Artist Introduction: 1472-1553
German
Lucas Cranach Locations
Lucas Cranach the Elder was born at Kronach, Franconia. He was apparently trained by his father, Hans, a painter, and from 1495 to 1498 undertook work at Kronach for Coburg and Gotha. There is evidence that Cranach resided in Vienna between about 1500 and 1504. In 1504 he married Barbara Brengbier of Gotha; they had three daughters and two sons, Hans (died 1537) and Lucas the Younger (1515-1586), both of whom were painters.
In 1505 Cranach established residence at Wittenberg, where he was court painter to three successive electors: Frederick the Wise, John the Constant, and John Frederick the Magnanimous. Cranach was a prosperous and respected citizen. He owned several houses and land, held the office of councilor, and was a burgomaster. He also worked for other princely patrons and was a follower and lifelong friend of Martin Luther.
In 1550 Cranach followed John Frederick the Magnanimous to Augsburg, where the elector was in exile, and in 1552 accompanied him to Weimar. Cranach died in Weimar on Oct. 16, 1553.
Artist Introduction: German Symbolist Painter, 1839-1924
German painter, printmaker and museum director. He was the son of a miller, craftsman and smallholder and studied briefly as a lithographer in Basle in 1854 before being apprenticed to a watchcase painter in Furtwangen. Returning home the same year, he started to draw and paint in his spare time. In 1859 he enrolled at the Kunstschule in Karlsruhe, where he studied until 1866 with Ludwig Des Coudres (1820-78) and the landscape painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, by whom he was especially influenced. He spent his summer vacations drawing and painting in Bernau, and his landscapes, portraits and genre pictures from this time record his transition from amateur painter to accomplished artist. His pictures of his mother and his sister Agathe
Artist Introduction: b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany]
d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg
Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
Artist Introduction: French Post-Impressionist Painter, 1865-1938
French painter and artist's model. She led a lonely childhood in Paris as the daughter of an unmarried and unaffectionate maid, seeking refuge from her bleak circumstances by living in a dream world. While residing in the Montmartre district of Paris, she became an artist's model, working in particular with those painters who frequented the Lapin Agile. From 1880 to 1887, for example, she sat regularly for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, posing for both the male and female figures in the Sacred Wood (1884-6; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.). She also modelled for Renoir, Luigi Zandomeneghi, Th?ophile Steinlein, Jean-Louis Forain, Giuseppe De Nittis and Jean-Jacques Henner. No longer able to tolerate the passive role of the model,
Artist Introduction: b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany]
d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg
Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
Artist Introduction: Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1577-1640
Peter Paul Rubens (June 28, 1577 ?C May 30, 1640) was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an exuberant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.
In addition to running a large studio in Antwerp which produced paintings popular with nobility and art collectors throughout Europe, Rubens was a classically-educated humanist scholar, art collector, and diplomat who was knighted by both Philip IV, king of Spain, and Charles I, king of England.
Rubens was a prolific artist. His commissioned works were mostly religious subjects, "history" paintings, which included mythological subjects, and hunt scenes. He painted portraits, especially of friends, and self-portraits, and in later life painted several landscapes. Rubens designed tapestries and prints, as well as his own house. He also oversaw the ephemeral decorations of the Joyous Entry into Antwerp by the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in 1635.
His drawings are mostly extremely forceful but not detailed; he also made great use of oil sketches as preparatory studies. He was one of the last major artists to make consistent use of wooden panels as a support medium, even for very large works, but he used canvas as well, especially when the work needed to be sent a long distance. For altarpieces he sometimes painted on slate to reduce reflection problems.
His fondness of painting full-figured women gave rise to the terms 'Rubensian' or 'Rubenesque' for plus-sized women. The term 'Rubensiaans' is also commonly used in Dutch to denote such women.
Artist Introduction: Austrian Art Nouveau Painter, 1862-1918
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 ?C February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil.
Klimt's work is distinguished by the elegant gold or coloured decoration, often of a phallic shape that conceals the more erotic positions of the drawings upon which many of his paintings are based. This can be seen in Judith I (1901), and in The Kiss (1907?C1908), and especially in Danaë (1907). One of the most common themes Klimt utilized was that of the dominant woman, the femme fatale. Art historians note an eclectic range of influences contributing to Klimt's distinct style, including Egyptian, Minoan, Classical Greek, and Byzantine inspirations. Klimt was also inspired by the engravings of Albrecht D??rer, late medieval European painting, and Japanese Rimpa school. His mature works are characterized by a rejection of earlier naturalistic styles, and make use of symbols or symbolic elements to convey psychological ideas and emphasize the "freedom" of art from traditional culture.
