Fire, from The Four Elements

Accession Number
1994/2.42

Title
Fire, from The Four Elements

Artist(s)
Jan van de Velde

Object Creation Date
circa 1620

Medium & Support
etching and engraving on medium weight, slightly textured, off-white laid paper

Dimensions
7 3/4 x 11 13/16 in. (19.6 x 30 cm);14 3/8 x 19 3/8 in. (36.5 x 49.2 cm)

Credit Line
Museum Purchase made possible by the Friends of the Museum of Art

Label copy
Jan van de Velde, the most prolific printmaker of Haarlem in the early seventeenth century, mainly reproduced the designs of other artists, including Willem Buytewech. The latter was one of the most original and creative Dutch artists of the early seventeenth century. In his suite depicting the four elements—earth, water, fire, and air—Buytewech transformed the traditional manner of representing an element by a single large, symbolic figure. Instead he depicted many figures realistically engaged in activities relating to earth, water, fire, or air. Buytewech’s preparatory drawing for fire, a scene of firing cannons, was set in the daytime. Van de Velde transformed Buytewech’s design into a nocturnal scene, using the darkness of night as a foil for the firing cannons’ fleeting light, which brightly illuminates the surrounding figures.
Gallery label text, collections gallery, by Curator Annette Dixon, February, 2000

Primary Object Classification
Print

Collection Area
Western

Rights
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Keywords
cannonballs
cart
hats
night
standing
trees

& Author Notes

Web Use Permitted