Jacobs, Lucas

, commonly called Lucas Van Leyden, and by the Italians, Luca d’Ollanda, was born at Leyden, 1494. He was the disciple of his father Hugh Jacobs, and after him of Cornelius Engelbrecht, and distinguished himself in very early life as a painter and engraver. With fewer faults than his contemporaries, he possessed qualities to them unknown, more freshness and mellowness of colour, more aerial perspective, and equal dexterity in oil, distemper, and on glass. He delighted in subjects of extensive composition, though he was ignorant of light and shade in masses. His forms, like those of Albert Durer, are implicit copies of the model, but with less variety and less intelligence, lank, meagre, ignoble. Of expression he had little more than the vulgar grimace. Though he was without attention or knowledge of the costume in the general attire of his figures, his drapery is often ample and broad, but rather snapt than folded. Many pictures of this master in oil and distemper still exist in public places and private collections, at Leyden, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, and elsewhere. His name, however, chiefly survives in the numerous prints which he engraved with equal diligence and facility of touch. He died in 1533. ³