Artist Introduction: Italian Mannerist Painter, ca.1518-1594
His father was a silk dyer (tintore); hence the nickname Tintoretto ("Little Dyer"). His early influences include Michelangelo and Titian. In Christ and the Adulteress (c. 1545) figures are set in vast spaces in fanciful perspectives, in distinctly Mannerist style. In 1548 he became the centre of attention of artists and literary men in Venice with his St. Mark Freeing the Slave, so rich in structural elements of post-Michelangelo Roman art that it is surprising to learn that he had never visited Rome. By 1555 he was a famous and sought-after painter, with a style marked by quickness of execution, great vivacity of colour, a predilection for variegated perspective, and a dynamic conception of space. In his most important undertaking, the decoration of Venice's Scuola Grande di San Rocco (1564 C 88), he exhibited his passionate style and profound religious faith. His technique and vision were wholly personal and constantly evolving.
Artist Introduction: German painter (b. 1472, Kronach, d. 1553, Weimar).
German painter and engraver. The son of a painter, he settled in Wittenberg c.1504 and was court painter successively under three electors of Saxony. There he maintained a flourishing workshop and was twice burgomaster. Cranach was a close friend of Martin Luther, whose doctrine he upheld in numerous paintings and woodcuts, and he has been called the painter of the Reformation. He was a rapid and prolific painter, and the work turned out by his studio is uneven in quality. Naïve and fanciful, often awkward in draftsmanship, it has, nonetheless, freshness and originality and a warm, rich palette. His portraits are particularly successful. Among his best-known works are Repose in Egypt (Gemäldgalerie, Staatliche Mus., Berlin-Dahlem); Judgment of Paris (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe); Adam and Eve (Courtauld Inst., London); and Crucifixion (Weimar). The latter contains figures of Luther and Cranach. His many famous protraits include those of Elector John Frederick and Self-Portrait (Uffizi). Cranach was also an accomplished miniaturist. He produced a few copperplates and designs for woodcuts. His son and pupil Lucas Cranach, the Younger, 1515C86,
Artist Introduction: German
1497-1543
Hans Holbein Galleries
Holbein always made highly detailed pencil drawings of his portrait subjects, often supplemented with ink and colored chalk. The drawings emphasize facial detail and usually did not include the hands; clothing was only indicated schematically. The outlines of these drawings were then transferred onto the support for the final painting using tiny holes in the paper through which powdered charcoal was transmitted; in later years Holbein used a kind of carbon paper. The final paintings thus had the same scale as the original drawings. Although the drawings were made as studies for paintings, they stand on their own as independent, finely wrought works of art. How many portraits have been lost can be seen from Holbein's book (nearly all pages in the Royal Collection) containing preparatory drawings for portraits - of eighty-five drawings, only a handful have surviving Holbein paintings, though often copies have survived.
David Hockney has speculated in the Hockney-Falco thesis that Holbein used a concave mirror to project an image of the subject onto the drawing surface. The image was then traced. However this thesis has not met with general acceptance from art historians.
A subtle ability to render character may be noted in Holbein's work, as can be seen in his portraits of Thomas Cromwell, Desiderius Erasmus, and Henry VIII. The end results are convincing as definitive images of the subjects' appearance and personality.
Artist Introduction: b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany]
d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg
Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
Artist Introduction: Italian painter, Florentine school (b. ca. 1320, Firenze, d. 1391,
Italian painter, Florentine school (b. ca. 1320, Firenze, d. 1391, was an Italian painter of the early Renaissance. He was born in Florence. In Lombardy he executed a fresco of the Last Judgement in the Abbey of Viboldone, Milan. He then moved to Padua where he completed frescos in the Church of the Eremitani, the Basilica of Saint Anthony of Padua and most notably, the Baptistery of the Duomo (1376).
