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Jan Steen

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For the steamship, seeSS Jan Steen.
Jan Steen
Self portrait (c. 1663–1665) in theThyssen-Bornemisza Museum
Born
Jan Havickszoon Steen

c. 1626
Leiden,Holland,Dutch Republic
Diedburied 3 February 1679 (aged 52–53)
Leiden,Holland,Dutch Republic
NationalityDutch
EducationNicolaes Knupfer,Adriaen van Ostade,Jan van Goyen
Known forPainting
MovementDutch Golden Age painting

Jan Havickszoon Steen(c. 1626– buried 3 February 1679) was aDutch Golden Age painter,one of the leadinggenre paintersof the 17th century. His works are known for their psychological insight, sense of humour and abundance of colour.[1]

Life

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Jan SteenPeasants before an Inn
Winter scene,1650
Woman at her Toilet,1663
The Bowling Game,c. 1655
The Drawing Lesson,1665, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Rhetoricians at a Window

Steen was born inLeiden,a town in Southern Holland, where his well-to-do, Catholic family were brewers[2]who ran the tavernThe Red Halbertfor two generations. Steen's father even leased him a brewery of his own in Delft from the years 1654 until 1657. He was the eldest of eight or more children. Like his even more famous contemporaryRembrandt van Rijn,Jan Steen attended theLatin schooland became a student in Leiden. Though no official records of Steen's artistic training are preserved, contemporary sources tell us he received his painterly education from three men,Nicolaes Knupfer(1603–1660), a German painter of historical and figurative scenes inUtrecht,Adriaen van Ostade,andJan van Goyen,who would later become his father-in-law.[3]Influences of Knupfer can be found in Steen's use of composition and colour. Another source of inspiration wasIsaac van Ostade,a painter of rural scenes, who lived inHaarlem.

In 1648 Jan Steen andGabriël Metsufounded the painters'Guild of Saint Lukeat Leiden. Soon after he became an assistant to the renowned landscape painterJan van Goyen(1596–1656), and moved into his house on the Bierkade inThe Hague.On 3 October 1649, he married van Goyen's daughter[2]Margriet, with whom he would have eight children. Steen worked with his father-in-law until 1654, when he moved toDelft,where he ran the breweryDe Slang( "The Snake" ) for three years without much success.[4]After theexplosion in Delftin 1654 the art market was depressed, but Steen paintedA Burgomaster of Delft and his daughter.[5]It does not seem to be clear if this painting should be called a portrait or a genre work.

Steen lived inWarmond,just north of Leiden, from 1656 until 1660 and inHaarlemfrom 1660 until 1670 and in both periods he was especially productive. In 1670, after the death of his wife in 1669 and his father in 1670, Steen moved back to Leiden, where he stayed the rest of his life. When the art market collapsed in 1672, called theYear of Disaster,Steen opened a tavern. In April 1673 he married Maria van Egmont, who gave him another child. In 1674 he became president of the Saint Luke's Guild.Frans van Mieris(1635–1681) became one of his drinking companions. He died in Leiden in 1679 and was interred in a family grave in thePieterskerk.[6]

Influences

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Connection with theRederijkers

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In 1945,Sturla Gudlaugsson,a specialist in Dutch seventeenth-century painting and iconography and Director of the Netherlands Institute for Art History and theMauritshuisin The Hague, wroteThe Comedians in the work of Jan Steen and his Contemporaries,which revealed that a major influence on Jan Steen's work was the guild of the Rhetoricians orRederijkersand their theatrical endeavors.

It is often suggested that Jan Steen's paintings are a realistic portrayal of Dutch 17th-century life. However, not everything he did was a purely realistic representation of his day-to-day environment. Many of his scenes contain idyllic and bucolic fantasies and a declamatory emphasis redolent of theater.[7]

Jan Steen's connection to theater is easily verifiable through his connection to theRederijkers.There are two kinds of evidence for this connection. First, Jan Steen Steen's uncle belonged to the Rhetoricians in Leiden, where Steen was born and lived a substantial part of his life. Second, Jan Steen portrayed many scenes from the lives of theRederijkers,an example being the paintingRhetoricians at a Windowof 1658–1665.[8]The piece is currently held in thePhiladelphia Museum of Artwhich was established in February 1876. The humanity, humour and optimism of the figures suggest that Jan Steen knew these men well, and wanted to portray them positively.

