Editing Frans Floris (section)

==Life==
[[File:Frans Floris I - El despertar de las Artes.jpg|thumb|400px|''The Awakening of the Arts'']]

Frans Floris was born in [[Antwerp]]. He was the scion of a prominent artist family which originally went with the name ‘de Vriendt’. The earliest known ancestors of the Floris de Vriendt family, then still called only ‘de Vriendt’, were residents of [[Brussels]] where they practiced the craft of stonemason and stonecutter which was passed on from father to son. One of Frans' ancestors became in 1406 a master of the [[Brussels]] stonemasons guild. A family member, Jan Florisz. de Vriendt, left his native Brussels and settled in Antwerp in the mid-15th century. His patronymic name ‘Floris’ became the common family name in subsequent generations. The original form ‘de Vriendt’ can, however, still be found in official documents until the late 16th century.<ref name=ox>Carl Van de Velde. "Floris." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web. 26 March 2015</ref>

Frans' brothers were prominent artists. The most famous one is [[Cornelis Floris de Vriendt|Cornelis]] who was an architect and sculptor and was one of the designers of the [[Antwerp City Hall]]. Jacob Floris was a painter of stained-glass windows and Jan Floris was a potter.<ref name=ox/> Jan traveled to Spain to practice his art there and died young. 
[[File:Frans Floris Portrait of an Elderly Lady.jpg|thumb|260px|left|''Portrait of an elderly lady'']]

Documentary evidence about the life of Frans Floris is scarce. Most of what we know about the youth and training of Frans Floris is based on the early biographer [[Karel van Mander]]'s biography of the artist. At ten pages long it is one of the most detailed biographies in van Mander's ''[[Schilder-boeck|Het Schilder-boeck]]'' published in 1604. According to van Mander, Frans Floris was the son of the stonecutter Cornelis I de Vriendt (died 1538). Like his brothers, Frans began as a student of sculpture, but later he gave up sculpture for painting. Floris went to [[Liège]] where he studied with the prominent painter [[Lambert Lombard]]. The choice for Lombard as a teacher was surprising since Antwerp was a cultural centre with many outstanding painters. He may have chosen Lombard as his brother Cornelis was good friends with Lombard, whom he had met in Rome around 1538. It is also possible that Frans trained as a painter in Antwerp before studying under Lombard. Floris became a master in the Antwerp [[Guild of Saint Luke]] in 1539–40.<ref name=os/>

Lombard encouraged Frans Floris to study in Italy. He traveled to Rome probably as early as 1541 or 1542 and became fascinated with Italian contemporary painting (particularly Michelangelo and Raphael) and the Classical sculpture and art of Rome. He kept a notebook of sketches, which his pupils would later etch. Floris visited other cities in Italy including [[Mantua]] and [[Genoa]].<ref name=os/>
[[File:Frans Floris - The Fall of Man - Google Art Project.jpg|270px|thumb|''The Fall of Man'']]

Upon his return to Antwerp around 1545, Frans Floris opened a workshop on the Italian model.<ref name=os/> He became the leading history painter and was called the ‘Flemish Raphael’. He enjoyed the patronage of prominent personalities such as the wealthy Antwerp banker [[Niclaes Jonghelinck]] for whose house he painted a series of ten compositions on the legend of [[Hercules]] and seven compositions on the liberal arts. He also painted 14 large panels for the duke of Aarschot's palace of Beaumont. Local nobility including the knights of the [[Golden Fleece]], the [[Prince of Orange]] and the Counts of Egmont and Horn (later the leaders of the [[Dutch Revolt]]) visited Floris at his home, attracted by his artistic reputation as well as his ability to talk with ‘great insight and judgment on any topic’.<ref name=ges> Frans Jozef van den Branden, ''{{lang|nl|Geschiedenis der Antwerpsche Schilderschool}}'', Antwerp: J.-E. Buschmann, 1883</ref> He also moved in the circle of the leading [[Renaissance humanism|humanists]] such as [[Abraham Ortelius]], [[Christophe Plantin]], [[Lucas de Heere]], Lambert Lombard, [[Dominicus Lampsonius]] and [[Hieronymus Cock]]. This group of intellectuals and artists was the first to develop theories on art and the role of artists in the Low Countries.<ref>Jeroen Vandommele, p. 255</ref> In 1549 Floris was commissioned by the Antwerp city authorities to design the decorations for the [[Joyous entry]] into Antwerp of [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V of Spain]] and the Infante Philip.<ref name=os/>
[[File:Frans Floris - The last judgement.jpg|thumb|338px|left|''The Last Judgement'']]

