish 

 landscape- and battle-painter, was born at Brussels in 1634. He 

 was the scholar of Peter Snayers, and painted some good battles in the 

 style of his master while still very young. Some of these pictures 

 were seen by the French minister Colbert, who invited Vandermeulen 

 to Pans, and held out such hopes to him that he was induced to leave 

 his own couutry and settle in the French cpital, where he was allowed 

 a pension of 2000 francs by Louis XIV., besides being paid handsomely 

 for his works. His pension was afterwards increased to 6000 francs. 



Vandermeulen accompanied Louis XIV. to the Netherlands in some 

 of his campaigns, and made drawings of all the fortified places visited 

 by the king or his army, and of all the sieges, battles, and engagements 

 iii which he was successful. The pictures painted from these designs 

 are highly valued both for their faithful representation of the localities 

 and for their correct costume. He excelled also in horses, which he 

 designed with great spirit. His execution was free and his colouring 

 generally rich, but his landscapes are rather too green in tone : his 

 handling is in the style of Van Uden and Wildens. 



Vandermeuleii's principal works, twenty-nine in number, were in 

 the Chateau de Marly. There are now many of them in the Louvre 

 and many others at Versailles. These pictures are mostly of a large 

 size : they were dead-coloured from bis designs by his scholars, Martin 

 the elder, Baudouin, and Bonnart, but were all finished by himself. 

 The best are views of Luxembourg and Fontainebleau, the Entrance 

 of Louis XIV. into Arras, Dinant, and another city, and the Passage 

 of the King over the Pont-Neuf. 



Vandermeulen was a member of the highest class of the French 

 Academy. He was the friend of Le Bruu, and after the death of his 

 first wife he married a niece of that painter, who by her misconduct is 

 said to have sent her husband prematurely to the grave. He died at 

 Paris in 1690. Many of his pictures and designs have been engraved ; 

 the prints after his works amount to nearly one hundred and forty. 



PETER VANDERMEULEN, the brother of Charles Anthony, painted 

 some battles for William III. of England : he came to this country in 

 1670. He was originally a sculptor. 



VANDERMONDE, a French mathematician and philosopher, was 

 born in Paris in 1735, and during his childhood, his health being deli- 

 cate, his father, a physician of Landrecies, caused him to be early 

 taught to sing, in the hope that, by the exercise of his voice, his lungs 

 might acquire strength. 



When he was thirty years of age he was introduced to Fontaine, in 

 whose society he felt so much pleasure that he became his pupil, and 

 immediately applied all the powers of his mind to the study of mathe- 

 matics. In this he appears to have succeeded so far, that on being 

 recommended by his friend Dusejour to propose himself as a candidate 

 for admission to the Acaddmie des Sciences, he prepared a memoir 

 on the resolution of algebraic equations, which he read at a sitting of 

 that learned body in 1771. Having been elected, he subsequently 

 presented several other memoirs on mathematical subjects : among 

 these may be mentioned one entitled ' Recherches analytiques sur les 

 Irrationelles d'une nouvelle espdce,' and another on the elimination of 

 unknown quantities. 



Vandermonde had always a decided taste for music, and during 

 several years he made it a particular object of study. Having analysed 

 the works of the best musicians of the time, he came to the conclusion 

 that the whole art was founded on one general law, by which, with the 

 aid of mathematical processes, it would be possible for any person to 

 become a composer ; and he explained the nature of his method before 

 the Acaddmie in 1788, and again in 1790. His two ' Mdmoires' were 

 submitted to the consideration of certain members who were appointed 

 to examine them ; and though a favourable report was made by Gluck, 

 Philidor, and Piccini, the opinions were not unanimous ; the mathe- 

 maticians are said to have found in the ' Mdinoires ' too much music, 

 and the musicians too much mathematics. 



The versatility of his taste and talent led Vandermonde next to the 

 study of chemistry ; and becoming connected with Lavoisier, Monge, 



and Berthollet, he was engaged for a time in making experiments on 

 the gases and on the composition of iron and steel. 



After the death of Vaucanson, Vandermonde was appointed to the 

 direction of a conservatory or museum for arts and manufactures 

 which had been formed by that philosopher ; and considering it as a 

 collection which might be made highly useful to the country, he spared 

 no pains or expense to augment it with models of all the different 

 machines which he could procure. This was the original of the Con- 

 servatoire pour les Arta et Mdtiers, which was afterwards removed to 

 the Abbaye St. Martin. 