1520 Oil on panel, 168,9 x 111,4 cm Royal Collection, Windsor This theme occurs at least nine times in Mabuse's painted and graphic oeuvre, but none of these renderings is dated. On grounds of style, however, the present painting would seem to have been undertaken after the Neptune and Amphitrite of 1516 (Berlin, Staatliche Museen) or the Hercules and Deinara of 1517 (Birmingham, Barber Institute of Fine Arts), and to have preceded the Adam and Eve dating from around 1525 (Berlin, Staatliche Museen). In general terms, as his career developed, Mabuse evolved compositions of greater complexity characterised by a repertoire of contorted poses with exaggerated anatomy and a vivid treatment of chiaroscuro. At the same time his technique became altogether freer. The Adam and Eve in the Royal Collection may date from around 1520. Mabuse refers to a number of prints for the poses of Adam and Eve: D?rer's Adam and Eve of 1504, Jacopo de' Barbari's Mars and Venus and Marcantonio Raimondi's Adam and Eve after Raphael. The pose of Eve is perhaps more specifically related to D?rer's engraving known as The Dream of the Doctor, particularly the upper part of the body. Mabuse had visited Italy in 1508-9 and became a prime exponent of Northern Mannerism, a style that evolved principally from the cross-fertilisation of German and Italian art. Quite apart from the large scale of the painting, the prominence of the foreground figures is still further enhanced by the sudden drop down to the middle-ground, dominated by a fountain set in the Garden of Eden. Fanciful architecture of this kind is frequently found in Mabuse's work. He was also a remarkably fine painter of the nude. The treatment of the musculature may not be to modern taste, but it was undoubtedly inspired by classical sculpture. The handling of the hair, especially Eve's long tresses, which may have influenced Milton, was a speciality of the artist. Supplementing the narrative of The Fall as recounted in the second and third chapters of Genesis is a certain amount of symbolism, which is illustrated in Mabuse's work: the two trees represent the Tree of Life and the Tree of Good and Evil, while the plants in the immediate foreground (columbine and sea holly) probably symbolise the contrasting emotions of the fear of God and the lust experienced by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adam wears an apron of leaves, but Eve is still technically naked. Mabuse was concerned to paint an epitome of the theme and was therefore disposed to take liberties with the biblical text. This painting was presented by the States-General of Holland to Charles I in 1636. It was sold in 1650 after the death of Charles I, but was recovered at the time of the Restoration. It has been suggested that John Milton, who was appointed Latin Secretary to Cromwell's Council of State in 1649, may have seen the work before it was sold, since the description of Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost (Book 4, lines 300-18) is fairly close. Artist: GOSSAERT, Jan (Mabuse) Painting Title: Adam and Eve , 1501-1550 Painting Style: Flemish , , religious
Artist Introduction: b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany]
d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg
Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
1504 Pen drawing with watercolours, 242 x 201 mm The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York D?rer prepared his masterly engraving of Adam and Eve in numerous individual studies. This pen drawing was created immediately before the copper engraving and concentrates entirely on the depiction and three-dimensional structure of the male and female nudes. The body posture of the two figures shown here is already identical down to the last detail with that of the copper engraving.Artist:D?RER, Albrecht Title: Adam and Eve Painted in 1501-1550 , German - - graphics : study
Artist Introduction: Italian High Renaissance Painter, 1483-1520
Italian painter and architect. As a member of Perugino's workshop, he established his mastery by 17 and began receiving important commissions. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he executed many of his famous Madonnas; his unity of composition and suppression of inessentials is evident in The Madonna of the Goldfinch (c. 1506). Though influenced by Leonardo da Vinci's chiaroscuro and sfumato, his figure types were his own creation, with round, gentle faces that reveal human sentiments raised to a sublime serenity. In 1508 he was summoned to Rome to decorate a suite of papal chambers in the Vatican. The frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura are probably his greatest work; the most famous, The School of Athens (1510 C 11), is a complex and magnificently ordered allegory of secular knowledge showing Greek philosophers in an architectural setting. The Madonnas he painted in Rome show him turning away from his earlier work's serenity to emphasize movement and grandeur, partly under Michelangelo's High Renaissance influence. The Sistine Madonna (1513) shows the richness of colour and new boldness of compositional invention typical of his Roman period. He became the most important portraitist in Rome, designed 10 large tapestries to hang in the Sistine Chapel, designed a church and a chapel, assumed the direction of work on St. Peter's Basilica at the death of Donato Bramante,
1509-11 Fresco, 120 x 105 cm Stanza della Segnatura, Palazzi Pontifici, Vatican This portrayal of the Fall is generally attributed to Raphael. Standing in a distinct contrapposto pose, Eve recalls the figure of Leda in a study by Leonardo da Vinci - Raphael made a drawing of this while he was in Florence.Artist:RAFFAELLO Sanzio Title: Adam and Eve (ceiling panel) Painted in 1501-1550 , Italian - - painting : religious
Artist Introduction: b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany]
d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg
Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
Artist Introduction: b.May 21, 1471, Imperial Free City of Nernberg [Germany]
d.April 6, 1528, Nernberg
Albrecht Durer (May 21, 1471 ?C April 6, 1528) was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg. His still-famous works include the Apocalypse woodcuts, Knight, Death, and the Devil (1513), Saint Jerome in his Study (1514) and Melencolia I (1514), which has been the subject of extensive analysis and interpretation. His watercolours mark him as one of the first European landscape artists, while his ambitious woodcuts revolutionized the potential of that medium. D??rer introduction of classical motifs into Northern art, through his knowledge of Italian artists and German humanists, have secured his reputation as one of the most important figures of the Northern Renaissance. This is reinforced by his theoretical treatise which involve principles of mathematics, perspective and ideal proportions.