His brother Cornelis designed a palace for him in Antwerp with a façade of blue limestone and with luxurious decorations such as gilded leather wall-coverings in the bedroom.<ref name=Mander>[http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/mand001schi01_01/mand001schi01_01_0225.htm Frans Floris] in [[Karel van Mander]], ''Het Schilderboeck'', 1604 {{in lang|nl}}</ref> The façade itself was designed by Frans. His design program for the façade was intended to illustrate the high status of artists in society. He painted the façade with seven personifications symbolizing the qualities and skills of an artist: Accuracy (Diligentia), Practice (Usus), Labor (Labor), Diligence (Industria), Experience (Experientia), Praise (Lauda) and Architecture (Architectura). Above the doorway of the house a relief depicted the sciences (the seven liberal arts together with painting and architectures) as the principal components of human society. The unknown monogrammist TG portrayed the façade in 1576 in a [[:File:Monogrammist TG - Humanae societati necessaria. Facade of the house of Frans Floris in Antwerp.jpg|print]].<ref>Jeroen Vandommele, p. 263-265</ref> [[Jozef Linnig]] made a [[:File:Jozef Linnig - The house of Frans Floris.jpg|drawing of the palace]] in the 19th century but by that time most of the decoration of the façade had disappeared. Floris expressed similar ideas in his composition ''The awakening of the Arts'' ([[Museo de Arte de Ponce]]).<ref>[http://www.collectieantwerpen.be/component/option,com_memorix/Itemid,2/task,result/cp,1/resultplugin,detail/lang,nl/mrxpopup,1/CollectionID,1/PhotoID,FAM001005247/RecordID,974178/ResultRecord,4/do,4/ Jozef Linnig, ''The house of Frans Floris''] at Musea en Erfgoed Antwerpen {{in lang|nl}}</ref>

In 1547 Floris married Clara Boudewijns and the couple had one daughter and two sons. The sons Frans and Baptist were later trained as artists by their father. Baptist died young while Frans moved to Italy where he had a successful career.<ref name=ges/>
[[File:Jozef Linnig - The house of Frans Floris.jpg|thumb|360px|''The house of Frans Floris'' by [[Jozef Linnig]], [[Plantin-Moretus Museum]]]]

Frans Floris was known to be hardworking as is testified by his motto: ''Als ick werck, dan leef ick: als ick spelen gae, dan sterf ick.'' This means "When I work, I live: when I play, I die." Van Mander recounts that Floris nearly always had a large commission in his workshop on which he would work late at night, and that when he dozed off his pupils would take off his shoes and stockings and put him to bed before they left. Van Mander cites [[Frans Menton]] who asserted Floris was loved by his pupils for allowing them more freedom than other Antwerp masters. When a small group of his pupils met up for a reunion after his death they were able to compile a list of 120 of his pupils.<ref>[http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/mand001schi01_01/mand001schi01_01_0225.htm Isaack Claessen Cloeck, in Frans Floris biography] in [[Karel van Mander]]'s ''Schilderboeck'', 1604 {{in lang|nl}}</ref>

Van Mander recounts that at the end of his life Floris became heavily indebted and started drinking.<ref name=Mander/> The debts were likely related to his high costs of living as well as the impact of the ''[[Beeldenstorm]]'' or Iconoclastic Fury that commenced from the 1560s and reached its peak in 1566. During the period of [[iconoclasm]], Catholic art and many forms of church fittings and decoration were destroyed by nominally [[Calvinist]] Protestant crowds as part of the [[Protestant Reformation]]. It is said Floris never recovered from the shock of seeing his artworks destroyed. Instead, he found himself in a downward spiral in both his personal and professional affairs. His disaffection was so great that he even refused to restore his own works damaged during the Beeldenstorm. He virtually stopped painting after 1566 and his place as the leading history painter in the Habsburg Netherlands was taken by a younger generation of artists among whom [[Marten de Vos]] became the most prominent.<ref>Edward H. Wouk, pp. 61–62</ref>

Van Mander recounts that while working on a large commission for the grand prior of Spain, Floris became ill and died on 1 October 1570 in Antwerp. His paintings for the grand prior were finished by his studio assistants [[Frans Pourbus the Elder]] and [[Chrispijn van den Broeck]]. Poems were written about him by [[Dominicus Lampsonius]] and the poet-painter [[Lucas de Heere]], who according to van Mander, was his pupil.<ref name=Mander />