Artist secrets revealed

Willem van de Velde the Elder and his son Willem van de Velde the Younger were the most famous marine artists of the 17th century, renowned for their paintings of ships, stormscapes and naval battles.

Yet arguably the most important element of their creative practice were their drawings.

“Drawings were the lifeblood of their creative process, their studio practice and their success as artists,” says Dr Allison Goudie, Curator of Art at Royal Museums Greenwich.

Research into the collection at Royal Museums Greenwich is shedding fresh light on how the drawings were actually used. Far from simply preliminary sketches, these works were active tools for the Van de Veldes, repeatedly copied, referenced and reworked.

The Van de Velde studio at the Queen's House would have been overflowing with paper.

Encompassing rapid sketches, meticulous ship portraits and closely observed snapshots of maritime life, the drawings archive was vast. The collection at Royal Museums Greenwich alone includes almost 1,500 drawings by the Van de Veldes.

“This collection of drawings would have been a library of reference materials for the Van de Veldes’ paintings,” Goudie says. “If they wanted to depict a particular ship, they could go to their library of ship portraits; if they wanted to choose a particular composition, perhaps together with a patron, they would have a whole array of compositional sketches to select from.”

The Van de Velde drawings provide an insight into how the artists used drawing to develop their compositions, particularly their technique of taking offsets.

“The offset process was a means of reproducing a particular motif: a kind of ‘copy and paste’ for the 17th century,” Goudie says.

“It worked by taking a piece of blank paper, moistening it with water and then placing an original drawing on top of it – face down – and rubbing the back, so that the motif transferred onto the new sheet of paper.”

The technique produced a mirrored image of the original drawing.

“Some drawings which have been transferred as offsets bear the physical traces or ‘scars’ of this process, so hard have they been rubbed on the reverse,” Goudie explains.

Offsets enabled the Van de Veldes to experiment with different arrangements while keeping the same essential design. For example, they might change the position of a ship's masts and rigging, recreate the same scene under different weather conditions, or flip the orientation of a ship to better suit a given composition.

For Goudie, the drawings offer a valuable insight into the Van de Veldes’ artistic process, from initial sketches to detailed paintings.

“There was a whole process in between these two stages in which drawings were used endlessly to work out a composition. In the end, in fact, the painting may not be a true reflection of reality, but it’s what has worked best in a painting. The most important thing was that the Van de Veldes had a claim to accuracy, and that was centred on the Elder’s going to sea and sketching battles first hand.” 

The drawings emphasise the strong working relationship between Van de Velde the Elder and Younger, and how they utilised their respective skills to benefit the studio. “The Elder and Younger had complementary talents, and both were key to the success of the studio business,” she says.