Johannes Symonsz van der Beeck was a Dutch painter also known by his alias Johannes Torrentius. Despite his reputation as a still life master, few of Torrentius' paintings survive, as his works were ordered to be burned after he was accused of being a Rosicrucian adherent of atheistic and Satanic beliefs. The tortured painter was thrown into prison as a convicted blasphemer until being permitted to leave the country as a political gesture for England's Charles I, a Beeck admirer. Johannes van der Beeck was born in Amsterdam in 1589, where he married in 1612. Relations between himself and... wife Neeltgen van Camp eventually soured and ended in a divorce. Beeck was briefly thrown into jail for failing to pay his former wife her alimony in 1621. His libertine ways and purported membership in the Rosicrucian order led to his 1627 arrest and torture as a religious non-conformist and an alleged blasphemer, heretic, atheist, and Satanist.
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| Birthdate: | January 1589 |
| Date of death: | February 17, 1644 |
| Also known as: | Johannes Torrentius |