Theater

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With his lavish and moralising style, it is logical that Steen would employ the stratagems from theater for his purposes. There is conclusive evidence that the characters in Steen's paintings are predominantly theatrical characters and not ones from reality.

Steen's numerous paintings of a theme most commonly entitledThe Doctor's Visit,such as the composition of 1665–1670 in theRijksmuseum,illustrate his theatrical approach. The story is simple: a doctor attending a young maiden discovers that she is not ill but is in fact pregnant with child. The doctor is a comical character who wears abiretta,adoubletand a small pleated ruff. In fact, he is dressed in the fashion of 1570, not 1670. In contrast, the girl wears what would be the height of fashion at the time of the painting, a Japanese-styled loose kimono robe.

This anachronism can be explained only one way: this is not a real doctor but an actor wearing a traditional theater costume. According to Gudlaugsson, "never would so unusual and so completely uncontemporary a costume occur as that of the doctors in [Steen's] work".[9]

Works

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Daily life was Jan Steen's main pictorial theme. Many of thegenrescenes he portrayed, as inThe Feast of Saint Nicholas,are lively to the point of chaos and lustfulness, even so much that "a Jan Steen household", meaning a messy scene, became a Dutch proverb (een huishouden van Jan Steen). Subtle hints in his paintings seem to suggest that Steen meant to warn the viewer rather than invite him to copy this behaviour. Many of Steen's paintings bear references to old Dutch proverbs or literature. He often used members of his family as models, and painted quite a few self-portraits in which he showed no tendency to vanity. Jan Steen’s works followed the theme "every painter paints himself", depicting lively scenes reminiscent of his own home. This insertion of personal narratives in his work inspired the creation of a Dutch proverb still in use today, called "A Jan Steen household" which references a home that reflects the chaotic, lively nature of the households Steen’s work displayed.[10]

Steen did not shy from other themes: he painted historical, mythological and religious scenes, portraits,still lifesand natural scenes. His portraits of children are famous. He is also well known for his mastery of light and attention to detail, most notably inPersian rugsand other textiles.

Steen was prolific, producing about 800 paintings, of which roughly 350 survive. His work was valued much by contemporaries and as a result he was reasonably well paid for his work. He did not have many students—onlyRichard Brakenburghis recorded[11]—but his work proved a source of inspiration for many painters.

In the two paintings,The way you hear itandAs old men sing, so children squeal,six of the people are identical in person and pose, and their spatial relationship is similar.

Sources

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  1. ^"Jan Steen painter".global.britannica.com.RetrievedOctober 16,2014.
  2. ^abOne or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911). "Steen, Jan Havicksz".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 867.
  3. ^"Artist Info".www.nga.gov.Retrieved2021-05-10.
  4. ^Liedtke, W. A., Plomp, M., Rüger, A., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), & National Gallery (Great Britain). (2001).Vermeer and the Delft school.New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 202.ISBN0870999737.
  5. ^"Rijksmuseum.nl".Archived fromthe originalon 2011-06-08.Retrieved2009-04-01.
  6. ^Liedtke, W. A., Plomp, M., Rüger, A., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.), & National Gallery (Great Britain). (2001).Vermeer and the Delft school.New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. p. 343.ISBN0870999737.
  7. ^Gudlaugsson, S. (1945).The Comedians in the work of Jan Steen and his Contemporaries,p.8.
  8. ^Atkins, Christopher D. M."Rhetoricians at a Window by Jan Steen (cat. 512)".The John G. Johnson Collection: A History and Selected Works.a Philadelphia Museum of Art free digital publication.[permanent dead link]
  9. ^Gudlaugsson, S. (1945).The Comedians in the work of Jan Steen and his Contemporaries,p.14.
  10. ^Chapman, H. Perry (1996).Jan Steen, painter and storyteller.W. Th Kloek, Arthur K., Jr. Wheelock, Guido Jansen, National Gallery of Art, Rijksmuseum. Washington.ISBN0-300-06793-3.OCLC34149241.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^Liedtke, W. (2007).Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,p. 836.
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