page_title: Adriaen van Overbeke
section_title: Style
hierarchical_section_title: Adriaen van Overbeke / Work / Style
context_page_description: Adriaen van Overbeke, Adrian van Overbeck and Adriaen van Overbeke was a Flemish painter who worked in the manner of the Antwerp Mannerists. He operated a large workshop with an important output of altarpieces, which were mainly exported to Northern France, the Rhineland and Westphalia. His known works were predominantly polychromed wooden altarpieces with painted shutters, which were created through a collaboration between painters and sculptors.
context_section_description: Van Overbeke was the head of a large workshop, which employed many assistants. He further developed collaborations with other Antwerp workshops including of painters and sculptors. He appeared therefore in contemporary contracts both as a principal as well as a subcontractor. With the increasing success of his business, he gradually participated less in the execution of works and he became an entrepreneur who relied on workshop assistants and other workshops to create the altarpieces.
  Models in his workshop were used to create a workshop style.  The workshop style also included compliance with certain conventions regarding the palette which remained very similar over a period of about 15 years. Blue and red dominate in strong tones. Continuity of the workshop style was also achieved through a rational image design. The figures were brought to the foreground and often recurring groups of figures must have been based on workshop templates. The design of various compositions relied on prints of Albrecht Dürer. The adoption of a workshop style explains why it is difficult to attribute works to him on style-critical grounds.  Van Overbeke himself is believed to have spent a lot of his time traveling abroad to meet with his patrons. Unlike other workshops in Antwerp, the van Overbeke workshop is not known for serially produced altarpieces of the passion of Christ or the life of the Virgin Mary.  Typical traits of van Overbeke's style are the tall figures with somewhat elongated faces and small eyes, broad faces with the hanging angle of the mouth and sunken eyes, and thin hands with long fingers.  The landscapes typically contain rock formations.
  Van Overbeke is considered a representative of Antwerp Mannerism.  The term Antwerp Mannerism was coined by Friedländer in the early 20th century to refer to a transitory phase in Netherlandish art from the late Gothic to works inspired by the Italian Renaissance.  The terms "Manier" and "Manierist" were used by Friedländer to refer to the original even unusual motifs in the body of work categorized under this style. The terms carried a pejorative connotation as these works were regarded as inferior to work produced by Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Quentin Matsys and other contemporaries.  The style of these works was often extravagant. This was reflected in how the folds of the flamboyant and exotic clothes worn by the figures defied gravity.  These figures were usually depicted in agitated poses amidst architectural ruins.  The earlier works included Gothic architecture but in later works Renaissance structures became prevalent. The paintings appear to combine Early Netherlandish and Northern Renaissance styles, and incorporate both Flemish and Italian traditions into the same compositions.  Most of the artists of Antwerp Mannerism have remained anonymous and only some of the artists have been identified. They include Jan de Beer and the Master of 1518 (possibly Jan Mertens or Jan van Dornicke).  Adriaen van Overbeke himself was only recently identified with the anonymous master who was given the notname 'Master of the Crucifixion of Antwerp' by Friedländer.
caption: The Adoration of the Magi
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