His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Renaissance in Northern Europe ever since.
Artist Introduction: 1472-1553
German
Lucas Cranach Locations
Lucas Cranach the Elder was born at Kronach, Franconia. He was apparently trained by his father, Hans, a painter, and from 1495 to 1498 undertook work at Kronach for Coburg and Gotha. There is evidence that Cranach resided in Vienna between about 1500 and 1504. In 1504 he married Barbara Brengbier of Gotha; they had three daughters and two sons, Hans (died 1537) and Lucas the Younger (1515-1586), both of whom were painters.
In 1505 Cranach established residence at Wittenberg, where he was court painter to three successive electors: Frederick the Wise, John the Constant, and John Frederick the Magnanimous. Cranach was a prosperous and respected citizen. He owned several houses and land, held the office of councilor, and was a burgomaster. He also worked for other princely patrons and was a follower and lifelong friend of Martin Luther.
In 1550 Cranach followed John Frederick the Magnanimous to Augsburg, where the elector was in exile, and in 1552 accompanied him to Weimar. Cranach died in Weimar on Oct. 16, 1553.
Artist Introduction: (October 4, 1515 ?C January 25, 1586) was a German Renaissance artist, known for his woodcuts and paintings.
He was a son of Lucas Cranach the Elder who began his career as an apprentice in his father's workshop. Henceforth, his own reputation and fame grew. After his father's death, he assumed control over the workshop.
The style of their paintings can be so similar that there have been some difficulties in attribution of their works.
Artist Introduction: b. 1497, Augsburg, d. 1543, London
was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century.[2] He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history of book design. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from his father, Hans Holbein the Elder, an accomplished painter of the Late Gothic school. Born in Augsburg, Holbein worked mainly in Basel as a young artist. At first he painted murals and religious works and designed for stained glass windows and printed books. He also painted the occasional portrait, making his international mark with portraits of the humanist Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. When the Reformation reached Basel, Holbein worked for reformist clients while continuing to serve traditional religious patrons. His Late Gothic style was enriched by artistic trends in Italy, France, and the Netherlands, as well as by Renaissance Humanism. The result was a combined aesthetic uniquely his own. Holbein travelled to England in 1526 in search of work, with a recommendation from Erasmus. He was welcomed into the humanist circle of Thomas More, where he quickly built a high reputation. After returning to Basel for four years, he resumed his career in England in 1532. This time he worked for the twin founts of patronage, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. By 1535, he was King's Painter to King Henry VIII. In this role, he produced not only portraits and festive decorations but designs for jewellery, plate, and other precious objects. His portraits of the royal family and nobles are a vivid record of a brilliant court in the momentous years when Henry was asserting his supremacy over the English church. Holbein's art was prized from early in his career. The French poet and reformer Nicholas Bourbon dubbed him "the Apelles of our time".[3] Holbein has also been described as a great "one-off" of art history, since he founded no school.[4] After his death, some of his work was lost, but much was collected, and by the 19th century, Holbein was recognised among the great portrait masters. Recent exhibitions have also highlighted his versatility.
Artist Introduction: German Symbolist Painter, 1839-1924
German painter, printmaker and museum director. He was the son of a miller, craftsman and smallholder and studied briefly as a lithographer in Basle in 1854 before being apprenticed to a watchcase painter in Furtwangen. Returning home the same year, he started to draw and paint in his spare time. In 1859 he enrolled at the Kunstschule in Karlsruhe, where he studied until 1866 with Ludwig Des Coudres (1820-78) and the landscape painter Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, by whom he was especially influenced. He spent his summer vacations drawing and painting in Bernau, and his landscapes, portraits and genre pictures from this time record his transition from amateur painter to accomplished artist. His pictures of his mother and his sister Agathe
Artist Introduction: Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1593-1678
Jacob Jordeans was born on May 19, 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr. and Barbara van Wolschaten in Antwerp. Little is known about Jordaens's early education. It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education usually provided for children of his social class. This assumption is supported by his clear handwriting, his competence in French and in his knowledge of mythology. Jordaens familiarity with biblical subjects is evident in his many religious paintings, and his personal interaction with the Bible was strengthened by his later conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism. Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort, who was his only teacher. During this time Jordaens lived in Van Noort's house and became very close to the rest of the family. After eight years of training with Van Noort, he enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke as a "waterscilder", or watercolor artist. This medium was often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century. although examples of his earliest watercolor works are no longer extant. In the same year as his entry into the guild, 1616, he married his teacher's eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he had three children. In 1618, Jordaens bought a house in Hoogstraat (the area in Antwerp that he grew up in). He would then later buy the adjoining house to expand his household and workspace in 1639, mimicking Rubens's house built two decades earlier. He lived and worked here until his death in 1678.