From a conversation with M. Senovert, the translator of Stewart's 

 ' Philosophy of the Human Mind,' he was induced to study that branch 

 of science ; and applying himself to it with his usual ardour, he was 

 soon above the level of his countrymen in his knowledge of that intri- 

 cate subject. On the formation of the Ecole Normale he was appointed 

 in 1795 professor of political economy in that institution, and in the 

 same year he was appointed to the first class of the Institut. 



At the breaking out of the Revolution Vandermonde entered into 

 the clubs which were then formed, purely, it is said, as a philosopher, 

 that he might study the characters of the men who distinguished 

 themselves in those turbulent times, and without taking any active 

 part in the measures which were then put in practice. 



He exhausted his private fortune in advancing the objects of the 

 museum which had been committed to his care ; and being paid, like 

 other public functionaries, in asaignats, the depreciation of these 

 reduced him to poverty. He died of a vomiting of blood, on the 1st 

 of January 1796. 



His works consist only of the ' Mdmoires,' which are printed in the 

 volumes of the Acaddmie des Sciences. His lively imagination seems 

 to have carried him too rapidly from one subject to another to permit 

 him to acquire a profound knowledge of any ; and thus the reputation 

 which he acquired during his life may be said to have terminated at 

 his death, or to have survived only for a time in the memory of his 

 friends. 



VANDERVELDE, ADRIAN. This celebrated painter was born 

 at Amsterdam in 1639, and showed great ability for drawing at an 

 early age. He became the scholar of John Wynants, with whom he 

 remained some years. Adrian Vandervelde excelled in landscapes, 

 in cattle, and in small figures, and was of great assistance to many of 

 the most distinguished painters of his time by embellishing their 

 pictures with figures, and thus adding greatly to their value. He 

 painted figures in the pictures of Wynants, Vander Heyden, Ruysdael, 

 Hobbema, Moucheron, and other--?. Vandervelde executed likewise 

 some historical pieces, in which he was very successful; he painted a 

 ' Taking down from the Cross ' for a Roman Catholic church at Amster- 

 dam, in which the figures, though less than life, were of a considerable 

 size ; and he left several other works of a similar description unfinished 

 at his death in 1672, in only his thirty-third year. Considering the 

 early age at which he died, his pictures are very numerous, yet they 

 are sold for very high prices. 



Adrian Vandervelde was well acquainted with the human figure, and 

 also with everything else that he painted. He was extremely indus- 

 trious, and was constant in his recourse to nature in the studies of all 

 his works : the various effects of light upon the trees and other objects 

 of his landscapes, both in the morning and evening scenes, are remark- 

 ably true to nature, and are managed with perfect mastery of his 

 materials. He is distinguished also for the extreme delicacy of drawing 

 of all the objects which he represented. 



VANDERVELDE, or VANDEVELDE, WILLIAM, called the Old, 

 to distinguish him from his son of the same name, a very celebrated 

 marine painter, was born at Ley den in 1610. Of his early studies little 

 is known, but he appears as a boy to have been bred to the sea ; and it 

 was during the voyages of his youth that he acquired his love for the 

 sea and his knowledge of ships, which was eventually of such eminent 

 service to him as a marine painter. He distinguished himself early by 

 some drawings of sea-fights, and he was in consequence commissioned 

 by the States of Holland in 1666 to accompany Admiral de Ruyter on 

 board the Dutch fleet, for the purpose of making designs of whatever 

 engagements might take place between the Dutch and English fleets. 

 He made some admirable drawings of the great engagement which 

 took place off Ostend in June in that year. By these aiul other designs 

 he acquired such a reputation that he was invited in 1675 to England 

 by Charles II., who granted him a pension of 1001. per annum, with 

 the title of painter of sea-fights to the kin^. He is said to have been 

 so zealous in the service of Charles, as to be ungrateful to his country : 

 he led the English fleet to burn Schelling. 



Vandevelde did not paint his designs : they were generally executed 

 with a pen upon paper fixed upon canvas, upon parchment, or upon 

 white prepared canvas; he also executed some in black and white : 

 every part is drawn and made out with a knowledge and precision 

 unrivalled in that style. Some of his designs were painted in oil by 

 his sou, who lived with him in this country, and received from the 

 king also a pension of 1001. per annum for that express purpose. A 

 copy of the following privy-seal was purchased among the papers of 

 Pepys, and was given by Dr. Rawlinson, the antiquary, to Vertue, the 

 engraver : " Charles the Second, by the grace of God, &c., to our 

 dear cousin, Prince Rupert, and the rest of our commissioners for exe- 

 cuting the place of lord high-admiral of England, greeting. Whereas we 



