Nicolaes de Bruyn

As engraving became more international in its scope and technique, engravers began to pick and choose styles that met the demands of their own particular market. The Antwerp artist Nicolaas de Bruyn made the conscious decision to engrave in the style of the much earlier engraver Lucas van Leyden. This delicate, atmospheric approach made up of mostly straight lines was appropriate for De Bruyn’s large-scale landscape scenes, while tapping into a specialized market of Lucas’s admirers. The scale of De Bruyn’s engravings was something new, however. Such large formats may have been intended to be painted and hung on walls as substitutes for paintings.