Jordaens never made the traditional trip to Italy to study classical and Renaissance art. Despite this, he made many efforts to study prints or works of Italian masters available in northern Europe. For example, Jordaens is known to have studied Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, and Bassano, either through prints, copies or originals (such as Caravaggio's Madonna of the Rosary). His work, however, betrays local traditions, especially the genre traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, in honestly depicting Flemish life with authenticity and showing common people in the act of celebratory expressions of life. His commissions frequently came from wealthy local Flemish patrons and clergy, although later in his career he worked for courts and governments across Europe. Besides a large output of monumental oil paintings he was a prolific tapestry designer, a career that reflects his early training as a "watercolor" painter.
Jordaens' importance can also be seen by his number of pupils; the Guild of St. Luke records fifteen official pupils from 1621 to 1667, but six others were recorded as pupils in court documents and not the Guild records, so it is probable that he had more students than officially recorded. Among them were his cousin and his son Jacob. Like Rubens and other artists at that time, Jordaens' studio relied on his assistants and pupils in the production of his paintings. Not many of these pupils went on to fame themselves,however a position in Jordaens's studio was highly desirable for young artists from across Europe.
Artist Introduction: Flemish Baroque Era Painter, 1593-1678
Jacob Jordeans was born on May 19, 1593, the first of eleven children, to the wealthy linen merchant Jacob Jordaens Sr. and Barbara van Wolschaten in Antwerp. Little is known about Jordaens's early education. It can be assumed that he received the advantages of the education usually provided for children of his social class. This assumption is supported by his clear handwriting, his competence in French and in his knowledge of mythology. Jordaens familiarity with biblical subjects is evident in his many religious paintings, and his personal interaction with the Bible was strengthened by his later conversion from Catholicism to Protestantism. Like Rubens, he studied under Adam van Noort, who was his only teacher. During this time Jordaens lived in Van Noort's house and became very close to the rest of the family. After eight years of training with Van Noort, he enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke as a "waterscilder", or watercolor artist. This medium was often used for preparing tapestry cartoons in the seventeenth century. although examples of his earliest watercolor works are no longer extant. In the same year as his entry into the guild, 1616, he married his teacher's eldest daughter, Anna Catharina van Noort, with whom he had three children. In 1618, Jordaens bought a house in Hoogstraat (the area in Antwerp that he grew up in). He would then later buy the adjoining house to expand his household and workspace in 1639, mimicking Rubens's house built two decades earlier. He lived and worked here until his death in 1678.
Jordaens never made the traditional trip to Italy to study classical and Renaissance art. Despite this, he made many efforts to study prints or works of Italian masters available in northern Europe. For example, Jordaens is known to have studied Titian, Veronese, Caravaggio, and Bassano, either through prints, copies or originals (such as Caravaggio's Madonna of the Rosary). His work, however, betrays local traditions, especially the genre traditions of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, in honestly depicting Flemish life with authenticity and showing common people in the act of celebratory expressions of life. His commissions frequently came from wealthy local Flemish patrons and clergy, although later in his career he worked for courts and governments across Europe. Besides a large output of monumental oil paintings he was a prolific tapestry designer, a career that reflects his early training as a "watercolor" painter.
Jordaens' importance can also be seen by his number of pupils; the Guild of St. Luke records fifteen official pupils from 1621 to 1667, but six others were recorded as pupils in court documents and not the Guild records, so it is probable that he had more students than officially recorded. Among them were his cousin and his son Jacob. Like Rubens and other artists at that time, Jordaens' studio relied on his assistants and pupils in the production of his paintings. Not many of these pupils went on to fame themselves,however a position in Jordaens's studio was highly desirable for young artists from across Europe.