Jacob van Campen

Jacob van Campen (1596-1657) was a Dutch artist and architect of the Golden Age. Born into a wealthy family at Haarlem, he spent his youth in his hometown. Being of noble birth and with time on his hands, he took up painting mainly as a pastime. In 1614, he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke (in Haarlem the architects and painters were both in the same guild, and many were both, such as Pieter Saenredam and Salomon de Bray), and studied painting under Frans de Grebber – a number of Van Campen’s oils survive.

1616-1624, he is thought to have lived in Italy. On his return to the Netherlands, Van Campen turned to architecture, applying ideas borrowed from Andrea Palladio, Vincenzo Scamozzi and classical influences from Vitruvius. He was primarily responsible for introducing the classical revival style into Dutch Baroque architecture, combining the native, Dutch brick style with the Vitruvian principles he had learnt to produce “Dutch Classicism”, an internationally influential style.