HEEMSKERK, MARTEN, a celebrated Thatch painter, who was born at Heetnskerk, near Haarlem, in 1498 : he was the eon of a peasant farmer, Jacob Willemsze Van Veeu, but he is known only by the name of his birthplace. Marten was employed by his father in common farm labour, which was particularly distasteful to him. He had given evidence of a talent for the art of design, and his mother was favourable to his plan of becoming a painter. As he was returning home one evening with a pail full of milk upon his head, lost in a reverie about his future prospects, he canto unconsciously in contact with a tree ; the milk was lost, and to dismay he saw his father hastening up to him with a stick in his hand. Ille mind was instantly made up; he fled to Delft, obtained admission into the house of a painter of the name of Jan Lucas, and became himself a painter He studied afterwards with Jan Schoorel, at Haarlem, and his earliest works of distinction were painted in the style of that master. After painting for some years at Haarlem with great success, he set out, in 1532, for Rome, but before he left ho presented the Painters' Company at Haarlem with a picture of St. Luke painting the Virgin Mary,' a picture which is much praised by Van Mender, and was long pre served with great care at Haarlem. In Rome, Marten, known as Martin Tedeeco, distinguished himself as an imitator of Michel Angelo ; the jealousy of the Italians however it is said forced him to return to his own country, after a stay of three years in Italy.
lieemekerk's early admirers were not at all pleased with the new style which he imported from Italy ; he however found many new admirers, and be executed numerous works in this new style. In his earlier paintiuge ho belonged to the school of the Van Eyeke : his style was simple, earnest, and in character natural ; in his later paintings he imitated in a manner the antique and the cinqueceuto style of Italy, but he caricatured the antique, and caught only the defects of the modern. There are scarcely any works by Heemskcrk now at Haarlem ; some were carried to Spain during the Spanish war, and many were destroyed by the iconoclasts in the riots of 1560. A ' Last Judgment' by him is at Hampton Court ; and there are several of his earlier works in the Pinakothek, at Munich, which however show that be was not ono of the best of the Van Eyck school. lie died very rich, and, though twice married, childless, at Haarlem, iu 1574. The engravings after his works, by various masters, amount to many hundreds.
(Van Slander, Het Leven der Sehilders, ; Schopenhauer, Johann Van Eyck end seine Naehfolgcr.)